gency Management, and to the agencies set up under this Office. All of these agencies are working jointly on both the military and civilian problems, but each has its special responsibilities.

The principal responsibility for the production of the military supplies rests with the Office of Production Management. The country is relying on this office, the Army and Navy, the workers, managers and owners of the plants, shipyards, and farms producing military equipment and supplies for the successful solution to this first problem.

The principal responsibility for the protection of living standards rests with other agencies of the Office for Emergency Management. These are in particular the Office of Price Administration and Čivilian Supply, the Office of Civilian Defense (which is the new agency headed by Mr. LaGuardia), and the Office of Defense Housing Coordination. I will speak principally of the Office of Price Administration and Civilian Supply, because a large share of the responsibility for protecting our standards of living has been delegated to this

agency.

In OPACS, as we are familiarly called, there are a number of divisions, two of which I wish to discuss. Each of these is concerned with an important phase of the problem. The Price Division has the responsibility for doing all in its power to keep prices at reasonable levels, so that the pocketbooks of both Government and civilians will be protected, and also so that the increased money incomes of consumers will not be siphoned off by higher prices but will serve to call forth more production, put more men to work, and use more plants and more of those materials of which we still have plenty. Price ceilings have been placed on a few strategic commodities, precautionary steps have been taken for some, and the prices of many other commodities are being watched and studied so that appropriate action may be taken when and if it becomes necessary.

Second, the Consumer Division of OPACS has the responsibility of advising the other divisions and agencies on matters affecting the consumers' interest, and of advising and cooperating with consumers throughout the country on ways in which they can protect their living standards and contribute most effectively to the defense program.

Much of the work of the OPM and the Army and Navy on the military program, and the work of OPACS on protecting living standards as represented by the activities of the Price and Supply Divisions, will typically be carried on at a level where weights and measures officers and civilians, as consumers, cannot contribute directly. These agencies deal directly with producers, manufacturers, distributors, and labor unions.

The consumer meets the economic system in the retail market places. It is there that he must make a large share of his contribution to the defense program. Through intelligent buying he can contribute to stabilization of prices, and he can conserve essential resources by choosing the goods that will contribute most to his wellbeing and for which the replacement rate will be the smallest. As you know, far better than others, he cannot buy intelligently unless he has precise knowledge of three things, the amount of money he pays for a commodity, the quantity he receives, and the qualities con

tained in the article. Insofar as he lacks a clear definition of any one of these factors, just to that extent it is impossible for him to make his contribution as a consumer to the defense effort.

You have been working for years to see that consumers get the weight or measure they pay for to clarify the quantity factor in price. We in OPACS whose work it is to help consumers exert a stabilizing influence on prices and to eliminate wastes in buying, have a common interest with you in your problems. It is here, at the retail counters and in your communities, where you can make an important contribution to the solution of the emergency problems now facing us.

Some of you have more adequate laws to work within than others, some of you have more adequate appropriations than others, some of you have jurisdiction over more types of activities than others, and the problems of various localities differ. But all of you can make a direct contribution to total defense through your day-by-day work. Your immediate responsibility is to broaden and to intensify the work you have been doing to educate the public in the importance of your work and in ways in which they can cooperate, and to bring clearly before the public the problems you face so you can receive the aid necessary for their solution. Beyond that, you can inform the proper authorities of the type of work you do so they can call on you to perform any special tasks which may become necessary in the future.

I should like to outline for you the activities and plans of the Consumers Division which may touch your work, and to make certain concrete suggestions for cooperative effort. We expect shortly to have several regional field people at work. These field representatives will act as advisers to consumer representatives or committees of the State and local defense councils and to all groups concerned with consumer problems, and they will be available to cooperate with all agencies such as the weights and measures departments, which

serve consumers.

In a bulletin "Check Your Weights and Measures," issued by the Consumer Division, we have recommended that consumer groups sponsor a 4-point weights and measures program in their community:

First, that consumers work to get the model State law on weights and measures adopted in their State; that the weights and measures department be charged with the responsibility for enforcing State laws regulating advertising and selling practices; that weights and measures officers be authorized to check prepackaged merchandise; and that weights and measures departments support the effort to secure legislation which will require standard containers.

Second, that consumers ask for an appropriation of at least 6 cents per capita to provide for personnel and enforcement activity.

Third, that consumers see that their weights and measures department provides inspectors to supervise the use of weights and measures instruments as well as to check their accuracy.

Fourth, that consumers encourage their weights and measures departments to extend and intensify their educational work so as to bring consumers into close cooperation with the departments.

As we build up our field force, we will be in a better position than we have been thus far to cooperate with your departments and consumer groups in working toward the accomplishment of such a program.

Now, I would like to make some concrete suggestions for your consideration:

First, that if you have not already done so, you immediately get in touch with your State or local council of defense and find out how you can tie in with their work. If these councils follow the organizational pattern suggested for State and local councils, they will have consumer representatives or committees whose problem it is to cooperate with public agencies providing consumer services and with State and local consumer groups, and to represent the consumer in the deliberations of the council. Where the defense councils have such representatives they are your natural points of contact, and you should find them your allies.

Second, our field representatives will be instructed to get in touch with you. To begin with, we will not have many, so we can't get in touch with all of you at once. They will also be in touch with the State and local defense councils. When they call on you, we hope that you will discuss your problems with them so that they will understand them and be able to cooperate effectively with you and put you in touch with consumer groups who can tie in with your efforts.

Third, we suggest that you intensify your educational work. Consumers are becoming more conscious of their problems with every passing week. We think you will find them more receptive and more eager to learn of your work than you might have a few years back. You need their help and they certainly need yours.

Most consumers feel ashamed or "cheap" about questioning weights and measures. It is your responsibility and ours to help them overcome this feeling and to make them ask questions. I remember asking one consumer who had been "shamed" by a clerk when she questioned the weight he had given her, if she was also ashamed to count her change in front of the clerk, and then suggested it was her responsibility to check her weights and measures just as carefully as she counted her change. The next time she insisted, and apparently with good effect, for after two or three such episodes, the store put a scale near the cash register so their customers could check-weigh their purchases if they cared to.

Ŏur field representatives will also be glad to cooperate with you and with consumer groups in efforts you may care to make to get weights and measures programs on the radio. They will be in touch with any consumer programs that are given and may be able to help you get a hearing by this medium.

In this educational work, we urge you to pay particular attention to low-income consumers. In our work around the country with trade-union groups and settlement houses, we have found that when we ask them generally about consumer problems, one of the things they almost inevitably mention is weights and measures, and they are very much interested in it. I am certain that many of your difficult problems are in low-income districts where coal is bought in small quantities and where many dry groceries are bought by the nickel's worth instead of by the pound. These must present difficult problems for you, but you should be able to get the cooperation of the settlement houses and, as they become more aware of their problems of spending, of the labor unions and Negro groups.

Fourth, we urge you to intensify your efforts to obtain uniform weights and measures regulations throughout the country; to adopt nationally effective specifications for weighing and measuring equip

The

ment; to push hard in your drive for Federal legislation to standardize containers; and finally to work to get uniform weights and measures regulations throughout the country. Doctor Briggs made a strong plea to you for uniform regulations at your Conference last year. I want to underline his comments with special reference to the present emergency. The horse and buggy days are gone. telephone and radio, the airplane and train, have made us an indivisible whole. In this emergency we must have a unified and efficient nation. We have too much to compete with to do anything else. We can not afford the luxury of pointless individual initiative that lowers the efficiency of our plants and, by allowing confusion to continue to exist in the markets, condones wasteful consumer buying. We count upon your whole-hearted effort to standardize the standards.

Another point which I would like to mention and to emphasize is that none of us can tell what the future holds. We don't know and we can't tell in Washington, and I do not think anybody can in your communities, what kind of work you may be called upon to do next year or the year after. The point I want to make is that if you keep in touch with us, with our field representatives, and particularly with your State and local defense councils, where you have them, you will know what is going on. The people who have the problems to solve will know what kind of work you are doing and will be able to call on you to fit into whatever programs develop. I know that during the last war, weights and measures officials were called upon to do work that was not strictly weights and measures work, due to the fact that they were in close contact with the markets and the retail outlets. That may happen again. It is not in sight now, but if you keep in touch with the right people, you will be in a position to make the most contribution.

Fifth, and finally, in finishing I would like to start something. As a beginning of what I hope will be a period of closer cooperation between weights and measures officers and the Consumer Division of the Office of Price Administration and Civilian Supply, I would like to invite any of you who are interested, but especially your Committee on Weights and Measures Education, to visit our office and sit down with the chief of our consumer relations staff and me to discuss ways in which we can cooperate to help each other and consumers make their contribution to national defense.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Reck's address has certainly given us something to think about in the coming months. I am sure that weights and measures officials will want to do, and will do, their part in this crisis which confronts us.

DIRECTING THE PERSONNEL OF A WEIGHTS AND MEASURES

DEPARTMENT

By JAMES O'KEEFE, Sealer of Weights and Measures, City of Chicago, Ill.

I have been requested to use as my subject this morning "Directing the Personnel of a Weights and Measures Department. On February 13, 1935, Mayor Kelly appointed me as Inspector of Weights and Measures of the city of Chicago, and the only instructions he gave me were to prosecute dishonest merchants without fear or favor.

I presume our problems are the same in smaller communities as well as in the larger cities. New York and Chicago, with their great population, may have a few more problems, but the inspectors, the public, and human nature in general are the same, whether they work on "Main Street" in the smaller town, Broadway in New York, or State Street in Chicago.

From a survey in Chicago, there are about 500,000 housewives who make purchases every day, and the cheating average per day is 10 cents, or $50,000; which every 20 days would amount to $1,000,000 and, as someone said, "that is an awful lot of lamb chops and cauliflower."

In Chicago, we have 40 employees whose work is divided into several classifications. Some of these men test all of the scales throughout the city, some test the gasoline pumps, and the shoppers investigate all of the retail stores in the city to see that the merchants are giving honest weight.

The men assigned to the produce market inspect every shipment of produce arriving in Chicago by rail or truck in the South Water Market. It might interest you to know that 3 years ago I opened up a branch office at the market, and an inspector is kept at the teamtracks as carloads of potatoes, onions, etc., are being unloaded. The first year we found a shortage of 586,000 pounds in potatoes which were coming into Chicago in so-called 100-pound bags which only contained from 80 to 95 pounds of potatoes, the rest being dirt and shortweight. We make them rebag all shortweight potatoes right at the railroad now, and we OK the shortage claims of the commission merchant on the shipper. During the first 3 months of this year 583 cars were unloaded, and the shortage was only 710 pounds-quite a difference from 3 years ago.

The men working on coal pick up loads promiscuously on the street, check the weight and the kind, grade, and size of the coal to see that the purchaser receives what he has ordered.

We, of course, make drives at different seasons of the year. From September 1 to April 1, I increase my personnel on coal. Then, from April 1 to June 1, I take some of the teams off of coal and put them on peddlers. In May we add one or two more teams on shopping of gas stations.

Two inspectors are assigned for 3-month periods, twice a year, to a testing plant I have set up to test all fuel-oil meters and tanks delivering fuel oil in Chicago. We have a list in our office of all such tank wagons, and these meters are tested twice a year. We also have every gas station listed and the number of pumps contained thereon. These pumps are tested twice a year and a fee of $2.00 charged. We keep a daily record so that at the end of 6 months we can tell our inspectors which pumps they have missed, so they try not to miss any.

Our inspectors travel in pairs for the purpose of corroborative evidence when a case comes to trial. Each inspector is provided with a star, an ordinance book, an instruction manual, a receipt book, seals, condemned stickers, warning notices, and arrest books. The arrest books contain 50 arrest notices in triplicate, and each slip bears a serial number. When an inspector discovers a violation, he issues the original copy of the arrest slip to the merchant, the duplicate copy with the report of the investigation is turned in to the office, and the triplicate