be practical and at the same time would afford the public the protection which it was the design of this sort of legislation to afford it. Now, so far as the bill introduced by Mr. Marshall conforms to the provisions of that bill, I certainly am in favor of it, and I speak now as the representative of that organization. The general purpose of Mr. Marshall's bill we are certainly in favor of. In a number of particulars the provisions of Mr. Marshall's bill seem to us to be impractical, and for that reason we would hope for its amendment, but in a general way, in so far as it provides for honest labeling, and so far as its comprehensive covering of all metals and pigments relating to the paint trade is concerned, it is entirely in accord with the bill upon which we have agreed. We fully appreciate Mr. Marshall's interest in the matter and the effort that he made before introducing this bill to acquaint himself with the sentiments of the paint trade. Unfortunately the paint trade did not respond to his invitation for information as generously as it should have done, or, I think, from the very fair disposition he has shown in the matter all along, and from his remarks this morning, the differences between this bill and another bill which I believe is before your committee, which was referred to this morning the Dalzell bill-would have been practically removed. I shall not attempt to point out all of the little points of difference, because there are a great many of them that are more legal than anything else, and they will suggest themselves to you gentlemen in your further consideration of the bill better than I can suggest them; but beginning with section 7, provisions a, b, and c, that is the whole of the section, are impractical from our standpoint. Just the meaning of section "a" I am not quite able to comprehend, but the effect of all of those provisions would be, as some of you gentlemen suggested this morning, to establish a standard or to attempt to establish a standard, or to assume a standard, and I take it there is no disposition to pass a law which is not practical of enforcement, and without a standard being set up by this act, or one already existing, it would seem to us that this matter, which I think conforms quite closely to the language of the pure food and drug act, would not be practical in a paint law. The paragraphs which follow in section 8, while not absolutely identical I think are in the main in accord with the act which we have already favored, with the exception of section d, which includes varnish. There seems to be some difference of opinion to what extent this would compel the labeling of varnish, but while I am not a varnish. manufacturer nor yet a chemist, I am quite confident from what I know of the subject that the analysis of varnish is impractical, at least to the extent of enabling one to prove fraud, and the mere requiring of the label stating the composition of a varnish would be absolutely of no use unless you could prove fraud, in case a fraud had been committed.

Mr. RICHARDSON. Have you gone over paragraph "b" of section 7? Mr. PETERS. Yes, sir.

Mr. RICHARDSON. What definition do you give to this expression "materials contained in the article be of inferior quality?" How do you define "inferior quality?" How are you going to determine about inferior quality?

Mr. PETERS. I say you can not. This assumes a standard. There is no standard.

39885-08- -2

Mr. RICHARDSON. Is it not a fact that there are different jobs of painting that require different characters of paint, some inferior to others? Suppose a man is going to build a barn and wants to paint it, it does not take the same quality of paint as it does to paint a

restaurant?

Mr. PETERS. That depends on how wise a man he is.

Mr. RICHARDSON. Suppose that he is a wise man?

Mr. PETERS. Then he will use as good paint on a barn as on anything else.

Mr. RICHARDSON. Not paint of an inferior quality?

Mr. PETERS. No, sir. Now, the question is, what is an inferior quality?

Mr. RICHARDSON. That is what I want to know of you.

Mr. PETERS. My idea as a paint manufacturer is that pure white lead and pure linseed oil make the very highest quality of paint. Mr. MCCAFFERTY. Now the cat is out of the bag.

Mr. PETERS. There is no cat in the bag.

Mr. MCCAFFERTY. Yes; there is. Are you a practical paint manufacturer, may I inquire?

Mr. SHERMAN. Outsiders will not interfere; proceed with your

statement.

Mr. PETERS. Have I answered your question, Judge?

Mr. RICHARDSON. Yes.

Mr. KENNEDY. He is not the author of the bill.

Mr. RICHARDSON. I understand. I just want to get some information. How are you going to test and find out about the quality of these materials being inferior?

Mr. PETERS. The reason I object to this clause is because I do not think it is practical to find out, unless you set up a standard. Now, if you want to go to the extent of setting up a standard for the purpose of determining what is inferiority in paint, that is another story.

Mr. RICHARDSON. That brings it right back to the first question. In the pure food bill we could very well regulate the standard as to health, but in this matter of a standard of paint, one man will think a paint has an inferior material in it, but some other folks may think that it is not inferior but rather superior, and there is a great difference in the price of paint.

Mr. PETERS. Yes.

Mr. RICHARDSON. And there is a great difference in the use you are going to put a paint to-whether you are going to put it on a house or a barn, or where you are going to use it.

Mr. PETERS. There are different ideas as to value. There are gentlemen who manufacture paints out of much cheaper material than goes into the paints which we sell who regard their paints as fully equal to anything made from linseed oil and white lead. Mr. RICHARDSON. How would you label that?

Mr. PETERS. I would label it just what it is. If a man thinks barytes is better than white lead, he has a perfect right to buy it and use it.

Mr. RICHARDSON. Certainly, a man has a right to buy anything he pleases. If a man wants to buy an inferior paint and use it, he has a right to do so.

Mr. PETERS. I do not say that it is inferior. I say that it is cheaper.

Mr. RICHARDSON. He may buy an inferior grade and use it if he wants to.

Mr. PETERS. A cheaper grade. Possibly it is superior. I will not pretend to say in regard to that. But what I say in regard to this legislation and the purpose of it is that it is to give the consumer, the buyer, an opportunity to know what he is buying and an opportunity to compare, because he can not analyze or tell in any way except by putting his paint on something, and then it is too late to test it.

Mr. RICHARDSON. You can not analyze varnish, can you?
Mr. PETERS. I can not analyze anything, myself.

Mr. RICHARDSON. Is it possible for a chemist to analyze varnish? Mr. PETERS. It is not possible to make an analysis of varnish that really tells anything; but the thing we are asking for in this legislation is a bill that will require honest labeling, and it is up to each manufacturer to prove to the satisfaction of the consumer that the ingredients which he uses in his goods are better than the ingredients which somebody else uses, and it is up to the consumer to say which of these combinations he prefers to have; but unless he has some means of judging of the combination of two things, he has no means of comparing their value.

Mr. RICHARDSON. Then it becomes impractical, as a general proposition?

Mr. PETERS. NO; I think the labels are very practical, because it gives a man an opportunity to compare. He can educate himself. There is no other way he can judge. All cans look alike to the buyer, you know. Two cans of white paint will look alike to the consumer, or to any man who does not investigate or analyze them, and unless the label shows him what is in those two paints, and he can compare them, he has no means of learning their comparative value. Do I make myself clear on that point?

Mr. RICHARDSON. Yes.

Mr. PETERS. In the main, those are the objections, the criticisms, that I have to Mr. Marshall's bill. The bill which we adopted at Cincinnati, which we agreed upon at Philadelphia, and which was indorsed by my convention at Cincinnati, is practically identical with this other bill which is before you.

Mr. SHERMAN. The bill introduced by Mr. Dalzell?

Mr. PETERS. Yes, sir; by Mr. Dalzell, and now in saying that I favor the Marshall bill I want to be understood as favoring it as a general proposition, and if that general proposition could be made more specifically to conform to the terms of the Dalzell bill, it would exactly meet the views of the association that I represent.

Mr. SHERMAN. You mean, then, that you favor legislation, and that you favor legislation as laid down in the Dalzell bill rather than as laid down in the Marshall bill?

Mr. PETERS. The Dalzell bill lays it down more perfectly and clearly, from our standpoint, and to the extent that the two agree we are in favor of both of them; but there is very little in the Dalzell bill to which I could find objection. There are one or two minor clauses that I will point out to the committee in a letter, later on, giving it more detailed consideration; but I simply wanted to put my opinion on record favoring paint legislation in the direction of honest paints. I thank you, gentlemen.

Mr. Escн. The third provision of section 8, on page 7 of the bill introduced by Mr. Marshall, provides as follows:

Third. If in package form and the contents are not stated plainly and correctly in terms of net weight or measure on the outside of the package.

A similar provision was stricken out of the pure-food bill, the theory being that while the canner might put in full weight and measure at the time of canning, owing to leakage or evaporation, or some other cause, it would not hold its measure, and therefore the canner ought not to be put under penalty on account of that fact. Is there a like leakage possible in the case of paint?

Mr. PETERS. There is none that I know of in the case of canned paints. In the case of paints put up in wood there is likely to be a soakage, which would not affect the gross weight, but would affect the net weight of the package, or rather of its contents.

Mr. SHERMAN. The idea was that the can was sold as a can of the size that the ordinary housewife had become accustomed to, in the case of foods, rather than as a package which contained any specific quantity, either in measure or in weight.

Mr. EscH. My understanding of one of the provisions, whether it was the one you had stricken out or not I do not know, was that it required the weight or quantity to be stated, and if that were done, and there was any falling off from that, there would be liability. Mr. SHERMAN. Yes.

Mr. EscH. Now, I want to know whether a simliar rule is going to be applied to paints.

Mr. ADAMSON. I remember voting to strike that out, but I voted and thought the others voted to strike it out, because it was not any of the business of Congress to go around teaching morals to people about quantity and weight.

Mr. SHERMAN. No; the can of vegetables or fruit, or whatever it might be, was not labeled a 1-pound can, but in commercial parlance it had gotten to be called a 1 or 2 or 3 pound can and so was labeled, and the contention was that the ordinary purchaser was accustomed to purchase a can of beets or a can of pumpkins or a can of tomatoes and had no thought whether it was a pound can or a 14-ounce can or a 20-ounce can; that she or he was accustomed to a can of that particular size, and that there was no attempt to deceive, and in fact there was no deception practiced at all.

Mr. ADAMSON. Îf you continue to pile upon Congress the business of Sunday schools and police courts in little matters like this, we will become so clogged that the machine will stop without any filibustering at all.

Mr. Escн. Then you say that there would be some change in weight; there would be soakage?

Mr. PETERS. That would not change the gross weight of the package. Some of the oil and perhaps other ingredients would soak into the wood, but they would be in the wood, and while the whole package would weigh the same there would be a difference in the net weight of the contents. But concerning that, there are other gentlemen engaged in the business of mixing paints who are here, and they can tell you better about that than I can.

Mr. MARSHALL. Mr. Chairman, I think there are a number of gentlemen here whom I do not know who would like to go on record by making a brief statement that they favor paint legislation.

Mr. SHERMAN. What is the use of wasting our time by having people simply stand up here before us and say that they are in favor of certain legislation. If they have any arguments to advance why this legislation should or should not be enacted, we will be glad to hear them.

Mr. MARSHALL. Very well; I presume they have arguments to go with their sentiment. These people evidently came here for something, and if they desire to be heard I would like to have them heard. Mr. SHERMAN. Who desires to be heard in favor of the Marshall bill first?

Mr. ADAMSON. Or on the general proposition to have Congress attend to painting your houses for you?

Mr. SHERMAN. If there is no one else to be heard in favor of the bill, who desires to be heard in opposition to the Marshall bill, and for whom do they speak?

Mr. ORISON B. SMITH. I represent the Eastern Paint Manufacturers' Association, which comprises a number of States in the East, all the way down from Maine, and then I represent another organization, the most important of all.

Mr. SHERMAN. What is that?

Mr. ORISON B. SMITH. I am major-general commanding the paint army of America.

Mr. H. A. STERN. I represent here the Paint Manufacturers' Association of the United States, which comprises the main national distributors who do business throughout the country, and enough small ones to constitute about 100 manufacturers. We are not here to oppose Federal legislation. We simply want to point to a couple of the features of the bill. We have several gentlemen who would like to be heard in an order subject to your approval. I also speak for the national varnish manufacturers in the same way.

Mr. GEORGE L. GOULD. I am president of the National Paint, Oil, and Varnish Association, and I would like to speak briefly a little later on, at your pleasure, in regard to this, and also as a jobber and manufacturer.

Mr. SHERMAN. Is that the same association for which Mr. Stern speaks?

Mr. GOULD. No, sir, Mr. Peters. Mr. Peters is chairman of the legislative committee.

Mr. STERN. These names are confused. I speak for the National Varnish Manufacturers' Association, and for the Paint Manufacturers' Association of the United States. Those are both manufacturing associations. Mr. Gould's association is the same as that of Mr. Peters, which is a distributing association of jobbers.

Mr. ARTHUR S. SOMERS. I represent the eastern paint manufacturers and the dry-color manufacturers.

Mr. SHERMAN. Is that the same association that Mr. Smith speaks for?

Mr. SOMERS. Yes, sir.

Mr. JOHN DEWAR. I speak for the National Association of Master House Painters of the United States, and incidentally the people. Mr. SHERMAN. You are opposed to the Marshall bill?

Mr. DEWAR. I am opposed to the Marshall bill so far as it relates to standards.