-405-


 The i.eek-.r C'onpL-mn has been in business nore than twenty-five
years, and has never been located- cn- here except here in Joolin. Our
products are sold to department stores and other retail outlets through-
out tne entire Unitedu Sttes.

 Another h,.ndicap of soiae importa.nce is that in selling our -iroduct
 in some of the big eastern cities, -porticalrly ,:. York: City, to iarkce
 such s_-is .e are compelled to pay the transportation charges to the cus-
 tomier to 6eq,-lize the transportation cost with that of the manufacturers
 in ^e.,' York close to the custo.ir 1.,.Aere no tr-nsportation char-es are in-
 volveo.

 Another angle to o-.u- situation is that :iiile we are the o-li' h.:nd-
bag m-.nufacturer in out town, or for that mEtter, in this entire section,
- in fact, the largest .+nlba; manufacturer west of the iississi5pVi River,
- there are in our city, garm.mt .iacturera an. other manufacturers in
other tons in our immediate vicinit'-. Also, there are a number of shoe
manufacturers not in our city, but in our vicinity, none of whom are com-
pelled to o. y the high ,iinimu-n r-te of pO& whichh we have, and all other
lines of such manufacturer have a learners provision in their Code, -'hereby
they con employ green help for c-rtain length of time at 80,o of the rain-
inum TFe tiitil the- le,-rn, at lest in c measure, howi to perform the ,;ork
they are doing in a satisfactory vol ne. Of course, in these other lines
where there are a lot of shoe factories in the st. te, a lot of garment
manufcct,.rers in the st.-te, the. had sufficient representation then their
codes -ere fornMul.ted to e::ert an influence so as to *n.,ble them to get
fair consideration. 7e h.ve hL.d no one to coop, rL'te v.ith us in our line
of manufacture. Tiiercfore, the Code for:.mlate& .nd put into effect
and is bein( operated tod.:. solely from the .vie-ipoint of the eastern or
New York m..nufrcturers, and no consideration jiven to our con-icern.

 .e cennmot maintain a r>:oresent tive in ,Jashinnton to attend all the
hearings enu make effort to get conditions or rulings that .re are-. justly
entitled to. Therefore, our condition rmist be relieved or else we '.ill
be comoclleci. to p;-ss out of this line of m..nu-Lcture, as much as we would
regret to do so. If wve are forced from this field, of m-.n.ifact-.rin.-, it
would aiecn the loss of emoloy.ient for around 200 peoplee, leavi.,n our to'vn
Without -x..yroll x.-hich is much ri.eded, and ,.i:.n, heads of families without
employment nd us with a lot of e:uipment for "Ihicii :e ill '.i.ve no use.
Out progresss in this field rill A-i.ve been :.i.&,' in vein.

 In general, the Code 'e are op)eratin. under now, that is fwnction-
ing ag-ainst the interest of our business, is forcin- us out of lines of
ma.nufcturin,; Lnd if continued, will in ,ll rob ability force, us entirely
out of the handbb-,.- business; and to "-hich '.we are co-'elle,'. to p,-r Code
fees that l.-st --e.-r L.o-LUited to iore then 41,000,000u, :a rear dur'in -'hich,
on account of the restriction -.,w,.r which h je are co.,ipo-lledC to operLtc, the
heavy t.':es of one kind or another that we have to ,'a, caused us to do a
yeer's business not at c. profit, but at a lewvr net loss for the ,e r's
operations, a loss "-e c.-nnot continue to oear.


THE .x-. coi0prTf, INC.