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MEAT-PACKER LEGISLATION.

COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE,

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
Tuesday, March 23, 1920.

The committee this day met, Hon. Gilbert N. Haugen (chairman) presiding.

The CHAIRMAN. Are you ready to go on, Mr. Rainey?

Mr. RAINEY. Yes, sir. Mr. Weld, are you ready to proceed?
Mr. WELD. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Are you ready to go on, Mr. Weld?

Mr. WELD. Yes, Mr. Chairman.

STATEMENT OF MR. L. D. H. WELD, MANAGER, COMMERCIAL RESEARCH DEPARTMENT, SWIFT & CO., CHICAGO. ILL.Resumed.

The CHAIRMAN. I think when we closed we were discussing profiteering yesterday. Are there any more questions to be asked in regard to that?

Mr. WELD. I had planned to take up that question of profits a little more formally later on.

The CHAIRMAN. Later on?

Mr. WELD. Yes, sir; I was planning to do that. I think there will be some other things, but just suit your convenience.

The CHAIRMAN. I want to ask you a few questions whenever you are ready to discuss that matter.

Mr. WELD. All right; I will come back.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Young, you were asking some questions about cotton; are you through?

Mr. YOUNG. Yes, sir; I have finished.

The CHAIRMAN. Are there any other questions on the subject that we were discussing? Mr. Marsh, did you want to ask any questions? Mr. MARSH. I want to ask some questions on profits later. The CHAIRMAN. Then you may proceed, Mr. Weld.

Mr. WELD. In connection with the Federal Trade Commission's report, I want to call attention to the list of commodities handled by the packers reported in Part 1 of the Federal Trade Commission's report, pages 96 to 102.

I think Mr. Chaplin has a report

The CHAIRMAN. Just a moment. that he wants to file with the committee. Mr. CHAPLIN. I will file that later.

The CHAIRMAN. All right.

Mr. WELD. There are listed on these pages some 639 commodities that it is said the packers handle. My only point in bringing this up is that by making out a list in this way it gives an entirely exaggerated

idea of the number of commodities handled by the packers. In the first place, of these 639 commodities listed over half of them are meats and meat products, and over 70 in this list are supplies which Swift & Co. purchases for its own use and through bookkeeping devices transfers from central headquarters to various plants and branch houses and which are not sold to the outside at all. This list contains many ridiculous duplications such as "sardines" and "canned sardines," they both appear in the list; "flour" and "wheat flour" both appear in this list, and "pork chitterlings" and " chitterlings," which are the same things, appear as two separate items in this list. Mr. MARSH. May I ask a question?

Mr. WELD. Just as soon as I get through with this point you can ask questions on it.

The Trade Commission list also includes beef tongue, tongue fresh, tongue cured, and so forth, as separate items. Of course, using that same method of listing the commodities it might have added under "tongue," trimmed tongue, untrimmed tongue, and so forth. That would have helped them out considerably in swelling the list. The idea seems to have been to make as long a list as possible. You will find in the list 37 items under the head of sausage. There is sausage, dry sausage, sausage meat, and so forth. That includes 37 items. It also includes this item: "Brass castings for recoil mechanism in heavy ordnance." That is a product outside of the packing business, in which an official of one of the packers owns a little stock. Of course, many hundred commodities might have been added on this same basis.

The Federal Trade Commission tries to defend itself in putting in this long list of commodities by saying that it was compiled from the price lists of the packers. That is undoubtedly true. Probably the list is technically correct, but the only possible reason for putting in such a list was to grossly exaggerate the number of commodities, handled by the packers, and I hold that it is not a reliable list at all to give a definite idea of the products handled by the packers. Are there any questions on that point?

Mr. YOUNG. If this list has been too much extended, continuing such an item as the tongue item, for instance, I will ask you what your statement would be as to the commodities that are really handled?

Mr. WELD. Well, of course, in the first place, all products that are meat products or animal by-products, I think, I would have listed and subsequently, if I were called on for a complete list of the commodities handled-these are strictly packing-house products.

Mr. YOUNG. That part I do not care so much about.
Mr. WELD. That is a part of this list.

Mr. YOUNG. But the outside products that are not?

Mr. WELD. Speaking only for Swift & Co., if I were asked to enumerate what Swift & Co. handles outside of the meat products and animal by-products, I would say that it handled canned goods, which includes both canned meats and canned fruits and vegetables.

Mr. ANDERSON. And fish?

Mr. WELD. Yes, sir. Of course, we could list any number of items under canned fruits and vegetables. They are all listed here. We consider that as one class of commodities that we handle. Then we handle lard and butter substitutes and cottonseed oil, which are not

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