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price that is being asked is a virgin-wool price or is a price that properly should go with reworked materials.

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The public, as I say, is not generally informed as to whether or not a fabric contains virgin wool or reworked wool or shoddy. You look through your papers that carry the advertisements of woolen goods. to-day; do you find anything that helps you to know? Here is a fabric that is advertised as all wool-warranted all wool." That advertisement may tell the truth absolutely, but it does not tell all the truth. Where it fails of telling the truth is in this: It does not say that that fabric may be made of material that has been worn over and over again, that may have been used in blankets or mattresses time and time again. In other words, the public in purchasing fabrics that are guaranteed as all wool, observation leads me to say, generally accepts the statement that an all-wool fabric is a fabric that is made of wool fresh from the sheep's back.

I have conducted something of an experiment along that line by asking man after man, woman after woman, the question whether or not the person I was talking to would feel that he was being imposed upon when he had been asked to purchase all wool garments, and should find out later that the garment was made of material that had been used over and over again. The only person that I found, as I recall, after a number had been canvassed, who, upon the basis of the guarantee of an article being all wool, would not feel that he had been imposed upon in purchasing it, was some one who is connected with the Military or Naval Establishment of our country, or a member of the family of such a person, where through experience he had learned to ask another question, not, "Is it all wool," but the question, "Is it virgin wool?" "Is it new wool or is it shoddy? Is it reworked material?".

The measure would require the branding or marking by the manufacturer, or if imported, it would impose on the importer the necessity of seeing to it that the goods imported were branded by the foreign producer. The positive information would thus be carried to the local dealer. The responsibility of the latter person, the retail dealer, is limited to the guarantee that he can produce from the wholesaler or the manufacturer from whom he has purchased. That, of course, is proper, because he can not himself know the contents of

the materials.

Here I would like to sum up the provisions of the bill paragraph by paragraph.

Section 1 of the bill defines the measure as "The truth in fabric law."

Section 2 provides that every manufacturer of woven fabrics purporting to contain wool, or of garments or articles of apparel made therefrom, within any Territory of the United States or the District of Columbia, who engages in business in such Territory or the District of Columbia, or who manufactures woven fabrics purporting to contain wool, etc., and who engages in interstate or foreign commerce, shall cause said fabrics to be stamped. A penalty is provided.

Section 3 of the bill provides that the introduction into interstate or foreign commerce of any woven fabric, or any article made therefrom, which is not stamped as required, is prohibited. A penalty is provided.

Section 4 authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Agriculture, and the Secretary of Commerce to make rules for carrying into effect the provisions of the law, including the examinations of specimens of woven fabrics, and also the manufacturing establishment, raw materials, and methods; and the manufacturer's books, and the requiring of reports from manufacturers.

Section 5 provides for the examination of specimens of fabrics, under direction of the Bureau of Chemistry or the Bureau of Standards, which examination is provided for under section 4; it also provides for giving notice to violators of the law, and for the right of appeal to the courts.

Section 6 definies the duty of the United States district attorneys to prosecute for violations of the law.

Section 7 provides that every manufacturer engaged in business to which the act pertains shall have a registration number, obtained from the Department of Commerce.

Section 8 provides that persons not having such registration numbers may not engage in business. There is a penalty provided. Section 9 recites the information to be stamped on the fabrics.

Section 10 provides for marking of garments manufactured from fabrics containing wool.

Section 11 provides that manufacturers of yarn purporting to contain wool shall have a registration number.

Section 12 provides that manufacturers of yarn shall furnish purchasers a statement and guaranty in writing setting forth the contents of the yarn. There is a penalty provided.

Section 13 provides that yarn purporting to contain wool, woven fabrics purporting to contain wool, and garments or articles of apparel made therefrom, which are being imported into the United States, or offered for import, shall, in addition to the other requirements of the act, be accompanied by a written statement or guaranty as to the contents of such yarn, woven fabrics, garments, and articles of apparel. Upon the failure to furnish such written statement or guaranty, the goods may be refused admission to the United States; and if the goods are not withdrawn from the United States within three months after such refusal, they may be destroyed.

Section 14 defines the terms "virgin wool," "shoddy," "cotton,' "silk," and other words and phrases used in the bill.

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Section 15 provides for the exemption from prosecution of retail dealers who may show a guaranty from the manufacturer, jobber, or other person from whom the purchases were made; the penalties revert back to the original person making the guaranty.

Section 16 provides that articles not stamped shall be libeled, and defines the process.

Section 17 contains certain administrative provisions for the enforcement of the law.

Section 18 provides for the cancellation of registration numbers for failure to comply with the law.

Section 19 prescribes when the act shall go into effect.

I have already indicated, in outline, what we propose to do. will now merely touch upon the matter of enforcement.

In the first place, we must recognize that most of our people are not Bolsheviks; most of our people are law-abiding people; they are willing to abide by the law; and the very fact that there is a law

prescribed for everybody to follow will enable the administration of that law to command the general respect of the people of our country. Secondly, we have provided a registration system, by which all people engaged in the business under the law shall have a serial number under one of the departments.

We have provided that the specimens of fabrics, and so on, shall be submitted for examination. We have gone farther than that, and have provided that the different manufacturing plants, their books, and all that has to do with the manufacturing of woolen, or part woolen goods, shall be open to inspection at all times, upon the part of the representative of the Government in enforcing the law. You can go beyond that: The jealousies, the rivalries of the manufacturers themselves; the different organizations looking to truth in fabrics and truth in business, truth in advertising all of those factors will enter in and aid in the enforcement of the law.

The last section of the bill, section 19, provides when the law shall take effect. I want you to notice especially the provisions as to that, because they are important. The law does not assume to limit at all the disposition of any fabrics or materials or goods that are now in existence, or that will be in existence at the time that it is prescribed that the law shall go into effect; but those may be worked off by the individual retailers or wholesalers, so far as that is concerned as they may be able to dispose of them.

You go to a big city and the retail concern there desires to turn over its goods, perhaps every six months or every year; it has special sales and all that sort of thing. You go to the smaller towns throughout the country and a large amount of these goods are in the stores of the merchants and tailors in those towns; and there you will find business men oftentimes who do not see it to their interest to turn their goods over every six months, or every year, but they will hold their goods, perhaps, until the next season and disposed of them then. This bill will permit them to do that. All that will be necessary will be to show that any goods of that kind were on hand prior to the date specified in the act. In other words, the class of goods of that character is, you might say, wedge-shaped; it will pinch out, and without attempting to do any harm, or doing any harm, to the group of people owning the goods now in existence, the goods will gradually be disposed of, and the law will automatically take care of the registration and representation of new goods that may be offered to the people.

There are two or three other points that probably you would like to have me call your attention to in connection with this bill. One question is this: "How do you propose to administer the enforcement of the law?" We provide that every manufacturer or importer shall have a license number. This license number shall be issued by the Secretary of Commerce. We provide that it may be withdrawn when the possessor of the license number abuses his rights or privileges under it. We provide for a system of inspection of the establishments of the manufacturers or producers. That does not mean that an inspector will be placed in every institution in the country, as today you find them in the picking plants of the country; it simply means that when the proper authorities have their attention directed to an institution that seems to be violating the law, an inspector will drop in, just as an inspector drops into a post office now and then to

look over the situation and to see whether or not the postmaster and the clerks there are functioning as they should.

Another question that arises is whether the law is constitutional. I am not going into that question, other than in just an outline way. The members of this committee are familiar with three types of bills. or of laws under the Constitution, that have been held constitutional. First, the type that has to do with interstate commerce where the action or service is constant over a State line. Of course, at once you think of railways, telephones, telegraph lines, pipe lines-institutions of that kind. Second, you think of another type of legislation directed against a crime committed in one State that takes effect in another State, as for instance, the lottery law, the white slave act. Third, you think of a third type of a law directed against a fraud that has had its origin in one State and is perpetrated on somebody in another State. You think at once of the insecticide law, of the pure food and drug law, and other acts of that type.

Congress has attempted legislation along a fourth line, suggested by the child welfare bill that was passed some years ago and declared unconstitutional, where the Congress sought to define what should not be done within a State, under the guise of interstate commerce. The Congress said that products of child labor should not enter into interstate commerce. The court held that the measure was not analogous to any of the three acts that I have indicated, and you plainly see the reason why. Take coal, for instance, produced by child labor. The product of children may not look one whit different from the product of adults. It enters into interstate commerce. No fraud has been committed upon another State or the people of another State. No crime has originated in one State that has found its consummation in another State. And, of course, the child labor measure was not analogous to the railway and interstate traffic laws. The courts declared that the child labor act was not constitutional, while on the other hand, the courts have had no trouble in sustaining the three types of legislation to which I have referred.

This bill, as you will at once recognize, is not analogous to the first, the railway legislation. Or again, it is not analogous to the type that has been declared unconstitutional. It is more analogous to the two types that I have suggested as No. 2 and No. 3. It is especially analogous to the type where you recognize the origin of a fraud in one State and is being carried forward to people in another State, as under the pure food and drug law.

I would like at this point to insert for the convenience of the committee some of the leading cases that have to do with this particular question, if I may, and not burden you with outlining them extensively here.

The CHAIRMAN. Furnish them to the clerk of the committee and they will be inserted.

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LEADING CASES IN WHICH THE INTERSTATE COMMERCE POWERS GRANTED TO

CONGRESS UNDER THE CONSTITUTION ARE CONSIDERED

In the following cases the United States Supreme Court has passed on the constitutionality of the act to regulate commerce and various sections thereof: Louisville & Nashville Railroad v. Mottley. (219 U. S. 467.) Interstate Commerce Commission v. Brimson.

(154 U. S. 447.)

United States v. Delaware & Hudson Co. (213 U. S. 366.)
United States v. Lehigh Valley Railroad Co.

(220 U. S. 257.)

Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad Co. v. United States. (231 U. S. 363.)

Interstate Commerce Commission v. Louisville & Nashville Railroad Co. (227, U. S. 88.)

Interstate Commerce Commission. v. Goodrich Transit Co. (224 U. S. 194.) Kansas City Southern Railway Co. v. United States. (231 U. S. 423.)

The constitutionality of the inspection of records and equipment is considered in the following Supreme Court cases:

United States v. Louisville & Nashville Railroad Co. (236 U. S. 318.) Southern Railway Co. v. United States. (222 U. S., p. 20; safety appliance act.)

The constitutionality of the antitrust act is discussed in the following Supreme Court cases:

(156 U. S., p. 1.)
(221 U. S., p. 1.)

United States v. E. C. Knight Co. Standard Oil Co. v. United States. Federal Trade Commission law: The Federal Supreme Court has considered only one case involving Federal Trade Commission law: 253 United States 421 Federal Trade Commission v. Gratz.

Pure food and drug act: 220 United States 45, Hipolite Egg Co. v. United States.

Lottery laws: 188 United States 321, Champion v. Ames.

White slave law: 227 United States 308, Hoke v. United States; 242 United States 470, Caminetti v. United States.

Child labor law, September 1, 1916: 247 United States 251, Hammer v. United States Attorney.

Mr. FRENCH. In this same connection, it has been asked whether or not it interferes at all with our treaties with foreign countries. True enough we undertake to reach goods imported from foreign countries. It seems to me that one general statement ought to answer that inquiry, and that is this: No treaty with any foreign country guarantees to the people, the producers, whoever they may be, of a foreign country, better conditions than we guarantee to our own people. The favored nation clause is a common clause in That has relation, not to our people, but to people of other countries. Here not only do you not need to consider that clause, but you need merely to ask yourself whether or not we can impose the conditions upon foreigners that we impose upon ourselves.

Then you ask "How are you going to a manufacturer's establishment in Great Britain or elsewhere, and inspect goods?" You can not force an inspection by law. You can limit the importation of the products. The foreign manufacturer has, maybe, millions tied up in his plant, and he invites you to come. He does not say, "No, you can not come, but I desire to send my products to your country." He invites you to come. He wants to have a registration numberhe must be granted it by the Department of Commerce else he can not do business. He does not want that privilege withdrawn. It would give him a bad reputation if it were once granted and then withdrawn. He is going to be scrupulous in the first instance. He is going to have every manufacturer and dealer in this country watching him, in the second instance, and in the third instance, he has the sense of profit developed so that he knows that profit can only come through dealing legitimately under the law, and complying with the law, and if anybody raises the question of his indulging in the mixing of ingredients that ought not to be mixed unless properly branded in fabrics that he produces, he is going to say, "Send your inspector. I want him to come in order that I may establish the fact that I am not guilty of violating your law." The chances are few inspectors would ever be sent because we would say, "If you can not do business so as to be above all criticism, we do not propose to bother with you."

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