Food and Flavor: A Gastronomic Guide to Health and Good Living

by Henry T. Finck

Fines alone will not suffice to bring about a reform. We can hardly follow the example of the Turks who, if a baker gives false weight or adulterates his bread, cut off one of his ears and nail it to the door post. But we could follow the example of the wise municipal officials who compelled the Munich brewers to make honest beer, out of malt and hops alone. At first, fines were imposed for using other materials, and these fines were made larger and larger; but the brewers found they could pay the highest fines and still save money by using chemicals. Then the lawmakers changed their tactics; the "man highest up" was threatened with imprisonment. The millionaire brewers had a pardonable aversion to jail—and from that time on Munich beer became the best in the world. Ere long, whole trainloads of it began to be sent daily in all directions—to North Germany and Russia, to Paris and London, to Vienna, and to the cities of Italy. The brewers had been compelled, at pistol's point, to acknowledge the truth that, after all, in the long run, honesty is the best policy.

Some of the largest American manufacturing firms have followed this policy voluntarily, though the prices they have to pay for good fresh material places them at a great disadvantage to the adulterators who buy any rotten old thing and "renovate" it, or else make the article entirely of chemicals.

"In four years," said Alfred W. McCann (in March, 1912), "the Government has caught nearly fifty wholesale adulterators in the act of shipping bogus vinegar from one State into another. In every instance the Government won its case, but in every instance petty fines were inflicted by the courts and the same offenders were caught again and again.... Small fines have no deterrent effect on food frauds. The game is too profitable to suffer extinction under any other influence than jail sentences, and jail sentences have not been imposed in a single case brought by the Government against food or drug adulterators."

Food and drug adulterators are wealthy men, but they are not stingy. They gladly share their sordid earnings with the politicians who protect them. "Why do the States delay in enacting uniform laws patterned after the excellent national laws?" asks Mr. McCann; and his answer tells the plain truth: "Each State has some powerful pet food industry to protect and some weak legislators willing to do the bidding of the fakers."

Every reader of this book perused in the newspapers the story of the disgraceful conspiracy in Washington against Dr. Wiley, and remembers vividly the nationwide outburst of indignation which came to the rescue of the courageous chemist and made him a national hero. He remained for the time being, but his enemies were not punished, although the President promised to reform the Department of Agriculture. His failure to do so is one of the principal reasons why he was not re-elected. Dr. Wiley, seeing that his efforts to secure the enforcement of the Pure Food Laws were useless, at last resigned, and in "Good Housekeeping" for October, 1912, he gave some of the reasons for this step.

The Remsen Board was created for the express purpose of reviewing his decisions against food manipulators. It never missed a chance to reverse them, to the huge delight of certain manufacturers and dealers. Although the Moss investigating committee unanimously pronounced the Remsen Board as wholly without authority, its decisions were followed by officials of the Government; important matters referred to it were held in abeyance. For instance, an exhaustive report of the experiments made in the Bureau of Chemistry, which showed, in Dr. Wiley's opinion, "the injuriousness of copper sulphate when added to foods, has been hibernating in the Department of Archives for the past four years and its use permitted in the interim."

The opposition to Dr. Wiley's decisions brought about "practical paralysis in all matters pertaining to the addition of benzoic acid, sulphurous acid, saccharine, sulphate of copper, and alum to food products. As it was the addition of these bodies which constituted 95 per cent. of the total adulteration practised, it is easy to see that, so far as adulteration was concerned, the food law became practically a dead letter."

The physicians of the country, who, better than others, know the danger of using drugs indiscriminately, sided with Dr. Wiley. At a meeting in Pittsburg of the American Medical Association, representing 25,000 physicians and surgeons, that body "in spite of the decision of the referee board, pledged itself uncompromisingly against benzoate of soda and all other chemical forms of food preservatives."

How bitterly the war against Dr. Wiley and pure-food legislation was carried on, not only at Washington but in various States with aid from Washington, is illustrated by the following extract from a letter written to Dr. Wiley by the Health Commissioner of Indiana:

It is not necessary to recall to you the tremendous difficulties under which the State labored when it endeavored to prevent the overthrow of its pure food law because of the activities of the Department of Agriculture in behalf of the firms who were seeking that end; how we were refused the assistance of yourself and your chemists; how we had to compel the getting of testimony by an order of the court of the District of Columbia, and how, on the other hand, employees of the Government known to be in sympathy with the firms bringing suit against us were sent to Indianapolis to testify against the State at the expense of the Department of Agriculture.