questions whether his device is ready for commercial use. We have those who believe in sacrificial slaughter, taking the position that the knife is the only proper way to kill. In the face of such conflicting testimony, all from experts, can Congress afford to say, unequivocally, that one method of slaughter is superior to another?

Mr. Chairman, we are all interested in improved methods. It is our American heritage to constantly try to improve, but it is not consistent with our American heritage to force impractical regulations on our people. My bill, if enacted, would authorize the Secretary of Agriculture to engage in scientific studies and research and to furnish his findings to Congress. Also, it calls on the Secretary of Agriculture to encourage the adoption of improved methods by the different industries involved.

Last week, Mr. Chairman, I was talking with the owner of a packing plant in South Carolina. He told me that if Congress passed a law requiring him to install equipment, as suggested in one of the bills, it would cost him in excess of $30,000. He was fearful that this expenditure would close the doors of his packinghouse permanently. I am sure, Mr. Chairman, this committee will consider all aspects of this legislation and not report favorably any of the force bills, at least, until a thorough study is made. My bill, which is supported by the Department of Agriculture, will provide just such a study. I believe that when such a study has been completed, a more humane method possibly will have been found which will meet the approval of the Congress, the humane societies, the general public, and the industries involved.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to appear before this great committee.

Mr. POAGE. Now I believe we have next Mr. Fred Myers, who wants to make a statement in connection with Mr. Anthony's statement.

STATEMENT OF FRED MYERS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, THE HUMANE SOCIETY OF THE UNITED STATES, WASHINGTON, D. C.

Mr. MYERS. Mr. Chairman, I would like to have a few minutes. I have a prepared statement which was submitted on behalf of the Humane Society of the United States, a copy of which I will supply to the stenographer and additional copies of which are available.

But I shall not affiict the committee with a reading of the full statement. I venture to hope that later the committee will find time to read it, but I know that a reading would be boring.

Mr. POAGE. Without objection, we will make your statement a part of the record and then you may proceed to make such statement here as you will.

(The prepared statement of Mr. Myers is as follows:)

STATEMENT OF FRED MYERS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, OF THE HUMANE SOCIETY OF THE UNITED STATES

The Humane Society of the United States, a nonprofit membership corporation with members in every State and Territory of the United States, strongly favors prompt enactment of legislation to compel the use in packinghouses of humane methods of slaughtering animals.

Our support for such legislation is dictated by these facts:

1. In the great majority of American slaughterhouses, animals of all species are now killed with methods that cause extreme and prolonged physical pain.

2. The methods commonly used in slaughter are extremely dangerous and arduous for packing plant workers.

3. Humane methods of slaughter are available.

4. The present common methods of slaughter cause a large economic waste which burdens livestock growers, packing-plant workers, and consumers; humane methods are economically superior.

5. Despite the acknowledged cruelty and economic waste of current common methods of slaughter, it is apparent that the packing industry cannot achieve a reform without the enactment of legislation.

In support of the statements above we offer the following evidence and comment. 1. The cruelty

It probably is not necessary to document the statement that methods of slaughter now used in virtually all American packing plants cause acute and prolonged agony to animals. Packers themselves concede the fact. Mr. E. Y. Lingle, president of the Seitz Packing Co., Inc., St. Joseph, Mo., voiced what all packers know when he said in an address to a section of the American Meat Institute:

"This (slaughtering) is one phase of our business which we have always considered unpleasant, unsafe, costly, and brutal."

Mr. Lingle was telling his fellow packers, in that address, why his company has become one of the very few units of the packing industry that have abandoned the primitive brutality of common methods in favor of more modern and humane techniques.

The General Federation of Women's Clubs has described, concisely and with restrain, what is now commonly inflicted on some 200 million animals each year. A publication of the General Federation says:

"Lambs, sheep, calves, and hogs customarily are first hoisted off the floor by a chain around one hind leg, then are stabbed in the throat (or cut) in such a way that they bleed to death very slowly. Cattle usually are pounded to the floor with a sledge hammer before their throats are cut. Quite commonly a steer must be hit on the head 5 or 6 times-and often many more times— before it falls.

"The chain shackles often cut and tear hide and flesh.

Struggling, bellow

ing and screaming animals often dislocate their own leg joints as they hang from the hoist.

"All this and much more-occurs while the animals are fully conscious. Inspectors have seen hogs still conscious and trying to swim when dropped into the scalding tank. And calves have been seen still responding to pain stimuli while their heads were being skinned."

I have myself seen a steer hit 21 times on the head with an 8-pound hammer before it became unconscious and ceased struggling. Both horns were shattered by early blows. The stump of one of the bloody horns was torn out of the living head by the first blow that struck it and dangled loosely from a lump of mashed muscle and flesh. One blow mashed the nose of the animal to pulp and another blow crushed the lower jaw.

I have watched the dressing-out of many animals on which the hammer has been used and have observed that often the skull is fractured to the point of being pulverized.

In many plants, for many animals, not even the hammer is used. There is no attempt to stun or immobilize cattle before they are yanked off the floor by a chain around one hind ankle, to hang in moaning agony until their throats are cut. I have stood for long periods at distances or 2 or 3 feet from half-ton steers so suspended and watched their suffering reactions.

When a thousand-pound steer or fifteen-hundred pound bull is hoisted in that way, the strain on muscle, tendon, and bone is tremendous. The whole of the great weight hangs from one ankle. The animal swings and struggles. I have often seen the chain shackle bite into the flesh of the ankle until blood streamed down the leg. The tongue comes far out of the gasping mouth. The eyeballs protrude startingly.

It is often found, in the dressing-out, that the weight and struggles of the animal, while hanging on the hoist, have dislocated ankle, knee, and shoulder joints.

I have seen animals more or less regularly hang on the hoist for from 3 to 5 minutes while awaiting the knife that ultimately cut their conscious throats.

Hogs, lambs, sheep, and calves also are commonly hoisted while entirely conscious and their throats stuck or cut while they are fully sensible to pain. Death does not come quickly or easily.

Edward R. Swem, editor of the National Provisioner, leading magazine of the packing industry, has written (the National Provisioner, October 4, 1952) of how hogs are "chivvied up a ramp *** hoisted kicking and twisting, to arrive at the second, third, or fourth level excited and exhausted, with a spread hind and damaged hams." Mr. Swem speaks, also, of "the shackling pen with its dirt, danger, employee irritation and uneven work flow."

The Animal Husbandry Department of the University of Minnesota found, in a study conducted in 1954-55, that "the common packing plant practice of shackling hogs" is causing damage to 97 percent of the shackled hams and that the average loss in meat (passed back, of course, to farmers or passed on to consumers) is $1.50 per animal (cf. Farm Journal and Country Gentleman. October 1955).

It is self-evident that methods of slaughter that almost without exception cause "a spread hind and damaged hams" are violently painful to the animals. 2. Labor conditions

The proposed legislation would be justified as a protection for packing plant workers even if no consideration were to be given to the cruelty to animals. It is a notorious fact that the accident rate in the packing industry is substantially higher than that for industry as a whole. In 1955, for example, all general manufacturing had an accident rate of 12.1 accidents per million man-hours. But the meat industry had a rate of 21.3. And one of the points of very highest accident rate within the meat industry is in handling of animals at the point of slaughter-in shackling pens and knocking pens.

The president of the Seitz Packing Co. (E. Y. Lingle, cited above) has said that when the current common methods are used "cattle knocking is an unsafe job because when a man swings a 5-pound hammer over his head and misses his object or makes a glancing blow-it produces a great strain on the man." Mr. Lingle also has said that the job of knocking cattle with a hammer “is one of the most difficult jobs in the plant to keep filled."

Packers experience the same difficulty, in greater degree, in keeping men in hog shackling pens. All packers find that as soon as a man gains sufficient seniority he "posts out" of the shackling job, even to jobs at lower wage rates. The high labor turnover at these points in packing houses is due both to the danger of injury and the dislike of most men for the method of handling animals.

All of the variety of humane methods of slaughter that are available have the effect of improving working conditions and reducing the accident rate materially.

3. Better methods are available

The cruelties now inflicted on animals in most packing plants, and the hazards to which workers are exposed, are unnecessary by any criterion. Humane methods of killing animals are available and they offer important economic advantages and improve working conditions.

These statements have been conclusively proved true by extensive practical experience in packing plants.

Two of the largest pork packers in America, for example, are humanely anesthetizing hogs before slaughter. One of these progressive companies is George A. Hormel & Co. The other is the Kingan division of Hygrade Food Products Corp. In two plants, at Austin, Minn., and Fremont, Nebr., the Hormel Co. kills about 20,000 hogs a day. The Kingan plant, at Indianapolis, Ind., kills approximately 8,000 hogs daily on a single shift.

All of these plants are using carbon dioxide to anesthetize hogs before they are slaughtered. The hogs ride on a moving belt into a tunnel filled with the gas and they go quickly and quietly to sleep as they ride. They are slaughtered while unconscious.

The Hormel Co. has been using this method since 1952. The Kingan plant installed its carbon dioxide equipment last November. Both companies find their humane method superior in every respect to the more brutal methods formerly used. Economic factors will be discussed below but it is relevant to note here that carbon dioxide equipment is within the financial capabilities of even the very smallest packers that would be affected by the proposed legislation. Equipment that will handle up to 60 hogs per hour can be had for only $3,500-hardly more than the price of a small delivery truck.

It is clear that no further research or study is needed to find a means of ending the cruelty of current common methods of slaughtering hogs. The research is done; the experimental period is past.

Carbon dioxide also can be used to anesthetize other species of animals. L. W. Murphy, spokesman for George A. Hormel & Co., has said that "we are sure" that the technique being used on hogs is applicable to calves, lambs, and sheep. It is equally certainly usable for cattle. Carbon dioxide already is being routinely used by C. A. Swanson & Sons, a subsidiary of the Campbell Soup Co., to anesthetize turkeys before slaughter.

But other equally practical and economical methods of slaughtering animals humanely are also available to packers. And all of these additional methods, like carbon dioxide anesthetization, have been proved in actual commercial use in profitable packing plants.

Several American packing plants and many hundreds of plants abroad, for example, have long been using the captive-bolt pistol to stun animals, making them instantaneously insensible to pain, before slaughter. The captive-bolt pistol is a simple instrument, in appearance much like an ordinary pistol. stead of discharging a free bullet, however, the captive-bolt pistol impels the end of a steel bolt, which slides up and down in the barrel of the pistol, into the skull of an animal.

In

Unlike the hammer, the captive-bolt pistol requires little skill in the workman and it is virtually foolproof. Whereas an average of approximately three blows is required to fell a steer with a hammer, the captive-bolt pistol almost infallibly drops such animals, instantaneously unconscious, with one shot.

Oscar Mayer & Co., one of the larger and more profitable American packing plants, has for years been using the captive-bolt pistol. The president of Seitz Packing Co. has said:

"The captive-bolt pistol is so easy to use and so effective that we have had no desire to go back to the old hammer method. Our results are better, our operations more efficient, our end product is improved-and we're slaughtering cattle in a much more humane fashion."

At least a dozen other packers have had the same experience. They have proved, under commercial conditions, that the captive-bolt pistol is humane and practical.

The captive-bolt pistol can be and often is used on sheep, lambs, and calves as well as beef animals. It prevents all of the usual suffering of the slaughtering process.

Still other methods are available.

The Remington Arms Co. has developed, and now is offering to all packers, a stunning instrument that is similar in basic principle to the captive-bolt pistol. No bolt enters the animal's skull, however. Unconsciousness is caused by impact of a mushroom-shaped hammer that is impelled by firing of a small cartridge. The Remington Co. has tested its instrument in packing plants all over America on tens of thousands of animals of all species. It already is being routinely used by some packers.

Other patented stunning devices also are available. Some of these have been in use abroad for many years. The Consolidated Dressed Beef Co., Philadelphia, for example, uses the Schermer stunner, an instrument made in Germany. The company finds the Schermer instrument entirely satisfactory in practical packing plant operation.

To prevent suffering in poultry, some packers use an electric knife." The electric knife makes a bird instantaneously insensible to pain.

The outstanding fact about all of this variety of humane methods that are available is that every one of them already is in routine and profitable use in at least a few American packing plants and in many more packinghouses abroad. It was suggested last year to the Senate Agriculture Committee, and it has been suggested this year to the House of Representatives, that the packing industry is willing to adopt humane methods of slaughtering animials but needs more timeprobably many years-to "study" the matter. The Humane Society of the United States submits that such suggestions are nonsense--nonsense in the precise dictionary meaning of the word.

No special "study" committee or commission is needed to determine that two of the largest pork packers and one of the largest poultry slaughterers in America have used carbon dioxide on many millions of animals and birds and have proved that the method is practical as well as humane. No study is needed to reveal that some of the most efficient and profitable packing plants in America

have used the captive-bolt pistol or one of the patented stunning instruments on more millions of animals and have proved them practical and humane.

The packers of the whole of Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and sections of Germany, France, and Austria have been operating under compulsory humane slaughter laws for many years. No research or study is needed to reveal that the packing industries of those countries have found practical means of eliminating cruelty.

4. ECONOMIC FACTORS

There is no valid economic objection to the proposed legislation. It offers, indeed, economic benefits to livestock growers, to consumers, and to the packing industry.

Current common methods of slaughter are inefficient and costly. Humane methods of slaughter would improve labor productivity and eliminate waste due to bruising and maiming of animals.

Consider the significance of the University of Minnesota study cited above. The university found that in the plants where the study was conducted, the shackles used on hogs caused damage to 97 percent of all shackled hams and that the monetary loss per hog was $1.50. The university figures were derived from only one plant, but it was one of the better plants of America and it is reasonable to suppose that the average would be applicable within narrow limits to all slaughtering of the shackle-hoist-stick variety.

Since some 90 million hogs are slaughtered annually in America, the University of Minnesota study indicates that our Nation may be paying a bill of about $140 million annually for our cruelty to hogs.

The burden of that waste probably falls principally on farmers, in the form of depressed prices for livestock.

To our knowledge, no study similar to the University of Minnesota investigation of injury to hogs has been conducted to determine what economic waste is occurring among cattle and other species. It is obvious, however, that if a 250pound hog is seriously injured and damaged by being shackled and hoisted, a half-ton steer or 1,500-pound bull will be even more severely injured and damaged because of its greater weight. Such damage to meat can be entirely eliminated by use of humane methods of slaughter.

It is an established fact that cattle stunned with a captive bolt pistol suffer fewer bruises than cattle on which a hammer is used. The cattle bleed more thoroughly than animals that are frightened and subjected to prolonged physical pain, thus improving the market quality of the meat.

When carbon dioxide is used on hogs, Hormel has reported, 0.3 pound more blood is obtained from each animal than when the primitive shackling-hoisting method was used. This makes better meat and tends to support prices paid to livestock producers.

The Seitz Packing Co. offers this evidence about labor productivity when a captive-bolt pistol is used:

"We have made time studies of the slaughtering of several hundred cattle and we find that we can load the gun and shoot 1 cattle every 7 seconds. On the basis of 1 cattle every 10 seconds, 1 man can slaughter 360 cattle per hour and he can continue to do this all day long because his work is much easier than when he used the hammer."

Hormel has reported that it has achieved a labor economy, from the first day of its use of carbon dioxide.

Some packers have objected to the proposed legislation because, they say, initiation of humane methods of slaughter would require a ruinous investment of capital. Such objections are unfounded in fact.

A captive-bolt pistol costs only $120. The time study conducted by the Seitz Co., cited above, shows that even a quite large slaughtering plant would need to invest in only 2 or 3 captive-bolt pistols to comply fully with the proposed legislation in its slaughter of cattle, sheep, lambs, and calves. As an alternative, a plant may use the Remington stunner or the Schermer stunner. The Remington instrument sells for just over $200, the Schermer instrument for less. The cost of installing carbon-dioxide equipment varies, depending on the floor plan and construction details of plants in which it is installed. It is said that one of the Hormel installations cost above $200,000, but this included the cost of remodeling a large building. The carbon-dioxide unit itself, with a capacity of 10,000 hogs per day, is priced by its manufacturer at about $65,000. As was mentioned above, the same manufacturer is offering a unit that will anesthetize