and Monroe County, N. Y.; William T. Phillips, operative manager, the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals; Carlton E. Buttrick, president of the Animal Rescue League of Boston and an officer and director of New England Livestock Conservation, Inc.; Clifton E. Johnson, executive secretary-manager, the Michigan Humane Society, Detroit, Mich.; J. J. Shaffer, managing director of the Anti-Cruelty Society of Chicago; Mrs. Blair F. Claybaugh, president of the Humane Society of Harrisburg, Pa., and president of the Federated Humane Societies of Pennsylvania; Helen N. Perkins, president, the Richmond Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals; and Raymond J. Hanfield, executive assistant, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, New York, N. Y., are as follows:)

STATEMENT OF C. RAYMOND NARAMORE, VICE PRESIDENT AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE HUMANE SOCIETY OF ROCHESTER AND MONROE COUNTY, N. Y., A MEMBER OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF THE AMERICAN HUMANE ASSOCIATION AND CHAIRMAN OF THE AHA COMMITTEE ON AWARDS FOR HUMANE SLAUGHTERING

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, my name is C. Raymond Naramore. I am vice president and executive director of the Humane Society of Rochester and Monroe County, N. Y., a member of the board of directors of the American Humane Association, and chairman of the American Humane Association Committee on Awards for Humane Slaughtering.

Nearly 7,000 members of the Humane Society of Rochester and Monroe County, N. Y., have long been disturbed by the knowledge of common practices in the American slaughterhouses.

Three years ago the board of directors of the Humane Society of Rochester and Monroe County appointed a committee on humane slaughtering. This committee has worked actively with the American Humane Association in its attempts to bring about improved slaughtering methods. It has continually brought to the attention of the members of the Humane Society of Rochester and Monroe County the great need for instituting humane slaughtering on the killing floors of the meat packinghouses in the United States.

We in Rochester and Monroe County firmly believe the progress of humane thinking makes this the right time for the enactment of legislation for humane slaughtering, for we are convinced that a great tide of desire for humane killing methods has been sweeping across the country.

In Rochester and Monroe County, meatpackers have unanimously stated to our Humane Slaughter Committee their desires to use practical methods of humane slaughtering in their business of meatpacking.

Many leaders in the national meat industry have said that they too are desirious of using humane killing methods. The National Provisioner, leading publication of the meatpacking industries, has stated editorially: "We believe that the passage of some kind of humane slaughter law is not too far off." There are now available several improved methods of humane killing. These have been tried and found efficient, humane, and economical.

The utilization of these now satisfactory devices for humane slaughtering will give moral impetus to the whole humane movement in the United States, create good public relations between the meat industry and the millions of humanitarians, bring more efficient and economical processing to the packers, and eliminate the horrible, unnecessary cruelty, pain and suffering that is today such a black blot on America.

Necessary suffering is bad. Unnecessary is criminal.

The 7,000 members of the Humane Society of Rochester and Monroe County ask that you gentlemen of Congress wipe out this cruelty.

We ask you to act favorably upon compulsory humane slaughter legislation. We ask you to save from suffering countless creatures each year.

We ask you to pour forth the milk of human kindness.

STATEMENT OF CLIFTON E. JOHNSON OF THE MICHIGAN HUMANE SOCIETY, Detroit, MICH.

As a person who has for many years been associated with animal welfare work, I have long deplored the suffering undergone by our so-called meat animals. I have especially deplored that which is inflicted upon animals during the process of being dispatched for slaughter. As a humanitarian, this suffering has been particularly offensive since it radiates a baseness that we have sought to stamp out through humane teaching and application of kind principles in every association with the animal world. I feel that to inflict unnecessary suffering, when such suffering can be avoided, is to act in direct contradiction to the American way of life-a manner of life that came into existence as a result of a desire to extend kindliness and fair play to all creatures. If we are to exemplify sincerity, then we must surely extend our principles to all forms of life dependent on we humans. Certainly our meat animals come well within this latter category.

It stands to reason that any animal slaughtered in a manner conducive to a quick and painless death, will unquestionably produce a greater amount of edible product in the grading out during butchering. I firmly believe that any undue reaction produced by the application of inhumane methods of killing only tends to render some parts of the edible product useless. If death is not instantaneous, or brought about while the animal is in a relaxed state, struggling is bound to ensue, thus adding tremendous suffering to whatever economical loss can be proven.

STATEMENT OF CARLTON E. BUTTRICK, PRESIDENT OF THE ANIMAL RESCUE LEAGUE OF BOSTON AND AN OFFICER AND DIRECTOR OF NEW ENGLAND LIVESTOCK CONSERVATION, INC.

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, my name is Carlton E. Buttrick. I am president of the Animal Rescue League of Boston and an officer and director of New England Livestock Conservation, Inc.

I wish to thank you for the opportunity to present the position of the proponents of compulsory humane slaughtering and, further, to say that there are literally thousands of members of the organizations I represent who are vitally concerned and who sincerely hope that passage of humane slaughter legislation will be accomplished in this session of Congress.

I believe that the passage of legislation to require the use of humane methods in the slaughter of livestock and poultry would be a tremendous step forward in the treatment of millions of this country's food animals. Many years ago the Congress saw fit to pass legislation which would require animals in transit to market to be rested, watered, and fed every 24 to 36 hours, but no law or regulation has been adopted to insure the humane slaughter of these animals when they reach their destination. Doesn't this seem a little incongruous?

The bills presently being studied by your committee will provide an understandable and enforcible law under which no slaughterer would be permitted to hoist, bleed, or slaughter any livestock or poultry unless such livestock and poultry had first been rendered insensible by mechanical, electrical, chemical or other means determined by the Secretary of Agriculture to be rapid, effective. and humane. For years there was the excuse that an improved method of humane slaughter was lacking. This excuse is no longer valid. The Remington humane animal stunner, the captive bolt pistol, the CO2 immobilization chamber and the electric knife now make humane slaughter practicable and economically sound. Is not this an opportune time to bring the slaughter industry in our country up to European standards? Given the incentive of legislation, I believe American resourcefulness and desire for perfection will result in the United States eventually leading the nations of the world in humane slaughtering.

It has been only when regulation and laws have forced their use that great experiments and discoveries have been put into practice on a national scale. Tuberculin to test and discover tubercular bovine animals was in the demonstration status for many years with but limited use. It was not until compulsory methods and laws were passed in the States and backed by the United States Department of Agriculture that the disease was conquered.

The pasteurization of milk was known and recommended for over 25 years. but little progress was made until State and Federal laws required pasteurization throughout the country.

So it will be with the adoption of humane methods of slaughter. With the methods now known it seems reasonable that the time has come to put these methods into general use by legislation.

Packers who have adopted the available methods have found them safer, more efficient and cleaner, as well as more humane.

It it particularly noteworthy that many newspapers across the country have editorially and otherwise favored the adoption of humane slaughter methods. The Boston Herald on Thursday, January 24, 1957, editorially commented: "The poleax and the scalding tank have been the symbols of 20th century civilization. Yet if Congress passes humane slaughter legislation at this session, much will have been accomplished to curb misery. And, perhaps, much for the human spirit as well. The toleration of the poleax is an evidence of a deeper social ill than mere inefficiency. Across our vaunted prosperity and liberty is written an awful slogan: ‘After all, they're only animals.'

"But are they, really?"

Therefore, on the basis of present knowledge, and of the benefits which would result, my plea today is for a favorable report on the humane slaughter legislation before you so that it may be brought before the Congress for consideration and adoption.

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM T. PHILLIPS, OPERATIVE MANAGER, OF THE PENNSYLANIA SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS

The Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has been cognizant of the cruelty practiced in the slaughter of food animals during the 90 years of its existence, and has endeavored always to minimize these cruelties. We know that compulsory legislation is the only means of combating this evil, which is a blot upon our civilization.

We urge the committee to favorably consider this bill and to recommend its passage.

STATEMENT OF J. J. SHAFFER, MANAGING DIRECTOR OF THE ANTICRUELTY SOCIETY OF CHICAGO

I am J. J. Shaffer, managing director of the Anti-Cruelty Society, an Illinois charitable organization with offices in Chicago. I also speak as a member of an American Humane Association committee that is active in studying improved methods of slaughter in cooperation with the American Meat Institute.

We have a pleasant working relationship with the institute and with many individual packers, notwithstanding that there is a difference in our thinking on humane slaughter. We are concerned largely with the probable amount of pain and suffering experienced by a given animal going to slaughter by one method as compared with another. On the other hand, the thinking of most packers is geared to the dollars and cents of economical, highly competitive operation. We respect their view along profit-and-loss lines, and we hope they respect our view that animals deserve a merciful death, even if mercy imposes initial inconvenience and modest capital outlay.

In our judgment, the need for improved slaughter techniques is so great and the foreseeable voluntary adoption of such techniques so limited that there should be no delay in the passage of mandatory legislation.

As we pointed out at a Senate hearing on this subject last spring, we would not ask for passage of a law if there were convincing evidence that all units of the packing industry are aggressively engaged in the testing and adoption of improved methods. We have not seen such evidence.

In October of 1952, a representative of the Anti-Cruelty Society attended a convention of the American Meat Institute where the industry was formally introduced to the then-new Hormel method of carbon dioxide immobilization of hogs. The seemingly enthusiastic reception given an address and film on the subject made us think that the method soon would be in wide use, but here it is 1957-41⁄2 years later-and there is only a token trend within the industry to do more than try to find reasons why this method "won't work in my plant." About 250 million pigs in the United States have gone to slaughter in other plants in the old-fashioned, conscious hoist-and-slit way since the discovery went

into practical operation in the Hormel schedule. Picture the mail being unloaded in Congressmen's offices if people by the millions were dying in fear and pain because physicians were arguing among themselves and refusing to use a proved drug or other treatment known to prevent fear and pain at death, solely because it costs 2 or 3 cents more per patient or because it requires a change in their way of handling cases.

That may be an extreme comparison, yet it reflects what is happening in livestock slaughter.

The Remington stunner, an instrument which stuns cattle with a precision blow that excels results with the widely used sledge hammer, is another new and superior humane slaughter aid on which we pin high hopes. Two leading packers and a few small ones have been giving it an exhaustive trial and have expended a great deal of time and money to prove its worth.

The Remington tool, like the Hormel method for hogs, was officially unveiled at a national convention of the American Meat Institute (1956), following several months of study. It bids to get faster acceptance than the carbon dioxide apparatus because it is relatively inexpensive (about $220 per instrument) and not costly to maintain or operate in terms of outlay per head slaughtered. We question, however, whether even this simple answer to humane killing will be nationally accepted without compulsion. We say this with full respect to the institute, which has taken leadership in proving the suitability of the tool, and with gratitude to plants that have pioneered in putting it to use in knocking pens. The fact that leading plants which tested the Remington stunner were sometimes discouraged and almost ready to abandon it, due to a great many early mechanical difficulties, suggests to us that other companies might not be as persevering as these leaders in the absence of legislative compulsion.

We know that compulsion is a disagreeable word in our American way of free enterprise. We don't blame packers for resenting this approach. Nevertheless, we ask packers, and all Members of Congress who may have a doubt, to take a fresh look at the problem and try to view it this way:

First, while the proposed law does involve compulsion, it does not predicate regimentation or unfair demands. The final decision as to whether packers will be required to use any given method will be based on careful study by the Secretary of Agriculture and his advisers and on conferences with the packers. We hope that all will realize that humane organizations want to help people who deal in livestock, not put them out of business, so please do not think that responsible humane workers, as represented by the American Humane Association, will make unworkable requests of the law.

Second, we have gone too far to turn back. Congress, by concerning itself with this problem, already has spurred an unprecedented amount of interest within the industry. Money has been poured into the project by some private firms, all packers are sitting up and taking notice, but the vast majority are standing by to see which way congressional decision will go. If it goes against the passage of a law, everything thus far gained may be lost from a humane standpoint.

Third, let's be realistic about the public and slaughter talk. Packers always have shied away from public mention of the fact that T-bone steaks and pork chops stem from a bloody spectacle on the killing floor--and we understand why. But the lid is off now, the story is out and circulating widely, so it would seem that this phase of packing industry public relations must undergo a change to having a counterstory about a peaceful end instead of hiding the unappetizing details of most present slaughter methods.

Finally, we think that the meatpacking industry will profit in the long run from humane slaughter, because kindness is good public relations and good business. We are confident, from our gratifying dealings with packers, that the cruelty now existent in slaughter operations is not intentional and that everyone concerned would like to eliminate it. The trouble has been that too many people have taken harsh killing methods for granted, as if unavoidable. We now know that most of the pain-causing practices can be eliminated, and more improvements will come as positive thinking is directed at the problem.

Over 100 million head of large livestock go to slaughter annually in federally inspected plants, plus hundreds of millions of poultry.

The least we can do is to make it as easy as possible for them to die for us.

STATEMENT OF MRS. BLAIR F. CLAYBAUGH, PRESIDENT OF THE HUMANE SOCIETY OF HARRISBURG, PA., AND PRESIDENT OF THE FEDERATED HUMANE SOCIETIES OF PENNSYLVANIA

I have the honor and responsibility of representing a vast amount of citizens of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania who are members of the 45 active humane societies in our State.

Speaking for them and for myself, it seems absolutely incredible that there should be the slightest opposition to the enactment of legislation to require the use of humane methods in the slaughter of livestock and poultry.

There would be no point in my repeating the testimony that experts have given and will give at these hearings concerning the brutal methods of slaughter that are used in most of the packing plants throughout this country. The facts are revolting and shocking that a highly civilized country like our United States should be so backward in using humane methods of slaughtering.

It is now common knowledge that humane methods are available and are in use by many packers, but the vast majority are too callous and indifferent to adopt the new methods.

It is amazing to me that the public is so ill-informed about what is, in my opinion, a national scandal. If the average person knew the facts as presented at the hearings last May before the Subcommittee on Agriculture and Forestry of the United States Senate. I venture to say that several big packing plants would be driven out of business and some smaller ones which have adopted humane slaughtering methods would be hard-pressed to supply the demand for their products.

My personal opinion, and I hope I do not offend the lawmakers present, is that they, and their counterparts in State legislatures, have been lax in their duty to their constituents in not having enacted humane slaughter legislation long since. Furthermore, I feel that putting off the effective date of enforcement of humane slaughtering is little short of criminal.

I am grateful for the privilege of presenting our views and am very humbly asking passage of this legislation and in the interests of just ordinary human kindness-make humane slaughtering a law.

STATEMENT OF HELEN N. PERKINS, PRESIDENT OF THE RICHMOND SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS, RICHMOND, VA.

Representing the officers, board of directors and members of the Richmond (Va.) Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals I ask your favorable consideration of a humane slaughtering bill that will bring to an end the atrocious conditions and treatment of animals in the slaughtering plants of the United States.

Humane means for killing the animals we depend upon for our food supply are available and in use by many of the large meat-producing companies.

Usage has proven that beyond the humane desire of saving the animals from unnecessary torture these companies are able to operate more efficiently. The cost is negligible and no financial hardship will be imposed due to the tremendous savings made possible through more efficient production with no loss of meat due to carelessness and negligence in handling the animals.

STATEMENT OF RAYMOND J. HANFIELD, EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT, THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS, NEW YORK, N. Y. For at least 5,000 years man has slaughtered his food animals in pretty much the same way insofar as pain and suffering and fright to the animal is concerned. True, modern packinghouse methods are marvels of mechanical and electronic automation in practically every respect save one—inhumaneness to the animal. There is still pain and suffering.

The bills currently offered to the Congress furnish us an opportunity to make the strides necessary to eliminate the evil of inhumaneness.

We are considering a new law to invoke humane slaughtering.

We are considering an old problem dating back to 40 years. The problem is not new; the solution is adequate and has found acceptance in both this country and abroad. A solution to the problem has been in operation in Europe for many years. In the United States we have been reluctant to accept the findings