of $30,000 worth of baseballs, bats, and other athletic materials, and the impossibility, because of tonnage, to make it up. That loss has deprived thousands of our boys of their ball games, and that is what they need more than anything else.

So much for the importance of athletics in the Army, and I certainly can not believe that it would be a wise piece of legislation to impose a tax on athletic goods which will be sold to the Army, and which must be paid for by the Government, the Red Cross, the Y. M. C. A., or some other Government agency.

Mr. STERLING. Don't you think that the people of this country who give their money to the Red Cross, the Y. M. C. A., and the Knights of Columbus give it as freely and as cheerfully as they would to any other organization in the world? If that is true, why is that not a good way to get taxes for the use of the Government and for the support of its Army? The people give that money voluntarily. The Y. M. C. A. is not a money-making corporation nor is the Red Cross, but they get their money from the people, who give it voluntarily.

Mr. SPALDING. Let me ask you this: Do you think that the Y. M. C. A., the Knights of Columbus, or the Red Cross, or whatever the organization may be, is going to collect from the people any more than they will need to spend?

Mr. STERLING. I believe that they will collect every dollar that they do need, and I believe that the people will give it cheerfully to those organizations.

Mr. SPALDING. Do you think that the people would give it as cheerfully if they felt that a part of their money that they were giving for a specific purpose was going back to the Government in the shape of taxes?

Mr. STERLING. I do not imagine that they would object to it on that account, because the money would go for the support of the Army. I think this committee would like to know, in reference to athletic goods, what rate will produce the greatest amount of income. That is my idea of a tax on sporting goods.

Mr. SPALDING. Then, I can only say this in response to that, that if the committee feels that they should submit athletic goods generally to a tax by reason of the fact that they are going to be bought by the Y. M. C. A., the Knights of Columbus, the Red Cross, and those different organizations, and because it thinks that those people will cheerfully give to those organizations, then they should also put a tax on hospital grounds, and a thousand and one supplies which are being purchased by the Y. M. C. A., the Knights of Columbus, and the Red Cross.

Mr. STERLING. I do not say that that is the reason why the tax should be imposed, but the fact that those organizations do buy some of the goods is no reason why the tax should not be imposed. The purpose of framing a tax law is to get revenue.

Mr. SPALDING. Those organizations are buying to-day probably 50 per cent of the sporting goods directly for the Army, and I should say that 25 per cent more of them are going to the Army. I think that the percentage will be even more than that as the young people are being taken into the Army. I think the percentage will increase rather than decrease.

Mr. O'SHAUGHNESSY. What is the percentage of sales now for war purposes and for the general public?

Mr. SPALDING. Dealing with these particular two groups

Mr. O'SHAUGHNESSY (interposing). Is it about 50 per cent? Mr. SPALDING. Fifty per cent of the purchases we know are made for war purposes, and we estimate that one-half of the remaining purchases are indirectly made for the Army.

Mr. O'SHAUGHNESSY. Then, you would say that 75 per cent of the purchases are made for war purposes?

Mr. SPALDING. Yes, sir.

Mr. O'SHAUGHNESSY. Does that proportion obtain also under all of those other schedules that you mentioned?

Mr. SPALDING. No, sir.

Mr. O'SHAUGHNESSY. I want to say that you are absolutely mistaken about the attitude of the people toward taxation. I, as one member of the committee, would be absolutely opposed to your point of view. I think that the people are only too willing to pay the taxes. Mr. LONGWORTH. Is it your purpose to suggest a rate of taxation for those goods?

Mr. SPALDING. It is my purpose to suggest a tax. I would suggest a tax on tennis balls and golf balls. My idea is to have no tax on baseball goods or any football goods. I see that several members of the committee do not agree with me on that, and I am not arguing against that point of view.

Mr. LONGWORTH. If we are to raise $8,000,000,000, as suggested by the Secretary of the Treasury, we may be called upon-although I hope not-to put a consumption tax on the necessities of life.

Mr. RAINEY. There is a feeling in the country that sporting goods are nonessential in time of war, and that, therefore, they are really luxuries. The golf players and others who need exercise can get it just as well by working in a war garden, by chopping wood, or doing something of that kind, under the old-fashioned rule of rendering some service. Some of us think that sporting goods are luxuries, and that, therefore, they should be taxed.

Mr. SPALDING. Well, that is a view that I can not discuss at all, because we take precisely the opposite point. Any work in war gardening-tilling the soil-is hard work. It may be physical exercise, but it is hard drudgery, and we contend that people who are engaged in heavy business cares, whose nervous energy is burdened with the volume and magnitude of the problems with which business men, men in public office, are confronted to-day can not secure the relaxation by indulging in hard physical drudgery, but they can secure that relaxation if they go out and play, and they can get that by playing tennis or golf. Take President Wilson; he plays golf regularly, and I believe he does that from a stern sense of duty to keep himself physically fit in this time when he is needed at the helm more than probably at any other period in the history of the United States.

Mr. MOORE. Conceding everything you say about exercise and the wisdom of relaxation for men engaged in hard work, and particularly for men like President Wilson, who necessarily has much upon his mind, but the President, through the Secretary of the Treasury, has indicated that the taxes we raised last year were not sufficient for the purposes of the war, and the Secretary of the Treasury has written this committee that it will be necessary to double those

taxes this year. In other words, whereas we raised $12,000,000,000 last year, we must raise about $24,000,000.000 this year. Now, instead of being in the position of reducing taxes, we are put in the position of increasing taxes, doubling them, and I would like to know if you could make any suggestions as to how we can get more money without unnecessarily depriving men like yourself of the opportunity to go on and do business.

Mr. SPALDING. Will you permit me to take up the case of golf and tennis, because that I am prepared on, and then come back to baseball and football?

Mr. RAINEY. I do not think that the committee wants to suggest putting any further burden on you that you can not put on your customers.

Mr. SPALDING. That is what I assumed was the attitude of the committee, and it was because I believed that the customers in the baseball and football groups were not in a position to pay this tax that I am urging that it be not imposed upon those two groups.

Mr. COLLIER. As I understand it, you contend that some of these athletic goods are essentials. I believe you described them as being as much essentials as meat, sugar, bread, or hospital garments. You are asking that certain athletic goods pay no tax at all?

Mr. SPALDING. Yes, sir; but I want to correct the opinion of the committee. I did not say that I thought athletic goods were as essential as meat, sugar, or hospital garments. I mere answered a question from the other side of the committee. I said that I thought it was like putting a tax on goods sold to the Red Cross and other organizations, because it was easy to collect the money by subscriptions to the Red Cross or the Young Men's Christian Association.

Mr. COLLIER. I am glad you answered that, because I gathered the other impression.

Mr. SPALDING. I am glad you gave me an opportunity of correcting that impression. I do consider that athletic goods are as necessary to the normal users of athletic goods as certain articles of food and clothing, and by saying that I mean the articles of food and clothing that we might drop into the general luxury class. I do not believe that a man needs to go to Kaskel & Kaskel's on Broadway in New York and pay from $3 to $5 for a necktie. That, I suppose. might fall in the luxury class, and that expensive necktie is more of a luxury than golf balls or baseballs.

Mr. COLLIER. I gathered that you said that baseballs and these other athletic goods were just as essential as these actual necessaries of life, and for that reason I asked the question to get your viewpoint.

Mr. SPALDING. I am glad you did, because I do not pretent to go to that extent. We have got to have food and clothing and housing in order to live. We do not have to play baseball to live, but there are a thousand other things that are considered necessities that we might name. Take hot and cold running water in our homes. I like it, and I consider it a necessity; but I realize that it is not a necessity, and I could live if I had to go out to the corner pump and draw a pail of water when I wanted water.

Mr. COLLIER. Many claim for play and exercise that to exercise is as necessary as to eat.

Mr. SPALDING. For health.

Mr. COLLIER (continuing). And you have these athletic goods, aseballs, etc., as a part of the exercise and enjoyment at the same time.

Mr. SPALDING. Certainly. It helps them to exercise in an enjoyable way, and they get greater benefit when they get enjoyment from the exercise than if engaged in some hard physical exercise which is mere drudgery.

Mr. COLLIER. In other words, you think more people exercise by reason of the fact that they get pleasure out of it than would exercise if they did not have these athletic paraphernalia to exercise with?

Mr. SPALDING. Exactly. Now, if I may take up, first, tennis goods

Mr. LONGWORTH. Before you do that, are you going to estimate how much revenue this will bring in?

Mr. SPALDING. I only had about two days at my disposal to gather together information, and these estimates are very rough, and they deal only with the golf and tennis lines. I have estimated the present revenue from the golf goods, balls, and clubs both, at, in round figures, $35,000. I am proposing a tax of 50 cents a dozen on golf balls alone, which we estimate would produce a tax of $72.000 more than double the present tax now produced from golf clubs, golf sticks, and balls combined. In the case of tennis I am proposing a tax of 75 cents a dozen on the tennis balls, which would produce a revenue of about $35,000, as opposed to an estimated revenue of about $24,000 from the present tax, applying on balls and tennis racquets combined.

The reasons I do not think that tennis and golf are any less essential to the people who engage in them than baseball and football are to those who engage in those games, are, first, the average users of tennis and golf are generally older men and are generally men of greater means-especially in the case of golf. The heaviest expense there is for the golf course, and in order to play the game you have got to be able to contribute your share toward the maintenance of that golf course, and Congress has recognized that in its tax on club dues of 10 per cent.

Mr. MOORE. I would thank you for your suggestion to put a tax on golf balls and tennis balls and those things that have not yet any tax upon them, but I could not understand how at this time, when we have to double the amount of tax we raise, we could very well take it off of something else.

Mr. SPALDING. There is already a tax on tennis balls of 3 per cent. Mr. LONGWORTH. We have estimated that the tax on sporting goods, altogether, would be be $3,800,000. Would your plan reduce that or increase it?

Mr. SPALDING. That statement surprises me very greatly. Sporting goods, of course, takes in other lines than those lines I refered to, of which I have no knowledge as to what the volume of their sales is.

Mr. HULL. That estimate includes all the items of that subdivision. Mr. SPALDING. I think we could probably do this. I did not have time to do that in the short time at my disposal. I think we could

have our items analyzed to see what tax has been paid on the different items in that line, and I think that the percentage to our total-the total tax that they paid-would give a reasonably accurate proportion to use in regard to the trade as a whole. In other words, the Treasury Department have got the result of what has been produced as a whole from this section alone. We can tell them what we have paid as a whole, and also how that item is made up-so much on baseballs, so much on tennis balls, so much on tennis racquets, and so on down the line, and I think you can then take that proportion and apply it to the total tax received, according to the revenue department's report, paid under this section, and you will find just what will be paid under the present law.

Mr. LONGWORTH. What I am getting at is, relatively speaking, if we accept your proposition, would it decrease the amount of rev enue we are now getting?

Mr. SPALDING. I am dealing now with the group that the tax is now imposed on, baseballs and footballs and tennis balls and tennis racquets and golf sticks and balls.

Mr. LONGWORTH. I know, but I want

Mr. SPALDING. The tax I am proposing I think would reduce the revenue, because I am suggesting eliminating the tax on baseballs and footballs, and I think it would increase the revenue you received from golf goods alone.

Mr. LONGWORTH. I am speaking about that total of all sporting goods.

Mr. HAWLEY. Suppose your suggestion were adopted, how much revenue would be lost on goods used in baseball and football? Mr. SPALDING. You mean under the present rate?

Mr. HAWLEY. Yes.

Mr. SPALDING. I should hesitate to make an estimate on that. I should say possibly in the neighborhood of $100,000 to $200,000. That is a pretty broad limit.

Mr. LONGWORTH. The total sales last year of baseballs, baseball bats, and footballs amounted to somewhere near half a billion dollars. Mr. SPALDING. Oh, yes; probably higher than that.

Mr. LONGWORTH. And we would, according to your plan, be de prived of that much revenue-half a billion dollars?

Mr. SPALDING. Half a billion dollars, did you say?

Mr. LONGWORTH. Yes.

Mr. SPALDING. Oh, I thought you said half a million.
Mr. LONGWORTH. No; half a billion.

Mr. SPALDING. Oh, my goodness, no; nowhere near that.

Mr. LONGWORTH. In your brief, which I have here, you said that the total on baseballs and bats figures $300,000 and on footballs $500,000. [After making calculations.] This total would be about $3,800,000.

Mr. SPALDING. I thought you said half a billion.

Mr. LONGWORTH. No; those are the total figures.

Mr. HAWLEY. There are masks and gloves and various other things that go with it?

Mr. SPALDING. Those articles are not now subject to tax.

Mr. LONGWORTH. The total is $3,800,000.