AMERICAN TOBACCO. CO. AND. IMPERIAL TOBACCO CO. &1
The Venable Tobacco Co., of Durham, N. C., on April 27, 1925,
wrote as follows:
Dear Sirs: Your valued favor of the 17th was duly received and carefully
noted, and it has taken some time to get up the data you ask for.
1. Our corporation operates one redrying plant in Dot.
2. We purchased in 1922, 1,283,187 pounds green tobacco at auction. We
purchased also 760,044 pounds from the association. In 1923 we purchased
2,996,289 pounds green tobacco at auction and 83,100 pounds from the Tobaeco
Growers’ Association. In 1924 we purchased 2,968,012 pounds at auction but
did not buy any green tobacco from the Tobacco Growers’ Association.
3. Our company experienced great difficulty in trying to buy tobacco from
the association in 1904 in the green state. We wrote them several times about
purchasing tobacco from them but they declined to sell anything in the green
state to ug except in a roundabout way, as shown in the attached letter.
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4
*
Sincerely,
Tue VenasLeE Tosacco Co. (Inc),
S. W. VENABLE, Vice President.
The letter referred to above follows:
OcToBER 6, 1924.
venaBLE Tomacco Co., (Attention Mr. 8, W. Venable).
Durham, N. C. -
Dear Sms: In reply to your favor of October 4 in regard to the eastern
Carolina tobaccos of the 1924 crop, D-6-L and O and D-7-L and O.
We will ship you the above grades, you to give us the quantity of each grade
you desire, from our different receiving points in eastern Carolina, at the green
selling price, plus 10 per cent loss in weight and $3 charge over green cost.
You are to redry these tobaccos and in turn bill the association the usual
redrying charge for the work."
You understand, of eourse, that we can not agree to allow you to visit these
receiving points and examine these tobaccos, but we will ship our standard
grades to your plant and bill you with same upon the deliverv of the tobacco to
you.
Should you desire the Rocky Mount type or the Kinston type, eastern Carolina
class, we can ship you either, as we class the eastern Carolina tobacecos under
these classifications.
Thanking you for this inquiry, we remain,
Yours very truly,
R. R. PATTERSON.
Leon L. Strause Co., of Richmond, Va., on April 22, 1925, sent the
commission a letter from which the following is quoted:
Dear Str: * * * With respect to the reference to difficulties encountered
in making purchases from the 1923 crop which we earlier mentioned, we would
explain this as due to the fact that the association required us to take tobaccos
as they graded them. This we could not do, as most frequently the tobaccos
were overgraded and they would not permit us to reject such piles of tobacco
as would not suit the grade, although we know this to be a privilege extended
to the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., Liggett & Myers Tobacco Co., and others.
Furthermore, not only were the tobaccos so often overgraded but the grades of
the association were in many cases made up of tobaccos that should have been
separated into many grades instead of the one in which they would place them.
Since practically 90 per cent of our business is done with English trade and
since tobaceos so exported are placed in Government warehouses, where they
are stored until the manufacturer withdraws them by the payment of a duty
equivalent to $20 per pound duty, it will readily be seen that we have to be careful
to purchase tobaccos that are well and properly classified, as should they be
mixed and thereby contain tobaccos unsuited to the special brands for which
they are intended the manufacturer not only suffers the loss of the original cost
and charges but the amount of duty as well, which in such cases can quickly
involve extremely heavy losses. Because of these facts we have preferred to
purchase our tobaccos from the association in the green state, whereby we might
be enabled to regrade and classify and meet our trade requirements, which we
could not do by buying redried tobacco. By the discrimination of the associa-
tion in the sale of green tobacco a manifest unfairness has been worked. as well
