The Fargo forum and daily republican., 1906-03-06
WHISKY MEN
ARE WORRIED
PURE FOOD BILL CONTAINS
SOME UNDESIRABLE FEATURES
They Were Fooled at First But Have
Now Discovered the .sNigger In the
Woodpiie' There Are No Blenders
In This Country.

Washington. March 6. 1t IS now the
4 turn Of the whisky interests Of the
United States to walk the floor, and
they are doing. it. This does not, per-
haps, apply to the distillers, but it does
to the so-called blenders and rectifers
who coucoct and bottle and place on,
u sale variety of brands OF whisky I'M
! der more or less widely advertised
names. ~ FL
The pure food bill, as it passed the
senate and as it will probably pass the
house unless the whisky men can head
it of, provides that whisky shall Be.
deemed niisbranded ''if it is blended
or recufied, or consists of an adn1ix-
ture OF different grades of the same
liquor Or contains, or is mixed with,
other substances, and the word
blended, or recti6ed, or mixed. as
the case may be-, IS not plainly stated.
on the package in which Nueh liquor IS
offered tor sale, or if the label or any
written Or printed statement accom-
paiiying the package in which such
liquor Is kept or sold contains any false
statement as to the character or con-
tents Of such package, OF represents
such liquor to be the product of any
other country than that in which it was
actually produced. Z
The penalty for violation of this act
is to be years Imprisonment OF a
fille OF $500, or both, for the first Of
Tense. and double the fine and the same
term in prison for subsequent offenses.
Now, when this bill passed the SEN
ate, the whisky men thought it was.
all right. They shook hands with them
selves and said they would do all they
could to get 1t through the house. Their
point of view was that the bill made
1t optional with them as to whether
they should brand their bottles as
3 blended or "recti6ed or mixed.
and. Of course, they expected to, brand
sit all as blended or 'rectihed,', !, and
never any Of it as mixed, since ii
was obvious even to a whisky man that
whisky branded as mixed wouldn't.
sell any better over a bar tiar it would
# branded paris green or t'Tat
poison. ~
But a brief investigation of the treas
ury department showed that there Isl
really no blended whisky III this coun-
try, blended whisky under the decision,
tthS
two or more different kinds or makes
Of straight whisky, for the purpose Of
getting a certain effect. and with no.
other ingredient added s5
The so-called whisky blenders Of this
country, and there are many Of them,
since practically every wholesale whisky.
dealer claims to blend, are not blenders
at all under the law. They do not COM
bine two or more straight whiskies for
the purpose of making a certain indi-
vidual brand, but they do mix straight
whisky with alcohol and water and d
little havoring matter and also a little
cDloring matter, and call it blended,
and get rich doing so.
And so when they found that the
treasury, under this proposed law, would
require them to expose to the govern
filent the exact process used and brand
their goods accordingly, they saw
at the first glance that this would re-
qttire them to mark their bottles as
mixed and from that moment the
whisky interests of the entire country.
began to fight for ain amendment to the
bill in accordance with the stlggestion
of Senator Foraker, who asked the SEN
ate to make it blended or rectified''
Or waited the alleged blenders Of
this country having no objection to the
use of any one of these terms on their
bottles But the word mixed makes
them sick s.g ~ 45si S AZ