WOOD PULP, PRINT PAPER, ETC. SATURDAY, April 25, 1908. The committee met this day at 2 o'clock p. m., Hon. James R. Mann (chairman) presiding. The CHAIRMAN. The committee will be in order. I may say I did not call a meeting of the committee to-day for the purpose of having hearings, but for the purpose of making some arrangement with reference to hearings. Yesterday I took the liberty of sending a telegram to Mr. Ridder, president, and Mr. Baker, secretary, of the American Newspaper Publishers' Association, and to Mr. Stone, the secretary of the Associated Press, as follows: The special committee appointed to investigate concerning wood pulp, print paper, etc., will be glad to have you or anybody else representing or in behalf of the American Newspaper Publishers' Association or the Associated Press or others interested in the use of paper testify before it at the earliest opportunity to the end that, if possible, the committee may report back to the House before the adjournment of the session of Congress. The committee especially desires to secure from you facts bearing upon the question as to a combination or conspiracy of wood pulp and paper manufacturers or dealers in restraint of trade and relating to the effect of the duty on wood pulp and printing paper on the price of paper and the paper industry. The committee desires to give a full and unbiased consideration to the subject at once. The information upon which you have based your statements must be of great value to us. When can you come? I did not receive a reply from Mr. Ridder or from Mr. Stone, but I received yesterday this telegram from Mr. Baker, secretary of the American Newspaper Publishers' Association: Hon. JAMES R. MANN, NEW YORK, April 24, 1908. House of Representatives, Washington, D. C.: Committee from this association will visit Washington to-morrow, Saturday, to appeal to the entire Congress against the tactical trickery of the opposition to the Stevens bill. We have been clamoring for four months for a hearing. We mistrust any inquiry which does not carry with it an assurance of substantially immediate action by both Houses. We have the assurance of a majority of all the Members of the House in favor of the passage of the Stevens bill, and we think an opportunity should be given to that majority to record itself and to demonstrate that fact to the country, especially as action has been urged upon Congress by the President. AMERICAN NEWSPAPER PUBLISHER'S ASSOCIATION, By E. W. BAKER, Secretary. I took it from that that it was not the intention of the American Newspaper Publishers' Association to appear at once. This morning I met Mr. Ridder in the office of the Speaker, and he stated that the committee from the association was here and would like to proceed with the hearings. So far as I can see, there is no reason why we should not proceed with the hearings at once, although we are not in the room that we would have been in, or prepared with the facilities which we would have been prepared with, if the gentlemen had -formed me yesterday that they were willing to proceed with the Pts. L 3 hearing. Hence, they will have to excuse the circumstances and environments under which we start in with the hearings to-day. Now, Mr. Ridder. Mr. MEDILL MCCORMICK. Mr. Mann, I am charged by the committee of which I am chairman to present to you Mr. Norris, who will act as spokesman for us in the hearings. The CHAIRMAN. What committee is that? Mr. MCCORMICK. The committee of the American Newspaper Publishers' Association, appointed by the association to come here to-day. The CHAIRMAN. You said the committee of which you were chairman, and we thought we would like to have it in the record what the committee was. Mr. McCORMICK. Fifteen gentlemen were appointed as a special committee. Mr. FRANK B. NOYES. I came also in response to the invitation to Mr. Stone. It did not reach me. I am president of the Associated Press. It did not reach me personally, but I came through the printed notice. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Norris, will you be sworn? Mr. NORRIS. Yes, sir. STATEMENT OF MR. JOHN NORRIS, OF NEW YORK CITY. (Mr. Norris was duly sworn by the chairman.) Mr. NORRIS. On behalf of the delegation of the American Newspaper Publishers' Association, permit me to say we appear in answer to your summons. We appear as representatives of substantially all the daily newspapers of the United States. We consume at least 80 per cent of the news print papers used in the United States. We appear here as representatives of the seventh largest industry in the country, an interest that has been menaced by an extraordinary aggregation of lawbreakers. We have appealed to the President, to the Department of Justice, and to Congress for immediate relief. For four months we have been asking an opportunity to tell our story to Congress. In reply we have been told, not once, not twice, but at least twenty times, and in various ways, that we could not look for any relaxation of the oppressions which the paper makers-the objects of Congressional favor-had imposed upon the vast publishing business of the country; that Congress would not aid us at this time in correcting a gross public wrong. Therefore we are apprehensive that your investigation, because it is started late in the session, with only a short interval possible for legislation by Congress, can have only one meaning to us-delay, postponement, and a continuance for another year of conditions which are intolerable. We do not intend to imply any mistrust of the committee's intentions, but may we ask, Under what programme will the committee proceed, and to what extent will it take testimony, and under what rule? Will it demand that narrow, legal, technical proof, which is usually obtainable by the granting of an immunity bath to one or more of the participants in a crime, or will it act promptly when the moral certainty of the wrongdoing is established? Do you want us to bring before you many publishers whose prices for print paper have |
