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Commonsense demands we do something about it right now-let us stop this economic bloodletting into the streets; let us channel instead this vital economic blood into the arteries of trade to keep the patient-our country-alive. Recovery is what we should be talking about as we expedite this bill.

How many witnesses have you heard say: "Our traditional position is to oppose legislation in this area." What does "traditional position" or "traditional stand" mean? I ask the leaders of organized labor where would labor be if tradition had been respected and there was no Wagner Act or child labor laws? I ask those representing the American farmer where the farmer would be if tradition had been respected and there were no subsidies, no guaranteed purchase of his crops, and no price fixing by Government of his products? I ask those representing the retired and elderly, known rightly as our senior citizens, where they would be if tradition had been respected and there was no Social Security Act? Would we not be British subjects today if tradition had been respected?

Tradition is no criterion by which to judge the merits of proposed legislation. Tradition, if correctly interpreted and applied, means adherence to the doctrines of incentive, of individual opportunity, and protection of our free enterprise system.

Today, right now, we have laws-whether good or bad-to protect every phase of enterprise except the final stage of retail sales. Are then the shackles of tradition to be applied only to the independent store owner?

The quality stabilization bill is a precise remedy for a malady eating the vitals of our country. Its enactment isn't going to change our traditional way of life. It proposes to do one positive thing toward saving our way of life. That is all. It will help the small retailer by preventing unfair competition in those brand names on which he stays alive as a businessman by giving the manufacturer of those brand names the right to prevent abuse and degrading of them. It's that simple. But let us look further down the road. Let us promote a healthful economic climate that will tend to keep the brand name factories in this country instead of forcing the manufacturer to take his dies to foreign lands where with foreign materials and foreign labor he will build products to be shipped back here to compete on a price basis in our Nation's present jungle market.

There is not one who has testified, nor is there one Congressman or citizen, who will not proclaim he is indeed the friend of the small businessman. He is saying it now. And as he is saying it, he is watching his friend die.

So, Mr. Chairman, I ask in all sincerity-what is all this hullabaloo that is preventing the application of a simple, straightforward tourniquet that will keep the businessman from bleeding to death until somehow a panacea is devised?

A good example of the stall the theorizing the fiddling while Rome burnswas the testimony of Mr. Lee Loevinger of the Department of Justice who, without directly saying so, deliberately created doubts about the constitutionality of this bill while at the same time reiterating the traditional opposition of the Department of Justice to legislation in this area. Have you ever noticed that the Deparment of Justice is usually always opposed to proposed legislation?

The fact that both you and I can obtain opinions from 100 topflight constitutional lawyers disagreeing with Mr. Loevinger-opinions that will say the quality stabilization bill is fully constitutional and the most direct and fully workable concept yet devised-is beside the point. Because under our system of Government it is the function of Congress to make the laws; it is the function of the Government's agencies and bureaus to support and protect those laws; and it is the function of the Supreme Court to interpret those laws. So what is all this verbal shooting for?

If the quality stabilization bill gives some protection to a brand name and the independent store in the present jungle of massacre, it is then worth the trial. Thus Congress will be reflecting its determination to protect our wonderful way of life and it will most of all be encouragement for the small businessman to continue his long hours and dedication to independence, service and place in the communities that make the backbone of America. What's behind the pressure to halt its trial? That is what worries me today. That is why I am here now. This is the only measure of medication that can immediately help. And the patient, Mr. Chairman, in the final analysis is our country.

I've said before I do not believe anyone wants to hurt the independent merchant. I'm also certain no American wants to harm or hinder the senior citizen to the fullest enjoyment of his twilight days. Plaintive letters are coming into my office in the past few days-and I expect to every other Congressman-stating the quality stabilization bill, H.R. 3669, is evil because surely it will increase the

price of their medicines. Who, Mr. Chairman, is instilling in these good people, these fears? Obvously it is not from their reading or studying H.R. 3669, which states that prescription drugs are excluded. They evidently have not been correctly informed by the inspirers of their missiles-that this bill puts a ceiling on prices as well as a floor. They very definitely have not been informed that this bill is purely voluntary and optional to manufacturers of a competitive product-and that it will give them a standard of value to judge a true bargain instead of being lured into a store on a promise of a well-known brand name at less than cost, yet oftentimes going home with a cheap imitation made to sell for far less than they actually paid.

And they have not been reminded that they are living a longer, and a better and an easier life than did their immediate predecessors because of the incentive the expensive research and resultant developments-that made these beneficial medicines possible at all. As I remind the senior citizens that the quality stabilization bill, H.R. 3669, carefully exempts their prescriptions, medicines, and drugs, I also want to ask them, Do they really want to exterminate the small businessman, many of whom are brother senior citizens? Would they prefer a welfare state, wherein all business is handled by just a few giant combines or, by ultimate necessity, by the Government? Is this what they want for their children, for their grandchildren, and their descendants? Is this their desired legacy? Are their final days of life on this Earth going to be made happier by the misery, the failure, and the heartbreak of others? I do not think so. I have too much respect for these fine people to believe anything other than they have been duped as to the facts regarding the content or import of this quality stabilization bill.

I have stated that unless something is done soon it will be but a matter of a few years until all retail merchandising will be in the hands of a few giants. Scheduled to testify in these final days of House hearings was the National Association of Consumer Organizations. You of course need not be told that this actually was the association for closed-door discount houses. Now I understand there's a new association-the National Association of Mass Merchanddisers. It is members of the Mass Merchandisers who have often been quoted as bragging that it is only a matter of years until they control better than 80 percent of America's retail trade. I can, Mr. Chairman, better understand their interests in wanting to kill this bill-can understand it as I deplore it. I do not want to put them out of business. I do want to create ground rules whereby they have to compete fairly.

In these days of final hearings, it is also deploring to me that the National Farmers Union as well as the American Farm Bureau Federation has requested extra time to be heard to be heard in testimony against the livelihood of the American retailer-against the crossroads grocer, hardware dealer, druggist, bicycle dealer, gas station operator-the people who meet with him at the town hall, the people whose kids go to school with his kids, the people who join in the parties at his home.

Both of us know, Mr. Chairman, that the Government-ourselves-have fixed the farmer's prices. We've gone further. We've established laws whereby he is paid for not producing-in order to "save our way of life." When the Government actually-not semantically-fixes prices, it is always in "the best interests of the consumer, country, and economy."

A very recent editorial in the New York Daily News, on agricultural Secretary Orville Freeman's wheat-control program on which farmers are requested to vote "yes" this May 21. stated, and I quote "As we understand the Freeman scheme, it would bring all U.S. wheat farmers under the strictest production control ever seen in this country. The Government would fix the prices the farmers would get for their wheat. Any farmer who refused to go along with the control scheme would be frozen ont of wheat raising."

Isn't it incongruous that the farmer who gets "fixed" rates for not producing will tell you that the brand-name manufacturer, distributor, and retailer who serves the farmer as a neighborhood or area consumer has no rights to any protection?

How inconsistent can we be representatives of the farmer demand that domestic cotton producers must sell their commodity to foreign manufacturers about 25 percent lower than to domestic manufacturers and this, they say, is not price discrimination but instead is neighborly goodwill.

To quote the very able Raymond S. Reed from his column for Home Furnishings Daily on May 10-"One Government bureau calumniates, persecutes, and prosecutes the manufacturer who merely stops selling a retailer who wrecks his brand name and price structure in the marketplace while another bureau threatens to put any farmer, who cuts its fixed prices, out of business."

Last year, and again this year, a Washington, D.C., newspaper struck out in its editorial columns against the quality stabilization bill as fair trade "price fixing" under a new cloak. Now, any newspaper has the right to give its opinion and I shall never criticize it for such. But I would rather hope of a newspaper that it would research its material--and do a little reflection as to its own policies-before falling to prejudice or pressured bias. And most interesting was that this editorial was what we used to call "pot boiler" - meaning prepared in some other place and used as filler by newspapers-thereby saving them the expense of mind and money in creating their own stories. This "pot boiler" editorial attacking the quality stabilization bill was used throughout the country. But of most interest and significance to me was that these editorials inevitably appear right alongside or below the very definitely fixed price of the newspaper to the consumer and its fixed advertising rates. The senior citizen who for some reason-such as a requiem mass notice ad for a departed relative-would find no "bargain" at the newspaper-no sympathy at all for his advanced years or lesser income-he would pay the fixed price or get no notice. Where, oh where, is the golden rule of "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you?" I cannot help but be interested in learning of a newspaper's low percentage of advertising income from national brand name advertisers as compared with its income from ads by local discount houses and loss-leader operators. And I wonder again about sincerity and commonsense. And that is why I have taken this valuable committee's time.

It is even more deploring to me that certain members of the AFL-CIO are arguing against passage of this single-purpose lifesaving measure. Here again is a "traditional stand" preventing an objective study as to merits. There certainly are no Members of Congress more dedicated to the salutary principles of the labor movement than Ray Madden, Chet Holifield, Hubert Humphrey or myself. We have joined in introducing, and in fighting tooth and nail for immediate enactment of the quality stabilization bill. We have done so to promote the survival interest of the union movement. We look upon the quality stabilization bill as a means of increasing employment when such is of ultra importance to our national welfare and as a means of implementing the oft-stated code of AFL-CIO president, George Meany, to continue the quality of product, to ever upgrade it, and to create the incentives for new goods as the only way to insure and improve the lot of labor.

My esteemed colleague, Congressman Chet Holifield of California, has most eloquently and positively outlined many, many reasons why labor should be far out in the lead in support of quality stabilization. His testimony before this committee is a must study for every Congressman and certainly for the officers and members of the great AFL-CIO. I am not surprised that the directors of the Oklahoma AFL-CIO organization unanimously voiced their full support of this bill's passage into law. I am surprised that the national organization of the AFL-CIO has not been in the forefront of support for this bill.

I repeat now-where would labor be today if it had not adapted itself to modern needs by forcing experimentation of betterment for the good of the American worker. Where will labor be tomorrow if it continues to abet a cannibalistic marketplace which worsens day by day-not only to put the store owner out of business but to force the manufacturer of brand-name products to move to foreign countries, there to make cheaper products to send back in competition with his own American factory? Where is labor's future in supporting a distributive system that depends on automation, on profit from foreign nonunion products, and on duping the laborer himself, the greatest consumer in number, into buying goods not produced by him or in his interests? What kind of tradition calls for suicide?

Let me quote from Business Week of February 3, 1962:

"Food industry labor groups have sounded the alarm over the discounting invasion. At least 2 unions, the 350,000-member Amalgamated Meat Cutters & Retail Food Store employees and the Retail Clerks International Association, are launching drives to organize discount stores affiliated with food outlets. "President Toby Coletti, of Meat Cutters Local 342, says the discounters pose two main problems for labor:

"(1) 'They've introduced a number of practices long since eliminated by

unions in the food industry-including extended hours, split shifts, 80 to 90 percent part-time workers, and Sunday openings;

"(2) they threaten to turn food retailing into a profitless or nearly profitless industry in which further improvements in wages and benefits would become economically infeasible.'

"Besides stepping up its organizing activities, Coletti says, Local 342 will refuse to permit its skilled journeymen to work in the discount centers and food markets which do not adhere to traditional work practices.”

Americans don't want a cheaper product, Mr. Chairman. They, every one of them, want the finest product invention, industry, and genius can producethey want the brand name superior at the cheapest price possible. And if there be a consistent tradition, it is the economic proof that competition-healthy, not "scab" competition-will give them just that. I ask the AFL-CIO leadersremembering my own career is representative of labor-to simply but very carefully and honestly consider the jungle warfare on the merchandising streets of America that depresses markets and depresses quality of product in the drive for lower and lower prices; to consider the harmful effects of this upon our productive economy; to consider the link between these conditions, the job shortage in this country, and the ever-increasing employment of foreign labor in American-owned plants in foreign lands making products to compete with the American-made product not only in this country but also in those foreign lands. When traditional stand is equated with 61⁄2 million people out of workshouldn't labor itself be using commonsense to find a solution?

To everyone against trying this prove-itself emergency measure as a stopgap to industrial and distributive death-are you in reality of the belief that the independent businessman is America's price-fixing bandit? How about the price fixing of the farmer, the union worker, the utilities, the communications and transportation systems, insurance, rent, the freight lines, the newspaper-yes. even salaries including that of the Congressman?

I would think that everyone would know the term "price-fixing" is a term applied to the collusion of all manufacturers of a like product and that the Quality Stabilization Act cannot be used unless there are substitute products in free and open competition available to the consumer.

But if you insist on applying price-fixing to quality stabilization-then be fair enough to apply it every other place as indicated above and realize very well that this economic life of ours today, and which some are demanding be not now changed, is like protecting by very stringent rules the first three quarters of the football game but to leave the final quarter without any rules at all.

Today, we hear much of the Common Market. Commonsense will tell every one of us in America that we cannot exist without expecting tough competition in such a world market. Does commonsense tell us today that we cannot possibly compete unless we make a continually-better brand name product, so much better than the foreign buyer-whatever his own earning status will covet above all else for the better bargain of lasting quality?

We live our daily lives placing things and people in the right or left wings. America does and I hope it always will have a strong conservative and liberal-a right and left wing. But it also has a middle and that middle must be solid. It is very soft today.

Some people use language to express thought. Some use it to conceal thought. And some use it instead of thought. I am herein and from my deepest sincerity endeavoring to make commonsense transcend language.

As these hearings draw to a close, I'm moved to suggest that those who oppose this quality stabilization bill have given us hours and hours of what for the most part are conjectures concerning the damage that they assert might be done by the enactment of H.R. 3669-accompanied by statements that these conjectures and assertions are indeed facts.

My prime purpose in coming over this morning is to plead with you to be reminded in your deliberations that emerging above all drum pounding are certain key facts.

That the entrepeneur-or independent businessman-is the backbone of America, is the strength on which America was built, is the strength on which its future as a country depends. There is today a cancer-a stinking evil cancer-rotting and ruining the spinal cord-and which, if unchecked, will so weaken this Nation that it no longer can stand.

That as far as our Government is concerned the responsibility for moving to cure the malady resides with this Congress.

That the bill before you reflects countless hours of deliberation by you and your committee, by professional staff, and by committees of prior Congresses.

That before you is the only remedy with any chance for success-a remedy wherein Congress establishes economic policy under which our free competitive enterprise system in a limited area is to operate but Government keeps itself out of the picture.

That while this committee deliberates in these hearings, some businesses hover on the brink of failure and others give their final gasp.

I once heard it said that over every mountain there is a path-but often times that path cannot be seen from the valley. We have a mountain to cross. By staying in the valley and denying the possibility of a path, we cannot progress.

I do not ask you to believe in the quality stabilization bill, I do beseech and implore that all of Congress and even the enemies of the bill, give it a good faith trial to serve a purpose for the good of our country.

I repeat-why do you fight that which can save?
Thank you.

Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Van Deerlin?

Mr. VAN DEERLIN. No.

Mr. DINGELL. The next witness is Mr. Roger Courtland, representing the National Association of Consumer Organizations, Inc. It is a privilege to have you with us this morning.

STATEMENT OF ROGER COURTLAND, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MASS MERCHANDISERS

Mr. COURTLAND. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, my name is Roger Courtland and I am the executive director of the National Association of Mass Merchandisers.

The NAMM is a recently organized association whose members have the privilege and pleasure of doing business in 31 of these United States serving approximately 15 million American citizens who deal at their various places of business.

I appear before you gentlemen in opposition to H.R. 3669, the bill that is commonly referred to as the quality stabilization bill.

It is my contention, gentlemen, that there is very little quality stabilization in this bill as it has been written, and as it is currently being evaluated and studied by this subcommittee.

A manufacturer, having produced an item for sale to the general public, is not thereafter affected by the price placed upon that item after he has manufactured it, inspected it, approved of it as to quality, and sold it to either a wholesaler or a retailer.

At this point the product is clearly established as to manufacturer identification and as to the quality he has placed into his products in the past and for which he has gained justifiable recognition.

A Cadillac convertible, sold at the suggested list price or one sold by a dealer at a figure $100 over his wholesale cost, are alike as to quality. There is not any loss in quality regardless of the price accepted by the dealer. This same principle applies equally to any item sold by any retailer in the country.

It has been the experience of the small businessmen who are members of our association that because of our well-known American system of free enterprise a consumer will shop for price when quality is comparable. This latter point of quality is determined by the manufacturer during production, but the equally important subject of "price" can only be decided by the retailer. This is something he de

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