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as to refer to my political affiliations with any foolish hope of making capital out of them. I do refer to the fact that I am loyal to the principles and organization of the Democratic Party for a very different purpose indeed.

It may be a little bit old-fashioned, but my own opinion is that when a man has given his support to the nomination and election of a candidate for the President of the United States, he is not at liberty to allow his private interests to lead him into any cooperation with the political enemy of the party which this candidate represents, and least of all to become a party to any plan designed to embarrass him in carrying out policies to the support of which he considers that he has in honor pledged himself to the American people.

Speaking, therefore, entirely for myself and as an American citizen who has chosen to spend his money in the beet-sugar business, I desire to say that while I sincerely hope that the Democratic organization under its new and, as I believe, its inspired leadership, will reach the conclusion that the economic interest of the people of the United States demand that the beet-sugar business should not be thrown like a bone to a pack of hungry dogs; when Mr. Wilson and his cabinet make up their minds, in conjunction with the chairman of this committee and his Democratic associates, what they think should be done with the tariff on sugar, I will not personally give any support to any political opposition to that conclusion.

With this much frankly said and standing before this committee in defense of my own property, I think I have a fair right to call attention to another subject.

Sugar, as nobody knows better than you, Mr. Chairman, has been the football of American politics since you and I have been of age and have known anything about business at all. Business considerations have never prevailed in discussing it. It has always been controlled by what have been deemed at the time to be the political requirements of the hour. I mean no disrespect to any member of the Democratic Party or any of its leaders when I say that I know no better illustration of this ugly fact than the passage by the House of Representatives last spring by an overwhelming majority of a free-sugar bill. These members of the Democratic Party may not have publicly said so, but I believe that they have admitted or would privately admit that they never would have supported that monstrous measure which was designed to throw, over night, a heavily protected industry into the very slums of destruction, if they had not known in their hearts that the measure would be quickly throttled in the Senate of the United States. It is publicly rumored that a similar policy is to be pursued at the next special session of Congress. If it is, I desire to say, with the greatest solemnity, and with a full responsibility for my statements, that if such a wicked policy is pursued, every Democrat who voted for Mr. Wislon with the confident belief that this great subject would be approached with business decorum, would have the clearest right to believe at least that the House of Representatives and the Democratic leaders did not represent and were not guided by the fair promises and the honorable purposes of their new leader.

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As I have been bold enough to speak so frankly on this subject, may I be permitted to go one step farther? Why, in Heaven's name, can not the Democratic Party say once for all that the tariff shall not any longer be a political question, and refer it, as it ought to have been referred long ago, to impartial nonpartisan business commissions? While we are all being properly thankful for the fact that we are to have at last an idealist at the head of the Nation, may it not be fair to assume that he proposes to do everything he can to bring about an honest and fair cooperation between the business man and the statesman?

Take the beet-sugar business, for instance: Its proposed destruction involves, without rhetorical statement, hundreds of millions of dollars of money. It involves also an easily collected revenue of $50,000,000 to the United States Government. Is not that subject big enough to merit the consideration of a commission whose sole duty it shall be to examine and report upon it? Does not this chairman and his associates, at least his Democratic associates, believe that there are enough men, women, and children whose fortunes and lives are involved in this subject to justify the United States Government in spending enough time and enough money to make a fair and impartial study of it? Do you wonder, Mr. Chairman, that those of us who have gone fearlessly out into the prairies of Colorado and who have been engaged in building up one of the cleanest businesses on the face of God's footstool, and have been real makers of civilization while we have been going through the difficult process of establishing it do you not suppose we resent the fact that our work is being subjected to the snap judgments of men who have had no experience in working out the complicated risks involved in such a business? Even to-day this committee has certainly had illustration enough of the fact that the distinguished and experienced gentlemen who make up this committee can not by any possibility hope to reach fair conclusions in the hurly-burly of such a hearing as we have gone through to-day. Do such hearings give the business man any reasonable ground to hope that this great subject will be approached with the business dignity which we have been led to believe would mark the discussion of this and similar business subjects?

And now in real conclusion I wish to say, without affectation and with absolute sincerity, that I am looking to the great new commander in chief of the Democratic Party to bring into the relations between business and the National Government a spirit of good will and cooperation, and that I will personally resent an attempt on the part of any interest with which I have even the most remote connection to embarrass the incoming President of the United States.

But suppose the political leaders of the Democratic Party should elect to pass a free-sugar bill through the House at the special session for the purpose of "trying to frighten" the beet-sugar interests into subjection and bring about a compromise? Would these political leaders have anybody but themselves to blame if such a policy resulted in a fierce political controversy in the Senate? Can an enlightened treatment of the sugar problem be possible if the now

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dominant party can not approach it in an enlightened way? If enlightenment begets enlightenment and fair business treatment begets fair business treatment, who will deny, Mr. Chairman, that a political attack invites and justifies a political defense? My friends who are here representing other beet-sugar companies will tell you that I refused to come here at all unless I was permitted to speak as I have spoken, and I am only here because I entertain the hope that the business gentlemen who are engaged in the beet-sugar business will be permitted to sit down with the business gentlemen who will represent the policies of the Democratic Party for the purpose of trying to reach a fair and businesslike conclusion in a spirit of concession and in a spirit of cooperation. I have said to these gentlemen who are here to-day, and, so far as I know they agree with me, that in my opinion the beet-sugar business should set an example to all of the protected industries of the United States by meeting Mr. Wilson and his associates in the spirit in which he has himself announced he wishes to be met. My political friends who make up the Republican members of this committee are, I am sure, saying to themselves that I am "calling Mr. Wilson's bluff," but they know in their hearts that I am not, because they must feel, as every man who has followed Mr. Wilson's utterances is bound to feel, whatever his political prejudices and affiliations may be, that there is every reason in the world to believe that a man is on his way to the White House whose mind is free from guile or hypocrisy and on whose sincerity and patriotism we can all rely. Let us suppose that instead of throwing this great industry into the maelstrom of politics and, in a desperate effort to save it from political destruction, encouraging its friends to resort to all the desperate devices of lobbying and logrolling, it was possible that even before the special session began the new administration and the domestic-sugar interests could agree either upon a fair adjustment of differences of opinion or else upon the appointment by the President of an impartial and wise commission. I do not believe there is a man in the sound of my voice who sincerely doubts that Mr. Wilson means to be the President of all the people and of all the interests of the United States, and that in assuming the leadership of the Democratic Party he will inspire in every right-minded man, whatever his prejudices or whatever his political associations, a sincere desire and purpose to cooperate with him in the fulfillment of the aspirations which he has for the welfare and progress, and the improvement of the standards, of the people of the United States.

Mr. OXNARD. Mr. Trueman G. Palmer will now address the committee.

TESTIMONY OF TRUEMAN G. PALMER, SECRETARY UNITED STATES BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY.

The witness was first duly sworn by the chairman.

Mr. PALMER. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I take it for granted that the reason why you are considering a reduction of the tariff is, primarily, because of the high price of food products, certainly it is not because of a closing down of our mills, which have

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been running overtime, or a reduction in the price of labor, which has never been employed at such high wages as at present, but when you come to consider sugar, it does not seem that its price affords any reason for wishing to reduce the duty on that commodity. Since 1870 the price of sugar has declined 63 per cent, and a dollar to-day will buy as much sugar as $2.70 would buy at that time, and from 1900 to 1910, while the price of salt pork has increased 89 per cent, and lard has increased 81 per cent, bacon 77 per cent, eggs 64 per cent, hams 60 per cent, and all other food products in proportion, the price of sugar declined 7 per cent. We contend that during recent years, domestic sugar has played a rather important part in keeping down the price of all classes of sugar in the United States. In 1911, when the domestic beet sugar crop came on to the market, it sold at a price below cane sugar, and in 10 weeks time the marketing of that sugar reduced the price of cane sugar throughout this country 14 cents a pound. When we compare the retail price of sugar in the United States with the prices obtaining in Europe, we do not find that sugar is sold at a higher price here than it is there, but, on the contrary, in a majority of the European countries sugar retails at a higher price than it does here. The figures gathered by the State Department in July, 1911, show that in but five of the 19 European countries was granulated sugar sold at even a fraction of a cent below the price it was selling for in the United States, and that in the other 14 countries it was selling at a much higher price, in several countries the price being more than double that prevailing in the United States.

As to the revenue collected on sugar, there are but three European countries which do not exact a higher rate of taxation on sugar than is exacted in the United States. I am speaking now of the import duty and the internal or excise tax as well, and should the price of sugar in the United States be reduced-that is, if you take the duty entirely off of sugar and the amount of the duty should be passed along by the refiners to the wholesalers, by the wholesalers to the retailers, and the consumer obtained his sugar at a price lower by the full reduction of duty-his net saving would amount to less than 14 cents per annum per capita.

According to the figures of the Bureau of Labor, the total amount expended by the average workingman's family for sugar is less than 5 per cent of what he expends for other food products, and it only would reduce the cost for a family of five by the actual sum of 4 cents per day if he received his sugar absolutely free of cost. With such a small possible saving it would be ridiculous to assign as a reason for lowering the duty on foreign raw sugar a desire to reduce the high cost of living. Nor does it seem possible that any consumer believes that the retail price of sugar would be permanently lowered by destroying, rather than by building up, the domestic sugar industry, the only competitor the refiners have. Stifling and destroying competition, thereby establishing a monopoly, has not been considered an effective method whereby prices can be permanently lowered.

The most potent influence which has contributed to the high cost of living is the nonadoption of one recognized essential in the art of agriculture, as a result of which we reap but one bushel where other

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countries reap two. Because of these small acreage yields of cereal crops, excluding cotton which is not a food product, the United States has become an importer instead of an exporter of agricultural products. From 1900 to 1910 the value of our annual exports of foodstuffs declined 40 per cent. Excluding cotton, for every dollar's worth of agricultural products which we export, we import a dollar and fifth cents worth, and the value of our imports exceeds the value of our exports of these products by $267,000,000 a year. Is it a cause for wonder that with this reversal of conditions the increase in the price of food products in the United States has been phenomenal ? This unfortunate reversal of trade balances in agricultural products is due absolutely to the failure of our farmers to adopt the croprotation system, which is practiced by all the leading nations of Europe. With the newest and richest soils, the best agricultural climate, the finest implements, the most intelligent and well-to-do farmers to be found in the world, with our agricultural science and an unparalleled and well equipped national Department of Agriculture, we have the doubtful distinction of producing one-half as much per acre as do the fields in Europe. It was the planting of sugar beets one year in four in rotation with other crops which doubled and quadrupled Europe's yield per acre of all cereal crops and thereby saved a large portion of its people the alternative of emigration or starvation. While before the advent of sugar-beet cultivation European governments encouraged emigration because of inability to feed the increasing population, they now discourage emigration in every possible manner, and Germany alone annually imports over 100,000 field workers from Russia and Galicia.

Europe having doubled the yield of her fields, and the United States having failed to profit by her example, we no longer can be represented as "feeding the world" or "feeding the starving hordes of western Europe," which are two of the headlines of certain magazine articles which appeared only three or four years ago.

Of wheat, rye, barley, oats, and potatoes western Europe produces 43 bushels per acre, Germany 69.3 bushels, and the United States 21.1 bushels; and of these five crops western Europe annually produces 26.7 bushels per capita, Germany 48.8 bushels, and the United States but 21.5 bushels per capita. Is it any wonder that with this disparity in acreage yields the price of food products in the United States has become abnormally high?

Inasmuch as the direct returns from a crop of sugar beets more than repay the entire expenses of special preparation and cultivation, the consequent increase in yield is entirely profit which goes to the farmer in increased number of bushels and to all consumers in a decreased price per bushel. The consumer can not be so blind to his own interests as not to realize that he has a direct and material interest in any industry or any work that will increase the yield per acre of our fields.

A century ago the fields of Europe yielded an average of but 12 bushels of cereals per acre. Thirty years ago of wheat, rye, barley, and oats the fields of Germany yielded 21 bushels per acre, and of the United States 20 bushels. They were very close together 30 years ago. To-day it is but 21 bushels in the United States; we have increased but 1 busbel per acre, and in Germany, due to the