SUBCOMMITTEE ON INVESTIGATION OF FOOD STORAGE AND PRICES REPORT OF HEARINGS ON H. R. 16925 TO REGULATE THE STORAGE OF FOOD PART I STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES WILSON Secretary of Agriculture JANUARY 24, 1910 Printed for use of the Committee WASHINGTON GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE mittee would like, I presume, before you depart, to ask a few questions, but the purpose of our asking you here was, first, to have you make a statement in your own way covering this problem, vast as it is, as tersely as you can, so that it might form a basis for future inquiry. If you please, we will let you go on now as you see fit. Secretary WILSON. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I had no idea what you wanted. I supposed perhaps you were going to set out to do what none of the rest of us can do. We can get facts with regard to meats on the farm, with regard to the movement of meats to the markets, and the packing and wholesaling and distribution by the retailer; we can get those things. But there is one thing we can not get. We do not know what the cause of the high retail price is. You represent, for instance, Congress for the District of Columbia. We do not know why the people of the District of Columbia on the average should pay 42 per cent profit to the man who cuts and distributes the carcass of meat. We do not know whether it comes about naturally or not. But you take your basket on your arm and go to buy a cut of meat anywhere in this District, and you pay the same price at every place. That possibly may be natural. I have an idea that you could inquire and find out about it. We can not. Nobody else can. You can. You have the power of Congress behind you, and you have the power over the persons; you have power |