Mr. CLARK. Do you know why the goods were so poor? Dr. WILSON. Yes, sir: I think I do. I think vou told me the other day, because the Government would not let the manufacturers have any good wool, and they had to take anything.

Mr. CLARK. The Government controlled the wool market, and the manufacturers could not get any of the Government wool; they had to take what they had on hand or what they could pick up anywhere. Dr. WILSON. And in consequence of this, when they used shoddy or other material the goods were absolutely rotten.

Mr. SIMS. Did they cancel the orders?

Dr. WILSON. No; I think there was some influence brought to bear to prevent that. There were several retail clothiers who were to come here and testify, but they suddenly had a change of heart. What was the cause I do not know.

Mr. SIMS. The people are wearing those clothes?

Dr. WILSON. They would not last long; they have to get new suits. That is the reason they are buying this high-grade stuff. The question has been asked whether there is any demand from people for this class of wool. Certainly there is. Take out West. A man will get a suit of clothes and it will go to pieces, and the first thing he says is "The damn thing was just shoddy." They charge it to the shoddy or to the hair, or whatever it is. Take the Cleveland mills. Those men have to have a certain quality of wool or it hurts their trade. I find them in arrangement with the woolgrowers. There is business that is done with these gentlemen direct. They can get it easier off of the dealers, although the worsted mills at Cleveland buy a great deal of stuff. They have a man out in the West. He goes around and looks at the wool, and he will send back, say, 150 or 200 pounds of grease wool, and the Cleveland mills scour and clean it, and they send him back to bid for it. They buy a lot of wool that way not from the dealers, but right direct, and this party. gets a commission of a quarter or a half a cent, or whatever it is. When I am talking about these wool dealers, it reminds me of a story. There were three white boys and one colored boy who went possum hunting. When they came back, they had three possums. The white boys took the three possums. Some one asked the little darky what he got, and he said "We four have been in cahoots, and the white boys get the possums and 1 get the cahoots." What the woolgrowers generally get in the business is the cahoots in the West; we have never gotten any possum.

At the time of the meeting of the woolmen from Wyoming and other States in the West to try to fix the price of wool, we were told that we would not have to come to a conclusion that day, but the next day we were told that we would have to whether we wanted to or not. Other things were not in line with wool. The price fixed on wool-wool was higher then-was headed for $1 a pound. There is no question about that the price being fixed on wool--it was quite a little below the market, but it was fixed.

I want to read some resolutions adopted by various associations. I will not read the one in regard to the Farmers' Alliance, because their own people will explain that.

The first resolution I have here is from the National Wool Growers' Association at their annual meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah, January 20-22, 1920. Last year the association did not meet because of the

flu. They fixed the date, but when it arrived the flu was bad so that they could not get them together and they changed it from that date. to another, but when that date arrived they found the same condition. This organization comprises the following States: Texas, Arizona, Washington, Nevada, California, Idaho, New Mexico, Utah, Nebraska, Wyoming, Oregon, Montana, South Dakota, Colorado, Kansas, and Oklahoma. I want to say this, that in many of those States the terms "sheep man" and "cow man" have been practically obliterated. Some of the best cow men have gone into sheep and in other States some of the sheep men, to protect themselves, have gone into cattle, owing to the condition of the cattle market. I know that this is foreign to the matter under discussion. Some of the big cattlemen in Arizona who never owned any sheep are trying to get rid of their cattle and go into sheep. Many stockmen interested in both have lost and will lose from $25 to $50 a head on fed cattle, and they are trying to save what they can out of the deal by going into sheep. Their resolution was:

Whereas a large part of the raw material used in the manufacture of woolen fabric and apparel sold as "all wool," is shoddy and substitutes, and n、t virgin wool: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That we, the National Wool Growers' Association, earnestly urge the protection of both the public and the woolgrowers of this country, that the Congress of the United States shall at the earliest possible moment enact legislation making it compulsory to make known the presence of substitutes for virgin wool, especially shoddy, and substitutes in fabric purporting to contain wool, and apparel made from such fabrics.

I will also say that the Arizona Cattle Growers' Association passed practically the same resolution, only cutting out the words "earnestly urge the protection of both the public and the woolgrowers of this country"; they left woolgrowers out. They wanted the public protected, but were not very particular whether the woolgrowers were protected or not.

The Washington State Wool Growers' Association passed a resolution in the same way. All of these, however, are a little different.

The Wyoming Wool Growers' Association resolution is:

Be it resolved, That we place our organization squarely behind the "Truth in fabric bill" and that we urge our delegation in Congress to support this measure. Further, that we urge the National Wool Growers' Association to take strong action favoring this movement.

The American National Live Stock Association at its annual convention in Spokane, Wash., January 29, 1920-this organization is composed mostly of cattle men; it includes all the States of the Union west of the Mississippi River and is especially strong in Texas and the Southwest-that association passed a resolution similar to the one that I read which was passed by the National Wool Growers' Association, as it has a great many Wool Growers' Association members in it. The American National Wool Growers' Association is 55 years old and the American National Live Stock Association is, I think, 23 years old. Those two associations have at least 100,000 members. The National Wool Growers' Association contributed something over $20,000 toward buying woolen blankets for the Red Cross, and $11,500 to the Harry Lauder Building and Hospital for crippled Scotch soldiers.

The Big Horn Basin Wool Growers' Association passed a resolution to the same effect. That is the association that Mr. Pearson is

the president of; an association of probably five or six counties-in fact, larger than some Eastern States. They passed a similar resolution.

Here is a trade-mark of the Scottish Woolen Association.

It reads:

Toward better clothes. With the coming of spring, a call for better clothes can confidently be expected. Five years' shortage of food wool threw into the market material that neither looked well nor wore well; but now that pure new wool is once more available, men and women who care for their appearance will not be satisfied with anything under the best.

The demand for new and better clothing already exists, and the coming season will be a prosperous one for tailors and costumers who have a good supply of material that can be depended on for suits, costumes, and overcoats. Such a material is genuine Scotch tweed, stamped with the trade-mark reproduced above.

This trade-mark has been registered by the Scottish Woolen Trade-Mark Association (with the sanction and approval of the board of trade) under conditions which require that all material so stamped shall be "manufactured in Scotland of pure new wool, free from cotton or other vegetable fiber, shoddy, mungo thread waste, or any other remanufactured wool."

It goes on to say that the trade-mark must guarantee this condition or else, I think, they have a bill something like one of the bills here for misbranding that makes them liable, and then they say:

And the association has already placed contracts for space to the value of £19,443 11s. 9d. The campaign will begin with a full front page in the Daily Mail on February 5.

Now, if the manufacturers of wool in Scotland can afford not to manufacture anything but pure virgin wool and to advertise it as such and put their stamp on to guarantee it, these gentlemen who are here are wasting time, because they never use shoddy wool, and they ought to let the shoddy men come down and take their places; we would rather talk to the shoddy men.

Mr. MERRITT. There is nothing to prevent the American manufacturers from doing that if they want to?

Dr. WILSON. Not a thing on earth.

Mr. MERRITT. These men have been doing it because they have to do it?

Dr. WILSON. Because it is good business.

Mr. MERRITT. If you want to convince the American manufacturers that they ought to do it, all right, but why make them do it? Dr. WILSON. For good business reasons and for honesty.

Mr. MERRITT. They claim that 60 per cent of all the cloth that is made in this country now is made out of virgin wool?

Dr. WILSON. I think not; I doubt it.

Mr. MERRITT. The testimony shows that?

Dr. WILSON. The figures that they have here; they claim that they get the figures from the Bureau of Markets

Mr. CLARK (interposing). The census.

Dr. WILSON. They do not bear out that contention at all.

Mr. MERRITT. You believe that worsted can be made out of something else besides virgin wool?

Dr. WILSON. I had this book which the stenographer took away. I want to tell you this-whether it was virgin wool or not, I do not know-worsted goods of so many yards; they put the yardage in square yards. Men's goods are generally 54 inches. A square yard of cloth that the figures are in means a yard and a half. As it is sold it is 54 inches. A linear yard is 36 inches, and it would make just exactly one and a half square yards. The figures are given in square

yards. I want to illustrate this. Woolen suitings, overcoatings, and dress goods-these are 1914 figures there were 74,220,000 square yards of woolen goods of $45,444,000 fair value-I do not know whether this was the wholesale value-and of worsted suiting, overcoatings, and dress goods there were 219,912,000 square yards valued at $139,641,000. I figure those on the basis of square yards, first, and then on the linear yards, as the chemist said. That would be 63 cents a square yard, and then you would add one-half of 63 cents to the 63 cents to get the price of the linear yard, which would be less than $1. Worsted goods are as high as other fabrics. Of course, I was astounded with the figure. So for the half a cent a square yard that would be three-quarters of a cent a linear yard. That is found on page 20 of this pamphlet.

Mr. CLARK. You can not make any deduction from those figures as to the value of a yard?

Dr. WILSON. One is worsted and the other woolen, and they are very close together.

Mr. CLARK. As a matter of fact, the woolen goods are very much heavier in weight.

Dr. WILSON. The worsted suit of clothes under that condition would cost about the same as woolen goods.

Mr. CLARK. You can not draw any deduction from those figures. Dr. WILSON. I take it from this that it would require an expert to even guess at it.

Mr. CLARK. The variety of the product is so great, there is a variety in weight, and a variety in quality. They reduce them all to the square yard, because woolens and worsted are not only made in 54 inches, but they are made in 27 and 30 inches.

Mr. JONES. The cloth for men is made in 54 inches?

Mr. CLARK. Men's cloth is largely made 54 and 56 inches wide. Dr. WILSON. The entire woolen and worsted goods are practically sold at the same price.

Mr. MERRITT. If that indicates anything it is that the worsted does not have much in it?

Dr. WILSON. Either that or the other had something wrong; I take it either way.

Mr. MERRITT. Those figures show that the worsted goods, including those of worsted and those of cotton, are in yardage 60 per cent of the total product.

Dr. WILSON. That is absolutely virgin wool.

Mr. MERRITT. Yes, sir.

Dr. WILSON. Of the worsted there is cotton in it, some.

Mr. MERRITT. Cotton warp?

Dr. WILSON. It might be a very negligible amount of shoddy and in some of the cases it is so small that you can not see it. They are using some cotton with the chains as we used to call them, and nobody objects to that, if they show it. I asked the question if it would hurt them to make a division of this kind in the wool that they are using. When the question was asked about hair they did not even know what hair was, yet in one place they used 28,000,000 pounds in 1914.

Mr. CLARK. That is a more expensive hair, a good deal better than virgin wool.

Dr. WILSON. Mohair; I do not know. It simply says what it is. You know whether you put the fiber in.

Mr. CLARK. That would come in under virgin wool, mohair, camels hair, alpaca, and vicuna make very expensive goods.

Dr. WILSON. They do not know that. They simply want those goods labeled.

Mr. CLARK. They would be virgin wool under the French bill.

Dr. WILSON. The French bill, I do not know that Mr. French claims that it is absolutely perfect. All other bills of like importance that come before the committee are subject, at least, to revision or there would be no need of the committee sitting, and after the committee gets through, if there are any defects of that kind, I think this committee is competent to find them. You may rest assured of one thing, this thing has been started, it has been in Congress for several years off and on, but it has started for keeps. The people are beginning to realize that there is something wrong with the fabric trade. Men who take and put up the pure wool and sell those goods in competition with the shoddy manufacturers that have not good business morale, they have to compete with those and why they should be here objecting when there is nothing in the law that would affect them any more than this, that they would get the value of their new goods, I can not understand.

Mr. CLARK. We object because it does not tell the consumer anything.

Dr. WILSON. We are very glad that you will take such good care of the consumer, because we are consumers ourselves, but we are producers just the same. If you take real good care of the consumers we will all be satisfied. It does not tell him the particular grade of virgin wool, but it tells him there is virgin wool in it, and if we can get rid of this and then strengthen the bill, put in a clause that no wool, virgin or otherwise, of less than a certain stability shall be woven into the fabrics that are to be worn by the people, would not that be of value?

Mr. CLARK. Not at all.

Dr. WILSON. I take it that a good many people in WashingtonThe CHAIRMAN (interposing). That is a matter of contention and the committee will have to work that out.

Dr. WILSON. All right. I do not want you to cut out one thing, that is no shoddy that is the result of cleaning up from other fiber that is as good as the original virgin wool from which it came.

Mr. WINSLOW. Are you willing to couple with that statement that there is shoddy better than some virgin wool?

Dr. WILSON. Absolutely; but there is none as good as the virgin wool from which the shoddy came.

Mr. CLARK. We agree with you.

Dr. WILSON. I know that one reason of complaint is that every time virgin wool or shoddy is submitted to these baths of acids to eat up and clean the other things it certainly tends to deteriorate the fiber.

Mr. JONES. At least that is conservation?

Dr. WILSON. Absolutely. We want the fiber used, we want it used as long as they can use it; we are not complaining of that.

Mr. SIMS. Doctor, Mr. Clark says that the French bill does not furnish the consumer with the information that it is necessary for him to