STATEMENT OF WILLIAM A. STONE, ON BEHALF OF THE NATIONAL WINDOW GLASS ASSOCIATION.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Dalzell, I believe you desired to have Gov. Stone make a statement to the committee at this time?

Mr. DALZELL. Yes; Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Very well; we will hear from Gov. Stone.

Mr. STONE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman; it will be an accommodation to me in order to let me get back to my home, although there are two other gentlemen who will speak more particularly of the statistics. I, as attorney, represent the National Window Glass Association. The remarks I will make are brief.

This industry is like any other industry that depends on the rule of supply and demand, for the reason that there is produced or capable of being produced in this country at least 50 per cent more window glass than can be consumed in the country, and there is not and never has been any exportation of window glass.

The tariff in the act of 1909, specified in Schedule B, paragraph 99, fixes several different rates for different kinds and sizes of window glass. Under the first and second brackets, so called, the window-glass makers have had to practically abandon the manufacture of these brackets, because they can not make them and sell them at a profit, paying the present wages, and also nearly all used here are imported. They are, however, making the balance of the glass under the schedule and are paying the wages which the workers in window glass

PARAGRAPH 99-WINDOW GLASS.

have agreed with them to accept. Their scale is a sliding scale. If the price of window glass increases, the wages of the men increase; and if it lowers, the wages of the men do not lower.

I can not exactly specify, but there are made about 7,000,000 boxes, 50 feet square in a box, of window glass in this country. The cost of labor is 60 per cent in each box of glass. The reduction of the tariff at present fixed on all the brackets but the first two would result in a reduction of wages or a suspension of work in the various glass factories.

There are 92 factories in this country, 42 of which are shut down because of competition, owing to the fact that were they all running, even at a shut down of from two to five months each year on account of the intense heat and the practice that has governed from time immemorial, they could produce all the window glass that is consumed in this country without any machine-made glass.

This is the situation with reference to window glass. It is one of that peculiar class of industries that must be considered as a class by itself.

The CHAIRMAN. Is there not an arrangement about the amount of production and the selling price among these glass manufacturers and manufacturers of window glass?

Mr. STONE. No, sir; there is not.

The CHAIRMAN. I am asking for the information because it has been stated to me that they all quote the same prices to the purchaser: Mr. STONE. It is done for butter, and sometimes, until recently, for eggs.

The CHAIRMAN. But the wholesale purchasers contend that no matter what factory they send to for a certain class of glass, at that particular time the quotation price is always the same from them all.

Mr. STONE. That has been so, I take it, of every product, even wheat, ever since it has been produced. It is just this way, that the papers give the market every morning, and people who have products for sale note the price. Of course, a man might put his own price on a box of window glass. If he put it more than the market, he simply could not sell it. If he put it less than the market, he would lose the difference between the market and the price he asked. That is true of everything. The market for steel rails, the market for plows, and the market for automobiles, according to the man's make, must be necessarily the same.

The CHAIRMAN. I know that with reference to some things, when you come to iron and steel products, you can read the market quotations in the paper, but always you have to pay the market price. They approximate the market price, but sometimes they sell considerably under the so-called market price. I do not know that it is true, and I am asking the question because it was represented to me as being true, that the quotations on window glass coming from these mills were always the same.

Mr. STONE. I will tell you, if you will allow me to do so, that there has been various attempts made in the history of all products to regulate prices and production, as you know. Some four or five years ago there was an attempt made to regulate the price of window glass. However, the Government prosecuted those parties, and indicted them

PARAGRAPH 99-WINDOW GLASS.

all, and they were all fined, since which time there has been no effort made to regulate any price at all on window glass, but the price regulates itself, just the same as the price on every other product regulates itself.

One of the largest regulators of the price of window glass is the American Window Glass Co., which makes machine glass and makes at least 50 per cent of all the wondow glass consumed. They fix their own price, but if anyone produces very much window glass or very much of anything and would undertake to fix the price, they would fail. The price is hardly fixed any more than the price of steel stocks, for instance. We like to see what it sold for yesterday to find out what to ask for it to-day. That is about all there is to it. Take any produce that is ever produced, I do not care what it is, in this country, that has no export at all, and is only sold and consumed in this country, and as to which there is sharp competition among producers necessarily. That competition will run the price of it down, and then the law of supply and demand comes in. People cease to make it until the surplus is all consumed, and then they wake up some morning and find there is a demand for some more of the product, and they start in and the price goes up. But there is nothing regulates the price of window glass except the old law of supply and demand.

Two years ago there was more window glass in the warehouses than could be consumed in the coming year. They had simply overproduced, and it has taken all of this time to use up this surplus. If you could only fix some machine or some law that would simply measure and take off every day just the amount to be consumed that day and only produce that amount, then there would be no hard times in this country and no trouble at all. But you can not do it by law, I believe, although I think it is worth while to try.

Coming back to the question of window glass, there is not to-day enough profit in window glass to justify a sale at a less price than they are receiving now. The moment you attempt that, either you would have to quit making window glass or the men would have to have their wages reduced, and they are not getting very large wages now.

It is only a question of wages, especially with a product that has no latent value, like coal or anything else that is covered up and you do not know the exact amount of it, or like timber. Window glass is a thing you can sit down and make by the side of any place you can discover a well of natural gas. It does not require very much skill, and it does not require very much material. You have a little salt cake, a little limestone, your fuel, and some labor. These men who work in these factories know every inch of it and every item of it and the cost of every item, just as well as the manufacturers do, and they keep tab on that, and they will soon seek to raise the prices prevailing to-day. What are you going to do about it? You have to yield or there will be a long strike. Sometimes a strike is beneficial to the producer as well as the laborer in a product that is like this.

The CHAIRMAN. Do I understand window glass is made out of lime instead of sand?

Mr. STONE. I did not say out of lime instead of sand.

PARAGRAPH 99-WINDOW GLASS.

The CHAIRMAN. I did not understand you.

Mr. STONE. Of course we put sand in window glass, but lime goes into it too, and salt cake, so called.

Sand is the principal ingredient, but there is some 60 per cent of it that is simply hired labor. All these other items must be added to that. Then you get the sum total.

Since 1909 the window-glass companies have not made any money. Why? They were so overcongested and overproduced with window glass that for two or three years after the tariff law known as the Payne tariff went into effect it took three years to eat up the surplus glass in the warehouses. They are making a little money now, but not very much-very, very little and selling the product which they overproduced some time ago. They will overproduce again and fill up the warehouses, and it will take another two years to use up the surplus; and that is the way they have always done and always will do. If you can reduce the wages at the same time you reduce the tariff in the law, the manufacturers would not be so much concerned, from a cold-blooded viewpoint of the proposition.

Mr. PAYNE. I notice that the importations are greater than the domestic productions, so the duty could hardly be said to be excessive in the present law. The importations are more than the domestic productions.

Mr. STONE. You mean in the second bracket?

Mr. PAYNE. That is shown by the statistics submitted to the committee.

Mr. STONE. In a certain bracket, yes.

Mr. PAYNE. Cylinder glass and window glass.

Mr. STONE. But there are seven divisions of the cylinder glass. The first is $1.38 tariff on a certain value. Of that glass, all of the glass consumed is imported, and we do not make any at all. So it is with the next bracket. Then of all the balance of the brackets there is none imported; it is all made here.

I thank you, Mr. Chairman.

STATEMENT OF J. M. NEENAN, REPRESENTING THE NATIONAL WINDOW GLASS WORKERS.

The CHAIRMAN. The next speaker is Mr. J. M. Neenan. We will hear from you, Mr. Neenan.

Mr. JAMES. To what paragraph are you objecting?

Mr. NEENAN. To paragraph 99.

The CHAIRMAN. You may proceed.

Mr. NEENAN. I desire to state, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, that the committee in whose behalf I am making this statement, composed of W. R. Keagle, Herbert Thomas, and Frank J. Walker, members of the executive board of the National Window Glass Workers, represent the skilled workmen of this country who are employed in the production of window glass, and that our object in appearing before the House Ways and Means Committee is to present a plain statement of facts concerning the window glass industry, from the workers' viewpoint, and by so doing to convince you that a protective tariff is necessary-that without it the working