When these various factors of self-service, scrambled merchandising and effiency are lumped together, the list prices and fair-trade-contract prices, as they have existed during the last 10 years in the United States, are unrealistic. If the consumer chooses to purchase from an efficient self-service store types of merchandise historically sold through more expensive channels, effective fair trade would clearly penalize the consuming public at least 10 percent and, in some cases, as much as 40 percent. Without going into the detailed problems of the manufacturer in the movement of branded merchandise through distribution, the insistence that the public pay a full service list price based on average efficiency involves consumer overcharge which is entirely too great to tolerate since retailing has undergone its postwar revolution.

The greatest changes have taken place in food retailing. Competition has been very active and self-service has become predominant. Fair trade has been almost entirely absent. The whole level of efficiency has arisen substantially and food distribution costs have fallen. This revolution in food retailing has taken place since 1948. According to the Progressive Grocer in its 1958 edition of Facts in Grocery Distribution (on p. F-17), the rise of the self-service supermarket and other shifts have not adversely affected the independent stores. In 1948 independents did 63 percent of total grocery and combination-store business and still retained this same 63 percent in 1955, 1956, and 1957. The independent does not need fair trade to maintain his position. This further supports the fact that, since fair trade would increase consumer prices by at least 10 percent and quite possibly by 30 percent where it was effective, this cost is definitely not warranted by the claim that the position of the independent is so precarious that price fixing at relatively high levels is necessary.

I greatly appreciate the opportunity to submit this testimony and Congressman Beamer's request that I do so. Since you and your subcommittee will not be too familiar with me, I am attaching the information which the Indiana University regularly releases about me. If the opportunity presents, I would very much like to have the opportunity of making an oral presentation before your subcommittee.

Sincerely,

GENERAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

ALBERT HARING.

Albert Haring, professor of marketing, School of Business, Indiana University, Bloomington, Ind. (born, Cleveland, Ohio, June 11, 1901).

Education:

Massillon (Ohio) High School;

Phillips Andover Academy;

Yale University, bachelor of arts degree 1922, master of arts degree 1923, doctor of philosophy degree 1925, Phi Betta Kappa, Phi Kappa Sigma, Alpha Kappa Si, Beta Gamma Sigma.

Professional record:

University of North Carolina, assistant professor of economics (1926–29); Lehigh University, assistant and associate professor of economics (1929–39); School of Business, Indiana University, professor of marketing (1939– ) Consultant to National Retail Furniture Association, National Retail Hardware Association, American Institute of Laundering;

Consultant on marketing and sales research problems to various business firms.

Professional organizations:

American Marketing Association, secretary (1937-42), president (1943), director (1944), chairman, census advisory committee (1954-57) ; National Sales Executives, Inc., chairman, liaison committee (1945), member of program committee (1946), member of educators advisory group (1951-54), member of curriculum committee of the Advanced School of Retail Management (1954-55), faculty, NSE Graduate School of Sales Management and Marketing, Rutgers University, August 1953-55; Committee for Economic Development, vice chairman, Marketing Committee (1943-46);

American Economics Association.

Government:

Member of National Distribution Council of Secretary of Commerce Weeks; member, Subcommittee on distributive education; Consultant in consumer credit statistics to Federal Reserve Board; Consultant, Wholesaling Division, Census of Business.

Publications:

Retail Price Cutting and Its Control by Manufacturers (Ronald Press, 1936)

Electrical Wholesaling (Census Bureau, 1937)

Drug Wholesaling (Census Bureau, 1937)

Anthracite Wholesaling (Census Bureau, 1937)

The Installment Credit Contract (Consumer Credit Institute of America, Inc., 1939)

Installment Credit Comes of Age (National Retail Furniture Association, 1943)

After Reconversion-Selling Faces Its Biggest Job (Committee for Economic Development, 1945)

Price policies Marketing Handbook (Ronald Press, 1948), pages 561-601. Some Questions About Consumer Credit Control Under Semimobilization, Marketing: Current Problems and Theories (School of Business, Indiana University, 1952), pages 107-120

Survey of Special Incentives for Salesmen, with Robert H. Myers (School of Business, Indiana University, and the National Sales Executives, Inc., 1953)

Proceedings of the National Consumer Credit Conference, 1952, with Carroll W. Ehlers (Indiana University Bulletin, July 1952)

Advanced Course in Hardware Retailing-Book on Personal Selling, (National Retail Hardware Association, 1957)

Articles in National Marketing Review, American Marketing Journal, Journal of Marketing, the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, National Furniture Review, and in business and trade journals.

YALE UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL,

New Haven, Conn., May 29, 1958.

Hon. PETER F. MACK, Jr.,

Chairman, Subcommittee on Commerce and Finance,

House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce,

Washington, D. C.

DEAR MR. MACK: I am very much opposed to the bill (H. R. 10527) which would legitimize resale price fixing and encourage collective action among competitors to accomplish that goal.

I regard this as a dangerous regression in our long-continued national effort to assure our people the advantages of competition. This bill, unlike some of its predecessors, would also change common-law doctrine by legitimizing covenants or servitudes upon chattels, repeatedly held by our courts to be unenforcible.

The case against resale-price maintenance has been strongly stated with rare unanimity by economists and lawyers who disagree on many other topics. All studies confirm its undesirable effects on our business system. It is an anomaly in our antitrust law, and this bill would extend that anomaly to our law of property and of contracts.

The case for resale-price maintenance is, frankly, one of protection for special interests. This legislation is class legislation, designed to assure some businessmen a degree of insulation from the wholesome corrective influence of market forces which our law properly denies to most others. The effect of resale-price maintenance can only be harmful to consumers. At a time of unemployment, it would help make the economy more rigid and less flexible in its response to changing levels of demand.

I hope your committee will follow the nearly unanimous recommendation of the Attorney General's National Committee To Study the Antitrust Law, and vote to repeal the Miller-Tydings amendment and the McGuire Act.

Yours faithfully,

EUGENE V. ROSTOW.

Hon. PETER F. MACK, Jr.,

GENERAL FEDERATION OF WOMEN'S CLUBS,
Washington, D. C., May 28, 1958.

Chairman, Subcommittee on Commerce and Finance,

House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce,

Washington, D. C.

DEAR MR. MACK: As president of the General Federation of Women's Clubs, I expressed in a telegram to you on May 13 the concern of our clubwomen that hearings on H. R. 10527 be kept open in order that the views of the consumer could be fairly considered.

I am submitting this letter, to be filed for the record, as a statement of the general federation on the proposed amendment to the Federal Trade Commission Act which would authorize manufacturers of trademarked articles to fix their retail prices by trade notice in all States.

The General Federation of Women's Clubs is an organization of 51⁄2 million in the United States. Legislation policy is determined by the delegate body through resolutions adopted at annual convention. In May 1952, the following resolution was adopted:

"Whereas the General Federation of Women's Clubs has consistently sought to safeguard the interest of the American consumer; and

"Whereas the Miller-Tydings amendment to the fair-trade laws permits manufacturers to set a minimum price at which their goods may be sold, thus preventing fair competition and abrogating the spirit and the purpose of the Sherman Antitrust Act as far as retail sales are concerned: Therefore, be it

"Resolved, That the General Federation of Women's Clubs in convention assembled recommends that the Miller-Tydings exemption to the Sherman Antitrust Act be repealed."

The women of this country, as you know, represent 75 percent of the purchasing power. The members of the general federation are, for the most part, homemakers. They are vitally and deeply concerned with the cost of products they purchase. The resolution just quoted is an expression of their indignation at an attempt to raise the price of needed commodities. As citizens of this Republic, we believe it is our inherent right to be allowed freedom of choice in purchases, and that the legislation represented by H. R. 10527 denies us the opportunity to buy goods at a low price after shopping around to get the best bargain.

Furthermore, we believe the bill strikes at the very heart of the free-enterprise system. It is essential that merchants be allowed freedom and discretion in setting the price for the merchandise they offer the public.

The General Federation of Women's Clubs records its strong opposition to H. R. 10527 on the grounds that it is not in the best interest of the consuming public. Sincerely,

MABEL S. PROUT
Mrs. R. I. C. Prout,

President.

STATEMENT IN OPPOSITION TO H. R. 10527

I. The bill would revive and expand the so-called fair-trade laws which permit contracts for resale price maintenance and make such contracts binding on nonsigners The McGuire Act of 1952 permits interstate enforcement of these State laws only when such transaction is lawful pursuant to the law of the State in which the resale is to be made.

The present bill would, thus, substitute for permissive enabling legislation dependent on State law a uniform, unilateral, and compulsory Federal right of horizontal price fixing. There are no reasons for such a revolutionary change.

II. The existing fair-trade system has broken down because it is unworkable, unenforcible, and contrary to the public interest. The recent decisions of the supreme courts of more than a dozen States, holding either the entire fair-trade law or the nonsigner clause unconstitutional, reflect these conclusions, and so do the facts gathered by the Celler committee in 1952. Here are some high spots:

(1) Prices of fair-traded items in the areas which have never enacted fairtrade laws were uniformly lower than in fair-trade States. At the same time, the number of drugstores and jewelry stores and their volume of sales in the free