Mr. URION. I do not think it would. I was looking for a table that I had. I cabled London on Monday to get the prices of hides there.

Mr. CRUMPACKER. You answered Mr. Underwood that the taking of the small duty, 15 per cent, off hides, would amount, according to your own statement, to only about 90 cents on a hide, or a steer, but that it would destroy the domestic production. What do you mean by that; that they would stop raising cattle?

Mr. URION. Not at all.

Mr. CRUMPACKER. Quit skinning cattle?
Mr. URION. Not at all.

Mr. CRUMPACKER. Or quit saving the skins?

Mr. URION. Not at all. But it would destroy the home market; it would open the home market to that extent.

Mr. CRUMPACKER. If it had any effect, it would reduce the price of hides, say, 90 cents on an average on each green hide?

Mr. URION. That would mean 90 cents of the farmers.

Mr. CRUMPACKER. Do you think the farmers get all of that? Mr. URION. Yes, sir. İle would be the first one to call for it if he did not get it.

Mr. CRUMPACKER. Is the foreign price here plus the tariff on hides? Mr. URION. No, sir; that is what I was looking for. I cabled to London to get the prices of hides there. The prices there are very much lower, even taking into consideration the 15 per cent duty. I will say that for the market here it would open it to the South American hide, and I think it would reduce the price of hides. Mr. CRUMPACKER. Do you think the tariff adds anything to the price of hides here?

Mr. URION. I do.

Mr. CRUMPACKER. It can not add more than 90 cents on an average? Mr. URION. Ninety cents is the low average. It is 90 cents to $1.20. taking a thousand-pound steer.

Mr. CRUMPACKER. That is, for the kind of animals that are slaughtered by the big packers. The hides that are taken from the animals throughout the country-some eleven millions, I believe-average very much below that?

Mr. URION. NO; I think not. I have heard a good deal about 25pound hides. Perhaps you are thinking that the country hides are smaller than the packers' hides. They average just the same. I do not know what a 25-pound steer hide is.

Mr. CRUMPACKER. What I wanted to have you make clear is, how the removal of this tariff would destroy the production of hides in this country when it only amounts to about 90 cents.

Mr. URION. I do not think it would destroy the production. What I meant to say was that it would open the home market to the South American hides, and the tendency would be

Mr. CRUMPACKER. But it is open now. We buy large quantities of hides from South America. It would simply reduce somebody's profit about an average of $1 on a steer, would it not?

Mr. URION. Certainly; whenever you destroy your home market you lower the price.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. Will you find that memoranda that you were looking for, and give us the London prices?

Mr. URION. I am afraid I haven't got that, Mr. Underwood, although I think it is at the hotel, and I will be glad to bring it to the committee.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. Do you recall what it was?

Mr. URION. NO; I did not attempt to carry the figures in my head. Mr. UNDERWOOD. Foreign hides, of necessity, will be cheaper in London under a free-trade condition than in this country, would they not, on account of the freight conditions? There is a constant passage of vessels between England and South America, while there are very few vessels that are trading between this country and South America. If we bought our hides from England, we would not only have the freight from South America to pay, but the freight across the Atlantic to this country, and therefore is it not true that even under free-trade conditions foreign hides would be cheaper in Great Britain than in this country.

Mr. URION. You are getting into the realms now that I know nothing about. I have had about twenty-one years' experience in the packing business-more than half my life-and I do not know much else.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. That is one of the questions that we would like

Mr. URION. I think, however, your statement, that they go from South America to England and then are shipped over here, would be like "going around Robin Hood's barn" to get the South Amercan hides to this country.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. Of course the passage of the trading vessels would regulate that, and where there are very few vessels moving in commerce between ports of this country and South America there are a great many moving between England and South America. Necessarily it would produce a result in ocean freight rates which would be to the advantage of the English purchaser and enable him to purchase hides very much cheaper than they could be laid down in this country.

Mr. URION. I haven't any opinion upon that; I do not know anything about it.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. You can not express an opinion as to the domestic freight rates or foreign freight rates that enter into this subject? Mr. URION. No, sir; that is a shipping matter with which I am not familiar.

Mr. COCKRAN. The fact remains that entirely independent of the cost of hides you go on and buy cattle just the same to meet the meat supply?

Mr. URION. Certainly.

Mr. COCKRAN. And you would have about the same quantity of hides and you would dispose of them?

Mr. URION. Yes; but I think the price would probably be lower. because the more hides we get from other countries the less the demand and the lower the price.

The CHAIRMAN. You manufacture bristles, do you not; you put them up?

Mr. URION. Only in the rough. We do not sort and pack bristles, for the reason that the marketable bristles are white bristles.

The CHAIRMAN. A man before the committee the other day advocated the reduction of the duty on bristles of the common sort and an increase of duty on the bristles of the finer sort, saying that the duty now-so much a pound-was not a reasonable one. Do we produce any bristles here in competition with the long bristles that come from northern Russia?

Mr. URION. The heavy hogs, I think, produce a stiffer bristle, which comes in a sort of competition, but we do not know much about the bristle trade. We simply take them off the hogs and sell them in the rough. We do not pack and sort and sell them.

The CHAIRMAN. Then you do not know anything about the work? Mr. URION. No, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. We produce a good enough bristle here to make a paint brush of the fine quality, do we not?

Mr. URION. I am afraid that I do not know.

Mr. CRUMPACKER. Do you slaughter any old hogs?

Mr. URION. When I said "old hogs "-yes; the heavy hogs.

Mr. CRUMPACKER. The bulk of your hogs are less than a year old, are they not?

Mr. URION. As a rule; yes.

Mr. CRUMPACKER. And hogs of that age do not produce the long and strong bristles?

Mr. URION. I think not; but I don't know.

Mr. FORDNEY. I did not hear all of your statement, Mr. Urion, and I want to ask you what an average hide off a steer will weigh-say. the 3-year-old or more. Have you stated that?

Mr. URION. From 60 to 70 pounds.

Mr. FORDNEY. What is it worth in the market generally-that is, in the last ten years?

Mr. URION. A 70-pound hide would be about $7 to $7.50.

Mr. FORDNEY. So, when you are speaking of 90 cents to $1.20, that is the duty on hides?

Mr. GAINES. What is the same hide worth dry?

Mr. URION. It shrinks about 16 per cent.

Mr. GAINES. And its value would be how much more than the green hide?

Mr. URION. I do not know anything about the dry hide. We handle the green hide. I do not profess to know the hide business, excepting as a part of the packing business.

Mr. GAINES. The packers' hides are tanned without having to get dry?

Mr. URION. I do not know the process of tanning.

Mr. GAINES. But do you know whether your hides are kept until they are dry and what their value would then be, just as well as you know their value when green, unless they are not kept until dry? Mr. URION. That is the case; they are not kept until dry. Mr. GAINES. I asked you that question.

Mr. URION. I did not understand you.

Mr. GAINES. It was stated before this committee, if I recollect aright, that the price of hides and the price of cattle did not correspond; that is to say, that when cattle were highest, generally hides were lowest, and they stated that before the committee as a fact tending to show that the price of the hide was not taken into consideration in the price given to the farmer for the steer. What have you

to say about the fact as to the hides' failure to correspond with the high prices and as to the inference drawn from that?

Mr. URION. I think I can answer that by saying that during 1907 the price of cattle averaged very high, and I have already said to the committee that the price of the hide got down to 8 cents. That is the opposite to what has been stated to the committee. It is true in a measure that the price of cattle does not follow the price of the hide, or the hide follow the price of the cattle; neither does the sale of fresh beef follow the price of the cattle, excepting in a general way. We buy to-day, and put on the market next week, ten days hence; and weather like this has a great effect upon the beef, and the stuff that is on the market here in Washington to-day was probably bought on the market a week or ten days ago. This is a very sticky day, very little demand for meat, and butchers do not like to handle it. There is less meat sold, it is harder to keep, and the price goes down, because you can not keep fresh beef very long in the coolers. The probabilities are that the beef being sold in Washington to-day is sold for a good deal less than it was figured we would get for the beef at the time we purchased the cattle.

Mr. GAINES. Is there any correspondence between the range of price of beef compared with the range of price of the hide?

Mr. URION. They could hardly be compared, because beef is a perishable product, and hides are not.

Mr. GAINES. Do you mean by that to say that in your opinion no inference is to be drawn, in considering this inquiry, from the failure of correspondence between beef and hides?

Mr. URION. That is what I mean to say.

Mr. GAINES. It has been stated here as one of the principal reasons for the reduction of duty on hides, that the packers are drawn into the tanning business so extensively that the tanners are compelled to buy their raw material from their competitors.

Mr. URION. I read that statement.

Mr. GAINES. That is one of the most serious complaints. What have you to say about that? And, it has also been stated that the process referred to has gone on to such an extent that the tanners are largely working now for the packers, tanning for the packers by contract, because they can not get hides to tan on their own account; and that at the present rate of progress the tanners will practically all be, pretty soon, mere servants of packers, working for them, rather than doing an independent tanning business.

Mr. URION. I read that statement, and it struck me as somewhat inconsistent, the statement being that the packers not only control the cattle market but they also control the tanning business; that we want a tariff-so it is charged-because we control with our left hand the cattle business, and they say that we control the tanning business, and the tanners want free hides. Now, if we are controlling the tanning business, I should think that we would want free hides. It does not make any difference, I say, to Armour & Co., however, whether the duty on hides is retained, whether it is raised, lowered, or wiped out. Now, to get to your question direct. Last year hides could not be sold at even 8 cents. They had to be moved, for every day's kill added more hides, and the packers did not sit backArmour & Co. did not sit back, Micawber like, and "Wait for something to turn up." They did make some contracts for the tanning of

hides. I think there were three of them, one in New England, one in Delaware, and one in Pennsylvania.

Mr. COCKRAN. Do you say you make contracts to dispose of all your hides to three different persons?

Mr. URION. No, sir; with three different tanners, some of the hides which we had in cellars, and which we could not sell at 8 cents a pound. I believe I saw a statement that the prices had advanced in hides some 40 per cent in the last year. They are taking the low price, 8 or 9 cents a pound, when the tanners could have bought the hides and stored them, and they probably would not have been so high to-day.

Mr. DALZELL. You want us to understand that that was an exceptional condition of things?

Mr. URION. It was exceptional; there was no demand. question of demand. But I had not quite finished. In addition to that, Mr. Armour is a stockholder in a tannery at Sheboygan, Wis. He is also a holder of some of the common stock of the United States Leather Company. I want to be perfectly frank and have the committee understand the matter. It is charged that he dominates the control of the United States Leather Company. Such is not the fact. He is not an officer or director, has no business with them other than being a stockholder, and they being purchasers of hides on the market. Mr. GAINES. Having told us of his interest in the United States Leather Company, will you tell us how great that interest is?

Mr. URION. I can answer generally by saying that, taken as a whole, his holding of common stock as against the whole is very small, in the minority, and there is no controlling interest, not even a large minority interest.

Mr. GAINES. You have said that Armour & Co. did not care whether the tariff was raised or lowered or taken off.

Mr. URION. I mean by that from their own standpoint-their own standpoint, their selfish standpoint, which seems to be largely a governing

Mr. GAINES. It would not affect him financially?

Mr. URION. I started to say that I thought it was largely a governing influence in the tariff question. Some people want the duty on one thing, and on the same thing other people do not want the duty, so they are each governed by selfish interests-selfish is not a good word to use, but by self-interest in their own business. Then I say "our" business, it makes no difference whether there is a tariff, the present tariff, a higher tariff, a lower tariff, or no tariff at all.

Mr. GAINES. Why do you reach the conclusion; what is the consideration that, in your opinion, would equalize the situation to you if the tariff were taken off of hides?

Mr. URION. It might reduce the price of cattle just 15 per cent. We would pay for them less 15 per cent if we could buy them at that price.

Mr. CRUMPACKER. Reduce the price of cattle 15 per cent, or 15 per cent on the hides?

Mr. URION. On that part of the cattle which is the hide.

Mr.CRUMPACKER. I wondered if it would reduce the price of the entire cattle 15 per cent. I did not expect that it would be quite that. Mr. URION. We are talking about hides; not cattle.