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PARAGRAPH 437-AMMUNITION.

We know your time is very limited, and do not like to bother you with these small items when you are fighting on wool, cotton, lumber, etc.-that are large propositions but we voted for "Tariff for revenue only," and not for protection of certain firms, and these two little items fall under that head if anything does. We trust there will be a downward revision all along the line on goods controlled by a few large factories, as in this instance. AMERICAN AMMUNITION Co., Per M. B. PAGE.

Respectfully, yours,

WINCHESTER REPEATING ARMS CO., NEW HAVEN, CONN., IN RE AMMUNITION.

The COMMITTEE ON WAYS ANd Means,

NEW HAVEN, CONN., January 27, 1913.

House of Representatives, Washington, D. C.

GENTLEMEN: In giving consideration to paragraph 437 of Schedule N, relating to cartridges, cartridge shells, etc., we ask you to give attention to the differences in the manufacturing conditions which exist in Europe as compared with those with which the American manufacturers have to contend.

The continental manufacturer is equipped with loading machinery which, for efficiency, is regarded as quite the equal of that used by the American manufacturers, so that so far as the mechanical element is concerned the manufacturers of this country have no advantage.

The continental manufacturer has a decided advantage in the cost of labor, their wage rates being but 25 to 60 per cent of that paid by the manufacturers in this country, an advantage which no amount of automatic labor-saving machinery or other economic means have thus far been able to overcome.

The foreign manufacturers also have an advantage in lead, which constitutes about one-third of the cost of ammunition, they being able to purchase this metal on an average of about 30 per cent less than that for which the American manufacturer can purchase it, while the American manufacturers, for use in the foreign trade, can, by the use of foreign lead, under the drawback provisions of the customs laws, obtain a return of 99 per cent of the duty which they pay; with the expense incident to the collection of this drawback, made necessary by the segregation of materials and the maintenance of records and accounts, the manufacturers are able to obtain a net return of but 1.99 cents per pound, as compared with the duty of 2.125 cents per pound, which they pay; but even with this benefit they are still unable to overcome the difference in the manufacturing costs which exists between the United States and the continental countries.

That there is any demand for American-made ammunition in the continental countries can be accounted for only in that the foreign owners and users of Americanmade arms, in order to obtain the best results therefrom, naturally use, but to a limited extent, American ammunition at an increased cost over like ammunition of European make.

The price of American-made ammunition is not excessive and could not be, by reason of the keen competition among the various manufacturers of this country, which is believed to be as great as that of any other commodity in trade.

The present tariff rate does not unduly enhance the price of ammunition, which, considering the amount of capital and skill involved, with the possibility of casual injury to life and property incident to the manufacture and handling of explosives, brings far from excessive returns. Any material reduction in the present tariff rates will bring the American manufacturer into conflict with foreign conditions, with which they have no practical way of competing.

This corporation employs in the small-arms ammunition branch of its manufacture alone on an average of 2,000 experienced people, whom, together with those similarly employed throughout the States, we submit should be, so far as possible, encouraged and kept in practice for the common good of the country, and we therefore earnestly trust that there may, at this time, be no change made toward lowering the rates by your committee.

Respectfully,

WINCHESTER REPEATING ARMS CO.,
G. E. HODSON, President.

PARAGRAPH 438-FEATHER MILLINERY.

PARAGRAPH 438.

Feathers and downs of all kinds, including bird skins or parts thereof with the feathers on, crude or not dressed, colored, or otherwise advanced or manufactured in any manner, not specially provided for in this section, twenty per centum ad valorem; when dressed, colored, or otherwise advanced or manufactured in any manner, including quilts of down and other manufactures of down, and also dressed and finished birds suitable for millinery ornaments, and artificial or ornamental feathers, fruits, grains, leaves, flowers, and stems or parts thereof, of whatever material composed, not specially provided for in this section, sixty per centum ad valorem; boas, boutonnieres, wreaths, and all articles not specially provided for in this section composed wholly or in chief value of any of the feathers, flowers, leaves, or other materials or articles herein mentioned, sixty per centum ad valorem.

FEATHER MILLINERY.

TESTIMONY OF DR. WILLIAM T. HORNADAY, NEW YORK ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY, NEW YORK CITY.

Dr. Hornaday was duly sworn by the chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Proceed, Doctor.

Dr. HORNADAY. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I appear before you on rather peculiar grounds. I think that all of the gentlemen who have been heard by you up to this time have appeared before you representing personal, partnership, or corporate interests. I might even call them selfish interests, because they are not interests that are supposed to represent the people of the country at large. It is natural that business should seek to protect and promote itself. The footing on which Mr. Pearson and I appear before you is entirely different. The organizations which we represent have no favors to ask for themselves and no selfish ends to serve. It is not going too far for me to say that we appear here representing the people at large of the United States and beyond.

Mr. FORDNEY. What paragraph, sir, do you refer to?

Dr. HORNADAY. My section is feather millinery-the importation of plumage of wild birds, for feather millinery.

Mr. FORDNEY. Thank you.

Dr. HORNADAY. In these days, the great force that we call progress is continually bringing before you new conditions. I think it is probably no exaggeration to say that three-fourths of the time of the Congress of the United States is devoted to the consideration of measures intended to adjust this country to new conditions. Now, that is precisely why we are here.

The importation and use of the plumage of wild birds for millinery purposes is not absolutely new. It has been going on for many years, but certain forces now operating have brought about what I might properly characterize as new conditions. Those conditions are the enormous activity that now prevails throughout the world in the slaughter of wild life generally. That is a story I need not rehearse to you. You are all familiar with it. This Congress has done its part in seeking to arrest the grinding up and pulverizing of the forces and products of nature as found in our country. You have made many national forests for the conservation of our timber; you have made many national parks, and you have made many game preserves and bird refuges, and the subject is not new to you.

PARAGRAPH 438-FEATHER MILLINERY.

Therefore we approach it with considerable confidence, and I want to call attention to what is now going on throughout the world at large in the destruction of the most beautiful and most interesting birds for commercial purposes. Those commercial purposes might be summed up in two words, "Commercial millinery.' My colleague, Mr. Pearson, of the Audubon Society, will tell you about the destruction of birds in our own country. I shall endeavor to leave that branch of the subject entirely to him. My field is beyond our own country.

It is unfortunately true that no wild-animal species can possibly stand exploitation for commercial purposes. That is a principle that applies all over the world, and to it I think there is not one exception. It is unfortunately true that for every product of nature that can be exploited by a man at profit, whether it is 1 cent or 10 cents or $50, that product, whether it is bird, mammal, fish in the sea, or what not, will be pursued by man, and if his efforts are not arrested it will be wiped out of existence. If I had time, I would be glad to cite the extermination of a number of species to prove that; but, as an appendix to my brief, I shall include a list of 11 species of North American birds that have already been totally exterminated from off the face of the earth and a list of about 25 more that are now on the road to extermination.

The trouble is that a man who seeks a bird product for profit is relentless. He works while the bird protectors sleep or enjoy life. He is always there, and the demands of the feather millinery trade of London and Paris and Berlin are felt to-day in the most remote and inaccessible corners of the world in the destruction of wild life.

Now, to show you very briefly how this is worked out practically I have brought a few specimens here, all of them from beyond our own borders.

In the book that has recently been placed in your hands by the zoological society you will find a list of 60 entries, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, which represent not only 60 species, but inasmuch as several groups are included in a single line, it represents at least 100 species of birds of the most beautiful and most curious in the world, that are now being diligently sought wherever they are found, being actually exterminated by the feather trade. The demands of the feather industry are absolutely inexorable and remorseless. It has been well said by one of the bird protectors of London, in the course of the great fight being made against the feather industry, that "The women of the smart set are beyond the reach of appeal or protest." It is impossible to put any tariff on goods of this kind which the wealthy will not consent to pay. I think if you put a price of $100 an ounce on egret plumes there are women who have unlimited wealth and who want the aigrettes who will pay it without the slightest thought.

Now, what we are here to ask is the absolute prohibition of the importation of the plumage and skins of all wild birds for commercial purposes.

Mr. HARRISON. Does that refer to birds of all kinds or only the egret?

Dr. HORNADAY. Wild birds of all kinds.

PARAGRAPH 438-FEATHER MILLINERY.

There is, as you will see in that list, Mr. Chairman, a very wide range to the subjects whose feathers are used in millinery purposes. Even the vultures and condors do not escape, and it includes not only the egret, of which we have heard a great deal, but birds of paradise, pheasants, crown pigeons, and a list of species too long to read.

To begin nearest home, I m going to show you the feather milliner's horn of plenty, just to show you that nothing is too humble and no price too small to engage the attention of the feather milliner. There are a lot of skins of humming birds, gentlemen, purchased in London by a representative of the Zoological Society, who attended a London feather show last year. At what price do you suppose? Those come from the headwaters of the Amazon, most of them, and most of those birds traveled 5,000 miles to get to London, 1,500 miles by boat on the Amazon River, where they were collected by native Indians in the depths of the forests of Venezuela and Brazil. Those were purchased in London, 1,600 of them, at 2 cents apiece. Those brought to the man who collected those skins less than 1 cent apiece, and yet that pitiful price is not too small to justify the. destruction of those beautiful birds.

The destruction of humming birds, gentlemen, comes pretty close home. Plant a creeper over the door of your veranda and you will have humming birds there. They will be a delight to your wife and children every summer, and the feather millinery trade of London strikes a blow at those birds. That is how near it comes to our wives and children. There [indicating] is one of the most beautiful birds in the world. That is the resplendent trogon, or quetzal, the national emblem of the State of Guatemala. That bird is now becoming so rare and so nearly extinct that money can not buy a live specimen for us to exhibit in New York. There (indicating] is a South American species of the beautiful cock of the rock, found in the Andes of Ecuador and Peru. That is a species which they are now just beginning to exploit in a wholesale way. If we permit the importation of that bird to the markets of the United States in order that its plumage may be used for millinery purposes we will contribute to the extermination of that beautiful species.

There [indicating] is a specimen of the bird of paradise, similar to the one that was shown here yesterday. This comes from the Ara Island, in the Malay Archipelago. It is an insular species, and you all know that there is nothing more easy to destroy in life than an insular species. There [indicating] is a greater bird of paradise, that exactly resembles that bird, but it is larger. Those skins are worth in London all the way from $17 to $40 apiece. In this country the millinery concerns and the dry-goods concerns in the larger cities are being flooded with heads and plumes of this bird and its sister species, the greater bird of paradise, to be sold for millinery purposes, and the prices range from $37 to $60.

In far away Indiana, where one would least expect to see things of this kind, I saw in the windows of some stores that were within 100 feet of the door of the hotel in which the Fourth National Conservation Congress had its headquarters 11 specimens of this bird displayed for sale, and as I stood gazing in at one of those windows and wondering who in Indianapolis could afford the expense of wearing specimens of that kind, costing so much money, the answer

PARAGRAPH 438-FEATHER MILLINERY.

approached. It was a tall lady, about 6 feet in height; muscular. She would have graced any hand laundry in Washington City or in New York. She was accompanied by a companion, and she pointed a large and muscular finger at one of those birds and said, "There; I want one of them, and I'm going to have it, too." That was my

answer.

Now, the worst of it is that these two birds of paradise, with those yellow plumes that you can recognize wherever you see them, are now not only going to be exterminated, but they are practically exterminated. The forests of the Ara Íslands and the Island of Jobi, which once contained countless thousands of those birds, have been combed out by the natives of those islands, who climbed up in the tree tops with their blowpipes, in order to shoot these birds without making any noise. Those islands have been combed out to such an extent that, instead of seeing thousands of them in a morning's walk, as was formerly the case, the last naturalist to visit these islands said that it was now possible to walk through those forests without seeing one bird.

Now, what right have we, the people of the United States, to contribute to the extermination of these beautiful species?

There is another phase of the subject, which is totally different. The defenders of the use of the plumage of wild birds in feather millinery will tell you that it is all right for the plumage of game birds to be used. Now, let us see how that works out practically.

Here are the remains of a silver pheasant that was killed in the northern part of Burma. It was seized 18 months ago in the customhouse at Rangoon, with about 800 others, when on its way for surreptitious exportation, contrary to the law, to the feather markets of London. Now, the point that I wish to make in this matter is this: Here is a game species, a species of game bird, actually being exterminated, and not for its flesh, but for its feathers for the feather trade.

Gentlemen, the New York Zoological Society of 1,900 members is utterly opposed to the extermination of different species of birds and mammals for commercial purposes. It is utterly opposed to it, and I believe that if a vote of the people at large of the United States could be taken to-day, you would find 89,900,000 people opposed to it.

Mr. HARRISON. Dr. Hornaday, your time has expired, but I would like the privilege of asking you one question about the practical side of this legislation. Suppose that we should prohibit the importation of any game birds or their feathers, or any wild birds or their feathers, what effect would that have upon the destruction of our wild birds in the United States?

Dr. HORNADAY. I think it would have no appreciable effect. We have the situation in regard to our game birds so well in hand that the destruction of birds for their feathers is hardly to be considered. Mr. Pearson will handle the question of our native plumage birds, so that I will leave that entirely to him.

Mr. HARRISON. Have you any questions, gentlemen?

Mr. PAIMER. Are there any countries which now prohibit the importation of this class of goods?

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