The bill H. R. 11877, commonly called the Sherley bill, was drafted to make section 8 of the existing pure food and drugs act in unmistakable terms carry out the original intention of Congress to prevent the misbranding of drugs by which people are falsely and fraudulently deceived as to the curative properties or effects of proprietary medicines.

The paragraph to be added to that part of section 8 of the existing law, which defines misbranding, in the case of drugs reads in the bill the committee has reported as follows:

Third. If its package or label shall bear any statement, design, or device regarding the curative or therapeutic effect of such article which is false and fraudulent.

The committee has examined this language with some care as to its effectiveness in prosecuting the class of violators which the law is designed to punish. The expression "false and fraudulent" has a well-defined meaning in the criminal law. The word "false," of course, means untruthfulness in its ordinary sense. "Fraudulent," as used in a criminal statute and as a material word in an allegation in an indictment charging that a person has fraudulently represented certain things, is given the meaning which attaches to the word in common usage; that is, a deliberately planned purpose and intent to deceive. In other words, in a criminal statute in which the gravamen of the offense is a false and fraudulent statement, the word "fraudulent" is descriptive of the wrongful motive with which the statement is made and is thus capable of being established by the ordinary criminal evidence applicable to cases in which proof of motive is essential. The proposed paragraph, by using the word "fraudulent," will require the Government, in any prosecution thereunder, to prove a state of facts regarding the properties of the drug sold which imply a knowledge on the part of the manufacturer that the drug will not do the thing that is asserted on the label. There is, however, a wide field in medicine within which the curative or therapeutic effect of drugs is as well known and as definitely determined as is the law of gravitation. Within that field, apart from any question of opinion, the fact that a so-called remedy is absolutely worthless and its label false and fraudulent is easily susceptible of proof. The false statement and its attendant circumstances are capable of being brought home to the manufacturer. The proof of intent in the criminal law does not mean the metaphysical reading of a man's mind. Specific proof of intent is not necessary; it may be established by evidence of attending facts and circumstances, and therefore the Government can easily show that a false statement on a label regarding a drug is one from which fraudulent intent must be implied. Conviction in all proper cases will be consequently comparatively sure.

The legitimate manufacturers of medicinal products admit the necessity for additional legislation along the lines of the proposed bill, and in the recent hearings before the committee on the subject of pure food and drugs the secretary and counsel for the National Association of Manufacturers of Medicinal Products stated that there was no opposition from them to some effective measure of the kind, intended to meet as far as possible the decision in the Johnson case and President Taft's recommendation relating to the desirability of making the law more stringent respecting fraudulent nostrums.

The committee firmly believes that the proposed legislation will be effective to produce the result desired, and as indicating that, it is well to call the attention of the House to the fact that during the hearings upon the bill the representative of one of the drug associations was extremely solicitous to have the paragraph amended so as to provide that no witness should be permitted to express any opinion concerning the curative or remedial value of a drug unless by personal experience and observation he has actual knowledge of its curative or remedial value. The effect of that suggestion, if embodied in law, would be to limit the expert testimony relating to the curative property of any proprietary nostrum to a physician or chemist who had prescribed it or observed its therapeutic effect on persons. The insistence of such an amendment seems of itself a justification for the propriety and the effectiveness of the proposed bill.

USELESS PAPERS, DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE AND

LABOR.

AUGUST 5, 1912.-Ordered to be printed.

Mr. TALBOTT of Maryland, from the Joint Select Committee on Disposition of Useless Executive Papers, submitted the following

REPORT.

[To accompany H. Doc. 667.]

The joint select committee of the Senate and House of Representatives, appointed on the part of the Senate and on the part of the House of Representatives, to which were referred the reports of the heads of departments, bureaus, etc., in respect to the accumulation therein of old and useless files of papers which are not needed or useful in the transaction of the current business therein, respectively, and have no permanent value or historical interest, with accompanying statements of the condition and character of such papers, respectfully report to the Senate and House of Representatives, pursuant to an act entitled "An act to authorize and provide for the disposition of useless papers in the executive departments," approved February 16, 1889, as follows:

Your committee have met and, by a subcommittee appointed by your committee, carefully and fully examined the said reports so referred to your committee and the statements of the condition and the character of such files and papers therein described, and we find and report that the files and papers described in the report of the Acting Secretary of Commerce and Labor, in House Document No. 667, Sixty-second Congress, second session, dated April 1, 1912, are not needed in the transaction of the current business of such department and bureaus and have no permanent value or historical interest.

Respectfully submitted to the Senate and House of Representatives.
HENRY E. BURNHAM,
JNO. W. KERN,

Members on the part of the Senate.

J. FRED. C. TALBOTT,

GEO. D. MCCREARY,

Members on the part of the House.

O

62D CONGRESS, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 2d Session.

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY FOR ALASKA.

AUGUST 5, 1912.-Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union and ordered to be printed.

Mr. FLOOD, from the Committee on the Territories, submitted the

following

REPORT:

[To accompany H. R. 38.]

The Committee on the Territories, to whom was referred the bill (H. R. 38) to create a legislative assembly in the Territory of Alaska, to confer legislative power thereon, and for other purposes, with Senate amendments, having had the same under consideration, report it back without amendment with the recommendation that the House do not concur in the Senate amendments and ask for a conference thereon.