STATEMENT OF DR. JOHN G. MARTIN, REPRESENTING THE AMERICAN PROTESTANT HOSPITAL ASSOCIATION

Dr. MARTIN. My name is John G. Martin; I am president of the American Protestant Hospital Association.

Mr. ZIMMERMAN. Will you elaborate on that a little bit-who the association is made up of, what groups, your membership, and so on? Dr. MARTIN. The membership of the American Protestant Hospital Association is approximately 250 hospitals of Protestant denomination throughout the country. Practically all of these hospitals are also members of the American Hospital Association and participate in the activities of the American Hospital Association, so that the effect of my remarks will be to corroborate and endorse the statements made by the previous speaker, the representative of the Amer ican Hospital Association.

Mr. ZIMMERMAN. Did your group authorize you to come here today and speak?

Dr. MARTIN. Not specifically upon this question; no sir. I come here merely as the president of the association with personal knowledge of the opinions of the group and as a hospital administrator myself. I am the superintendent of the Hospital of St. Barnabas, in Newark, N. J., and my knowledge of the activities in that hospital have a bearing upon the case.

We find that the imposition of the $600 tax prevents us from using oleomargarine as we would like to do in view of the fact that butter is so scarce that we cannot serve butter to our patients and employees in the hospital as we would like to do.

Oleomargarine is used in the kitchen of the hospital for cooking purposes, and we consider oleomargarine, not an imitation of butter, but a substitute, and being assured that its nutritive value is approximately equal to butter, we would like to use it as a substitute for the butter which we cannot secure in adequate quantities.

Mr. ZIMMERMAN. Do you want to use the colored margarine?
Dr. MARTIN. We would like to do that; yes, sir.

Mr. ZIMMERMAN. But if you use that, you have to pay a large tax?
Dr. MARTIN. We have to pay a $600 tax, plus 10 cents a pound.
Mr. ZIMMERMAN. In order to serve that to your sick people there?
Dr. MARTIN. That is right.

Mr. ZIMMERMAN. And your sick people do not want to use the white margarine on their toast, and their trays, and so forth?

Dr. MARTIN. That is correct.

Mr. ZIMMERMAN. They want the colored product?

Dr. MARTIN. That is right.

Mr. ZIMMERMAN. And in order to give them that colored product you would have to pay a tax of $600. That is what you are asking to be removed?

Dr. MARTIN. That is right; yes, sir.

Mr. POAGE. You have to pay that tax of $600 even though you buy white margarine and color it, don't you?

Dr. MARTIN. If we color it; yes, sir.

Mr. POAGE. The housewife can buy uncolored margarine-or more correctly, I should say white margarine, because it is bleached-the housewife can buy white margarine and take it home and color it

without paying any kind of a special tax other than the quarter of a cent a pound, but when you color it in your own kitchen for your patients and employees in the hospital you have to pay 10 cents for every pound you color. You are not simply talking about buying colored margarine. I want to get that point clear. Some of these folks may have the idea you want to buy colored margarine. You can't even buy white margarine and color it without paying a $600 a year manufacturer's tax and then paying 10 cents for every pound you use; is that right?

Dr. MARTIN. That is correct; yes, sir.

Mr. POAGE. Now, then, isn't there a further discrimination-but, first, let me find out, is a large portion of your patients comprised of charity patients?

Dr. MARTIN. A considerable portion are free patients; yes, sir. Mr. POAGE. You give them the same food, of course, that you give the paying patients?

Dr. MARTIN. Oh, yes; the same food.

Mr. POAGE. Now, if those patients were in a sanitorium, hospital, or other institution run by the Federal Government, or by a State or political subdivision thereof, in the exercise of essential Government functions, they might color oleomargarine without paying any tax. Is that right?

Dr. MARTIN. They may color oleomargarine without paying any tax whatsoever.

Mr. POAGE. So that if it is a State hospital or a Federal hospital there is no tax. They can buy white margarine and color it without paying any tax?

Dr. MARTIN. That is true.

Mr. POAGE. But when you, sir, render the same kind of charity, and do a charitable act by picking up somebody who is hurt and give him hospitalization, the law says that you must not give them the same kind of food that the State of Maryland, for instance, can give, but you must give them cow's butter, not because it is any better, because the studies of scientists disprove that, but because somebody wants to get a tax out of it and somebody wants to keep somebody from selling it. You have thus got to be burdened and are able to take care of that many less charity cases, because if you have to pay $600 for the margarine tax, you are not going to be able to spend that $600 on charity

Mr. PHILLIPS. Are you turning patients away from your hospital because you can't secure butter?

Dr. MARTIN. No, sir; we are not; not for that reason.

Mr. PHILLIPS. That's all.

Mr. POAGE. Well, if you had that $600 you could take care of some of your patients longer than you have taken care of them; could you

not?

Dr. MARTIN. We don't pay the tax, and therefore we don't use the oleomargarine in that way.

Mr. PHILLIPS. I am really sympathetic with what the gentleman says, but you still have the $600 which Mr. Poage contends you have not available for the treatment of patients.

Dr. MARTIN. We have the $600, but we are not serving the margarine to the patients.

Mr. POAGE. And you are not serving butter either, in a great many

cases.

Dr. MARTIN. We cannot get enough butter to serve them.

Mr. ZIMMERMAN. You are depriving a sick person, whose health you are trying to build up, of a palatable spread because of this nefarious, wicked, oppressive tax. That is right, isn't it?

Dr. MARTIN. That is right.

Mr. ZIMMERMAN. And the gentleman from California seems to think that is a thoroughly laudable purpose.

Mr. PHILLIPS. The gentleman from California does not seem to think that at all. The gentleman, first, comes from a State which is very much interested in matters of health. Would the chairman like to have a statement on the climatic conditions of California as opposed to the use of oleomargarine from a health standpoint?

Mr. ZIMMERMAN. I think the statement I made is pertinent to the question you asked the witness.

Mr. CLEVENGER. Mr. Chairman, I am just wondering if, prior to hearing the opposition, you have formed any decided opinion?

Mr. ZIMMERMAN. No. I am just taking the direct facts that nobody has controverted. I, as a lawyer, who have practiced for 25 years, always try to hear all the evidence, but when there is only one side, of course, your judgment on the question can be only one thing.

Mr. HOPE. Mr. Chairman, this is all very interesting, but I think we are violating the rule we adopted awhile ago.

Mr. ZIMMERMAN. I stand corrected.

Mr. MURRAY. Do I understand you to say you cannot get all the butter you want for the hospital?

Dr. MARTIN. We cannot get enough butter to serve to all the patients and employees for all meals. We do not get enough butter; that is true. For several months now we have not served butter in the nurse's dining room at the noon meal because we cannot get enough. Mr. MURRAY. If the chairman will let me, I want to make an observation.

Mr. ZIMMERMAN. In view of the observation I made awhile ago, I will let you.

Mr. MURRAY. I think that is an indictment, not of any past Congress, but of us, and the way we are handling the food program.

Dr. MARTIN. We don't have enough butter to go around. We can't get enough points to get it.

Mr. MURRAY. And you realize, of course, during this very same time that you cannot get this butter, we have a War Foods Administration and a stepsister called the O. P. A., that is allowing people to buy, without points, quart after quart of cream, take it home, get a churn and make all the butter he needs. And yet you say you cannot get the butter you need for the people in your hospital.

Dr. MARTIN. That is true.

Mr. MURRAY. That is all.

Mr. WICKERSHAM. I would like to say to the gentleman from Wisconsin, that we cannot get all the milk we want here in Washington, myself, my wife, and three children. We are rationed.

Mr. MURRAY. I would say the only reason you can't get it is because you don't have the price.

Mr. WICKERSHAM. I can't get it. I have got the money. Mr. MURRAY. Well, of course I could answer that, but instead of making a statement I will put this question to you, and say that after all we have heard as to milk coming into Washington-they were putting people in jail 2 or 3 years ago, because the milk wasn't good enough. I can't help it that the city has increased in size so much, and I just wonder how many people in the city of Washington know that milk is being sold here today that you couldn't even make U. S. No. 1 cheese from.

Mr. ZIMMERMAN. We are not interested in the cheese business right

now.

Mr. PHILLIPS. As I gather, your difficulty with the butter is one of not having enough points.

Dr. MARTIN. That is true.

Mr. PHILLIPS. It is not a question of quality, Mr. Murray; it is a question of not having the points.

Mr. MURRAY. Well, they are making all the oleo they can possibly make now, as near as I can find out. Isn't that right, Mr. Chairman? Mr. GRANGER. Doctor, you wouldn't want the committee to think that your patients have asked for oleomargarine in preference to butter, would you?

Dr. MARTIN. No. I wouldn't want to say that. I would prefer to serve the butter. Not being able to get the butter I would like an adequate substitute.

Mr. GRANGER. That's all.

Mr. ZIMMERMAN. We thank you for your appearance and for your statement, Doctor.

We will next hear Mr. Montevam, of the National Catholic Conference of Charities.

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM T. MONTEVAM, REPRESENTING THE NATIONAL CATHOLIC CONFERENCE OF CHARITIES

Mr. MONTEVAM. I am here today at the request of the Catholic Hospital Association, which was unable to be represented here today, and asked me to appear.

Mr. ZIMMERMAN. What group do you represent?

Mr. MONTEVAM. The Catholic Hospital Association of the United States, which has a membership of approximately 750 hospitals located in all parts of the United States, with headquarters in the city of St. Louis.

We are also members of the national joint committee which represents the three national hospital associations. I am, in an advisory capacity, a member of that committee.

I feel I cannot do better on behalf of the Catholic Hospital Association that endorse the statement made by those who have gone before me. Mr. Clark and Dr. Martin, with whom I have been associated for a great many years, spoke to my personal knowledge, the minds of their associations as well as my own.

The main objection of the hospital association to this tax is based on what I think is substantial discrimination against voluntary associations as compared with public associations engaged in parallel work.

These hospitals at the present time are obliged to increase the consumption of substitutes for butter, because of the difference between the ration point value of butter as compared with the ration point value of the substitute, and they are compelled to use margarine. If they use margarine in large quantity, as Mr. Martin has pointed out, and undertake to color it, they become manufacturers of margarine and are subject both to the tax on manufacture and the tax of 10 cents a pound, which makes it almost prohibitive to use oleomargarine. I am sure all of them would prefer to use butter for table use and for tray service, whereas in the kitchen and in the bakery, I think they use large quantities of margarine.

Mr. MURRAY. Just one question. Have you found any place where you have a shortage of butter?

Mr. MONTEVAM. Shortage of butter? I don't know about a shortage, but there is a shortage of ability to buy butter, and I suppose that a proper reflection of the quantity of butter available is the point rationing that the hospitals receive from the Office of Price Administration. Presumably the point value is high because butter is not abundant. I presume that the rationing means just that.

Mr. MURRAY. Do I understand you to say that the hospitals have the same rationing

Mr. MONTEVAM. I don't say they have the same, but they have rationing, and that rationing indicates the scarcity as compared with oleomargarine. Margarine values, as we have heard here is 6 points, and butter is 16 points. That means, of course, that there is two and a half times as much margarine available as there is butter.

Mr. ZIMMERMAN. We thank you for your appearance.

We now have some consumer witnesses. We will hear Mrs. Chamberlain, whom I understand cannot be here tomorrow.

STATEMENT OF MRS. E. G. CHAMBERLAIN, REPRESENTING THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF SETTLEMENTS

Mr. ZIMMERMAN. Will you give your name and state whom you represent?

Mrs. CHAMBERLAIN. Mrs. E. G. Chamberlain. I represent the National Federation of Settlements. Their headquarters is at 147 Avenue B, New York City.

Mr. ZIMMERMAN. You said settlements?

Mrs. CHAMBERLAIN. Settlement houses; yes, sir. There are about 150 settlement houses in the organization. There are a great many more in the United States, but I think a lot of them work on such a narrow margin that they cannot even pay dues to a national association. I guess you are all familiar with the work settlements do. Mr. ZIMMERMAN. Proceed.

Mrs. CHAMBERLAIN. This statement was written by Miss Margaret Cross, the Washington representative of the Consumer Interests Committee of the National Federation of Settlements.

The National Federation of Settlements, which represents thousands of low-income families in cities throughout the country is opposed to legislation which discriminates against the consumer, especially when it strikes at the family food budget.