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Legal printing.-Under legal printing is an amount of $6,800 for briefs, court work, etc., no increase over the amount provided for the fiscal year 1943, and $25,320, for Federal Trade Commission and Federal court decisions (Federal Trade Commission decisions embrace findings of fact, stipulations, and orders to cease and desist and Federal court decisions include separate volumes entitled "Statutes and decisions"), a decrease of $680 under the amount provided for the fiscal year 1943.

Accounts, statistics and economic investigations printing.-No funds are requested for the fiscal year 1944. This represents a decrease of $1,500 under the amount provided for the fiscal year 1943.

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Trade practice conference printing.-No funds are requested for the fiscal year 1944. This represents a decrease of $3,000 under the amount provided for the fiscal year 1943.

Administrative printing.-For printing the annual report, supplies, forms, letterheads, and necessary binding for the library, the sum of $10,880 is requested, a decrease of $2,070 under the amount provided for the fiscal year 1943. Summary of increases and decreases for the fiscal year 1944 over the fiscal year 1943

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Statement No. 1.-Appropriations available for obligation in the fiscal year 1942, and the estimated unexpended balance thereunder.

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1 This amount was set up as an administrative reserve by direction of the Bureau of the Budget and was impounded.

$2,300,000
73,822
60,000

$2,261, 809

35, 514
42,000

$38, 191 38, 308 118,000

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1 These amounts are set up as an administrative reserve by direction of the Bureau of the Budget.

Statement No. 2.-Transfers between appropriations during the fiscal year 1942, none.

Statement No. 3.-Amount appropriated for fiscal year 1943:
(a) Federal Trade Commission, 1943___.

(b) Unobligated balances from emergency funds on June 30,
1942, available for obligation after that date.

(c) Made available by allotment from emergency funds.
(d) Reserved by administrative direction___.

(e) Amounts transferred over to other appropriations____

(f) Net amount available for obligation during the present year.
(g) Printing and binding, Federal Trade Commission, 1943-

$2, 000, 000

38, 308 157, 500

None

None

2, 195, 808 50, 250

2,246, 058

Statement No. 4.-Allotments from emergency funds available in whole or in part during the fiscal year 1943, $195,808.

APPROPRIATIONS MADE FOR 1943, AND AMOUNT OF ESTIMATE FOR 1944

Mr. WOODRUM. I observe that for the fiscal year 1943 your appropriation for general purposes was $2,000,000. You have an unobligated balance in 1942 of $38,191. You had made available from emergency funds for 1943 the sum of $195,808, and the amount for your printing and binding was $50,250, which made a net amount of $2,246,058 available for expenditure in 1943.

Is that correct?

Mr. FERGUSON. That is correct, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. WOODRUM. And the appropriation estimate for 1944 is $2,000,000 for general purposes, with an estimate for printing and binding of $43,000.

NUMBER OF DEPARTMENT AND FIELD PERSONNEL 1943 AND 1944

The justifications broken down show your personnel requirements for departmental employees for 1943 were an average of 524, and for 1944, 521 on the permanent roll, with an average of $5,000 for temporary employees for each fiscal year.

For the field service for 1943 you had an average employment of 84, with an average estimated employment of 84 for 1944; is that correct?

Mr. FERGUSON. That is correct.

Mr. WOODRUM. The net amount for your personal services for 1943 was $1,858,400, and the amount for 1944 is $1,849,710; your total obligations as set out in the estimates for 1943 were $1,990,000, with the same amount for 1944, although there is a shift from one item to another.

SUMMARY OF WORK OF COMMISSION

The committee is quite familiar with the operations of the Federal Trade Commission, and if plenty of time were available we would like to hear you gentlemen ad infinitum. But we do not have that time, so we would be glad to have you give us a summary of your work, in a general way, as briefly as you can.

Mr. FERGUSON. Mr. Chairman, generally I should like to call attention to the fact that althought the Commission is 28 years old, its organic act, which was passed in 1914, has been recently amended by the Wheeler-Lea Act, in 1938. Section 2 of the Clayton Act was amended by the Robinson -Patman Act, in 1936, and 2 years ago Congress passed the Wool Products Labeling Act. I think you gentlemen will realize that these acts increased the duties and jurisdiction of the Commission. We regard our work under those acts, just as essential in time of war as well as in time of peace, because they are designed to protect, and our work is to protect the income and health of the citizens of the country, the health of the men in the armed services, and to prevent clothing and other goods from being misbranded, mislabeled, and falsely advertised. We regard this as very essential at this time.

I should also like to refer to the war work we are doing for the War Production Board, the Office of Price Administration, and other governmental agencies.

Mr. WOODRUM. That is set out very fully in the justification of your estimates.

Mr. FERGUSON. Yes.

Mr. WOODRUM. Would you want to amplify your statement as to what you are doing for the War Production Board?

Mr. FERGUSON. Yes. I will say that the men who work under the chief examiner have investigated over 1,500 concerns making materials for the war, covering the number of commodities listed in the justification.

Also, the War Production Board has asked that we maintain at least 100 examiners for work to be done for that Board from time to time as the occasion arises.

We are engaged right now in several important investigations for it, and we have recently completed, at the request of Justice Byrnes, a very important Nation-wide investigation, which we undertook at his request and completed in 40 days, sending men out to a number of States in the Union.

Also, we furnish personnel, men of experience in obtaining, analyzing, and furnishing Government agencies with correct information. Those activities are, of course, directly bearing on the war effort. You will find a reference to that work in the item before you, and Mr. Horton will speak very briefly about that work.

Then there is the trial work in the division of which Mr. Kelley is chief, which involves a number of very important cases now in process of trial, and also a number of cases in the circuit courts of appeals in the various circuits of the United States. It is very important that that work be carried on.

These cases are important. Some of them are in reference to misbranding, mislabeling, and false advertising, and others are to prevent combinations in restraint of trade and the enhancing of prices.

Mr. WOODRUM. You have a total of 1,488 cases pending before the Commission, according to your statement on page 20.

Mr. FERGUSON. Yes. Before the Commission. I would like you to hear Mr. Horton and Mr. Kelley in reference to those matters. Mr. WOODRUM. We will be glad to hear Mr. Horton briefly. Mr. HORTON. May I go into the work on a broad scale, and make it as brief as I can?

Mr. WOODRUM. Yes.

Mr. HORTON. The Commission, as you gentlemen are aware, is a creature of the Congress. By legislative enactment you gave the Commission a mandate to carry out its duties.

During the war, or in any great emergency, you will find that there are a great many people in the country who take advantage of the war emergency and seek to secure their own personal or financial aggrandizement, and it is in that particular that the Commission at the present time is doing most effective work.

One of the major jobs that we have on hand comes from the many complaints that have been received by the Commission from the War Department, the Selective Service, the Social Security Board, the Department of Justice, and the F. B. I., and other agencies, to the effect

that certain organizations were engaged in using forms which were simulating the forms used by various governmental agencies in securing information. These were very disruptive of the activities of the various agencies which filed these complaints; and, incidentally, the Federal Trade Commission was the only agency in the United States Government that could effectively handle this work.

I am going to pass around to you now cards of this character that I have spoken about so you may have a visualization of just what has been going on among certain types of our citizenry in order to achieve their own financial aggrandizement.

These are what are known as skip tracer forms whereby a collection agency sells these forms and endeavors to secure information as to the location of the debtor creating the impression that it is the United States Government seeking it.

From evidence developed it appears that there have been cases where agencies set up organizations known as international trustees, and that they informed the public that there was some money waiting for them, when they were only trying to obtain addresses, and upon obtaining the addresses they would send in reply the sum of 1 cent.

Recently we have had a great many cases involving antifreeze solutions, products put on the market because the standard solutions which we have been using were no longer available in any great amount.

These are primarily solutions of calcium chloride or magnesium chloride and other similar solutions which are used to some extent.

The Commission has had many complaints that these solutions used in motorcars are ruining the motors and have a very bad effect on the distribution system and destroys the circulation system.

I think now, at a time when we are endeavoring to at least conserve our transportation, that this is a type of case in which the Commission should immediately proceed.

Last year we spoke to you about our food and drug work which, I believe, will become increasingly important. An article in the New York Times of January 10 referred to the great number of medical practitioners going to be called into the Army in 1943, the statement being that 10,000 doctors will be absorbed during that period and that there will be approximately 80,000 doctors in the country to take care of the general public.

That means that the public will be compelled to rely more and more upon self-medication. I have always believed, and I believe now, in the right of the individual to use self-medication, as long as he does. not prejudice the health of the general public in so doing.

There are millions of people in this country who do not have the finances whereby they can afford the services of a physician and who are compelled to rely upon proprietary remedies, to a greater or less extent. This being so, I think it is doubly incumbent upon the Commission now to be able to assure the purchasing public that the remedies which they require are not falsely or fraudulently represented to them, and that the therapeutic claims that they make are true, so that the public may be properly guided in using self-medi

cation.

During the calendar year just closed the Legal Investigational Division conducted 4,857 investigations, which is an all-time high, and that was accomplished despite the fact that the staff has been con

stantly reduced; we are constantly losing men to the various military or naval establishments.

Since January 1941, the staff has been depleted to the extent of 44 men, and we have had 8 replacements.

These men are all skillfully trained and are so efficiently trained and efficient in their work that the Army and the Navy are constantly offering commissions, from the grade of junior lieutenant up, and after appointment they have been engaged in intelligence work and executive work. The chances are that we will lose 8 or 10 more men besides those we have already lost.

Of those cases, 3,407 were conducted at the request of the War Production Board, and 1,450 of them went to the Commission in regular order.

I spoke about the great shortage in manpower.

Mr. WOODRUM. Will you tell us briefly the types of the cases that you are concerned with?

Mr. HORTON. They involve a great many questions including many false and misleading claims, and many cases involving restraint of trade.

The fact that we have been able to accomplish that work is based largely on the loyalty of the men and their desire to be of every service possible during the emergency.

Last year, out of a staff of 95 remaining men they had accumulated in annual leave 4,558 days, equivalent to 122 years in time.

Our restraint-of-trade work we have considered to be most important, because it is incumbent upon every agency of the Government to protect the Government itself and manufacturers and processors of war materials from combinations or conspiracies whereby an unduly high or exorbitant price is set or competition is destroyed by these various illegal activities.

That work, we feel, should continue. In fact, we feel that we have received a mandate from the Congress, and we are obliged to carry on our regular work, particularly in those cases vitally affected with a public interest.

We have tried to do that and at the same time to perform work for the War Production Board and other agencies which is not only covered by a vital public interest but which is proving most highly beneficial in the conduct of this war.

As an example of the restraint of trade work that the Commission is now doing, the Truman committee sent down two cases to the Commission last August. One of them involved a number of manufacturers of chains, in which it was alleged that by conspiracy and agreement they had arrived at a system whereby they submitted bids to the Government which were uniform in every respect.

That investigation was completed by one attorney of the Commission's staff in 3 months. The Commission has filed its complaint, and I believe the answers are now about due, and I would like to leave a copy of the complaint with the committee as being informative of the character of the restraint of trade work which we are conducting. With regard to the work done by the Legal Investigational Division which may be referred to as war work, during the calendar year we investigated the practices of ninety copper manufacturers, or fabricators, 77 copper ingot users, 717 users of chromium and nickel, and 172 users of jewel bearings.

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