Mr. MARSHALL. Personally I do not think the last proviso in that section is necessary.

Mr. RICHARDSON. That would have to go out.

Mr. MANN. Have you examined the so-called Dalzell bill, H. R. 19956?

Mr. MARSHALL. I have the Dalzell bill, but I do not feel competent to speak of the differences between the two bills.

Mr. MANN. I have not examined the bill, but I thought probably you could tell from your standpoint the differences?

Mr. MARSHALL. I believe there are more distinctions than differences. I know something about where the differences come in, but I am in hopes there will be a way of arriving at an understanding whereby many of the objections in my measure can be met; that is, I think some gentlemen feel that this measure of mine is intended to be more drastic than it is intended to be; I think they are more scared at the words than the real meaning of the bill.

Mr. MANN. Do you know whether the Bureau of Chemistry, the Supervising Architect's Office, or the Bureau of Standards of the Government have made any examination of these paints to ascertain whether they are adulterated?

Mr. MARSHALL. I think not, but I do know that our pure food commissioner and State chemist, Professor Ladd, of the Agricultural College of North Dakota, has made a very extensive investigation of paints, and is now carrying on very extensive experiments in the use of paints, subjecting them to all sorts of tests.

I will further say that our State law has been tried out in the Supreme Court, and there is an abundance of very strong evidence to the effect that paints have been and are being adulterated.

Mr. MANN. I would advise you to communicate with Doctor Stratton, the Chief of the Bureau of Standards, who has been making an examination of paint for the Light-House Board during the last year or so, and who has found that nearly all of the paints furnished to the Light-House Board, for which we have paid very high prices, were grossly adulterated. I think it would be a very wise thing to bring him before this committee.

Mr. MARSHALL. I think there is no doubt about that, but I do not myself claim to have any technical knowledge upon this subject. Mr. KENNEDY. This bill does not require that paint shall be made out of certain materials, does not make a standard?

Mr. MARSHALL. No; it does not make a standard. It does not say what shall be pure paint or shall not be pure paint, and when reduced to its lowest terms it simply provides that all paints shall be labeled to plainly tell what they are made of.

Mr. BARTLETT. But suppose the State of Georgia, say, should say that the paint shall be labeled in a different way, then which law shall prevail?

Mr. MARSHALL. I am no lawyer and would not undertake to answer that. Perhaps you know.

Mr. MANN. You say that this bill makes no standard. I think you are not quite correct in that.

Mr. MARSHALL. It goes far enough to make the work of labeling paints absolutely effective.

Mr. RICHARDSON. This bill does not pretend to prevent or prohibit a State from making any law it pleases on the subject of manufacture or sale or anything else?

Mr. MANN. It is provided by section 2 that the introduction into any State of adulterated or unlabeled paint is prohibited, and then in section 7 there is defined what are adulterations. Of course, to that extent you fix the standard.

Mr. MARSHALL. Well, in discussing the proposition, we have to go that far in order to

Mr. MANN. I understand; but to that extent you do fix the standard, because you prohibit the transportation of adulterated paint, and then you define what adulteration is.

Mr. MARSHALL. But our definition is so broad and liberal

Mr. MANN. Yes, I am not arguing that; I don't know anything about that, and that is what we want information on. But you fix the standard of adulteration, and then prohibit the transportation of adulterated paint. Your standard is fixed in this way, quoting from the bill:

(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

That is a very indefinite fixing of standard.

Mr. MANN. And you say, quoting from the bill:

(b) If any of the materials contained in the article be of inferior qualitythat is, if you mix two things they must be of equal quality or else your paint is adulterated. If the pigment and the oil are not of equal qualities, then there is an adulteration under that definition.

Mr. BARTLETT. Will you allow me to inquire if the Supreme Court of the United States has not passed upon the North Dakota paint law? Mr. MARSHALL. Yes; the Supreme Court has passed upon the purepaint law of North Dakota, and it is a very drastic law.

Mr. BARTLETT. And upheld it?

Mr. MARSHALL. And upheld it absolutely.

Mr. RICHARDSON. Do you say that you haven't any standards provided for in this bill?

Mr. MARSHALL. Practically not.

Per

Mr. RICHARDSON. I think that is one of the great defects in the bill. Mr. MARSHALL. I am perfectly willing to have them put in. sonally I would not object to an amendment to that effect.

Mr. RICHARDSON. You do not follow the pure food bill at all in that respect. That bill does not invade any of the rights of a State, but cooperates with the State, and makes the operations of the law more efficient. I think you have left it very uncertain.

Mr. MARSHALL. I agree with you that that should be the law, but I am trying to do something that seems possible.

Mr. RICHARDSON. If that ought to be the law then it ought to be in the bill which you recommend.

Mr. MARSHALL. As I said before, I would be very glad to see it amended now in that respect.

Mr. SHERMAN (Acting Chairman). As I understand it, Mr. Marshall, the State expert of North Dakota is here and desires to be heard next. Mr. MARSHALL. I think it would be well to lay a little foundation for our legislation, and if the committee desires to hear him now, very well.

STATEMENT OF PROF. E. F. LADD, PURE FOOD COMMISSIONER OF NORTH DAKOTA.

Professor LADD. I would say to the committee that we found, after an examination of a majority of the paints sold in North Dakota, that they were both adulterated and misbranded, adulterated in the sense that they represented themselves as being something else; that the products which were sold as containing white lead sometimes contained no white lead whatever, and that the mixed paints, with their constituents labeled as white lead and zinc oxide, did not contain such, and also that paint which had a high standard contained as much as 20 to 24 per cent of water in the liquid portion. We found that the department stores, the catalogue houses, and those manufacturers of cheap paints were coming into the State and flooding it by underselling the good paint, injuring the work of the State and the protection of the building themselves. And so North Dakota undertook to regulate the sale of paint in the State, but they have gone much further than Congressman Marshall has gone in his bill. They have established a standard, and have said that paint of a certain standard need not be labeled, but all other paint must show every ingredient contained in the same, and the law under which that has been done has been sustained by the Supreme Court of the United States. We can enforce that law in North Dakota so far as the products of the State are concerned, and I come here representing the consumer, in whom I am interested, and also as an officer of the State, whose duty it has been to enforce the pure food and paint laws of North Dakota.

In attempting to enforce those laws we have found that we can not reach the catalogue houses and those manufacturers who are making a spurious paint. Sometimes the paint is of such a character that after a few months' time it will completely peel off. That character of paint is shipped into the State directly to the consumer, and we can not reach the regulation of it. A national law would regulate that fault, and enable us to cooperate with the national authorities in the regulation and sale of that class of paints in the States.

As showing you what the character of those paints is, I will hand around a photograph taken nine months after a paint was put on a house, and was a paint handled by one of the catalogue houses.

Mr. RICHARDSON. Please explain what that document is.

Professor LADD. It is an address made by myself upon paint legislation before the Association of Testing Engineers of the United States. I also have here a bulletin which shows the analyses, which is the official document from the North Dakota experiment station, showing the results of our investigations in that State.

Mr. HUBBARD. Have you copies of the North Dakota law?
Professor LADD. Yes.

Mr. HUBBARD. Is it contained in the same bulletin?

Professor LADD. It is not contained in the same bulletin, but this bulletin contains the North Dakota law.

Mr. WANGER. Please give those to the stenographer in order that they may appear in connection with your statement.

Mr. RICHARDSON. Then the difficulty is that when you get outside of the effect of the North Dakota law into other States, you get into trouble?

Professor LADD. Yes, sir. A great many manufacturers endeavor to construe that meaning so far as method of labeling is concerned, and it is very important that the paints shall be truthfully labeled. Sometimes the labels of the paints on the market are as evasive as they can be. For instance, they will say that "this is barium sulphate," but it is quite different in value as a paint whether it is a precipitated barium sulphate or a ground-up stone-barytes. It is also quite different whether it is precipitated calcium carbonate or marble dust or chalk.

Mr. ESCH. You use those technical terms, but I would like to ask how much of that information would be of advantage to a consumer? Professor LADD. It would be no information, as some of the paint men would give the analysis, but we hope that the public will become more educated and come to a better understanding of what the labels should show as to the names of the "ingredients," such names as barytes, white lead, sublimed lead, lead, chalk, and marble-if they put those in, together with water

Mr. MANN. Do they put in much chalk or marble?

Professor LADD. According to our analyses, there is a great deal of it.

Mr. MANN. What value is that to the paint?

Professor LADD. I would not attempt to say. We have a paint, a photograph of which I am passing around, that is made of that class of material, and in nine months the paint scales off, and at the end of a little more than a year there is practically no paint on that section whatever.

Mr. MANN. Because of the chalk and marble, or on account of the oil? What effect does chalk or marble have?

Professor LADD. I would not attempt to say, because the combined effects might be different from the

Mr. MANN. If you do not know, Professor, whether the paint is good or not, how would an ordinary purchaser know anything about it?

Professor LADD. We would not attempt to decide-my idea is this, that when you label it and show what there is in there, and show the names of the ingredients, then the public will become educated the same as it has in food matters in our State, and select a paint upon their experience, taking that paint which will give the best results.

Mr. MANN. I have asked you what chalk and marble do, how they act. You can not tell, and I would ask you how an ordinary purchaser can tell? What good does it do to put this formula on the can? Professor LADD. When you have made a paint of pure white lead there would be no chance for this kind of a fraud.

Mr. RICHARDSON. Under the North Dakota law, as I understand it, a man puts a label upon the paint can, and I would like to ask who is authorized under that law to say that that label is truthful?

Professor LADD. It is the duty of the food commissioner of the State; the duty of the experiment station to appoint an agent whose duty it is to see that the law is enforced.

Mr. RICHARDSON. Do you know of examinations made upon this subject?

Professor LADD. I do.

Mr. RICHARDSON. Have you found anybody practicing fraud?

Professor LADD. In 90 per cent of the examinations there was fraud either in the label or in the name of the constituents entering into the products.

Mr. KENNEDY. I am afraid that your answer, that you do not know of what use chalk and marble are, is a little misstatement of what you intend. You did not mean to express an opinion that those constituents are as good as white lead?

Professor LADD. No; I would rather leave that for others to decide. When you buy a product and suppose that you are buying white lead and you get chalk, you have a product that chemically has a different value with regard to wearing. I do not care to say anything further or to enter into any controversy in regard to these things at this time.

Mr. HUBBARD. Are you able, under the law of North Dakota, to completely protect the purchaser in that State?

Professor LADD. NO.

Mr. HUBBARD. For what reason?

Professor LADD. For the reason that the catalogue houses and the manufacturers of low-grade paints ship directly to the consumer in this way, and we are not able to reach that class of paint.

Mr. HUBBARD. But so far as the purchaser may buy from the regular dealer, you can protect him under the North Dakota law? Professor LADD. Yes; and we do protect him. Every can of paint, so far as I am aware, is labeled.

Mr. RICHARDSON. You want to get a law through Congress that will prevent the men on the outside from sending that paint in, and create a standard on the part of the Government so as to allow the States to cooperate with the Government and have a uniformity in the value of paints?

Professor LADD. Yes; but we do not attempt to create a standard here in this bill. The North Dakota law, however, creates a standard. Mr. RICHARDSON. And that is where I think you fall down. Professor LADD. My idea is that there should be a standard, but I believe if you can not get a whole loaf you had better take two-thirds of it.

Mr. RICHARDSON. But standards are provided in the pure-food law. Professor LADD. The paint manufacturers of the country, through my coming in contact with them, have led me to believe that my views do not harmonize with theirs, and I have therefore stated my views in this way, that if every paint is labeled with its true composition then the public will be educated to understand what the constituents are. On the other hand, if we establish a standard then you can go in and select a paint which is not labeled and get a good

one.

Mr. RICHARDSON. Do you not think that the best way to educate the public is to punish a man who violates a law?

Professor LADD. Yes, sir.

Mr. ADAMSON. All you ask is that the label shall indicate what the contents are, and that the contents shall come up to the description?! Professor LADD. Yes, sir.

Mr. RYAN. If a can has a label on it stating that the paint is composed of white lead and zinc, but instead the manufacturers have put in chalk, then the purchaser is cheated, because chalk is a much cheaper constituent?