Vel. 18, No. 2
FEBRUARY 1, 1926
Congressional Inquisition RESOLUTION 7 5 was introduced in the 69th ‘referred I OUSE Congress on January 6 by Mr. Frear of Wisconsin, was to the Committee on Rules, and ordered t o be printed. The purpose stated is “to investigate the means and methods of control and production of chemicals and dyestuffs and for other purposes ” Its full text follows: Resolved, t h a t the Committee on Flood Control be, and i t is hereby, authorized and empowered t o investigate the means and methods of the control of production in the Lrnited States of chemicals and dyestuffs, together with prices, secret agreements, if any, and profits and whether the tariff rates in force effect a practical embargo against dyestuff imports so as t o maintain a monopoly. Said committee shall have leave to report by bill or otherwise a t any time on the matters therein stated.
We a w i m e that the reason no other committee was given an opportunity to conduct this investigation is that Mr. Frear has a place on the Committee on Flood Control, and if the House finally adopts the resolution he will be there to see to it that everything is done to carry out whatever he had in mind. Investigations, hearings, reports-more investigations, more hearings, and more reports! We have lost count of the investigations, hearings, and reports sponsored by Congress in the last few years, but it is hard to reconcile the policy of economy with this uncontrolled appetite of Congress for investigations. We illustrate here four printed reports of hearings bearing upon chemicals, dyestuffs, and the like. The first runs into 735 pages; the second, 624; the third, 1477; and the fourth, 773. -it least one thousand copies of each hearing are printed and eyery member of Congress receives one. There is no way of estimating just what these hearings have cost. Their mere reporting and printing represents a very considerable sum, not to mention the time of the committee, perhaps the least important, item, and the
time of the manufacturers away from duties of business administration, which is by all odds the most important. The worst of it is that nothing seems to happen. The “Alleged Dye Monopoly,” a hearing occupying nearly 1500 printed pages, was printed in 1922. It grew out of certain charges made by Senator King, who was under the impression “that the dye industry is controlled by a combination of corporations and that it is in fact a monopoly, and that in order to maintain such a monopoly and obtain an embargo against the importation of competing dyes, it has employed agents, attorneys, and lobbyists to influence Congress in behalf of special legislation in the interest of such dye monopoly.” The matter was gone into exhaustively, the hearing beginning on February 20, 1922, and continuing through May 16, 1922, with a subsequent hearing on June 3, 1922. But to this day the committee has made no report. Members of the committee have informally stated that the evidence showed no monopoly to exist, but there has been no formal report. We wonder why? I n addition to the books illustrated below, Mr. Frear and his committee have a t their disposal much information and other documents, notably the records of the Chemical Foundation suit, prices that have been collected and published by the Tariff Commission, and many facts that could be reported by the Bureau of the Census, and so the man who believes in efficiency and economy wonders what it is all about, what the real purpose is, and just how representative of the average American these representatives in Congress are. We have had enough of investigations and reports. Let those who are dissatisfied familiarize themselres with the data already accumulated before they seek to impose upon the country the burden of additional investigations, further hearings, and more printed reports.
