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demand and consumption of virgin wool. All this hits the wool growers right in the pocketbook.

The French bill, now known as the truth-in-fabric bill, is designed to stop this evil. It will protect both the consumer and the producer. Shoddy and cotton should no more be sold as all wool than should oleo be sold as butter or horsemeat as potted ham. The Farmers' Dispatch not only gives its complete indorsement to the proposed law, but it hopes every reader will write his Congressman and Senators urging them to support it.

[Editorial from The Des Moines, Iowa, Register, of Mar. 21, 1920.]

The National Sheep and Wool Bureau is propaganding in favor of the Capper Senate bill that would require fabric manufacturers to stamp their goods as to the content. If the bureau had its way, every maker of garments and every purchaser will know what proportion of virgin wool and what proportion of reworked wool (or shoddy, as it is called) the fabric that he buys as "all wool" contains. And why not?

It is confided by the fabric manufacturers that shoddy is sometimes better than virgin wool-that the best shoddy, for instance, makes more durable and warmer clothing when mixed with a proportion of virgin wool than would be made by using 100 per cent virgin wool of an inferior quality.

Perhaps they are right. Perhaps the popular prejudice against shoddy is wrong. Perhaps, as the fabric makers assert, the advocates of a truth-in-fabric law are selfishly interested in capitalizing the public prejudice to the benefit of the woolgrowers.

Even so, it is impossible to set up reasons or excuses enough to justify fraud; it is when a people taught to think the term "all wool" means "all virgin wool" are given a cheaper combination of virgin wool and shoddy. It is not the manufacturer, wholesaler, or retailer of clothing that is fundamentally to blame. Ninety-nine times in a hundred these people are in the same boat as the ultimate consumer; they pay virgin wool prices and get goods made in part of something else. There is as much reason for compelling fabric makers to stamp a 50-50 mixture of virgin wool and shoddy for what it is as there is for compelling the canner of mock-chicken soup to stamp that for what it is. In either case the way is open to educate the public, to convince the public that the substitute is as good for practical purposes as the genuine. But there is no justification for concealing the truth.

One of the reasons Americans products have had a hard time in competition with the products of certain foreign nations in the world market is that American manufacturers have been too ready to turn out vast quantities of adulterated goods or goods not up to sample.

It is not so much dishonesty as carelessness and timidity that have been to blame for this, perhaps. But, regardless of the reasons, indifference to accurate labeling, coupled with other weaknesses of the same kind, has hurt.

Even at the risk of temporary difficulties, fabrics in our own country should be put on a basis of candor that is all wool, so to speak, and a yard wide.

[From Wisconsin Farmer.]

WANTS TRUTH-IN-FABRIC LAW PASSED.

TO THE EDITOR: Please continue to make it strong to the public and to the legislators who make our laws at Washington that we must have the truth-in-fabric law passed to protect honest dealers and wool producers. There were more "rag-picker" millionaires made during the war than there were munition millionaires, just because we have no legal action against shoddy goods. Who knows now or has any way of knowing the percentage of shoddy in clothing? When this law is passed you will not have to compete with rags in selling wool.

WASHBURN COUNTY, WIS.

[Editorial from Helena, Mont., Independent, Jan. 15, 1920.]

THAT "ALL-WOOL" BILL.

CARL GRENSING.

At the risk of becoming tiresome, the Independent would rise once more to inquire: What has become of that bill introduced in Congress five or six months ago to require the branding of fabrics?

We have a pure-food law and an oleomargarine law, and we have found both beneficial. Then, why is it that Congress never seems disposed to pass a bill requiring the manufacturer to show what percentage of inferior products is mixed with “allwool" cloth? Bills have been introduced several times, but never yet has one been heard of after it reached a congressional committee.

The wool supply is short in this country, not so short as some would have you, believe, but still it is short-and people can not expect to have strictly all-wook clothes. For some purposes other material will be preferred anyway. The public however, is entitled to know what it is buying.

[Washington, D. C., Star, Jan. 21, 1920.]

To decrease the amount of low-grade fabrics offered to the trade at big prices, Representative Henry T. Rainey, Democrat, of Illinois, introduced a bill requiring the percentage of materials to be stamped on the outside of all woven fabrics shipped in interstate commerce.

[Oakland, Calif., Tribune, Jan. 22, 1920.]

The proposition of wool growers to punish cloth frauds is getting the matter up to the appropriate people. Nobody should be more interested in honest manufacture of and trading in fabrics of this class than those who are interested at the base of it with the raw materials.

[New York Evening Post, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 1920.]

It is expected that the present session of Congress will pass adequate legislation to control the labeling of fabrics. It is expected to be made a misdemeanor in future to brand any fabric untruthfully, and punishment, probably by fine and imprisonment, will follow violation of the law. It is considered essential to progress that the exact truth be told by such labels.

[Editorial in the Clothing Trade Journal.]

Interest in "virgin wool"

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and shoddy seems to be spreading from consumer to retailer, from retailer to manufacturer to the mill. The point at issue is perfectly clear in spite of any efforts made to obscure it.

It is a happy sign of returning honesty to business, industry, and life that we are now urged to label the ingredients of cloth. No one protests against using shoddy of cotton. All we want to know is, "Is it shoddy"?

[Clothier and Furnisher.]

The requirement that all fabrics be properly branded would render it impossible for anyone to sell shoddy as "virgin wool" from the first factor of distribution to the retailer, and would therefore reach the disease right at its source, which is the only effective remedy.

[Daily News Record, a daily trade paper covering the textile and apparel field.]

There are some manufacturers who firmly believe that the next Congress will pass a pure-fabric law which will compel the marking of clothes for exactly what they contain.

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They know that the public is learning what "virgin wool" means, and there is no necessity for an apology for a position assumed with "virgin wool" as a background.

[Article in the American Wool and Cotton Reporter, Aug. 21, 1919.]

As a rule, woolen manufacturers were rather surprised when they found from their sounding preparatory to making new lightweight samples, that "virgin-wool" fabrics were going to be much in favor, especially for men's wear.

[Herman C. Ritter, former president of the National Association of Retail Clothiers, in a recent statement.] The day is not far off when we will have standardized fabrics marked "strictly virgin wool."

Our patrons are entitled to it-the merchants should demand it.

[From a speech by Mr. B. F. Harris, banker of Champaign, Ill., at an advertising convention held in Chicago, Oct. 27, 1919.]

When we talk about "all wool" as we used to, we mean just that. Now some of them get around it by saying "all wool," and we have had to invent the term "virgin wool.

[New York Times.]

VIRGIN WOOL GROWS POPULAR.

A great deal of satisfaction is taken in the woolen trade in the acquisition of the term "virgin wool" in place of "all wool.” The latter phrase was the cause of unending controversy between those who believed in the merit of reworked wool and included that article within the strict meaning of the term "all wool." The commonest kind of shoddy could be called "all wool" without any twisting of the truth, but the consumer's interpretation scarcely jibed with that of the technical manufacturer's.

[Moline, Ill., Dispatch.]

When a fabric or garment is guaranteed to be "all wool "the public understands it to be "virgin wool," which it is not. The public does not know that the "all wool" guaranty has lost its meaning. Even inferior shoddy may be truthfully described as "all wool."

There is coming to be large demand for a truth-in-fabric law for the protection of our sheep and woolgrowing industry, as well as for the protection of the public.

[Staunton, Va., Daily Leader.]

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If the term "virgin wool" can be brought into general use for such wool, it will tend to protect the buying public from a manifest and serious fraud. The expression is being used by manufacturers It [the term "virgin wool"] ought to be generally adopted, and there ought to be a law requiring "all wool" goods to be labeled either as shoddy, mixed, or "virgin wool." Then deception would be impossible unless the buyer were too stupid to do anything for his own protection.

[Idaho Republican, Mar. 13, 1920.]

ADVERTISEMENT.

One of our Idaho Congressmen is pushing a bill which will compel textile manufacturers to truthfully label every yard of cloth produced.

The passage of this bill will bring daylight into the business of buying and selling cloth and clothing-cotton and shoddy may still be used, but they'll be sold for what they are.

The passage of such a law will benefit every wearer of clothing-it will promote the development of Idaho's sheep industry.

Won't you please drop a line to our Idaho Senators and Congressmen, urging the passage of this bill?

ROWLES-MACK CO.,
Blackfoot, Idaho.

(In the nature of an editorial is the statement sent out to the mailing list of the National Board of Farm Organizations by its secretary, Charles A. Lyman, under date of Mar. 20, 1920, which statement is as follows:)

[National Board of Farm Organizations, Charles A. Lyman, Secretary, Washington, D. C., Mar. 20, 1920.]

To our mailing list:

Virgin wool versus shoddy: When buying your next suit or garment satisfy yourself that it is made from virgin wool or else refuse to pay virgin-wool prices. This information will be easy to obtain in case the truth-in-fabric bill, H. R. 11641, should be passed by Congress. Advocates of this bill are appearing this week before the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce. The bill is an application to the textile industries of the same principles of compulsory correct branding and labeling already established in relation to foods and drugs. Every garment must be correctly labeled to show its ingredients. The term "all wool" is a misnomer in that the purchaser quite generally believes this to mean "virgin" wool-wool from the sheep's back, and not as yet manufactured into textiles. "Shoddy" is now found in most of the clothing materials sold as all wool. It is made from rags, old clothing or other material from which everything but wool has been removed by chemical processes. The National Wool Growers' Association and the leading farm organizations of the country are working for the bill's passage.

POWER LAUNDRY AND THE PURE FABRIC LAW, AS PERTAINING ESPECIALLY TO THE BARKLEY BILL.

APRIL 13, 1920.

The Laundry Owners' National Association has a deep interest in any movement that fosters correct branding of textiles because in the effort to keep satisfied customers, the laundry owner is called upon to make fair adjustment of the claims for the occasional damage occurring to fabrics, as well as to renovate and deliver the garments. These adjustments can not be based upon that false principle held by too many business men that "the customer is always right." In many cases this would be the easy and expedient method for the individual laundry to pursue. Such procedure, however, is not conducive to the healthy growth of the industry in general, because the practice fosters prejudices against the laundry service, which, on account of previous sins, still prevail even though the service is improved. Fair adjustment must be based on the determination of the true responsibility in each case. The three agents responsible for the conservation of textiles are the manufacturer, including the distributors all along the line to the retailer, the user, and the launderer. To secure evidence that will establish this responsibility in a given instance, the Laundry Owners' National Association offers to its membership the services of expert chemists. As examples of typical claims made against the laundry, the following incidents are cited: A linen supply company that furnishes clean towels to offices, purchased a lot of 700 hand towels. Since new towels are not sufficiently absorbent for use until after they are washed, this lot was sent to a laundry. All of them failed in the first laundering. Exhibits were sent to the L. N. A. laboratory at the Mellon Institute, where the cloth was found to be composed of cotton warp and an overcooked hemp filling. When dry, the strength of the fabric along the filling direction was about equal to the strength along the warp direction; but when it was wet the strength along the filling was comparable to that of paper. This, indeed, was the case, the cooked hemp of which the filling threads were composed constituting a good grade of paper stock. If the hemp had not been cooked it would have had sufficient strength, but would have been extremely harsh and with no power to absorb moisture, an essential property of a good piece of toweling. The fabric had the appearance but lacked the other essential qualities of good crash. This represents an extreme case of fraud; like the knave's paper razors, the fabric was made to sell. Obviously, the responsibility here was not that of the user or the launderer. While instances of this extreme character are comparatively rare, it is to gain protection for the user and launderer against situations of similar nature that the Laundry Owners' National Association has entered the fight for pure-fabric legislation.

The laundry operation is like all factory processes in that the human factor obtains. In addition to this unavoidable condition, some establishments are blessed with poorer management than others. The stock in trade in the laundry industry is service, service to steamship companies, Pullman companies, hospitals, hotels (although most of the larger hospitals and hotels operate their own laundry plants), and to the household. The laundry owner recognizes that the greater number of times he can launder a fabric the more profit accrues to him. It is also recognized that well-managed plants suffer from the ill-will created by the poorly-managed ones. Consequently, the broader-minded men of the industry, who exercise the most influence in their trade association affairs, are concerned with the improvement of conditions

in the poorest plants. To correct a mistake and prevent its recurrence requires the location of the cause.

The legislation regarding textiles sought by the laundry owners could be more properly called a law requiring the correct labeling of fabrics. While there are many features in which the analogy to the pure food and drug act is quite distinct, there are others which bear no similarity. There is no intention to restrict the market or to hamper the honest producer or dealer. The object of the legislation sought is to promote better care in the weaving and dyeing of fabrics, and to conserve the interests of the honest producer and dealer as well as those of the ultimate consumer and launderer. It is appreciated that there are many grades of raw materials that must be used in the total output of our textile mills, that automatic machinery and human hands are not infallible, and that economic necessity demands that all products of the mills at all suitable for use be somehow marketed. There is the added appreciation that some means must be decided upon for curtailing deception, whether this deception be perpetrated by the producer or by unscrupulous jobbers into whose hands defective or inferior textiles might fall. In other words, goods classified as defective or seconds in the reputable mills should be so indelibly branded that they would be less easily passed as good cloth should they find their way into the hands of dishonest distributors.

The whims of fashion constitute a great menace to real economy in the use of textiles, especially those used in garments and table fabrics. A demand for soft collars which look like silk, but which may be sold at a comparatively low price, encourages the production of a cloth of cotton warp and silk filling so woven that the cotton is mostly concealed. An exhibit illustrating this recently, recently examined, showed the coarse warp yarn to constitute 90 per cent of the weight of the cloth, leaving only 10 per cent of the weight for the silk filling. The manager of a large garment manufacturing company of highest standing explained that it was necessary to produce such an article to meet competition. Perhaps, if from the label, the purchaser knew the weakness of the fabric and that it would not survive the most careful hand washing, the demand for articles made of such cloth would be diminished.

Another temptation toward deception is to be found in the manufacturing of table linen. A damask type tablecloth may be made of short staple yarn or even cotton yarn and so finished that the purchaser will not detect the inferior quality until after the sizing has been removed. "Tow" yarn, properly spun and woven into any plain weave pattern, will make a serviceable cloth for many purposes, but short staple fibers, loosely spun, should never be used in jacquared designs.

Prints that have been tendered by the excessive or improper use of stripping salts; shirting in which the dyed stripe of the warp has been tendered by faults in dyeing, or by the aging effect of sulphur dyes; defects in weaving concealed by sizing; blankets of cotton warp and wool filling so woven and carded as to render the blanket almost useless; these are more of the faults in new textiles that have been examined in the laboratory of the Laundry Owners' National Association at the Mellon Institute. These and other considerations have led to the proposal that a Federal law be enacted to compel the correct labeling of fabrics.

In view of the fact that much more educational work must be done along the lines of compulsory labeling the Laundry Owners' National Association is glad to support a law like the Barkley Act that will eliminate the menace of mislabeled articles. Having a law forbidding misbranding we are much nearer success when we shall have caused the enactment of a law compelling labeling.

The details of the Barkley bill are not the subject of this brief this enactment is comprehencive enough to make it effective burdensome to the honest producer.

Suffice it to say that without making it

H. G. ELLEDGE, Industrial Fellow.

MELLON INSTITUTE OF INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH,
UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH,

April 13, 1920.

PRESS NOTICE OF THE NATIONAL SHEEP AND WOOL BUREAU OF AMERICA, CHICAGO.

SHODDY ADVOCATE ANSWERED.

Charles M. Haskins, secretary of the National Association of Waste Material Dealers, in a published statement, makes the plea that if the comparative values of virgin wool cloth and cloth made of reworked wool are to be differentiated, it should also be advocated:

"That the manufacturer of paper should be compelled to state just what proportion of the manufactured product is wood pulp and what proportion is rags, and that

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