member of the Federal Trade Commission, because the Federal Trade Commission has for many, many years undertaken as best it could to prevent mislabeling, misbranding, and false and misleading advertising. The Commission can only act in the interests of the public, and we consider the consumer is a very major portion of the public. I just wanted to ask you whether or not in your investigations and your studies you hadn't found that the Commission had issued orders and had stipulations to cease and desist from thousands of cases of misbranding and mislabeling and false advertising of all kinds of products.

Mrs. ROLLER. Yes, I have; but I have also seen many cases where the Federal Trade Commission's rulings were just disregarded. I think the case of Philippine mahogany

Mr. FERGUSON (interposing). Have you ever brought those to the attention of the Commission?

- Mrs. ROLLER. No; I haven't. That is one of the many things I didn't know I could do.

Mr. FERGUSON. You know that any person or individual has a perfect right to bring matters of that kind to the attention of the Commission?

Mrs. ROLLER. No; I didn't know that.

Mr. FERGUSON. And that the Commission has not sufficient funds or personnel to police the whole United States and undertake to or couldn't possibly discover every case of misbranding or misleading advertising, and ordinarily unless something happens to come to our attention that we can only act on information that comes to us from the public?

Mrs. ROLLER (nodding head, "Yes").

Mr. FERGUSON. And the Commission would welcome information from you or any organization that you represent or any housewife at any time where anyone is misbranding the goods or misrepresenting their goods?

Mrs. ROLLER. Well, I will remember that.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you happen to know whether the canner of the applesauce has distributed diagrams such as that which you showed with the previous cans to advise the consumer how to choose the best bargain?

Mrs. ROLLER. No, I don't; but this business of the two cans of applesauce seems to me to be an example of this problem of the number of cans that are available, the number of sizes of cans that are available, and it is one of the problems that consumers face. The consumers that I know are very much in favor of standardization of can sizes. We feel that we need a variety of sizes, but certainly not such small differences as this [indicating the two cans of applesauce]. I think it was about 2 weeks ago I attended a meeting in Beltsville, a little section not very far from where I live, and the speaker there was a representative of the National Canners' Association, who was down here in Washington attending the food and drug hearings, and at that meeting in Beltsville he said that the National Canners have to go to bat every year-have had to go to bat every year for the past couple of years to fight measures which would tend to unify can sizes; and he said that he was fighting with the consumer because he believed that the consumer wanted this wide variety of sizes that we find today.

That absolutely isn't a fact because all the consumers that I know, feel that the great number of sizes that are available today simply tend to confuse us and if there were a standardization of sizes that we could buy very much more intelligently. We did not agree with this man who came from the National Canners' Association.

Mr. MONTGOMERY. You mean that he was saying the Canners' Association was against the standardization of canned sizes?

Mrs. ROLLER. Oh, yes; he said they came to Washington to fight any bill to standardize sizes of cans.

The CHAIRMAN. Any further questions of this witness?

Mr. WHITE. I wonder if I might ask a question, going back to that packet which you had there prepared for educational purposes by a large canner. There are a number of cans there and on those I noticed I think I notice from here-a rectangular area set aside on which there was considerable information which I take it is to give information about the contents of the can. I would like to know what you think about that type of information on a label.

Mrs. ROLLER. I think that this type of information is very nice but that it doesn't give you the important thing. For instance, this can of peas, which happens to be a grade A pea and has the black band, has a picture here of the various sizes ranging from size 1 to size 6 extra large, and there is an arrow pointing that this is size 4, medium large. I think that is very nice to know, but I don't think that is terribly important. I think what would be much more important would be if they said fancy grade A, "so that we could tell the grade; and on this one that doesn't have that black bar, the only informative labeling here is "the brand is your guaranty of our highest quality," and then it says:

Approximately 50 to 59 cherries of uniform size packed in heavy syrup.

Doesn't say whether they are pitted or not; doesn't say what the grade is, and according to their own chart the cherries can be one of two sizes.

Mr. WHITE. Your opinion, then, is that that is better than many of the other labels, but not as satisfactory as you would like to see it? Mrs. ROLLER. Yes; that is true.

Mr. FERGUSON. Mrs. Roller, you said that you knew of cases where the Commission's orders had been violated. Do you mean that they had been violated by the person against whom an order had been issued, or that some other person had done the same thing.

Mrs. ROLLER. I happen to have read this digest of important rulings of the Federal Trade Commission and in that it gives a list of rulings that the Trade Commission has made, one of them against broadcloth; says that English broadcloth material cannot be labeled or sold as English broadcloth unless it actually comes from England. Now I know I have bought material that certainly wasn't English.

Mr. FERGUSON. When you say the order has been disobeyed or violated, you don't mean by the person against whom the order had been issued but someone else had done the same thing?

Mrs. ROLLER. Exactly.

Mr. MONTGOMERY. Thank you, Mrs. Roller.

(The witness, Mrs. Roller, was excused.)

TESTIMONY OF DEXTER MASTERS, DIRECTOR OF PUBLICATIONS CONSUMERS UNION OF U. S., INC., NEW YORK CITY

Mr. MONTGOMERY. I have to apologize for Mr. Masters' voice; a sudden attack of laryngitis has pretty nearly silenced him, and we hope the microphone will make up the difference. Will you give your name, please, Mr. Masters?

Mr. MASTERS. Dexter Masters.

Mr. MONTGOMERY. Your address, please?

Mr. MASTERS. Consumers' Union, New York City.

Mr. MONTGOMERY. What is your occupation with Consumers' Union, Mr. Masters?

Mr. MASTERS. Director of publications.

Mr. MONTGOMERY. Tell the committee briefly what the Consumers' Union is, will you please?

Mr. MASTERS. It is a nonprofit membership organization, the members of which are also subscribers to publications put out by the service. The organization buys goods, tests them, and gives the results of its tests in the form of ratings by brand name in its publications.

Mr. MONTGOMERY. How many members do you have?

Mr. MASTERS. We have about 80,000 now.

Mr. MONTGOMERY. What is the average subscription cost to these members?

Mr. MASTERS. We get out two services, one at $3 and one at $1. The cost probably averages between $2 and $2.50 per member. The great majority of the members are subscribers to the $3 service.

Mr. MONTGOMERY. You, of course, are very familiar with the stories these other consumer witnesses have been telling about-their difficulty in knowing how to spend their money, and how to spend their money wisely. How far do you think the Consumers' Union service meets that problem?

Mr. MASTERS. Well, it doesn't go far enough, and doesn't go nearly so far as the problems go. It is a temporary thing; it is a stopgap to control or to provide a balance to the upset in distribution. That creates the problems. The Consumers' Union method of actually going into the market, buying products, as any consumer buys them, testing them, and serving only the consumer interest, is a circuitous one; it is the long way around because it means that to be effectiveideally effective-we would have to cover every brand in the country and that is, considering our funds, out of the question. But the chief problem that is created is that an advertisement says such and such a product is such and such a quality, or the salesman says the same thing, or general propaganda creates the same impression. We use our method to check up on the advertisement, on the salesmen, and on the propaganda.

No individual can do this for himself. The question has arisen here as to just how much a consumer, how much a housewife, can apply, in the direction of wise selection, her own knowledge. To do that at all adequately she would have to be a biologist, a chemist, a physicist, and a number of other things. We attempt to do the job

collectively and give the individual consumers the benefit of that information.

I might compare the Consumers' Union or any organization operating on that basis to insulin in the control of diabetes; that is, insulin does control it by providing a counterbalance, but the im portant thing would be to prevent the diabetes. Whether the upset in distribution is as incurable as diabetes, I don't know.

PRICE NOT A GUIDE TO QUALITY

Mr. MONTGOMERY. Mrs. Roller was discussing the difficulty of the consumer who tries to buy commodities simply by relying on the brand. You said you are going to present some testimony showing whether or not consumers instead of relying upon brand can make their selections on the basis of price. Will you give us some specific examples of the difficulty that the consumers will run into if they attempt to make their purchases on the basis of price? What is the first one you are going to _bring?

Mr. MASTERS. The first thing I would like to say is that I think it is virtually impossible for the consumer to use price as a reliable guide. The first illustration of that that I would like to bring forth here is milk.

Mr. MONTGOMERY. The committee had testimony last week from the milk companies about the quality of milk and what they were doing to improve the quality. Your exhibits go into that question, don't they, of the same companies?

Mr. MASTERS. I think they do.

Mr. MONTGOMERY. Will you tell us what your examinations have shown?

Mr. MASTERS. The basis of my testimony here is two separate tests we have made to discover the difference, if any, between grade A and grade B milk in New York City. Grade A, as you know, costs 3 cents per quart more. The first test we made, in February of 1936, we took 57 samples of grade A and grade B of the two leading brands distributed in New York City. In bacteria count, which is a reflection on the handling of the milk, the purity of it, we found no difference. Grade A for New York City has a minimum require ment of 10,000 colonies per cubic centimeter for both grade A and grade B or 30,000, I beg your pardon. Both grades A and B ran about 10,000 colonies per cubic centimeter. In one instance the grade B brand far exceeded the minimum requirement, showing 120,000 colonies. Similarly, one grade A brand exceeded the requirements and also exceeded brand B and showed 240,000 colonies. With those exceptions, which are too exceptional to be typical, it can be said that the grade A and grade B, literally speaking, showed no difference in bacteria count.

Mr. MONTGOMERY. They both were, on the average, well above? Mr. MASTERS. Both, on the average, were well above-or well below. rather, the minimum requirement.

Mr. MONTGOMERY. Better than the minimum requirement.
Mr. MASTERS. Better.

1 See Hearings, Part VII.

Mr. MONTGOMERY. What did the test show on the question of butterfat?

Mr. MASTERS. On the question of butterfat, our first test in February of 1936 showed an average for one brand grade A of 3.67 percent. New York City, incidentally, requires 3 percent for both A and B. I Grade B of this same brand showed 3.52 percent, and the other brand, grade A, showed 3.71 percent, and the grade B 3.53 percent. The test we made 6 months or a year later showed a little more butterfat all around; it showed almost exactly the same relative proportion.

The New York City Health Department last year made a test of one of these brands, and not the other, and showed again the same proportion, or even less difference. Their figures on 85 samples were 3.96 percent butterfat for grade A, 3.83 percent for grade B. A way of making the exact meaning of this graphic is to point out that the average difference in butterfat between grade A and grade B was about half a teaspoonful of butter-that is, equivalent to that.

Mr. MONTGOMERY. Half a teaspoonful per quart of milk?

Mr. MASTERS. Per quart of milk. On that basis, if you bought butter at 3 cents for half a teaspoon, it would cost about $8 a pound. Mr. MONTGOMERY. Eight dollars a pound for butter?

Mr. MASTERS. Yes; if you can allow the 3 cents difference between grades A and B to the actual excess butterfat you get in A.

Another thing that should be pointed out is that this 3 cents applied to a quart of milk daily would come to well over $10 a year.

Mr. MONTGOMERY. The difference in butterfat between these averages and these different tests is what?

Mr. MASTERS. Two-tenths of 1 percent. The grade A is not sold nearly as widely as grade B, but that is no fault of the companies. Mr. MONTGOMERY. Now, this morning there was some discussion of vacuum cleaners when Mrs. Belester was talking about the picture that she showed, and the question was raised as to how the consumer could be informed about the difference in vacuum cleaners. Has your organization made any tests the results of which would illustrate how those differences in vacuum cleaners could be measured and how they might be shown to the consumer, if the manufacturer were so disposed? Mr. MASTERS. If he were so disposed he could show some things to the consumer that would be useful. He could make two tests of vacuum cleaners. The first and the most significant result we have found is that one very well-known brand selling at $29 rated far higher in actual cleaning ability than one well-known brand selling at $80 and another brand selling at $60.

Mr. MONTGOMERY. Give us some idea of how you measure the cleaning ability of a vacuum cleaner.

Mr. MASTERS. The method we use, or the method used in the laboratory that made the tests for us

Mr. MONTGOMERY (interposing). What laboratory was that?
Mr. MASTERS. Electrical Testing Laboratories.

Mr. MONTGOMERY. That is a large, established testing organization? Mr. MASTERS. Yes; very well known. The method was to prepare a special test dirt, very oily dirt, and grind it thoroughly into a standard piece of carpet. The vacuum cleaners were then run over it under identical conditions for identical periods of time. The idea was to test both speed of removal of the dirt and also thoroughness.