352        Pennsylvania  Pharmaceutical  Association.    { Am-Ju]y\\m&Tm' 
the  discussions  before  these  Commissioners  is  that,  while  the  German  chemists 
are  able  to  levy  this  tax  upon  us  in  this  country,  they  have  no  protection  at 
home,  and,  what  is  still  worse,  considering  the  matter  of  our  reciprocal  relations, 
a  citizen  of  this  country  who  attempts  to  market  a  product  in  Germany,  but 
who  has  failed  to  secure  trade-mark  registration  from  the  German  Government, 
may  be  prohibited,  in  some  cases  has  been  prohibited  from  selling  his  own  pro- 
duct in  that  country,  if  someone  there  has  been  shrewd  enough  to  anticipate 
him  in  securing  the  registration  of  a  trade-mark  upon  something  under  a  simi- 
lar name,  in  anticipation  of  the  application  being  made  by  the  owner  of  the 
same  in  this  country. 
The  National  Pure  Food  and  Drug  Law  is  still  pending  in  Congress.  A 
second  meeting  of  the  Pure  Food  and  Drug  Congress  was  called  in  the  city  of 
Washington,  on  January  18th  last.  Our  Association  was  represented  by  ex- 
President  Redsecker  and  a  number  of  others  of  our  members,  who  found,  when 
they  reached  Washington,  that  the  enterprising  Secretary  of  the  Congress  had 
elaborated  a  programme  which  certainly  had  the  appearance  of  being  con- 
trolled more  largely  by  a  desire  to  keep  those  who  were  delegates  in  the  city 
of  Washington  for  three  or  four  days,  than  to  specially  further  the  interests  of 
this  bill.  Many  addresses  were  down  on  the  programme,  some  of  them  worth 
listening  to,  but  most  of  them  devoted  to  rehashing  what  the  delegates  already 
knew  and  had  previously  endorsed,  and  no  material  changes  were  recom- 
mended in  the  bill  pending,  and  no  material  aid,  so  far  as  the  delegates  from 
this  Association  could  tell,  was  given  to  the  work  in  hand.  The  coming  ses- 
sion of  the  U.  S.  Congress  will  doubtless  consider  this  bill,  and  it  is  not  im- 
probable that  it  will  secure  favorable  passage. 
We  should  see  to  it  that  no  attempts  are  made  to  jeopardize  the  interests  of 
the  pharmacists  in  this  proposed  legislation,  which  we  believe,  as  the  bill  now 
stands,  are  fairly  well  taken  care  of. 
The  imposition  of  the  Stamp  Tax  upon  medicines,  in  which  we  have  special 
interest,  was  noted  in  the  last  annual  address,  and  its  provisions,  as  outlined 
therein,  went  into  effect  on  the  first  day  of  July  last,  and  became  an  additional 
burden  upon  the  retail  druggist,  not  only  to  the  extent  of  compelling  him  to 
stamp  his  stock  on  hand,  but  of  increasing  the  cost,  to  an  extent  even  greater 
than  the  Revenue  Tax  imposed,  by  the  makers  of  many  proprietary  remedies. 
It  was  probably  to  this  cause,  more  than  any  other,  that  we  owe  the  formation 
of  the  N.  A.  R.  D.,  and  one  of  the  first  and  most  notable  triumphs  of  that 
organization  was  the  correction,  to  a  considerable  extent,  of  what  seemed  an 
especially  unnecessary  and  uncalled-for  imposition  of  a  new  burden  threatened 
from  some  quarters. 
The  effort  to  advance  margins  at  retail  was,  however,  hoped  to  largely  reim- 
burse the  retail  dealer  for  this  change  in  prices.  While  in  some  localities  this 
was  successful,  it  is  to  be  regretted  that  in  many  others,  notably  in  the  larger 
cities,  it  was  not.  This  latter  condition,  I  believe,  is  largely  due  to  the  fact 
that  many  makers  of  proprietary  medicines  sell  direct  at  largest  discounts  to 
those  able  to  buy  the  quantities  for  retailing,  who  usually  are  the  aggressive 
cutters,  and  who,  by  reason  of  this  advantage,  are  able  to  sell  a  single  package 
for  the  price  paid  by  their  less  fortunate  competitors,  the  average  retail  druggists. 
Among  the  wisest  steps  taken  by  the  N.  A.  R.  D.  was  the  stand  they  took 
against  this  position  of  manufacturers,  and  it  is  gratifying  to  note  that,  in  a 
