more intensively and more efficiently. We also find-and I think it is true in most businesses-that a concern has got to keep right on going or else it will stagnate. It is very seldom a concern would reach a certain size, and lay back and say, "Now, we have got as big as it is worth while to go." That would be disastrous for any business. You have got to keep on going, you have got to keep on your toes every minute, and that is the way we do and the way we have got to do to stay in business.

I do not know whether that answers your question or not, but that is about as definitely, I think, as it can be answered.

Mr. ANDERSON. Do you think, as a matter of public policy, that there is any point at which the engaging by Swift & Co. in butter or cheese or other nonmeat products which compete with meat, would be inimical to the public interest?

Mr. WELD. Yes; I think if it had such a large proportion of the business of either meats or those other products as to be able artificially to manipulate the price it ought to be curbed or ought to be regulated in some way. I believe in the control of monopoly.

Mr. ANDERSON. Well, if the committee were of the opinion that that situation existed, either as to any one of the packers or by virtue of combination among them, do you think it should pass regulatory legislation?

Mr. WELD. If you are sure you have sufficient grounds for such an opinion, as long as that opinion is not based on suspicion. When you can furnish any positive proof that the five packers act together to artificially manipulate any price; yes, go to it and pass a law-if your antitrust law does not present our doing that.

Mr. ANDERSON. I think you made the statement that the Interstate Commerce Commission had approved the present system of ownership of refrigerator cars and had said it would be a mistake to change that system? I would like to have you refer the committee to the report of the Interstate Commerce Commission which makes that statement.

Mr. WELD. It was issued July 31, 1918.

Mr. ANDERSON. You refer to the report of the Interstate Commerce Commission in the matter of private cars?

Mr. WELD. Yes, sir.

Mr. ANDERSON. I do not think the commission came to that conclusion. At least, I have read that report, and I can not find that that is the conclusion of the commission.

Mr. WELD. It makes the very positive statement there that it has been to the advantage of both the shippers and the public that the packers-I do not remember whether it says the packers that private companies have operated or developed their own private cars. And there is one place there, I am sure, where it says it would be a mistake, or words to that effect, to try to make any change in the present system. I read that report as, on the whole, confirming the present system. Did not Commissioner McCord come over here before one of the committees and express a similar sentiment?

Mr. ANDERSON. I do not think the view you express is Commissioner McCord's opinion now, and I do not think it was then. Of course there are statements in this report which might be construed

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to be favorable to what has been done in the way of developing the private-car systems, on the theory that the railroads either were not able to or, if they were able, did not themselves develop it. But here is a paragraph, for instance:

The system of use and supply of private cars that now exists can not be at once radically changed without serious consequences to shippers, carriers, and the public.

I think almost anybody would agree to that, but that certainly is not a statement that, take it by and large, the ownership of refrigerator cars or any other kind of special equipment is in the interest of the general public.

Mr. WELD. I think the general tenor of that report is in favor of the present system, but I am sure that the Interstate Commerce Commission has never advocated that the private cars be done away with.

Mr. ANDERSON. My attention has just been directed to Commissioner McCord's views on this subject, as stated to the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce. I read only one paragraph, which may not be entirely in accord with his complete statement. Mr. McCord made this statement:

Well, that is a question the commission has considered. I think the privately owned, as well as the railroad-owned, cars should be under the jurisdiction of some one governmental authority.

That would rather indicate that Commissioner McCord's views were that all cars whether privately owned or not by the carriers should be subject to governmental regulation as instrumentalities in commerce.

Mr. WELD. Well, that is a different matter, of course.

Mr. ANDERSON. Now, you referred to the labor costs in packing plants, and indicated that these labor costs were a large element in the total plant operating cost. The Department of Labor made an investigation of wages and conditions of employment in the meatpacking industry, and I find on page 8 of this report the following:

The percentages for other classifications are included in like manner, and show that 49 per cent, or approximately one-half, of all employees in the cattle-killing department were paid under 27 cents an hour, and that only 1 per cent were paid 60 cents per hour and over.

I find at another place in this report that, taking all the manufacturing departments and packing plants in this country, 44 per cent of the male employees received 25 cents an hour or less; 67 per cent, 27 cents; 79 per cent, 30 cents; 88 per cent, 32 cents; and 92 per cent, 38 cents per hour.

As to female employees, this report shows that 54 per cent received 17 cents per hour or less; 78 per cent, 20 cents an hour or less; 82 per cent, 22 cents or less; 91 per cent, 25 cents per hour or less.

That would not indicate that the wages paid in the packing industry were very exorbitant, would it?

Mr. WELD. No, sir.

Mr. CHAPLIN. What date was that supposed to be?

Mr. ANDERSON. This was for 1917.

Mr. WELD. The wages in the packing industry before the war were low. They were the same, however, as other industries paid

for the class of labor that we employed. The common labor was only getting about 17 cents an hour up to 1916. Now they are getting how much-55 cents an hour?

Mr. CHAPLIN. About that.

Mr. WELD. About 55 cents an hour, I should say.

Mr. ANDERSON. When was that increase made?

Mr. WELD. It has come at various times since 1916 and 1917. Those increases have partially been the result of voluntary increases and, more especially the last two years, as the result of arbitration. Mr. ANDERSON. I only wanted to put those figures in as an indication

Mr. WELD (interposing). As I have said, I am not at all defending the wages paid before the war, although I think you will find that they correspond with the wages paid in other industries for a like class of labor. But I think it is rather significant that those wages have gone up some 150 or 160 per cent when the cost of living has gone up only about 80 per cent in Chicago.

Mr. ANDERSON. This report was filed in 1919. While I do not question your figures, the only increases referred to in this report are these increases of 23 cents an hour which were allowed to practically all employees in 1917.

Mr. WELD. There were three or four increases in 1917 of 2 cents an hour. They have been increased at 2 cents an hour from 17 cents up to around 30 cents, when there was an agreement

Mr. CHAPLIN (interposing). Through a labor arbitration board. Mr. ANDERSON. That was Judge Alschuler's board?

Mr. CHAPLIN. Yes. There have been a great many increases in the last three or four years; practically every four of five months there would be an increase.

Mr. ANDERSON. Would you mind furnishing a statement-well, never mind.

Mr. WELD. We will be glad to furnish that-the increases-if that is what you have in mind.

Mr. ANDERSON. Well, it might be useful, perhaps, to know what increases had been made in the wages as shown by this report. Mr. CHAPLIN. I can furnish that.

Mr. WELD. Our Yearbook, on page 60, shows the steps diagramatically. It shows they began early in 1916.

Mr. ANDERSON. This apparently covers only one class of labor.
Mr. CHAPLIN. They all advanced in the same proportion.

Mr. WELD. This is common labor, and we employ a very large proportion of common labor; and the other classes were advanced in practically the same proportion.

Mr. ANDERSON. A large proportion of the employees in those plants are foreigners?

Mr. WELD. Yes; a great many. A great many are colored, too.

Mr. VOIGT. Do you think it would be for the economic advantage of the people of this country if all the packers were merged into one corporation?

Mr. WELD. I do not believe so. I guess most of the packers are glad: I do not know. I think they are glad the merger they planned in 1902 was never carried out. I think the rivalry and the competition that exist between the large packers and with the hundreds of small packers is a good thing for the country.

Mr. CHAPLIN. And a good thing for the packers, too.

Mr. WELD. It is a good thing for efficiency; it keeps us on our toes more than would otherwise be the case.

Mr. VOIGT. You do not think that a lot of the waste that is due to or is an incident of competition would be avoided?

Mr. CHAPLIN. I do not think that is a very large factor. We have tried-for example, in many cities we have more than one branch house. In fact, in some cases we have branch houses across the street from each other. We have tried to cut out some of this duplication, but we can not save any money by it. You can only do about so much business through one branch.

Mr. VOIGT. I asked that question because I understood Mr. Weld to claim that the handling of these side lines increased the volume of your business, and in that way was an advantage to your company and to the public.

Mr. WELD. It makes it possible to operate branch houses where we otherwise could not operate them and makes possible a wider distribution for both our meats and our other products.

Mr. VOIGT. I was wondering how far you thought the growth of one of your corporations could go and still be beneficial to yourselves and to the public.

Mr. WELD. Well, I do not know. We can not answer that in any definite fashion. If in any way it became so big that the overhead increased more rapidly than the business, why it would fall of its own weight; that is all.

Mr. CHAPLIN. It is rather a question of whether the management can maintain efficiency. The minute it gets so large they can not maintain efficiency, then it will begin to go backwards.

Mr. VOIGT. Do you claim to get the same efficiency as a packer who does less than one-third of your business?

Mr. CHAPLIN. Well, he does not do the same kind of business. He does a business which he can see with his eye to a greater extent than we. We have to have a great many men to cover the functions that he covers. I do not mean we have to have a great many men to do as much work as he does, but he can give personal attention to more things, and in that way has an advantage.

Mr. WELD. I think that in doing the long-distance business that we do and finding the wide market that we find for farmers' products undoubtedly we can do it more efficiently than the small packer. Mr. VOIGT. Taking your business as a whole, do you claim to be as efficient as the Cudahy Co.?

Mr. WELD. Why, I think so; yes. I think most of our men would unhesitatingly say yes, we are more efficient. It is hard to make such comparisons, of course.

Mr. CHAPLIN. One of the tests is the percentage of earnings we are able to make. Swift has made a greater percentage than the other packers for a great many years.

Mr. VOIGT. Well, this argument that the carrying of the so-called side lines is a benefit to your business can, of course, be carried indefinitely, can it not?

Mr. WELD. I do not know whether it can be carried indefinitely. For instance, after 20 years' development Swift & Co. handles only 6 per cent of the total output of the total amount sold of those commodities.

Mr. VOIGT. I do not care, for the purpose of the question, whether you handle 6 per cent or 60 per cent. For instance, if you added brooms to your side lines to-morrow you might claim just as logically that that was as much for the benefit of your business and for the benefit of the public as the carrying of prunes.

Mr. WELD. We have tried some things that we found we could not handle efficiently. Such a thing as brooms I would not think we could handle efficiently, because they are so entirely different from the food products that we handle; they do need the same facilities which we use for handling practically all the products that we do handle. Of course, some of our things we have to have a separate sales organiaztion for; we can not sell through our regular sales organization. Take fertilizer, for example. We have to have a selling organiaztion for that, and the reason for being in that is more a manufacturing reason than it is a distributing reason.

Mr. VOIGT. Well, you seem to think that if you handle as a side line any known food product it is for your benefit and the benefit of the public.

Mr. WELD. No; we do not think so. Armour & Co. has thought so of more food products than Swift & Co. We have always felt that Armour & Co. were going too far, from an economic standpoint, from the standpoint of the most economical operation of its plants and distributing facilities. Armour has apparently thought differently.

Mr. VOIGT. Then if you were speaking for Armour you would answer that question affirmatively?

Mr. WELD. I probably would. I think Armour has done more than we in taking on lines which have done away with the seasonal characteristics of the salesmen's activities; that is, they have taken on some summer products, when the meat business is apt to be a little lighter than in the winter. We have not gone to that extent.

The point is, Mr. Voigt, that the only way you can definitely find out is from experience in handling those things. There is no way to figure out exactly whether it would be more economical. You might try a thing and have to give it up. As I say, that has been our experience with some products in the past.

Mr. VOIGT. This consent decree lays down certain rules of conduct for the five packers?

Mr. WELD. Yes, sir; it says we shall not conspire, etc.

Mr. VOIGT. Well, it says the packers shall not after two years own. an interest in any stockyards?

Mr. WELD. Yes.

Mr. VOIGT. Now, if that principle is all right, do you have any objection to having that principle embodied in law?

Mr. WELD. I do not think that principle is all right from an economic standpoint. Frankly, I think that the consent decree, if it does anything, marks a step backward from an economic standpoint. It is placing an artificial restriction on the growth of a business along the most efficient lines.

On the other hand, we have consented to make that sacrifice and refrain from doing the thing that was justified from an economic standpoint and from a legal standpoint, just to satisfy this suspicion. We felt that that suspicion and misunderstanding was perhaps more important in this connection than the economic question involved. Mr. VOIGT. Then your logic condemns the consent decree?