fruit. When sugar or any saccharine substance gets into any of these commodities displayed here, it makes little difference, approximately speaking, whether it is sucrose or dextrose, for in the process of manufacturing and contact with the acids of fruit it goes to the consumer not wholly but very largely in the form of dextrose or levulose.

The intent of the food and drugs act is to convey to the consumer information, not necessarily what goes into the article, but what substances are present at the time of purchase. After the chemical changes have taken place, after the contact with acids and the chemical reaction, sugar comes to the consumer as dextrose or levulose, not wholly but in large part.

That brings me to the question of the slight discrepancy in the House bill, in that it specifies the labels must contain the information whether the product is sweetened with corn sugar, sweetened with beet sugar, or sweetened with cane sugar. The public has come to the point of view, although it is not in the food and drugs act, that whatever is designated on the label other than the main content is malnutritious, poisonous, or deleterious in some way or another. Let me be frank and say such language is not in the pure food and drugs act, but by administration and by public acceptance whatever is put on the label other than the main name is thought to guard the public against harm.

Section 3 of the House bill, to my mind, has somewhat changed the administration of the food and drugs act, because the public has been warned against deleterious ingredients in food heretofore. Why put on the label helpful and wholesome ingredients, like corn sugar, beet sugar, or cane sugar, and lead the public to believe they are not wholesome? The public does not want to know whether corn sugar or cane sugar or beet sugar is used in the preparation of the article. It wants to know if any unwholesome or deleterious constituents are in the article.

The CHAIRMAN. You would simply change the whole theory of the food and drugs act. You, would say that only deleterious ingredients must be plainly and conspicuously placed on the label. That has not been the practice of the department, of this committee, or of Congress. You would change the whole theory. You would only name the elements that are deleterious. That is not the theory of the act.

You can readily see that people living in different parts of the country might buy different kinds of sugar. People living in the Corn Belt would very likely buy corn sugar. Senator Norbeck might buy beet sugar, to patronize home industry. In other States the people might buy cane sugar. None of these being produced in large quantities in my State, I probably would buy any of them. There certainly could not be any harm in setting forth on the label the fact that the product contains 45 per cent of fruit and 55 per cent of corn sugar or cane sugar or beet sugar.

Mr. GRAY. There is no harm in that.

The CHAIRMAN. That is what the consumer should know.

Mr. GRAY. That is not section 3 of the House bill in its present form. There is no harm in that, except that it would likely breed in the public mind a fear that the label meant harm.

Senator TOWNSEND. I could not see now you could mean that.

Mr. GRAY. It is not so likely in this particular instance, Senator Townsend, but it is very likely to happen in relation to other commodities, catsups and things of that nature. Where you put some other healthful constituent on the label, the public might get a wrong impression about it, and think it is a deleterious ingredient of some kind.

I should like to correct misapprehension; because in my opinion, if these different ingredients wholesome as well as unwholesome, are placed on the label, the public would hardly know which are healthful and which are harmful.

The CHAIRMAN. Then we would have to change the fundamental and organic law.

Mr. GRAY. One further thought about the wholesomeness of corn

sugar.

The CHAIRMAN. That is not the question we are considering.

Mr. GRAY. I want to put this in the record. It is a recent finding of the national testing circle of the American Farm Bureau Federation in regard to corn sugar; about the use of that commodity by actual farm women in the national testing circle. After six months of experimentation with it, they have put the approval of our organization upon it, as to the wholesomeness and utility of corn sugar.

The CHAIRMAN. That may be incorporated in the record.
(The document referred to is here printed in full, as follows:)

AMERICAN FARM BUREAU FEDERATION NATIONAL TESTING CIRCLE, CERTIFICATE OF APPROVAL

This is to certify that cerelose, or corn sugar, manufactured by the Corn Products Refining Co., New York, N. Y., having successfully met the requirements as to standard of quality, durability, suitability for use in the farm home, and efficiency;

And, such tests having satisfied the requirements of the national testing circle as to truthfulness and honesty of claims made by manufacturers in advertising and sales literature, is hereby awarded the official certificate of approval by the national testing circle operated under the auspices ofthe American Farm Bureau Federation.

[SEAL.]

Mrs. CHARLES W. SEWELL,

Chairman National Testing Circle. LAURA PFEIFFER,

Secretary National Testing Circle.

Issued for 1930, a practical farm home test, not a laboratory test.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will now go into executive session. (Whereupon, at 11.50 a. m., the hearing was closed, and the committee proceeded to the transaction of other business.)

STANDARDS FOR FRUIT PRESERVES

THURSDAY, APRIL 24, 1930

UNITED STATES SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY, Washington, D. C. The committee convened, pursuant to call of the chairman, in the committee room, 324 Senate Office Building, Senator Charles L. McNary (chairman) presiding.

Present: Senators McNary (chairman), Capper, Frazier, Hatfield, and Townsend.

The committee thereupon resumed consideration of the bill (S. 3470) to define fruit jams, fruit preserves, fruit jellies, and apple butter, to provide standards therefor, and to amend the food and drugs act of June 30, 1906, as amended.

STATEMENT OF BERNARD A. KOZICKE, OF THE FIRM OF BREED, ABBOTT & MORGAN, REPRESENTING THE NATIONAL WHOLESALE GROCERS' ASSOCIATION

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Kozicke, Senator Copeland stated to me that you desired to be heard on the fruit jams and jelly bill, Senate bill 3470.

Mr. KoZICKE. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. What do you know about this bill? Are you for it or against it?

Mr. KoZICKE. We are against the bill, Senator.

The CHAIRMAN. Why?

Mr. KOZICKE. To preface that, I shall have to say whom I represent. I am of counsel for the National Wholesale Grocers' Association of the United States, with headquarters in New York City. It has members in every State in the Union and every large city. I judge that our membership handles about 85 per cent of the tonnage of groceries.

The CHAIRMAN. Very well. Go ahead and make your statement. Mr. KOZICKE. We oppose this bill on the ground that it proposes to create statutory standards for a food product. The theory of the food and drugs act at its enactment in 1906 was that it was to be a general and comprehensive law to prohibit all adulteration and all misbranding of all foods.

We feel that the law has been very effectively and efficiently administered for the period of 24 years, and we do not believe that any change at this time looking to the adoption of special standards for particular food products will do that law any good. It will not increase its effectiveness, and it will not increase its efficiency. As a

matter of fact, in our opinion it will cause confusion, and make a veritable patchwork of a general law that we have found satisfactory up to this time.

I might add that we were among the pioneers in urging the enactment of this law. As a matter of fact, our raison d'etre was the enactment of the food and drugs act. That is how we came into being. We urged it, and we fought for it, and helped to fight for it.

We think that at this time proposals to enact special standards into the statute are a dangerous precedent. If you adopt it now for preserves, you are discriminating in favor of the preserve industry. From our experience, we venture to suggest that inside of a month or two months you will have other industries demanding special treatment for their products. Instead of having this general law, you will have just a mass of statutory standards that it will be difficult to change, once they are enacted, and reasons may arise that will indicate changes to be desirable. We prefer to lodge with the Secretary of Agriculture the power to adopt standards, rules, and regulations for the enforcement of the law.

That is about our position.

The CHAIRMAN. All right. Is that what you desire to state? Do the members of the committee desire to ask any questions?

Senator TOWNSEND. You object to this bill because it fixes a statutory standard for goods?

Mr. KoZICKE. Yes, sir.

Senator TOWNSEND. Do you think that would be injurious to the consumer?

Mr. KoZICKE. Yes; we think in the long run it would be injurious to the consumer, because it is a precedent that will be inevitably extended to other foods and other things. We do not think the principle is sound.

Senator TOWNSEND. Do you think there are goods being put out on the market marked "preserves" that are supposed to be 50 per cent fruit or 45 per cent fruit and the remainder sugar, but that really have less fruit than that?

Mr. KOZICKE. We undertsand that there are such goods being put out, Senator.

Senator TOWNSEND. Are you in favor of that or opposed to it? Mr. KoZICKE. No; we are not in favor of that-no, sir.

Senator TOWNSEND. Then, if there is no provision under the statute to take care of that, you are in favor of changing it; are you?

Mr. KOZICKE. But we do not agree with the necessity for additional legislation. We think the statute as it stands to-day is adequate to prevent adulteration and misbranding.

Senator TOWNSEND. You are familiar with the courts' decisions, of course?

Mr. KOZICKE. I am familiar with the decisions. If you refer to the decision of Judge Wilkerson in Chicago, I am familiar with that decision.

Senator TOWNSEND. In the face of that decision, you still think
Mr. KOZICKE. I think that decision can be overcome.
Senator TOWNSEND. How can it be overcome?

Mr. KOZICKE. Steps have already been taken to overcome it. I understand that in Davenport, Iowa, recently this same question was tried, and there was an adverse holding by the district court, and that

is on the way and it will be on the way to an appeal, and will eventually be settled by the United States Supreme Court.

Senator TOWNSEND. As a matter of fact, it has not been done? Mr. KOZICKE. Not yet; no, sir.

Senator FRAZIER. Have you any objection to this addition or amendment to section 2 in regard to the imitation of preserves? Mr. KOZICKE. Our objection goes to the whole bill, Senator. Senator TOWNSEND. Your objection is to the whole bill?

Mr. KoZICKE. To the whole bill-to the principle of the bill. Senator FRAZIER. This applies to imitations. They would be deemed misbranded unless labeled "imitation jam" or "imitation jelly" or "imitation apple butter."

Mr. KOZICKE. I think the statute as it stands to-day would require

that label.

Senator FRAZIER. How do they get around it now?

Mr. KoZICKE. How does who get around it?

Senator FRAZIER. The people who put up this imitation jam and jelly?

Mr. KoZICKE. As I understand, on account of the present decision of Judge Wilkerson, in Chicago, the department is enjoined from proceeding against those products; but that is only a temporary matter. That can not hold; and, as I say, the deadlock, I think, has already been broken by this Davenport, Iowa, decision. STATEMENT OF W. G. CAMPBELL, DIRECTOR OF REGULATORY WORK, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE Senator TOWNSEND. Mr. Campbell, may I ask you, as representing the department, to state the department's position in this matter? Mr. CAMPBELL. The department has not been enthusiastic about an attempt to obtain statutory standards for every class of foods, Senator. We have entertained in a large measure the viewpoint that has been expressed by Mr. Kozicke. We believe, because of the inflexibility of legislative standards, that better protection would be given to the consumer, and advantage offered for those innovations in the nature of progress in manufacturing operations, through the medium of administrative standards that could not be granted through legislative standards. We have felt, however, that in this particular instance there was such a serious situation, both in the nature of an imposition on the public and a demoralization of the industry as a result of bad competitive conditions, that the emergency justified the treatment of standards for these products in a legislative way; and we have said, for that reason, that we favored a bill that had for its purpose the enactment of an amendment to the law setting up legislative standards.

This is not without precedent. We had a similar condition in the marketing of butter.

Senator TOWNSEND. To be sure.

Mr. CAMPBELL. We had administrative standards for that, even as we have now administrative standards for preserved products; but those standards, as you know, are purely advisory. A variation in the preparation of a product from such standards will not authorize the pleading by the Government of the standard itself as a basis for prosecution. A violation of the general provisions of the act must