Mr. CHENEY. It would unquestionably, in some cases, allow people to sell an article as of superior quality which is not of superior quality; that is, Mr. French's legislation, I believe, would accomplish that

result.

The CHAIRMAN. If that should happen to occur, you think it would result in putting even poorer products on the market than are put on now?

Mr. CHENEY. I can not say in relation to that. No; I do not think it would materially affect that, but it would make people think that some of the things which are not good are good.

The CHAIRMAN. Are there any other questions?

MI. MAPES. I wanted to get your idea about this, Mr. Cheney. You have studied the French bill. Getting back to making out a case against a retailer, do you think that the provision in the French bill where it says, if the retailer gets a guaranty from the manufacturer that the goods are as represented, is sufficient protection, the retailer, if he is unable to show that guarantee, even though he is able to show the label on the goods, he is then guilty?

Mr. CHENEY. I do not think you can ever successfully prosecute him under that line of testimony.

Mr. MAPES. Why?

Mr. CHENEY. You would have to prove knowledge and intent. You could not prosecute him for having sold something on which he did not have a mark. You could only prosecute him for having

sold something untruthfully.

Then you have got the fact that that article was not a pure article. You could not prove that he had knowledge and intent of having sold it. That is the great difficulty in all these pure cases.

Mr. MAPES. Suppose you eliminate his being required to prove that he has misrepresented something. Suppose that you make the law so that if he sells an article that is not labeled, without a guaranty from the man from whom he buys it, he is guilty of an offense?

Mr. CHENEY. You would then have to prove that the guaranty had not been lost, that he had not originally had the guaranty and that it had not been detached in the process of transfer, or something of that kind.

Mr. MAPES. Why would that have to be proved?

Mr. CHENEY. He might have to prove it. I only question whether you could successfully prosecute under that clause.

Mr. MAPES. Would that be much of an interference to trade and business; that is, the requirement of that sort of a guaranty?

Mr. CHENEY. It would be an almost impossible thing of administra

tion.

Let us say, for instance, that you would require the retailer to have a guaranty from the manufacturer. The manufacturer, in turn, has got to have a guaranty from the persons from whom he got his materials.

I will take an illustration in the silk business, that being the one which I know most about. A man sold a piece of merchandise and he is required to give a guaranty that that is absolutely pure. He may have bought the silk from three or four or five threadsters who used different methods in silking the silk, in some of which there was

an addition of oil or other material which added to the weight of the silk.

He perhaps had such materials dyed by other dye houses, two and three and four people dyeing and finishing for him.

The finisher may have put into the materials finished a substance of which the manufacturer had no knowledge.

It would be very difficult for him to give a guaranty that the dyer or finisher had not put something into the dyeing or finishing, of which he had no knowledge. It would be difficult for him to tell which merchandise was made out of materials supplied by one man or finished by another or dyed by a third. Our own firm is practically the only silk firm in the world that does all these processes for themselves. Practically all of the manufacturers have to buy some portion of their products from somebody else.

Mr. MAPES. Would it be practical to allow the label to make provision for some variation, as is done in weights and measures?

Mr. CHENEY. I referred to a series of tests I had made once in relation to silk. I had 10 chemists, 2 Germans, 2 dyestuff users, 2 college professors in the Bureau of Standards, and our own chemical laboratory make analyses of one set of samples. The results of the different chemical analyses showed in one case as much as 150 per cent variation in the amount of weighting they returned.

Mr. MAPES. Is it necessary to go clear back to the original source in order to prove a case and to show the ingredients of a piece of cloth?

Mr. CHENEY. It might be in some cases, particularly if we made spun yarns.

I have, for instance, in mind one yarn that is made by a foreign spinner, which is made partly of silk and partly of gloss. In that case, you would have to know just what the proportion was, and it is a trade secret as to what it is. The manufacturer who uses those yarns very frequently would be under the impression that they were something different than what they are.

Mr. MAPES. Then the case has got to be against the man who makes the original cloth rather than the fellow who sells it?

Mr. CHENEY. It may even have to go away back to the man who originally supplies the materials from which the yarns were made, from which the cloth was made that the dyer died and the finisher finished and the man finally sold. It is like the house that Jack built.

Mr. SHALLENBERGER. Your contention is that a branding bill should apply only so far as voluntary branding is concerned. In other words, if you stamp on it "pure silk" it should be pure silk? Mr. CHENEY. Yes.

Mr. SHALLENBERGER. Do you think, if it was not pure silk, but loaded silk or imitation silk, that a man should stamp that on the goods?

Mr. CHENEY. I think very properly he might be compelled to say, if he sold goods as silk, that they were pure silk.

Mr. SHALLENBERGER. He would not sell those as silk?

Mr. CHENEY. They do. It is so done to-day. All such merchandise is generally sold as silk.

Mr. SHALLENBERGER. Is it stamped "silk"?

Mr. CHENEY. It is stamped as silk very frequently; yes.

are

Mr. SHALLENBERGER. If you are selling pure silk, as I judge you

Mr. CHENEY (interposing). In fact, I believe we are the only people who have ever sold a weighted silk with the distinct statement on the wrapper that it was weighted.

Mr. SHALLENBERGER. So you are not practicing a fraud upon me, then, if I buy your products at a store?

Mr. CHENEY. No.

Mr. SHALLENBERGER. The person who does sell a weighted silk or sells a fraudulent or imitation silk is the one who perpetrates the fraud?

Mr. CHENEY. Yes.

Mr. SHALLENBERGER. In not he the one who should be compelled to stamp upon his products what it is?

Mr. CHENEY. Yes.

Mr. SHALLENBERGER. Is not it further the practice that those who do sell bona fide and honest goods do stamp upon them the fact that they are such, because it is a part of your process of sale?

Mr. CHENEY. It is an advantage to an honest manufacturer to prove that his goods are of value."

Mr. SHALLENBERGER. And so would not the result be then that the fraudulent goods would go unbranded and that those which were honest would be the only ones that would be branded?

Mr. CHENEY. It would very much improve the value of statements in advertising and branding to the manufacturer.

Mr. SHELLENBERGER. Let us take loaded silk, for instance, which you say is sold and the process of which is gone through in order to mprove the weight of the goods. What would be the result of attempting to handle that silk or redye it or clean it, or put it through the process that silks are put through oftentimes?

Mr. CHENEY. Do not mistake me. A weighted silk is not bad stuff. If it is properly done, well done, it makes a very good material and gives reasonable service and reasonable value.

Mr. SHALLENBERGER. It will not stand cleaning though? Mr. CHENEY. It will, if it is done in the right way. But it will not, if it is improperly done. Then it is a danger. When it comes to treating tin-weighted silks, through the ordinary dry-cleaner's process it is very liable to result in a disaster.

Mr. SHALLENBERGER. Does it follow from your position, Mr. Cheney, that you think it is proper to permit the dealer to offer his goods and if the purchaser goes in and buys silk goods which are unbranded as silk, that he should be upon his own judgment in buying them rather than to be protected by some law?

Mr. CHENEY. I do not believe you can protect him against every dealer and the attempt to make him think he is protected may even make him unprotected.

Mr. SHALLENBERGER. Don't you think, Mr. Cheney, that the honest manufacturer does protect the purchaser by stamping either upon the package or upon his goods, however he may determine to do it, the honesty of his product, whereas the man who is trying to vend dishonest products to the public conceals their quality in one way or another and that the public suffers thereby?

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Mr. CHENEY. I would not like to say that the man who did not identify his merchandise was a dishonest man. The man who is most proud of his merchandise tries to identify it.

Mr. SHALLENBERGER. I should like to ask you one further question. That is as to whether or not the branding or tagging would be a protection to the public. You say that now 75 per cent of the cloths that are sold to the public, either to men or women are manufactured and sold as manufactured goods rather than bolt goods.

If my wife, for instance, or any other man's wife, were to go into a store to purchase a silk garment, we will say, and the law would require that to be branded as a pure silk garment, it must be pure silk. That would be a protection to the purchaser. He would know that he was buying a pure-silk garment.

Do you think a dealer could afford to take that label off the garment when it was not a pure garment, claiming that he was deceived when he bought the goods, that the manufacturer of the silk deceived him?

Mr. CHENEY. There are rascals in every business and in every trade, and there will continue to be. There will continue to be some men who will take advantage of any possible thing they can do.

I know of an instance, which I mentioned earlier, and which I am to-day bringing to the attention of our association, the case of a man who is deliberately branding his goods with a false statement and is criminally responsible for what he is doing. He is doing it just the

same.

Mr. SHALLENBERGER. It would make it much more hazardous for him to do it if you had a law of that sort.

Mr. CHENEY. I do not know that it would be more hazardous for him to do it.

Mr. SHALLENBERGER. Than it is at present?

Mr. CHENEY. I do not think so, if he makes a false statement. The CHAIRMAN. If there are no more questions, we are very much obliged to you, Mr. Cheney.

Before we go on with the hearings any further, the chairman would like to make a statement with a view of facilitating the work and expediting it as far as possible. It is apparent that there is a great interest in this subject, or these subjects, not only on the part of the committee, but on the part of witnesses.

There are many here who represent a varied line of interests, and there are many more waiting to be called here.

The query is whether or not we shall go on in this sort of way, or try to establish some definite line of procedure.

Almost everybody who is in the room and a number who are not yet in have appealed to the chairman for a suggestion as to when in a general way they might be expected to give their testimony and it has been impossible to tell them. It is a pity, I will say to the committee, for us to hold men here who may not be called on for some days. It is a matter of expense, waste of time and altogether an inconvenience.

If the committee would feel disposed to have the chairman lay out the line of testimony as to period and subject, it would then be possible with perhaps the interruption of a single session once in a while, to direct those who want to give testimony pretty reasonably accurately. I want to submit that to the committee for consideration.

Furthermore, we are running into the end of the week. As a rule, in these hearings, which are more or less prolonged, we have tried to let witnesses who live within a reasonable distance get home for Sunday, and many times Friday has been the last day of the week to hold sessions.

The committee has in a general way decided not to work Mondays in committee in order that they may have one-half day a week in which to take care of their accumulation of office work. This week we have Good Friday, and some of the more righteous of the witnesses here have suggested that they would like to be in their homes on that day.

With those statements in mind, the chairman will be obliged to the committee if it will determine on some line of action, so that we may be fair to the witnesses and to ourselves and the subjects we are handling.

Mr. GRAHAM. The same thought had occurred to me; and in order to get something before the committee, I move that the arrangement of the program be left to the chairman, so that he can determine when and in what order the various witnesses may be brought before the committee on this hearing.

Mr. MERRITT. I suppose the chairman in arranging that order would consider whether it would not be possible for certain groups of gentlemen who represent the same interest to be represented, in the main at least, by some one spokesman.

The CHAIRMAN. I think that would be a very important thing to do. I suggested the idea of doing it. I have said if we had to go on and exhaust, as far as we can, the truth in fabrics feature of this subject, and its incidental references, like misbranding, we could advise those who want to testify on truth in fabrics to stay around and let the others go, so that we may handle the proponents and opponents of each subject in a way that will be logical, and keep as far as possible the testimony on each division together in the hearings, so that what they have to say will not be scattered over a couple of hundred pages or more.

Mr. HUDDLESTON. I would like to know whether Mr. Graham contemplates in his motion to include the hour of meeting and things like that?

Mr. GRAHAM. No.

Mr. HUDDLESTON. Merely the witnesses?

Mr. GRAHAM. Just the arrangement and order of the witnesses. I also had in mind, Mr. Chairman, which I think is in the mind of the chairman and members of the committee generally, the expediting of this hearing. I can readily see where, if there is not some order, where we will be here for a month taking testimony. I suggested that to Mr. French this morning and I think the chairman can do that better than we can on a hit-or-miss program.

Mr. SHALLENBERGER. I would like to know whether we are to consider all these bills at this hearing or whether we are to consider only those bills having to do with truth in fabrics.

The CHAIRMAN. I believe the committee will come to appreciate, as they go on, that they can handle all of these bills much quicker than if they handled them separately.

Mr. SHALLENBERGER. I wanted to know whether the committee is to vote to consider all these bills.