CONGRESS BRIDGE ACROSS FOX RIVER AT GENEVA, ILL. APRIL 18, 1916.-Referred to the House Calendar and ordered to be printed. Mr. STERLING, from the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, submitted the following REPORT. [To accompany H. R. 14387.] The Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, to whom was referred the bill (H. R. 14387) to authorize the construction of a bridge across the Fox River at Geneva, Ill., having considered the same, report thereon with amendments and as so amended recommend that it pass. Amend the bill as follows: Page 1, line 7, after the word "River," insert the words "at a point suitable to the interests of navigation." Page 1, lines 11, 12, and 13, and page 2, lines 1 and 2, strike out the words "at a point suitable to the interests of navigation for the purpose of carrying the main line of the Chicago and North Western Railway Company from Chicago to Council Bluffs over the Fox River.' The bill as amended has the approval of the War Department, as will appear by the letter attached and which is made a part of this report. [Second indorsement.] WAR DEPARTMENT, April 17, 1916. Respectfully returned to the chairman Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, House of Representatives. The Chief of Engineers reports that H. R. 14387, Sixty-fourth Congress, first session, to authorize the construction of a bridge across the Fox River at Geneva, Ill., by the Chicago & North Western Railway Co., amended as indicated in red ink on the accompanying copy, makes ample provision for the protection of the interests committed to the War Department, and, as thus amended, I know of no objections to the favorable consideration of the bill by Congress so far as those interests are concerned. JOHN C. SCHOFIELD, INTERSTATE TRANSPORTATION OF IMMATURE CALVES. APRIL 18, 1916.-Referred to the House Calendar and ordered to be printed. Mr. HAMILTON of Michigan, from the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, submitted the following REPORT. [To accompany H. R. 549.] The Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, to whom was referred the bill (H. R. 549) to regulate the interstate transportation of immature calves, having considered the same, report thereon with a recommendation that it pass. This bill was carefully considered by the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce in the second session of the Sixty-second Congress, many witnesses were heard and the bill was reported favorably, but it went upon the calendar late in the session, and an effort to have it considered by unanimous consent failed. It was again considered by the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce in the second session of the Sixty-third Congress, and favorably reported to the House, which passed it. It went to the Senate near the end of the Congress and died with the Congress. This bill is designed to prevent a cruel, disgusting, and dangerous traffic-cruel to animals, dangerous to human health, and disgusting in its revelation of cheap and nasty cupidity in perpetrating upon unsuspecting consumers food unfit for human consumption. Dr. Francis H. Rowley, of Boston, who appeared before the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, as he said, "in behalf of all the humane societies in the United States, that are a unit in their indorsement of this bill and their hope that the bill may become a law," and also "in behalf of the one society in the United States that has put up the hardest fight for the past two years that has been put up by any organization in this country to prevent the horrible abuses connected with the shipment of immature calves," said: This meat (of immature calves) is boned off and made up into sausages and sold to the poor. (Hearings, p. 7.) There are men-and I want you to understand, gentlemen, everything I say to you here to-day I can substantiate by facts and figures secured by our agents, and for which we are willing to take our oath-there are men in New York State and in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, knowing the dates when the cows are to calf, and they are there the days the calves are dropped. In many instances the calves are taken that day. Their legs are tied together and in many cases they are thrown under the boot of a wagon. They get a carload and then ship them. The farmer gets from a dollar to a dollar and a half for this little calf. Now, you know that the Holstein and other breeds will weigh, the day of birth, 50, 60, or 70 pounds dressed, and quite frequently 80 pounds the day when born. That is a pretty good calf, especially when you blow it up with compressed air. If they can get this calf through to market, then they get, say, a dollar or a dollar and a half for the hide. If they can get some inspector to pass it, 60 cents for the liver, 50 cents for the sweetbreads, and from three to six dollars for the carcass. First, a little return to the farmer of 80 cents or a dollar for the calf, and then one, five, or six dollars to the butcher. (Hearings, p. 9.) Continuing, Dr. Rowley said: On May 2 and 3, 1910, there arrived at Brighton 790 calves in carloads in those two days, of which 183 were dead; dead from starvation; dead from utter exhaustion. We had one of the best veterinarians in Boston examine the stomachs, and the inside of the stomach was as dry as the palm of your hand; they had simply starved to death. (Statement Dr. Rowley, Hearings, p. 10.) Further on he says: These are simply samples of reports handed me by our agents. I just brought a few of the most notable. Here is another: In six days 1,690 calves were brought over from the State of New York. Here is a record of one week of 6,056 calves shipped to the New England Dressed Meat & Wool Co. Three hundred of the calves were thrown out by the Federal inspectors as unfit for food. That Massachusetts is not the only State that has suffered from this is evidenced by a letter I have from the secretary of the Humane Society of Detroit, Mich. He says that— "The practice of taking young calves from their mothers in warm stables, driving them several miles through frost and snow, allowing them to stand shivering in the snow for half a day before loading them on the train, is a very cruel practice. Many of these calves are thus exposed in shipping from 30 to 90 hours. Outside of the matter of cruelty, such meat is unquestionably unfit for food." Then, there is also a similar statement from the president of the Connecticut Humane Society. As we began to make it unprofitable to these butchers, they began to turn them into Connecticut, and this is what the president of their humane society writes. He says: "On April 25 a carload of about 120 calves was received. They were thin, eyes sunken, and apparently a number of them were dead. On being taken from the car, some revived. These calves were shipped without crates. We had an examination made of two dead calves, and nothing was found in their stomachs. Out of the entire number it is believed that 75 per cent were bobs." Now, you say, why can not this be stopped by State legislation? The attorney general of New York says: "I find no authority in this provision of law or elsewhere that would justify the commissioner of agriculture to seize shipments of calves destined to a point without the State, under the conditions mentioned in your letter. The above section is intended to prohibit the offering or exposing for sale in the market of calves under 4 weeks of age or when they are not in healthy condition. The shipping therein referred to must be construed as meaning shipping for the purpose of killing within the State and can not refer to the shipping of calves without the State, as the legislature has no authority to prohibit such shipments." These calves were shipped according to the laws of New York State to "John Smith," a little butcher in Connecticut, Rhode Island, or Massachusetts, as a "dairyman." Mr. DRISCOLL. Does not this law require that they be shipped in crates or accompanied by their mothers? Dr. ROWLEY. They are shipped there in crates, or are supposed to go with their mothers if not crated. The attorney general of New York can not stop it, because they go out to our State in conformity with the law. We can not do anything in Massachusetts except to cooperate with the Federal inspectors and such local inspectors as we can scare into destroying these calves and not allow them to get on the market as food. In many cases we have driven many of these butchers out of this business. Last Sunday a man came through from New York State following one of these carloads of calves. There is an attempt to evade the law by claiming that they are shipping the dams with these calves, because if they ship the dam with the calf they are complying with the law, even if they are only 1 or 2 days old. They take along old, worn-out dried-up milch cows that are to be made into bologna sausage. They put them into the car with 60 or 70 calves. Capt. Walsh was with us-they unloaded 99 calves and 4 old cows. When these cows come out of the car with the calves they will walk away, with no more thought of the calf than you have of the child walking in the streets of New Orleans now. I have found the teats of these cows raw from the continual sucking of the calves put in with them. (Hearings, p. 13.) Mr. Benedict, superintendent Stevens-Swan Humane Society, of Utica, N. Y., says: The skins are worth $1.15 and the stomach is worth 15 cents, making $1.30. (Hearings, p. 6.) Mr. Benedict followed a shipment of calves from New Berlin, N. Y., to Brighton, Mass. He says: Fifty-seven bob calves, none claimed to be over 1 week of age, were brought for shipment at New Berlin and 10 of them were so exceedingly youthful and weak that they were not placed in the car, and they simply placed 47 in the car. One of the calves brought for shipment was so young that it could hardly stand, and the man who brought it stated that it had "only come last night." The car started from New Berlin at 11.15 in the morning, and it is fair to assume that these calves had been separated from their mothers up to the time of starting-from two to five hours. The car stopped at Leonardsville, and 17 more "bob-veal" calves were loaded, and at Bridgewater 15 more were brought in a wagon. A bob-veal calf is defined to be a calf from 1 day to 1 week old. The car left Bridgewater at 1.30 p. m. It was placed in the yard at Utica at 6.50 p. m., and remained there until 1.11 the morning of the 30th, when it was conveyed by a New York Central engine to the New York Central tracks. The car left Utica at 4.30 that morning and arrived at New Albany at 5.31. Inasmuch as the shipment was being watched by humane officers, a pretense was made of trying to feed these 78 calves in an hour and a half-between the arrival and departure of the car. They had two quart dippers and two funnels and pieces of hose attached to the ends of the funnels, so that if any calves could not eat from the pail and the dipper they would raise up their heads and put the rubber hose in their mouths and pour some of the mixture down their throats. The pails and dippers were perfectly new, and it was apparent that they were going through the cruel farce of pretending to feed these calves-all of them too young to take other nourishment than milk from their mothers--because they were being watched. HR-64-1-vol 2-29 |