3,253 dozen were men's
sewed straw hats. The 19 concerns produce approximately 85 per cent of
the men's sewed straw hats in the United States and include makers of
cheap, medium, and high-priced hats. They include nonmembers as well as
members of the national association.

Costs were obtained in Italy from five concerns and in England from
three concerns exporting men's sewed straw hats to the United States.

Both domestic and foreign straw hat factories are characterized by lack
of standardization in production. Variations exist in the quality of
the hats manufactured by different establishments, because of variations
in the type and quality of the braid, in the quality of the trimming
materials, such as leather sweat and silk bands, and in the amount
of hand labor employed in the finishing processes. Because of these
variations, it was considered inadvisable to compare the average costs
of production of all hats of the domestic concerns with the average of
all foreign hats. Evidence submitted at the preliminary hearing and data
in the possession of the commission indicated that competition between
domestic and foreign straw hats centered chiefly on three types, split
sennits of 13/15 millimeter braid, improved sennits of 16/18 millimeter
braid, and flatfoot sennits of 16/18 millimeter braid. The commission's
cost comparisons were therefore confined to hats of these
specifications.

INFORMATION OBTAINED IN THE INVESTIGATION

From the commission's investigation of men's sewed straw hats, conducted
as indicated above, the following information has been obtained:

DOMESTIC PRODUCTION

The manufacture of men's straw hats has been conducted on a commercial
scale in the United States for upward of 50 years. The industry is
centered in and around New York City, in a number of cities in
Massachusetts and Connecticut, and in Baltimore, Md. Statistics of
production of men's sewed straw hats are not available, since the census
of manufactures does not distinguish between men's and women's hats nor
between sewed hats and woven hats. Domestic manufacturers estimate that
the value of the men's straw hats produced in 1914 was $12,000,000, or
about 45 per cent of the total production of all straw hats. In 1920
the value of the total production of men's straw hats was estimated at
$20,000,000, of which about $12,000,000 was men's sewed hats. At the
preliminary hearing it was estima