The record-union., 1897-12-14
LABELS ARE LIBELS.
PoDGERs WOULD HAVE THEM
ALL ABOLISHED.
He Makes Special and Pointed Hef-
erence to Labels on AduIterated
Food and Beverages.

Especial Correspondence of Record-Union.)
REDDING (CaL) Dee. lin the
Record Union's'' reports of the Fruit
Growers Convention recently, the ad-
dress of President Cooper, deploring the
effects of the adulteration of olive oil
upon olive culture, calls particular at
tentfon to a single pernicious eVli
among 10000 crimes. Mr.. Cooper is
eminently right in his statements of
the results of adulterating and counter
feiting. not only olive oil, but upon any
other human production, and his con-
clusion that one result is a gloomy out
look for a once promising industry,
to which California is naturally f1tted,
is unquestionably correct.
Cotton seed oil can be produced much
cheaper than olive oil, and it resembles
olive oil near enough to be successfully
bottled and sold at the same price or
a trif1e cheaper. That this can be done
is a sufficient reason for commercial
Spectators In the home of the free
and the land of the brave the con-
clusion has been generally reached that
anything that can be sold may be sold,
and there are no especially perceptible
restrictions upon traffic, except our new
IdI1I PROVISIONS.
Formerly there were no injunctions
on. the process Of making pure olive oil
out Of American hogs, but that indus
try is evidently languishing now be-
cause cotton seed oil is cheaper than
pork fat-that is, it can be produced
cheaper. There is no appreciable re-
duction in the cost to the consumer.
It is all about the same thing to the
untutored retail purchaser. He pays
his money and takes his choice, and
he has no convenient means Of knowing
whether he is buying and consuming
essence Of slaughter pens cod liver oil
or cotton seed extract. Owing to the
advance of science in chemistry one
looks as much like olive oil or more sc
than the other, or the honest article
itself, and each is warranted absolute
ly pure, strictly chaste, and fully guar
anteed.
By the time this virgin pure olive
oil from Chicago OF New Orleans goes
through the hands of Italian-American
or Chinese-American fishermen, and
comes out enbalming embryotic tad
poles or newly -fledged catfish in sar-
dine cans, with glazed French labels,
We have product that the stars and
stripes and the American eagle can
wave and flutter over and freedom
Shrek in triumph.
But olive oil and American sardines
are not the only sundries in the stores
there are others. In the bright lexicon,
the grocer's catalogue, there may be
found some OF the most wonderful pro-
ductions Of American ingenuity and
scientific research that chemistry and
deviltry can produce But these are
not known by appearance, representa-
ton, or the labels on the packages or
names blown in the bottles. Any man
may know what he wants, what he
calls for and what the grocer tells him
he sets, but only the packer or the
manufacturer knows what he eats or
drinks, uses, wears, and supplies his
family with. There are more things
IN shops and stores than are dreamed
of in our philosophy.
Since the appalling discovery of New
England nutmegs American ingenuity
has advanced, and it now projects quite
beyond the PROV of the ship Of State
or the horizon of the Patent Office
even. One of the problems that puz-
zles our ablest moral philosophers just
now Is, why there should be criminals
When there are so many legitimate and
absolutely safe ways of doing the same
thlngS differently. Philosophy. itself
cannot keep abreast with our progress,
My friend Podgers, who once saw
Horace Greeley, says It is all in the
laDei. he thinks labels are libels and
ne wants a bill introduced in the Leg
lslaCllre to make law prohibiting the
Labelling of any article of noarcba ndica
in this country His theory is that man