of Agriculture it gives the total meat production of the United States for 1919 as 19,445,000,000 pounds; that the five large packers handle 7,798,100,000 pounds, which equals about 40.1 per cent of the total meat production of the United States. So that it looks as though we might have to revise our figures to be absolutely accurate, and where we have said "under 40 per cent "that would no longer hold. I think we should probably change that statement to "under 45 per cent of the total production of the country." I think we would be perfectly justified in saying "about 40 per cent." because, according to these last figures for 1919, it is 40.1 per cent that the five large packers may be handling, and the five large packers in competition with each other.

Mr. ANDERSON. Is that 19,000,000,000 pounds inclusive of lard? Mr. WELD. Yes, sir; and the figures for the packers include lard. Mr. ANDERSON. Does it include exports?

Mr. WELD. It includes the total output of the packers.

I will tell you it does not include such as the Western Meat Co., in which Mr. L. F. Swift personally has a heavy interest. There is another question-the Federal Trade Commission does include those other concerns in which members of the Swift family have personal interests and possibly we should include that, and that probably would add 2 per cent or 3 per cent to the total. I think the Federal Trade Commission's figures of 70 or 71 per cent of the total meat production of the country does include those other concerns. have always thought of it as just Swift & Co. when we have said 12 or 15 per cent of the total meat production of the country, and have not included those others. Do you think we ought to include those others in our advertisements?

Mr. ANDERSON. I do not think it is up to me to pass on that.

We

Mr. WELD. I would really like to have your opinion; sincerely, I would like to have it.

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN of Michigan. Is it material whether you do that or not if all the figures are given so that the public may know just what they indicate and what they include?

Mr. WELD. There might be some misunderstanding when you say "the five large packers," as to what that includes. Of course, if we change this figure now to say "less than 45 per cent of the total meat production" we will be perfectly safe anyway, because even if you include these few corporations that Mr. L. F. Swift has personal interest in, that is not part of Swift & Co., and not operated by Swift & Co., it would still fall within that 45 per cent.

Mr. ANDERSON. It is not in that feature that I think it is misleading. I think you mislead the public in using the figure "total production." That is a matter of opinion.

Mr. CHAPLIN. Still, it is a fact that we compete with all that meat that is killed. That is a fact; there is no opinion there.

Mr. WELD. We certainly do.

Mr. CHAPLIN. We sell our meat in practically all the railroad towns of the United States.

Mr. YOUNG. Where is the institution in which Mr. L. F. Swift has an interest?

Mr. WELD. San Francisco.

Mr. ANDERSON. I would not like to think the consumers of this country were obliged to rely upon that competition.

Mr. CHAPLIN. It is the competition we meet.

Mr. WELD. It is very real competition every day in the year; we are up against it every minute. We know what it is to be up against that.

Mr. CHAPLIN. The local butcher who kills meat locally does not buy from us and that increases our stock which we have to sell some place else. It creates thereby an excess supply on the market which we have to sell at reduced prices. The competition is very direct and actual; it is not a matter of opinion at all.

Mr. WELD. At the same time, we are not trying to cover up the matter of the proportion of the inspected houses, either of the five packers or of Swift & Co. alone. Of course, that is all that the Federal Trade Commission gives out. That, in itself, is unfairness on the part of the Federal Trade Commission; it does not recognize that we come in competition with this other vast amount of meat producers in figuring its percentage this Western Meat Co. that Mr. Swift has an interest in, and Swift & Co.; and there are one or two other companies.

Mr. ANDERSON. It comes in competition with meat producers in Russia or elsewhere?

Mr. YOUNG. Swift & Co. are not in competition with other institutions in which L. F. Swift has an interest?

Mr. WELD. There is competition and rivalry in the selling of products; they are selling in the same markets and the same retail stores.

Mr. YOUNG. That would be a little unusual, a fellow competing with himself.

Mr. WELD. That is practically what we are doing—it is what we are doing.

Mr. YOUNG. Suppose at Fort Worth, Tex., Swift & Co. own the packing house and that the other packing house there was owned by the Western Meat Co. Suppose the latter had a packing house there in which Mr. L. F. Swift was very largely interested. You would not call that very much competition?

Mr. WELD. There probably would not be so much competition in that, but there would not be a situation like that in San Francisco, where Swift & Co. has a branch house and there is the Western Meat Co., and both have salesmen selling to the same stores and each is trying to get as large sales as he can. Of course, the Western Meat Co. has its own brands, ham, bacon, etc., and it is advertising those and pushing these as much as possible.

Mr. CHAPLIN. Mr. Anderson, we do come in competition with foreign meats, particularly pork, and that affects the price of pork in this country.

Mr. ANDERSON. Oh, yes; to some extent.

Mr. CHAPLIN. It is a factor, just as the price of wheat abroad affects the price of wheat in this country.

Mr. WELD. And there is pretty definite competition from the Argentine beef in this country.

Mr. ANDERSON. Of course, the existence of meat anywhere or of any article of food anywhere, I suppose, represents a competition with meat that is anywhere else.

Mr. CHAPLIN. If it comes to the same market.

Mr. ANDERSON. This stuff eaten out on the farm never comes to the market at all.

Mr. CHAPLIN. The farmer eats it and he does not buy in the store; consequently we sell the store less.

Mr. WELD. He eats his own meat instead of buying meat from the local store within a few miles from him.

Mr. ANDERSON. So does the Fiji Islander.

Mr. CHAPLIN That is not a fair comparison at all. We see the effect of the farm kill at a certain time of the year, about November, when our business runs down and is not the same volume; and when the warm weather comes along our business runs up again. That is how it affects us; the competition is actual and real. Mr. BORDERS Mr. Weld, may I ask you a question?

Mr. WELD. Certainly.

Mr. BORDERS. Is it not a fact that the packers have been able to eliminate some of the competition of locally slaughtered cattle by virtue of the ability of the packers to buy cattle and sell the meat therefrom back to the ranchman at a saving to the ranchman?

Mr. WELD. I think that some ranchmen have testified that instead of killing their own cattle to supply their own help on the ranch, that they have marketed their stuff in the form of live animals and brought back meat, and found it was more economical to do so. I do not believe that is the usual practice; I think that is probably the exception.

Mr. ANDERSON. Just one question: This 40 per cent figure you give us is all meat?

Mr. WELD. All meat; yes, sir. Now, for beef alone, it is 54.1 per cent; of calves, 30.6 per cent; for sheep, 60.6 per cent; and for hogs, only 30.7 per cent.

Mr. ANDERSON. That sounds very reasonable.

Mr. WELD. That makes an average on the basis of weight for total meat production of 40.1 for the five packers; and I would like to insert these figures in the record, which, as I say, are based on the bulletin recently issued by the Bureau of Animal Industry, United States Department of Agriculture, entitled, "U. S. Meat Production, Consumption, Exports, Imports, etc., calendar years 1914 and 1919."

(The statement referred to by Mr. Weld is here printed in full in the record, as follows:)

Total meat production in United States of America compared with production, five large packers, for 1919.

Total production, per bulletin Bureau of Animal Industry just issued

Production, five large packers:

Cattle, 7,387,000 head.

Calves, 2,764,000 head_.

Sheep, 9.978,000 head

Hogs, 21,755,000 head..

Total

Percentage, five packers, 40 1.10.

Pounds. 19, 445, 299, 000

3,656, 565, 000 259, 816, 000 379, 816, 000 3, 502, 555, 000

7,798, 100, 000

In connection with the 1,279 slaughtering of meat-packing plants that I mentioned yesterday, as reported by the census for 1914, there

166762--20 --PT 27- 3

was a rather interesting classification of those plants by size that might be interesting to have in the record-it is in the form of a table-under $20,000, 2907 establishments.

The CHAIRMAN. Did you insert that total in the record?

Mr. WELD. I inserted the total; yes. From $20,000 to $100,000, 427 establisments: from $100,000 to $1,000,000, 439 establishments; $1,000,000 and over, 206 establishments; net total, 1,279. In other words, the census report for 1914 shows 439, or nearly 500 packing houses, with sales from $100,000 to $1,000,000, which gives one a little better idea of number of meat packers with whom we are in constant competition.

Now, Mr. Anderson said that he believed our reference to a quarter of a cent a pound was inaccurate. That we discussed fairly and thoroughly. Mr. Anderson gave as his reason for believing the figure to be inaccurate, first, that we had referred to it in another place as one-ninth of a cent a pound. It so happens that the one-ninth of a cent a pound was for only five weeks on business done in Washington, D. C., during part of 1919. That was taken from my testimony before the District of Columbia Committee of the Senate last summer. The quarter of a cent a pound was on beef for the whole year of 1918-the total business of Swift & Co. on beef. The oneninth of a cent a pound was for five weeks in 1919 on just Washington business.

Mr. ANDERSON. Now, right there. Your profit in 1918 on all meat was considerably in excess of a quarter of a cent a pound; was it not? Mr. WELD. Yes, sir. That is another thing that you said showed that our figure of a quarter of a cent a pound was inaccurate that we made $18,000,000 on three billion pounds of meat, which would be more than a quarter of a cent a pound. That was before deducting interest on borrowed money, and it referred to all meats, and when we have referred to all meats we have said a fraction of a cent a pound. And it so happens that for 1919 the profit on all meats was only about a quarter of a cent a pound and that on beef alone it was a loss.

So there is nothing inconsistent in any of our statements in that respect, and I think you can not find where such a statement has been in any way inaccurate.

Mr. ANDERSON. Oh, I think you might perhaps justify those figures as technically correct, but in every case you emphasize the beef figures, on which the profit is less than it is on other classes of animals. Mr. WELD. We have frequently referred to our profit from all sources, on all products-on all meat products and on all products. I have referred to them in different ways, of course, and for different times.

Mr. CHAPLIN. We are attacked by the cattlement specifically with reference to what we make on cattle, and we have had to answer that by quoting the cattle figures.

Mr. ANDERSON. Of course that gets you back again to the question of the allocation of costs in the different departments.

Mr. CHAPLIN. I think perhaps they are not perfectly distributed, but I think they are substantially correct.

Mr. WELD. In other words, you are now questioning our method of cost keeping: that is the way you criticise the accuracy of the figures?

Mr. ANDERSON. No; I am not questioning it at all. I am simply asking you the question if it is not true the profit of any department. would depend in some measure at least, upon the allocation of the different items of cost to that department. The reason I make that statement is because we have had some experience with that in the Post Office Department here, in determining the loss or profit in handling second-class mail matter.

Mr. CHAPLIN. Yes; that is true, but the possible variation would be very small. We think we are doing it correctly; we are doing the best we know how.

Mr. ANDERSON. Is it not a fact that as a rule the profits on beef are relatively less than they are on other classes of animals?

Mr. CHAPLIN. Well, no. The profit on fresh meat is relatively less, because that is the nature of the business-a quick turnover and very keen competition with no established brands.

Mr. ANDERSON. My recollection is that in 1918 you still claimed a profit of a quarter of a cent a pound on beef, and you made that year the largest profit that you ever made in the history of the business?

Mr. WELD. No; that is not true. In 1917 we made the largest profit; 1918 was not particularly large.

Mr. ANDERSON. And you still claimed about a quarter of a cent. a pound on beef.

Mr. CHAPLIN. That was correct on beef.

Mr. ANDERSON. Yes; I say the statement was technically correct. Mr. CHAPLIN. We made it to answer the attacks of men who spoke about cattle. We also mention in our advertisements for that year that we made only a fraction of a cent a pound on all of our meat.

Mr. WELD. You said that our statement was inaccurate; that is the expression you used before this committee-" the inaccuracy of this claim of one-fourth of a cent a pound"-and the reasons you gave for the inaccuracy were that we referred to one-ninth of a cent in another place, and that on all meats the year book showed a profit of $18,000,000 on 3,000,000,000 pounds of meat. That does not prove the inaccuracy at all.

Mr. ANDERSON. That one quarter of a cent is inaccurate as to a great many years.

Mr. WELD. It is accurate in the statements we have made, for the years that we have made them, and at the times that we have made them.

Mr. ANDERSON. Well, you have made it on beef in 1918-a quarter of a cent a pound.

Mr. WELD. Then why say we are making inaccurate statements? Mr. ANDERSON. It is not inaccurate if your statement leads anybody to believe that your profit on meat was a quarter of a cent a pound in 1918.

Mr. WELD. It is not our fault if they interpret that as meaning all meat when we say beef. I suppose we should say, "It is a quarter of a cent a pound on beef. Mind you, not on all meat, but on beef alone." I suppose we should warn them when we say that in an advertisement.

Mr. ANDERSON. Well, in my own interpretation of it I think the emphasis has been placed on the beef end of it and the smallness of