Basically, these labels were designed to protect mattress consumers. The government saw through the anti-consumption tactics used by manufacturers and retailers to sell their products. The government declared it illegal to remove labels from mattresses and prosecuted anyone caught selling or distributing mattresses without the labels. It was a tremendously beneficial move for the American public and for honest mattress manufacturers.
Notification that the removal of mattress labels is punishable by law is not addressed to everyone. Actually, it's only for mattress manufacturers. Consumers, on the other hand, can safely remove these labels after purchase if they wish, without fear of consequences. However, just like I do with a new pair of leggings, these shady mattress makers simply ripped off those labels to keep their sales moving.
This led the government to counterattack with the new rule that these labels were protected by the Federal Trade Commission Act and could not be removed under penalty of law. If you have legally purchased the pillow or mattress, the answer is no. It is illegal to remove the label before the sale and delivery of a pillow or mattress to the final consumer. Basically, that means that sellers can't remove a seal, label, label, or other identification from a pillow or mattress; only consumers can do that.
A federal law requires that any mattress containing used filler be labeled with that information, but it is up to each state to design that state's standardized label and regulate the labeling of mattresses. At that time, mattresses were often built with some nasty filling of horse hair, corn husks, food waste, old rags, newspapers and anything else a manufacturer could find was regularly crawled inside. Organic mattresses are also becoming very popular in the bedding industry, as buyers want more environmentally friendly products. For that reason, they required that a notice be added to each label, stating that it is punishable by law to remove or damage a label.
Reports say that at the beginning of the 20th century, some manufacturers built mattresses out of not-so-tasty materials to save money on production costs such as food waste, newspapers, old rags, horsehair and more. As a consumer, all you need to know is that whether or not a label remains on your mattress is completely up to you once you have purchased it. To reduce costs, some manufacturers recycled old and used bedding materials and placed them in new mattresses. This generation will never know what it's like to face a serious jail sentence for stealing the label of a mattress or pillow, but maybe that's for the best.
As soon as the government became aware of these shenanigans, they demanded that the message “Do Not Remove” be included, by law, on every mattress label. However, you can cut the tag without fear that the police on the mattress with boots will kick you in the door and take you to the gulag. Consumers could then make informed choices and stay away from mattresses filled with hazardous or disgusting materials. Before consumer protections became widespread in the United States, many unscrupulous entrepreneurs took advantage of their customers in a variety of ways.
So what do you do if you're a morally ambiguous salesman with a bunch of unsold mattresses full of old, dirty rags? Apparently, you tear off the labels so that your customers have no idea what's inside the mattresses.
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