Now, all men who work in varnishes know that to attempt an analysis of varnish is out of the question. About a year ago the National Association of Varnish Manufacturers determined to send samples of varnishes made up on formulas which were to be sent to the secretary of the association, and these samples were to be submitted to three chemists not directly interested in the industry, but chemists having a national reputation as knowing oils and varnishes, who stand very high in the profession as organic chemists, gentlemen who have had a great deal of experience in formulating varnishes, and these samples were sent to them, and I submit as an exhibit their reports. You will find that none of them agree; none of them come anywhere within a rational limit of the exact proportions of the ingredients. Many of them find materials which never entered into the varnish, and others do not find materials which ought to have been there. I think this will be conclusive as to the impossibility of analyzing a varnish.

Mr. BARTLETT. What proportion of the material is it that you speak of as being lost?

Mr. FRANK. That varies with the melt of the gum and the treatment of the oil.

Mr. BARTLETT. There is no average?

Mr. FRANK. There is no average. I have tried since last August to get an average of our grades. A certain number of trials will show a certain average, and three days later, under different weather conditions, the same number of tests will show an entirely different result, higher or lower.

STATEMENT OF MR. SIGMUND ZEISLER, OF CHICAGO, ILL.

Mr. ZEISLER. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, the objection to the Marshall bill, so far as the technical features are concerned, has been very fully gone into. into. I desire to call your attention to just two points, which will make perhaps more clear than it has been made heretofore that these objections actually exist under the language of the bill as it is submitted to you. Mr. Marshall this morning disclaimed any intention for his bill to provide a standard of pure paint. He informed you that all that his bill was intended to cover was a requirement of honest labeling. Professor Ladd made the same disclaimer. Professor Ladd stated in plain terms that as he interpreted the bill it was not intended to prevent the sale of any kind of paint, no matter how inferior the ingredients which may have gone into the paint. Permit me to point out to you that no matter what Professor Ladd's interpretation of this bill may be, no matter what Mr. Marshall's intention may have been, the act plainly would make a criminal out of a man who used in his paint any article which might be described as of inferior quality. There is no dispute among men who understand the subject that there are articles of superior quality and there are articles of inferior quality that enter into paints. I am not going to go into a learned disquisition on the subject, so as to show you that sometimes the article which might be called the inferior article is the only article that under the circumstances can be used, and that the superior article can not be used. For instance, you can not use white lead in darkcolored paints, and you must use in those shades of paints barytes or

some of the other pigments that by Professor Ladd would be called inferior articles.

I say I will not go into that discussion, but I will simply state that as a matter of fact there were certain articles which might be agreed upon which would be called inferior. To give an illustration, it might be claimed that benzine is inferior to turpentine, but at the same time there are certain paints in which by reason of the cheapness, and by reason of the fact that the purchaser can not afford a better article, it would be perfectly proper that a part of the fluid turpentine should have substituted for it the inferior article, benzine. However, it has been disclaimed here that there is any intention to prevent any such article from being sold. There is a special provision here requiring a label upon each package of paint, and requiring what that label shall show. You find in section 8 the following language:

SEC. 8. That there shall be shown clearly and distinctly upon the face of the label and in the English language

(a) The name and residence of the manufacturer of the paint, or of the distributer thereof, or of the party for whom the same is manufactured.

(b) There shall be shown in case of dry colors, colors ground in oil, paste or semipaste paint the true net weight, and in all ready-mixed or ready-for-use paints the true measure in gallons or part thereof.

(c) There shall be shown the name and, with substantial accuracy, the percentage of each ingredient, both solid and liquid, contained therein.

It is made punishable by very severe fine and imprisonment to mislabel and misbrand, to make any false claim upon the label or to omit from the label a statement of every ingredient that is present. If that is so, what is the purpose of section 7 of the act? Section 7 reads:

SEC. 7. That for the purpose of this act an article shall be deemed to be adulterated— (a) If any substance be present, other than those mentioned on the label, which cheapens or debases its character or increases its weight or volume without a corresponding increase in value.

This paragraph (a) of section 7 is without any purpose, and it is absolutely meaningless in my opinion, because it does not provide for anything more than that every ingredient shall be named; absolutely nothing else. Then comes paragraph (b) of section 7 which reads:

If any of the materials contained in the article be of inferior quality.

Not of quality inferior to what is claimed on the label; the bill does not so read.

Mr. RICHARDSON. Suppose the bill was amended by the addition there of the words "to that claimed on the label."

Mr. ZEISLER. Then, speaking for the Paint Manufacturers' Association of the United States, I would say we would have no objection. But you can read that section 7 from the beginning to the end and from the end to the beginning backward again, and you will not find any one single word that is claimed to be intended for anything except to prevent dishonest or false labeling. That is what these gentlemen claim. But Mr. Ladd may so interpret it, Doctor Wiley may so interpret it, Mr. Walker may tell us that he so interprets it, all living men who have to do with the interpretation of the law at the present day may tell us that they so interpret it, but this is a government of law and not a government of men, and I do not think we should be compelled to rely upon the interpretation of the present generation of chemists, and we ought to look upon this law in the light

of what the courts will do with it when it gets before them, and there is not a court in Christendom that will not say that this language means that a man is a criminal if he sells paint that contains an article of inferior quality.

Just one other point. To what extent is varnish covered by this: law? You gentlemen have heard that it is utterly impossible to make an analysis of varnish, from the mere fact that no matter what you put into varnish, what comes out of it, as the result of the high degree of heat to which the articles used in the manufacture of varnish are subjected, is something entirely different; the articles undergo chemical changes and there are chemical changes going on after the article is manufactured, and there is evaporation, and so forth and so on. Assuming that varnish can not be analyzed, where are the conditions here that make varnish subject to a great danger from this bill? In the first place, section 6 of the Marshall bill reads:

SEC. 6. The term "paint" as used in this act shall include all pigments, dry or in any kind of oil, or any substance or compound used or intended for use in paint, paste: or semipaste paint, and liquid or mixed paint ready for use.

That means, as I read it and as I fear the courts would read it, any substance which is useable in paint, which is customarily used in paint. Now, varnish is used in a great many varieties of paint. It is used in all enamel paints. Therefore varnish would have to be used, and no matter whether it is intended for paint or whether it is intended to be applied by a cabinetmaker in polishing a piece of fine furniture, it has got to be labeled. You impose an impossible condition upon the varnish manufacturing trade. The provision about varnish is further covered by section 8, paragraph b, which further provides:

(b) There shall be shown in case of dry colors, colors ground in oil, paste or semipaste paint the true net weight, and in all ready-mixed or ready-for-use paints the true measure in gallons or part thereof.

(c) There shall be shown the name and, with substantial accuracy, the percentage of each ingredient, both solid and liquid, contained therein.

(d) When other than chemically pure colors are used the percentage composition thereof shall also be shown, or when varnish, japan, or other driers are used.

That would mean that the paint manufacturer, who has not even made the varnish, but who gets a shipment of varnish from the varnish manufacturer, would be subjected to the necessity of making an analysis which the furniture manufacturer himself can not make. He would have to employ the greatest experts in chemistry, and they could not give reliable analyses, and still you would make him a criminal if he did not upon the label of his paint show the analysis of the varnish. When it comes to japan driers, all that needs to be said is that japan driers do contain varnish. Therefore it is just as impossible to make a correct analysis of japan driers as it is to make an analysis of varnish. As has been said here, and in my opinion truthfully said, the provision requiring analyses of varnish. is an invitation to the perpetration of fraud. There are some substances which go into a varnish which perhaps are not the very best. substances to be used in varnish. It is and would be very simple. for a dishonest man to simply copy the label of the manufacturer who makes the highest class varnish, whose varnish has the greatest reputation. He would make the broadest kind of claim, and there is no possibility of disproving his claim, broadly speaking; there may be in some minor details, but not generally speaking.

STATEMENT OF MR. ORISON B. SMITH, OF J. LEE SMITH & CO.

Mr. SMITH. I am neither a white-lead manufacturer nor a mixedpaint manufacturer. Put that down. I never ground a pound of mixed paint in my life. I sell dry colors to the paint manufacturers. I am here as their Moses, to lead them out of the wilderness of this woeful legislation that threatens them. I appear here first for myself, Orison B. Smith, and here beside me is my son, of the same name. I appear for myself, I appear for the Eastern Paint Manufacturers' Association which comprises the States of Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia, where we stand now, and Maryland and Delaware; and I want to tell you that this speech will go to every hamlet in this broad country wherever the mail can carry it, and the message will go to every little painter as well as to the richest man in our organization, to-night, that I have come here. My name is Orison, and you gentlemen know that Orison means a morning prayer, and my son stands here as another, and we offer this prayer to this committee, and we offer this prayer to the House of Representatives, and notwithstanding that we feel that this bill will never go out of this committee, yet we want this prayer to go to the House of Representatives, to the Senate, to President Roosevelt. I appear here at the risk of my life to-day, but I will dedicate my life this afternoon-I am 60 years of age, and according to Scripture I have but ten years more to live-and if God sees fit to strike me dead before I finish I will leave this legacy to my son, that he shall work for the liberties of the paint trade which has supported me and which has supported him and I hope will support his children.

I have listened to all this talk, and I look around and I see these gentlemen, and I want them to look at me. One of them has just passed out, and as he went I said: "Peters, won't you stop and listen to my speech? I am going to bury the white-lead people. He said: "No; I am in a hurry." I said: "Well, you will read it some day;" and it was suggested to me, as he went out of the room, whether he had been eating a little white lead and had gotten the colic and was feeling badly.

I shall speak first as a member of the Eastern Paint Manufacturers' Association, and that association was organized but a month ago to embrace the New England States, and the principle for which is was organized is the same principle, gentlemen, that actuated those patriots of 1776 when, for an injustice like that which I am here to protest against, they threw overboard the tea rather than do what they considered was not the part of American citizens to submit to. I shall first, before I go further, if you will allow me, answer just a few of the questions that have been asked, and the first one that I will answer will be that of this gentleman; I wish I knew his name (indicating Mr. Richardson).

Mr. RICHARDSON. My name is Mr. Richardson, from Alabama. Mr. SMITH. Richardson, of Alabama. I saw in every question that he asked that he was not one of our legislators that come here to dream of expenses at home, but that he was looking into this condition that this committee has met. (Laughter.)

Mr. RICHARDSON. General, I am very much obliged to you.

Mr. SMITH. I think it is the tribute of an honest man, as I thank God I am. I doubt if there is a man here connected with paint

I

that has not heard of the firm of J. Lee Smith & Co. If there is, I would like him to stand up so that you may see him, as a curiosity. I do not come here, gentlemen, with any constituency behind me. May I ask, violating no confidence of the first vice-president of the white lead company sitting by that door, that he rise and tell what I said to him a few moments ago? You will not? Then I will tell it myself. I said to him: "Lawrence, I hate to bury you to-day, but I am going to make a speech that will do it, and I am sorry, because you are an orator. And at the last meeting I had with you in the office of the white lead company I told you I was going to make that speech; and what did you say to me, Lawrence? Will you stand up and say it? Then I will say it for you. You said, Then, Smith, why don't you burn the speech? Who wants you to give it?" And I said, “I can not do that, as an honest man." would not burn my speech to-day, not if you put $1,000,000 of gold on that table, because I am here to win this fight, that we shall have no legislation that will brand any member of the paint trade of the United States as less honest than people in any other business. He says: "Who do you represent?" I said: "I represent principally the paint army of the United States, whose countersign is, to every man that comes into it, that thanks to Mr. Marshall we have struck that vulnerable part in his bill, that weak spot in the heel of Achilles; for there is no bill, there is no animal so strong, even the Republican elephant or the Democratic donkey, but has a vulnerable part, and your vulnerable part-shall I read it to you, Mr. Marshall, the vulnerable part? I had it by heart as I studied at it 3 o'clock in the morning two weeks ago when I conceived this idea that I would down this legislation in the Congress of this country, that I would prevent any State in the Union from passing any bill for the sale of paint that gave us less liberty than any other association of merchants, I do not care how less weak and miserable than the paint trade of the United States; and I saw your vulnerable part. Let me explain it. This is the legislation that we are here to consider. Take any manufacturer like myself who has a factory that ships 200 barrels, as I often do, in a day. I ship dry paints to protect the houses of the poor people down there in your district in Alabama, Mr. Richardson, from the rain coming in in summer and the snow coming in in winter, and also I import from foreign countries many, many thousand--18,000 or 25,000 barrels of that sort of stuff; and if one of my employees in the factory, thinking of his home and his dinner, thinking of his full wages-I have kept my factory running every day all through this panic out of mercy should neglect to put a damned, mean, miserable label on those 200 barrels of paint, or if that miserable man, an idiot that had just come into the works and very likely would leave the next day, as often happens, should be put on that, and you told this man, possibly an Italian who could not speak English, before these barrels were shipped, "Take these labels and put them on the barrels," and he neglected to do so, what would be the consequences, Mr. Marshall? As I told you, what I am going to say about your bill is to kill it dead. Whatever I have said to you is in the position in which you come here. There is nothing personal, Mr. Marshall, in what I say. There is nothing personal, Mr. Ladd, in what I will say. There is nothing personal to you, Doctor Wiley, in what I will say, or in what I will say to you, honored chairman, of the committee;