Professor LADD. Much cheaper, and in the view of the consumer, some believe that it is not of the same wearing value.

Mr. RYAN. So that as to the question of value he is selling something of less value than represented?

Professor LADD. Yes; only worth a fraction of a cent, while he is paying 7 or 8 cents for it.

Mr. ADAMSON. That is, chalk is not so valuable when mixed in paint as is white lead?

Professor LADD. Not in my judgment.

Mr. ADAMSON. Is it of any account at all for that purpose?

Professor LADD. Some claim that it is and others that it is not. When my experiments are finished, in a few years time, I will be better able to judge.

Mr. ESCH. Would the placing of the names of the ingredients on a package disclose the formula?

Professor LADD. Not necessarily at all.

Mr. RUSSELL. Do you know what proportion is shipped in your State from the catalogue houses, and direct to the consumer?

Professor LADD. The amount shipped by the catalogue houses at the present time is small compared to what it was two years ago. We have not got the public educated up yet, but I should say that in the rural sections pretty nearly one-fourth of the paint two years ago was bought through department stores and catalogue houses.

Mr. RUSSELL. Will not they become educated by seeing that the paint is more durable, lasting, and better than the paint received from the catalogue houses?

He then

Professor LADD. A man buys a cheap paint, puts it on his house, and at the end of six months or a year it begins to peel off. decides that he will buy a good paint and put it on over that paint, but his good paint will not stay on, and then he says that the new paint is no better than the old paint, and he does not know where the difference lies.

Mr. ADAMSON. I have noticed in a good many country papers that there is an advertising device resorted to in making great claims in regard to certain paint companies. I suppose that is an indication of the kind of business you are refering to?

Professor LADD. Yes; I published the names of some of those men, and their advertisement, together with what they claim, and what, by the analyses, has been found in the paint.

Mr. RICHARDSON. In our section of the country there is a man by the name of Devoe who has addressed a letter to prominent men all through that section, and which has been published in the newspapers.. Is he one of them?

Professor LADD. I do not know the workings of all of them, but I refer to Chase, Parker, and the Weir White Lead Company as being those who advertise very extensively in some of the leading journals and whose paints did not agree with what they claimed in their advertisements. They state that the white lead contained in their paint is produced by the Dutch process of corroding, but when you come to analyze the paint there is not any white lead in it.

Mr. ADAMSON. When you see one of those paints advertised, it is a good idea to keep away from it?

Professor LADD. That is true.

Mr. RYAN. I see by reference to this report of the North Dakota Agricultural College, station No. 126, that reference is made to "United States white lead is good white lead;" then it states that after the analysis the product was shown to be 12 per cent short in weight, and the statement is made that the United States white lead contains no white lead whatever, and to call it white lead is, to say the least, a misnomer.

Professor LADD. Yes.

Mr. ADAMSON. I would like to ask you this question: Is there any better way to get an economical paint than to get the best white lead, mix it with oil, and put it on?

Professor LADD. I am afraid you will get me in trouble in time. There are differences of opinion on that, but I have my own opinion. Mr. MANN. Then why do you not give us your own opinion? What are you here for if it is not to give us your opinion?

Professor LADD. I have been a buyer of mixed paints and have used them on my own house. The first paint used did splendidly, but the second time, on repainting my house with the same manufacturer's paint, it proved inferior; and I think that sometimes a paint that is put on the first time will show well, and that that particular kind of paint does not leave a good surface, or a good condition, for the next paint, and you blame the next paint.

Mr. MANN. But you appear as an expert on paints, do you not? Professor LADD. With regard to the analysis of paints.

Mr. MANN. Is your opinion based only upon the fact that you have used paint on your own house, the same as millions of other men have? Professor LADD. No, sir. We have carried on a large series of experiments during the past year, and we have made many tests of paint during the last two years, during which time we have built testing fences aggregating in all 375 feet in length, and each of those sections, 5 feet high and 5 feet in length on each side, cover the four types of lumber. Upon that we have put the paints and tested them, and we have analyzed hundreds of paints. We have painted new houses and old houses, and we have repainted them. We have painted the mill buildings at the Agricultural College and the large armory, some of these buildings containing eight or ten different makes of paint upon the same building, and we have made at the college a large number of analyses.

Mr. MANN. Having done all that, are you prepared to express an opinion in reference to the purity of the paints, or the comparative value of paints, mixed or otherwise?

Professor LADD. I will say that I would condemn the use of water in any paint. I have seen paints with some 20 to 30 per cent of water in them, and it has no business in there. Further than that, I believe that benzine and benzine products do not have an equal value with turpentine, but there are others who differ with me upon that point.

Mr. ADAMSON. You haven't any confidence in any mixed paint unless it is made of lead and oil?

Professor LADD. No, sir; in the first place, the standard of North Dakota is white lead and zinc, and mixtures of those two, but it does not specify what proportions. But if you substitute anything else you must show what it is, because the public have been educated by the manufacturers of paint and by the advertisements, up to the fact

that white lead and zinc are the bases of the best paint, but there are manufacturers of paint on the market who advertise their best paint as containing white lead and zinc in the first grade, but do not say what are in the next grades.

Mr. MANN. Now, you have eliminated water and condemned benzine.

• Professor LADD. I do not believe that all grades of marble are the equal of precipitated chalk, though they are both about the same composition. I do not believe that paint made of precipitated calcium carbonate is a good paint.

Mr. MANN. Anything else?

Professor LADD. I think there are some paints sold by catalogue houses and department stores that are but little better than clay that can be taken out of claybanks and ground up and prepared and put on the houses, nothing more than what might properly be termed, under those conditions, mud and water.

Mr. MANN. How about the character of oil that is used?

Professor LADD. The oil used in quality is not as bad as has been at times represented. Much of the oil in the paint has been prepared properly, ripened, and matured. There are oils made from green seed perhaps, which are inferior in quality. But I will say so far as oil is concerned, that we have not had the trouble that we have had with the other ingredients.

Mr. MARSHALL. I have a letter from a stranger who states that the refuse from oil refineries is shipped to New Orleans, and made into an imitation of linseed oil, and he goes so far as to say that there is little if any linseed oil in the preparation.

Professor LADD. I know very little of that.

Mr. BARTLETT. Is there not a National White Lead Company, known as the "white lead trust?"

Professor LADD. There is a National Lead Company.

Mr. BARTLETT. And called the "white lead trust?"

Professor LADD. I have heard that name applied to it.

Mr. BARTLETT. You do not know where its principal office is?
Professor LADD. I think it is in New York.

Mr. BARTLETT. They claim to sell pure white lead altogether, do they not?

Professor LADD. That is the product they claim to sell in North Dakota.

Mr. RUSSELL. Have you any manufacturers in North Dakota?
Professor LADD. No, sir; we have not.

Mr. BARTLETT. The white lead trust is very much agitated in regard to this bill?

Professor LADD. That I could not say.

Mr. BARTLETT. They have not manifested any interest in it that you know of?

Professor LADD. I see that there is a representative of the company here.

Mr. SHERMAN. You are the author of this bill, are you not?
Professor LADD. Of this bill?

Mr. SHERMAN. Yes; the so-called Marshall bill?

Professor LADD. No, sir; I can not say that I am. I consulted with Mr. Marshall, or he with me, in regard to some of the features of it.

Mr. SHERMAN. But you would not go so far as to say that the author of the bill?

you are Professor LADD. I gave suggestions to Mr. Marshall and assisted him so far as I could.

Mr. ADAMSON. You do not have to daddy anything just to show a Congressman how to do it?

Professor LADD. No, sir.

Mr. MARSHALL. I will say very frankly that I availed myself of his assistance and also that of the Bureau of Chemistry.

Mr. SHERMAN. It seems to me that somebody ought to explain the bill more in detail, section by section, than has been done.

Mr. MARSHALL. Then I would say that there is no one in the United States better able to do it than Professor Ladd.

Mr. MANN. Before the final hearings are finished I want to have Doctor Stratton, of the Bureau of Standards, heard.

Mr. MARSHALL. I do, too; I would like very much to have Professor Stratton heard.

Adjourned at 11.30 a. m. to meet again at 2 o'clock p. m.

COMMITTEE ON INTERSTATE AND FOREIGN COMMERCE, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Tuesday, April 7, 1908. The committee met at 2 o'clock p. m., Hon. Irving P. Wanger in the chair.

Mr. MARSHALL. Mr. Chairman, about the time the committee took a recess Mr. Sherman suggested that there ought to be some agreement about the time of these hearings and about the division of the time. Two of these gentlemen have already been heard, and I spoke briefly, and of course that time ought to be deducted from the time of those favoring the bill.

Mr. WANGER. My experience has been that it is impracticable to indicate in advance how much time will be accorded or will be required.

Mr. MARSHALL. Very well.

Mr. WANGER. If you are not interrupted with questions, you will get through in a very few minutes; but if questions are asked, you will consume a great deal of time. Let the friends of the bill proceed to their satisfaction.

(At this point Mr. Sherman entered the committee room and assumed the chair.)

Mr. SHERMAN. I do not think we are inclined to limit you. Whoever you wish to be heard next, let him proceed.

STATEMENT OF MR. P. H. WALKER.

Mr. WALKER. Mr. Chairman, I have really nothing to say in regard to this bill. I did not expect to be called upon. I simply wish to state that from my work in the Bureau of Chemistry in the Department of Agriculture I am very much in favor of a paint law, and I think the Department is of a paint law, however, which is along the lines of this bill and not along the lines of drawing up special standards. I think the gist of Mr. Marshall's bill is honest labeling,

and as I understand the bill, that is really all that is there. We simply wish the manufacturer to state what he is selling, no more and no less. We do not want to tell him what he shall sell or how he shall advertise his goods, but we simply want that he shall state on the label what is in the can, and how much. We have made some little examination of paints and have reported, and we find all kinds of results. We also made some little examination of paints that are bought in the open market, and find to a very great extent that cans of paint are, among other things, short in weight and short in measure. It is rare in our experience that a can of paint which says on the label that it contains a pound, contains 16 ounces of material, or if it says that it contains a gallon, that it contains a full gallon. Also a number of samples are absolutely falsely labeled. That is really all I have to say on the subject, unless there are some questions asked, which I will be glad to answer to the best of my ability.

Mr. SHERMAN. Your position is that you desire to prevent deceit, that is all?

Mr. WALKER. That is the whole position.

Mr. SHERMAN. You are not advocating the establishment of standards?

Mr. WALKER. I am not advocating any particular kind of paint. Mr. SHERMAN. Very good.

Mr. MARSHALL. Mr. Peters is here. I this morning spoke of him inadvertently as being in favor of this measure. Perhaps I ought to say that Mr. Peters is in favor of paint legislation along the lines of this bill. Am I right?

Mr. PETERS. Quite so, sir.

Mr. MARSHALL. I would like to have him heard at this time.

Mr. SHERMAN. Do you think ten or fifteen minutes would be about, what you want?

Mr. PETERS. Yes, sir; I think so.

STATEMENT OF MR. JOHN M. PETERS, OF NEW YORK.

Mr. PETERS. I appear as the representative of the National Paint, Oil, and Varnish Association, being chairman of the legislative committee of that organization. That organization is a federation of local clubs in some 16 or 17 different cities of the country, and has a membership of about 700. That membership includes paint manufacturers, manufacturers of lead, manufacturers of oil, dealers in all of those products and manufactures of collateral lines. To say that there was absolute unanimity in that organization concerning legislation would probably be a case of misbranding within the meaning of this act, but the organization at its last convention passed resolutions instructing its legislative committee to favor legislation, if legislation was to be enacted, along the lines of a conference bill which was agreed upon at a conference of committees from that association, the Paint Manufacturers' Association, and the Association of Master House Painters and Decorators, in May last.

The possibility of legislation of a general sort having become sufficiently apparent at that time, those three organizations got together for the purpose of agreeing upon a bill which would in their minds