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 Suffice it to say that this enactment is comprehencive enough to make it effective without making it burdensome to the honest producer.

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

the manufacturer of automobile tires should stamp on the tire what proportion of the rubber used was scrap rubber and what proportion was crude rubber, and that the foundry men should designate on each casting made how much new metal and how much scrap metal has been used."

It is only because remelting and recasting metal does not appreciably impair the physical properties of the metal that foundry men should not designate on each casting made how much new metal and how much scrap metal had been used.

Reworking wool, however, does impair the physical properties of the wool fiber. Reworked wool never can equal in worth the virgin wool from which it is reworked. Shoddy is reworked over and over again, as many as six or eight, or even more times, losing strength, life, resiliency, and worth with each reworking, and it is because this is true, and to protect the purchaser against those who would charge virgin wool prices for shoddy, that the protection of the public demands that the presence of shoddy in cloth and clothes shall be made known.

This principle of protecting the public in connection with automobile tires has already been recognized and advocated in an opinion handed down by the Federal Trade Commission within the past year.

The following is quoted from a press item which appeared in a daily paper in connection with this decision of the Federal Trade Commission:

"A decision of the Federal Trade Commission made recently in an automobile-tire case was that no matter what the quality of a remade automobile tire was, it could not be sold as a plain automobile tire. It must be sold as a remade tire. The assumption of the purchaser when buying an automobile tire, it was stated, was that he was buying a new tire unless he knew definitely otherwise.

"Therefore, the commission decided, remade automobile tires must be sold as remade tires.

"The question of the wearing and other qualities of the remade tire was not the deciding point in this case.

"The general position of the commission in its decisions has been, not what the trade knows of a certain thing, but what the public thinks it is buying when it purchases an article.

"Those familiar with the textile industries, wool, silk, and cotton manufacturing men's and women's clothes of all kinds, can call to mind scores of instances in which this attitude does not coincide with present practices which are so largely practiced as to be general.'

The manufacturer of paper does not parallel the case of wool in any way, shape, or form that has to do with the protection of the public, because it is the fact that the public understands the term "all wool" to mean wool that has never previously been used in cloth-whereas even the most inferior shoddy may be all wool-that has resulted in shoddy's making of the term "all wool" an alias under which shoddy passes for virgin wool.

Mr. Haskins states: "The cloth manufacturer, through the very process of turning the shoddy into cloth, is in a position to know exactly what class and grade of material he is buying from the shoddy manufacturer."

But Mr. Haskins says: "The deception, if any, is with the clothing manufacturer or the retail dealer."

Please note how Mr. Haskins would thus absolve the fabric manufacturer from guilt and would make it appear that it is the retailer and the clothing manufacturer upon whom guilt for whatever there may be of deception should rest.

Retailers, with few exceptions, are under existing conditions kept in ignorance of whether or not fabrics contain shoddy.

It is also a fact that many clothing manufacturers do not know when fabrics contain shoddy.

Therefore, retailers, with few exceptions, and many, if not most clothing manufacturers, are, like the public, deprived of their right to know when fabrics contain shoddy and are thus deprived of their right to choose between shoddy and virgin wool. Failure of the fabric manufacturer to state when fabrics contain shoddy enables the fabric manufacturer to force the sale of shoddy whether the purchaser wishes to buy it or not, and enables the fabric manufacturer to secure virgin wool prices for shoddy. The prices at which fabrics and clothes containing shoddy are sold can be obtained only because the purchaser believes that it is virgin wool that is being purchased.

Failure to fully grasp the magnitude of the wrong which the unrevealed presence of shoddy inflicts results, to a considerable extent, from the erroneous idea that even fabric manufacturers who charge an unjust price for shoddy-a price that they could not secure if the purchaser knew he was purchasing shoddy instead of virgin woolproduce so slight an effect on the price to the ultimate consumer as to be a negligible quantity.

It is popularly supposed that even if this unjust price charged by the fabric manufacturer amounted to say about $5 on a suit length of cloth, this amount, especially at prevailing prices, would not seem very large to the public, and if clothing manufacturers and retailers did not also overcharge, the mere fact of the fabric manufacturer's overcharging would not, after all, be so terribly serious.

The fact of the matter is, however, that even if the retailer and the clothing manufacturer did not add one penny to the unjust charge, but only added their legitimate percentage of mark-up-a percentage necessary in order to ensure them a net profit necessary to continue in business, yet, the unjust charge by the fabric manufacturer of $5 on a suit length would, by the time it reached the public, have increased more than 100 per cent.

In order to illustrate just how this results, we will take a concrete illustration. In the case of ready-to-wear apparel, the fabric manufacturer sells the fabric to the clothing manufacturer, who, in turn, sells to the retailer, who, in turn, sells to the public.

In the case of custom-made apparel, the same number of steps follows, but in that case the fabric manufacturer sells to the wholesale cloth merchant, who, in turn, sells to the retail custom tailor, who, in turn, sells to the public.

In order to simplify the illustration and divest it of the added elements, such as cost for cutting and making the garment, for trimmings, etc., which would necessarily enter in, in case of the ready-to-wear garment:

Therefore, we will divest the illustration of all these added elements incidental to the ready-to-wear apparel, by choosing as our illustration the case of the custom tailor who retails to the public.

In this case, the retail custom tailor purchases the cloth from the wholesale cloth merchant, who, in turn, purchases the cloth from the fabric manufacturer.

We will take as the basis of our illustration a suit length comprising 3 yards of cloth. This cloth we will say is an all-wool woolen fabric, but while it is all wool, it contains 80 per cent of shoddy, and because it contains 80 per cent of shoddy, which has cost the fabric manufacturer much less than virgin wool would have cost, the fabric manufacturer could afford to sell this cloth to the wholesale cloth merchant at $10 for the 34 yards.

At this price, the fabric manufacturer, we would say, would make a legitimate and sufficient profit.

The fabric manufacturer, however, permits the wholesale cloth merchant to believe that this all-wool woolen suit length is made exclusively of virgin wool, and because he permits the wholesale merchant to believe this, he secures from the wholesale merchant $15 for the suit length, instead of $10, the legitimate price, which is all the cloth merchant would have paid had he known that the cloth contained 80 per cent of shoddy.

Now, we will use precisely the same percentage of markup on both prices, namely, the $10 price, which would have been the legitimate price, and the $15 price, which is $5 more than is just, and by using precisely the same percentage of markup on both of these initial costs, the one, the legitimate cost of $10, and the other, the unjust cost of $15, we will follow it through to the public, and note how the original unjust charge of $5 by the fabric manufacturer pyramids until even without any profiteering on the part of either the wholesale merchant or the retailer, the unjust price will, by the time it reaches the public, have more than doubled.

Let us say that the overhead charge, including rent, lighting, insurance, salesmen, salaries, expense of office force, etc., make it necessary that the percentage of markup of both the wholesale merchant and the retailer shall be at least 60 per cent in order to insure a legitimate net profit that will enable the retail and wholesale merchant to stay in business.

The following table shows how the case works out:

TABLE.

Showing how the fabric manufacturer by failing to tell the wholesale merchant to whom he sells the fabric that the fabric contains shoddy, is able to secure from wholesale cloth merchant the unjust price of $15 for an all-wool woolen suit length of 34 yards, containing 80 per cent of shoddy, which, because it contains 80 per cent of shoddy, instead of being all virgin wocl, the fabric manufacturer could have profitably sold for $10, and for which the wholesale cloth merchant would not have paid more than $10 had he known that the cloth was 80 per cent of shoddy.

Also showing how, without any profiteering on the part of the wholesale cloth merchant or the retail merchant, the unjust price of $5 charged by the fabric manufacturer more than doubles by the time the public is reached.

Please note that the same percentage of markup, 60 per cent, is used in the case of both basic prices on which computations are made, namely:

1. The fabric manufacturer's price of $10, which is the legitimate price he should have charged the wholesaler.

2. Fifteen dollars, the unjust price, which he was able to secure because he permitted the wholesaler to believe the fabric was made exclusively of virgin wool.

ALL-WOOL WOOLEN SUIT LENGTH CONTAINING 80 PER CENT SHODDY..

It is fatuous and futile for the shoddy interests and adherents to attempt to place on the retailer and wholesaler or clothing manufacturer blame that rests squarely on the shoulders of those fabric manufacturers who permit purchasers to believe that fabrics containing shoddy are made exclusively of virgin wool.

The unrevealed presence of shoddy in fabrics, because it enables fabric manufacturers who so desire to secure virgin wool prices for shoddy, places a tremendous premium on the use of shoddy by fabric manufacturers and discourages the use of virgin wool.

The unrevealed presence of shoddy in fabrics also places tremendous power in the hands of fabric manufacturers a power that belongs to the people-the power to determine how much virgin wool shall be used, and at what price it shall be sold.

It is the people's right to choose between virgin wool and shoddy, and it is the people's power by the natural operation of the law of supply and demand, to determine the price of virgin wool and shoddy.

Permitting fabric manufacturers to sell fabrics containing shoddy without making its presence known permits fabric manufacturers to arrogate to themselves the power which belongs to the people and enables fabric manufacturers to divert the people's demand for virgin wool from the wool growers to the shoddy and rag industries.

Here we have a clue to the reason why the rag industry for which Mr. Haskins speaks seeks to absolve the fabric manufacturer and to place whatever blame there may be upon the retailer and the clothing manufacturer.

It is perfectly apparent why the rag industries and the shoddy industries do not want fabric manufacturers to be made to relinquish the people's power, which some fabric manufacturers have arrogated to themselves.

So long as fabric manufacturers are permitted to exercise this autocratic power and force the purchaser to purchase shoddy and to pay virgin wool prices for shoddy-the rag and shoddy industries will continue to be able to gorge themselves on the rights of the people and the life blood of sheep husbandry.

In other branches of business and industry the producer and the manufacturer not only have to make a meritorious article, but he has to convince the public of the article's merit.

Under existing conditions, however, the rag and shoddy industries do not have to do this, because the people are forced by the fabric manufacturer to buy shoddy whether they want to or not, and, of course, the rag and shoddy industries are anxious that the fabric manufacturers shall retain these powers.

When fabric manufacturers are forced to relinquish these unjust powers, and when the people are permitted to exercise their right to choose between virgin wool and shoddy, then the rag and shoddy industries, like other industries, will have to convince the public of the merit of their product the same as every other manufacturer has to do, where the people are permitted to exercise their rights, and the law of supply and demand is permitted to operate.

The oleomargarine manufacturer "now" has to convince the public of the merits of oleomargarine before he can sell his product.

Even the manufacturers of fertilizers are required to state truthfully the contents of their product and must convince the purchaser of its merit in order to make the sale. Secretary Lane, in his annual report, recommends that the people shall also have this same protection in the case of coal.

What fair-minded man is there who will say that 100,000,000 people in the United States should be deprived of their right to choose between shoddy and virgin wool and should be forced to pay the price of virgin wool for shoddy in order that the rag and shoddy industries can sell their product without having, like other manufacturers, to take the trouble to convince the people of the merit of their product? Those who oppose protecting the public by making it compulsory to distinguish between shoddy and virgin wool seek to establish the "alleged" point that the best shoddy may be better than the poorest virgin wool.

But those who seek to make this point fail to state the fact that when the best quality of shoddy is used, such shoddy is not used in place of the poorer qualities of virgin wool, but is used in fabrics in which the purchaser has the right to expect not only virgin wool but the choicest of virgin wool.

They also fail to state the fact that the reason that the shoddy is used is because it costs the fabric manufacturer so much less than would the virgin wool from which the purchaser has a right to expect the fabric to be made.

They also fail to state that while the shoddy costs the fabric manufacturer so much less, yet the virgin wool price is secured from the purchaser.

* *

We quote from a Boston publication known as Fiber and Fabric, issue of October 4, 1919: in some of the most fashionable imported goods that our so-called exclusive dressers must have the shoddy content is greater than virgin wool.