The Portland daily press., 1898-12-31

In Washington on rueX1 AueSoHJ " AA
ouire into the general subject of the
quality of the beef supplies and partiou-
larly as to the responsibility for the loss
of 800, 600 pounds of refrigerator beef sent
to Porto Rico when the expedition under
General Miles was there. The special
order is as follows:
| BY direction of the Secretary Of War.
board of survey is hereby ordered to con-
vene at the war department, Washington,
D. c., at ten a. M, January =, lo9g TO
examine into and report upon the re-
| sponsiblisy for the loss of about 800, OOO
pounds of refrigerator beef, the property
OF Swift & Co., of Chicago. to ascertain
and report IL due and proper effort was
mado to feed this beef to the troops IN
Porto Rico and to fix the responsibility If
due and proper effort was not due 10
ascertain and report the character ano
| quality of the refrigerated beef herein re-
| ferred to; to ascertain and report IL IL was
| good and fit meat for issus; II IL nau psen
subjected to any chemical processes wnao. na
ever, and to report whether or nou Ine
| United States is responsible 1or tne loss
of the beef or who. II anyone, Is respon- :
| sibIe for It's loss and wheth er IN It's
! opinion Swift & Go. should or should not
be reimbursed for the beef. Detail OF the
| board: Col. Charles FL. Alden, A sslstant
Surgeon General; Col. James III. Moore,
| Assistant Quartermaster Gen erai; Col.
Francis L. Guenther, 4th q. S. Artillery;
Captain l.. G. Sheerer, Assistant AdJu'
| tanu General Recorder.
| The 800, 600 pounds Of beef referred to
| were shipped from Newport News to Porto
| Rico about the time that word came trom
| Gen. Miles that he had supplied himself
| With fresh beef taken on the island. The
| sfrigerated beef made the trip to Porto
| Rico and back, but by the time 1t reached
| Montauk Point it is understood TO nave
| 2poiled owing to the delay and consequent
| laok of refrigerating material.
| General Egan today received from
Lieut. Col. Smith, the commlssary omcer
at Chicago, report made by Armour q
| Co., who furnished the army large part
| OF it's timed roast beef. The report was
| in response to specific fnterrogatorles
| from Gen. Egan. The report in part, says:
Our system of preparing and putting
up our roast and corned beef Is by the
| Appert process. invented In 1903. This
process has been well known to scientific
| inquiry since the date OF Its invention,
| but it's commercial use by manufacturers
1 and dealers in canned meats may be SAID
| to be limited to the past thirty years.
4 Nothing has been di5cov cred thatsprouuces
| superior results. There never has been
any complaint of deteriorating OF the CON
| tents of cans put up by this process. We
| have been putting up and selling t1nnod
roast and corned beef for the past twenty
| five years and have been supplying con.
sumers OF food products for tbs entire
period. All grocers and meat markets
! have these goods ana have had them on
sale during this length Of time and no op-
| lection has been raised to their use by
customers, nor has there been any detri-
mental results following their consump-
tion. The use of these descriptions OF
goods is annually increasing. We have
put up during the past twenty or thirty
years about two hundred million pounds
During the past five years we have soio 70
| the British government for army ana
navy use. largely in India and Egypt,
nearly a5,o0J,000 pounds and TO the
| Hrench government within the past SIX
or seven years about an equal quantity.
| 70 the republic Of Brazil and TO South
| Africa we are now annually shipping
thousands of tons of these goods. No
/ us in the manufacture of either tinned
roast beef or corned beef. No scraps are
| used by us in the manufacture OF the
| goods mentioned Our timed roast and
4 corned beef are manufactured from Wnat
are called tehuoks" and "plates" being
portions OF the animals that are regarded
| as first class in every particular and no
scraps of any description are prepared or
used. II any small pieces of meat are
| found in can they are incident to CUT
| ting of original pieces from which Its con-
| tents are taken and occasionally are
necessarily used to give the proper weight.
No tallow is poured into the cans by US
in the preparation of our tinned roast
beef; the only addition to the natural
condition of the beef Is small portion of
beef jelly prepared especially for this use
to bird together the contents OF the can.
In reply to your question as to whether
any packer who is furnishing refrigerated
| beef to the subsistence department. has
ever or any where or to any extent used
any chemicals of any kind whatsoever In
the treatment of the refrigerated beef;
whether any chemicals whatsoever
| touched the meat itself, we state that we
are without sufficient definite informa-
tion to answer your question respecting
the mode adopted by other packers, but
| for ourselves we state that at no time
| during the past nor at present do we use
chemicals of any kind whatsoever and that
therefore the refrigerated meat furnished
your department could not have been
| touched by any chemical of any descrip-
tion. Neither the meat furnished by us
| to your department nor that supplied by
us for consumption in almost every state
in the Union has ever at any time been
| treated by us by any chemical process OF
| any kind whatsoever.