you have a piece of goods which is transparent in itself, you would be able to see anything on the goods. You can even put your hand behind some of those goods and see it, and it would necessarily mean that if you put any mark on, it could be seen more or less if you hold it against the light. But when the garment was worn, I believe that such a mark would not be objectionable.

Then another way of meeting that is to put the data along the selvage of the goods. It could be placed on a selvage as narrow as an eighth of an inch, and it would be my belief that this data could be put in that space.

The CHAIRMAN. Are there any questions, gentlemen?

Mr. DEWALT. How would that comport with the idea of your mark 2 inches wide by 3 inches in length. Your idea is to stretch it out along the selvage?

Mr. MARSTON. Yes, sir; instead of making a parallelogram we would use a line of lettering

Mr. WINSLOW. How would that protect the ready-made garment? Mr. MARSTON. I am not fully conversant with the bill, but I believe the bill reads that there shall be a tag sewed into the garment. I am not sure on that point. I believe that the idea of branding the goods is to protect the purchaser of the goods until it goes into the garment. At that time there will be a cotton tag sewn into the garment which will protect the ultimate purchaser. I am not sure on that point. Is that correct, Mr. French? Mr. FRENCH. I would say that is correct.

The CHAIRMAN. Are there any other questions? Many thanks to you for appearing. Is Mr. Pound here?

STATEMENT OF MR. GEORGE W. POUND, GENERAL COUNSEL OF THE MUSIC INDUSTRIES CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OF AMERICA, 105 WEST FORTIETH STREET, NEW YORK CITY. Mr. POUND. Gentlemen, we are here to speak in support of the Barkley bill and the theory upon which it is built. Our organization is a centralization, a speaking voice of every element of the music manufacturing and merchandising business in America. We have some 11 affiliated associations. We maintain-and this bill exactly in line with our vision and our ideals-we maintain a bureau in our chamber known as the "better business bureau," the sole and express function of which is to prosecute cases of unlawful or exaggerated advertising and sale of musical instruments.

We believe that this war has done that for merchandising in America which no other means has done or could do; it has given a higher ideal and a much better dignity to merchandising in America. This past year I have traveled some 43,000 miles in 42 of the States in an endeavor to inculcate in our industry higher ideals, higher ideals of business, and greater vision, greater dignity in merchandising.

There is no question at all but that business is being conducted to-day in the United States upon a higher plane than ever before. The difference is marked; it is very marked, and it is only here and there that we are met with conditions which we can not overcome in bad advertising and bad merchandising.

The two chief sources of trouble with us are the advertisements in the public press and the personal appeal by letter or circular.

One of the most marked troubles we have is the tendency to exaggerate the discount given upon the sale of the merchandise. All buyers and most particularly those of the female sex-are bargain hunters, and a statement of an exaggerated reduction in the price. of the goods is always an appeal.

We are very much in favor of this. We do so want to cleanse our industry of the slightest taint of bad merchandising. We want to build up a great honest, clean, dignified industry, and we want your help in doing it, in passing the Barkley bill or something akin to it.

I believe that we have made a very close analysis of business conditions in this country, and I know from a constant study of the subject and from my extensive travels in this connection that that is the desire of more than nine-tenths of all manufacturers and merchants in the country, but ever and anon we come across a case which requires some drastic treatment. State laws do not meet the want. In the first place, they require special study; they require the employment of special and able local counsel, and they differ vastly. They are always subject to local influences, but a national Federal law upon this subject would be an infinite help to us to protect the public.

We believe that an advertisement which does not tell the exact and strict truth is a fraud upon the advertiser himself. It must carry the message and it must tell a message that the people believe. We want the people to believe our advertisements absolutely, and until we reach that point, we feel that our advertising is a failure.

The Barkley bill, and the Rogers bill also, thoroughly meets our wants. The advertising section, number five, as I would call it, of the Barkley bill is particularly acceptable to us. It will be a great help. It can do no harm to anybody, and it will be a help to honest, clean merchandising.

The CHAIRMAN. Have you any doubt as to the constitutionality of that provision in the Barkley bill?

Mr. POUND. I have thought of the question which has been presented as to whether the simple insertion of the advertisement is Interstate commerce-l take it you refer to that, Mr. Chairman? The CHAIRMAN. Yes.

Mr. POUND. It would seem to me that that might be met by at declaration that the advertisement is such when inserted in a newspaper which has a known interstate circulation, would perhaps help to meet the question. We have, of course, the fradulent use of the mails to help us, but in a case which I have in hand, now that does not meet the issue. We can not always locate those particular instances, and I would say this, that there need be no fear, as has been expressed here, that it will be necessary for any individual to go to court in these matters. The different associations, such as ours, will gladly take these matters up. We will prosecute any case any place in the United States, east or west, north or south, that will be brought to our attention by any individual. We have already done so. We have one gentleman who differed from us on lines of legitimate advertising who is now resting under a two-year sentence at the Atlanta Reformatory. We convicted a case recently in the Middle West. We have now two cases pending in which we are confronted with a serious legal question under a State law. We need this law; we need something of this kind.

We ourselves are giving everything that is in us to acquiring a higher ideal and a higher dignity in our business practice and business methods.

There can't be any objection to this. Our chief difficulty, as 1 see it, comes from the occasional merchant who misrepresents his goods in his newspaper advertisement. The day we fear is that day when production is going to equal consumption. In our own industry to-day we are, for instance, 100,000 pianos short of the market. We are in a sellers market. Everything is very congenial. The man to-day who does, as an occasional merchant does do, falsifies, misadvertises goods, is an imbecile, because he substantially confers a favor in giving the one instrument to 1 of the 12 people who are praying for it. But the desire to falsely advertise, to use bad business methods, seems to be inherent in some of these fellows, and the bad business man, we believe, injures our whole industry.

Mr. BARKLEY. May I ask you a question or two? Do you think that it is practical to provide for the compulsory labeling of merchandise in general?

Mr. POUND. Yes, sir.

Mr. BARKLEY. You think it would be practical for a lot law to be passed that would require the manufacturer of all kinds of merchandise to label on the outside, in a conspicuous place, all the ingredients that go into it?

Mr. POUND. Yes, sir; so far as that would be helpful to the public. Of course, it would not apply to merchandise such as ours.

Mr. BARKLEY. Well, is it or not true that merchandising has become like a great many other things in this country, nationalized? Mr. POUND. Yes, sir

Mr. BARKLEY. And for that reason State laws upon the subject, while applicable to local conditions, do not reach this nationalizing tendency that has existed for many years in all branches of industry?

Mr. POUND. Entirely so. State laws are totally ineffective in solving this problem. They are more times a shield than a help. That is our experience.

The fact is, gentlemen, that it is my experience and analysis of conditions, industrial conditions, that in this country the better grade of goods to-day is being bought by the man who did not buy them prior to the great war. We find that the highest grade of goods to-day is being sold to the better class workmen, to the mechanic. It is not the rich man who is buying expensive goods in this country to-day. These men who toil before the flaming forge or the open fire and the whirling spindle do not toil for the so-called necessities of life; they toil for the so-called luxuries of life, and they are going to have them, and they are the men who are to-day buying them. Those men don't want the cost of living reduced, except as it is reduced on the other fellow's goods. The packers upstairs here are protesting that the cattle raisers charge them too much for the live stock; the live stock man abuses the packer. In this day, when consumption is far in excess of production, when in certain of our mills, certain of our factories, certain of our industries efficiency is down as low as 42 per cent, varying from that up to something toward 100 per cent in these days we are not able to produce with the same factory, with the same machinery, the same men, we are not able to produce anywhere near the same amount of goods.

Mr. WINSLOW. Would you say "were not able" to do so?

Mr. POUND. We are not able to produce the same amount of goods. We haven't the man power, we haven't the arm power behind our help.

Mr. WINSLOW. Do you think that they are not able or that they won't?

Mr. POUND. They do not.

Mr. WINSLOW. That is different again.

Mr. POUND. They do not do it.

Mr. WINSLOW. Do you attribute that entirely to lack of physical power?

Mr. POUND. No, sir; not at all.

Mr. WINSLOW. What cause do you ascribe for the low production? Mr. POUND. Well, I think it is the result of several things. I think it is the result of industrial unrest, with its accompanying mental and physical unrest, which has followed the war. I think it is possibly responsible as the result of the exceedingly high cost of wages. There isn't any first-class workman in the United States to-day who is confined to his job. He can walk out and get a hundred more. He can do it any moment, and he knows it. In our case we have many workmen in the factory earning $10 a day. Mr. WINSLOW. Producing about 40 per cent, you say?

Mr. POUND. My analysis shows an efficiency from 42 per cent upward.

Mr. WINSLOW. Would you feel that, regardless of what is back of it, that that amounts to a sort of a commercial dishonesty on the part of those who are expected to produce?

Mr. POUND. Undoubtedly so, sir; somewhat.

Mr. WINSLOW. Doesn't that drive up the cost of these articles. which the manufacturer has to charge for them?

Mr. POUND. Yes, sir.

Mr. WINSLOW. Do you think that is generally appreciated through the land?

Mr. POUND. I think it is among those who have made it a study, who have analyzed the situation. I can give a concrete illustration of an analysis made of a factory a while ago. In proportionate figures, it took 16 men to produce the output of 11 men formerly at that work.

Mr. WINSLOW. That is the physical production?

Mr. POUND. Yes, sir.

Mr. WINSLOW. When you contrast that with the advanced wages, what percentage of production do you get out of dollars invested in labor, compared to what you did 10 years ago?

Mr. POUND. Well, we express it rather in units and elements of efficiency; and as I said, it is 42 per cent upward.

Mr. WINSLOW. Efficiency of the man. That represents the number of units he will turn out?

Mr. POUND. Yes, sir.

Mr. WINSLOW. Now if that is 40 per cent and you have to pay twice as much for labor as you did 10 years ago, that means that you really get for the dollar invested in labor only 20 per cent as much as you did then?

Mr. POUND. Substantially so.

Mr. WINSLOW. Well, that is worth inquiry, isn't it?

Mr. POUND. Yes, sir.

Mr. WINSLOW. And representation to the people of the country. Then it is not the merchant or manufacturer who is robbing but the great masses who only give 20 per cent for the dollar invested in labor compared with what they gave 10 years ago.

Mr. POUND. Absolutely, sir. The element of profit, for instance, in our industry is no greater than before and it is only that we can maintain quantity production that we can meet these conditions.

Mr. WINSLOW. While we are on that, for the benefit of the record, which I trust will get to somebody's eyes other than those here, isn't it a further fact that all manufacturers who are conservative and looking out for the interests of their properties, feel obliged in estimating costs to embody a liberal percentage for emergencies which they can not foresee?

Mr. POUND. Absolutely.

Mr. WINSLOW. And isn't that also crowding up the cost of commodities ?

Mr. POUND. Yes, sir; and that element of uncertainty and of speculation and of risk increases the cost.

Mr. WINSLOW. Quite so. Now if everybody were honest all along down the line, each for himself, wouldn't that automatically reduce the cost of living ?

Mr. POUND. Yes, sir.

Mr. WINSLOW. And the cost of production and the selling prices of commodities?

Mr. POUND. Yes, sir. In our industry, for instance, what is known as the straight piano, which is the ordinary hand-played piano, with out any mechanical features, is almost going out of the market. It was showing a tendency of decrease in demand of about 10 per cent a year. If, as I believe and I think the best informed in our industry believe-we made, for instance 400,000 pianos in our industry in the United States last year, upon that same basis, we will only make, perhaps, only 100,000 of those straight pianos.

Mr. WINSLOW. What does that represent in value, roughly?

Mr. POUND. The cheaper instruments have almost ceased to be produced in the last year or two.

Mr. WINSLOW. What does it amount to, just roughly?

Mr. Pound. Oh, low; I should say $300,000,000 at retail.

Mr. WINSLOW. Now, would you say that a 10 per cent emergency allowance, charged in to protect the manufacturer against what he knew nought of, would be a small allowance on the average?

Mr. POUND. I think it would be small on the average; yes, sir. Mr. WINSLOW. That means $30,000,000 has been paid by the people because the employer can not trust the other fellow.

Mr. POUND. That would be one way of expressing it; yes, sir. Mr. WINSLOW. Would that be reasonably accurate from a commercial point of view?

Mr. POUND. I believe the estimate of 10 per cent which you make for the uncertainty and speculation of business to-day is a fair statement and conservative bid.

Mr. WINSLOW. Do you think it is a little low rather than high? Mr. POUND. It is a little under, in my judgment.

Mr. WINSLOW. I think you are right about that.