Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1906-05-31
PAY FOR INSPECTION
Question of Who Will Pay For
Meat Inspection Accusing
Interest
PACKING MEN FIGHT BIG FEES
If Government Must Pay for lnspec-
ton it Is Feared Funds Will Not Be
Notwithstanding Given Much
Credit for Originating the Plan Of
Campaign.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 0iVSH "uSi'
Credit for Originating the Plan Of
Campaign.
Washington, May Ex-senator Bev-
of this session OF congress with more OF
personal credit than any other menu
Der of either house, provided, as now
seems likely, congress accepts his bill
| for the rigid inspection of all packing
| houses and the official labelling of their
products. This is true because to Mr..
Beveridge alone belongs credit for in
| itiating this legislation. Several men
worked together on the rate bill, and
! on all the other important acts of the
session, and no one man, therefore, can
claim credit for any one of them. Mr..
! Beveridge, however, shared his thought
with nobody. He made careful study
of the question, in the light of all he
could learn regarding home conditions
and what is done in Europe in the way
of inspection. Then he went to In
diana for week, during which time
he worked out the phraseology of the
bill
Previously, Mr.. Beveridge had talked
| to the president about Upton Sinclair's
book, %The Jungle" and the president
| had said that Sinclair was Il muck
raker." Previous to this, the bureau
of animal industry of the department
of agriculture had examined the Chi
them wholly bad This report, how
ever, was not convincing. The Sinclair
book was also discredited The adj
| ministration. however, had become
sufficiently Interested as the result of
these disclosures to have a report made
under the presidents personal direction
| and Labor Commissioner Neill and
James B. Reynolds of New York. went
to Chicago. Their report, not yet re-
duced! in writing in its entirety, has
been made verbally to the president,
and it bears out both The Jungle and
the bureau of animal industry.
President Cried, Good"
| Concurrently with these movements,
| Mr.. Beveridge was preparing his bill,
which he wrote and rewrote perhaps a
| score of times before he introduced it.
He submitted copy Of it to the pres-
dent who slapped him on the back and
cried, Good! Introduce it at once.
lsNhis was done and the bill was pend
ing before the senate committee on ag-
riculture when the verbal reports of
Neill and Reynolds were made at the
white house regarding packing house
conditions.
Then the president prepared a red
hot message, in which he summarized
the verbal reports and he had intended
| to send it to congress this week. Such
an act would have forever killed the
European market for American meats
and meat products. Jealous packers in
Europe have already had the Sinclair
book translated and distributed by the
| hundreds of thousands of copies over
England, France, Germany, the Meth
erlands, Belgium, Scandinavia, Den
mark and Austria. The reply of the
American packers to this book has
| been that it was untrue, that Sinclair
! was senation-monger. Obviously,
however If a message of the president
to congress had repeated the substan-
tial facts of the book, it is easy to un-
derstand what the effect would be in
Europe. And if that message should
lead to congressional investigation, in
which all the disgusting truth should
be laid bare in minute detail, what
would become of the packers export
business?
This was the situation when the sem
ate last week, without debate, attacked
the Beveridge bill as a rider" to the
agricultural appropriation bill and
passed it without opposition-a most
Unusual performance, and hardly
equalled in senate procedure for gem
Grafton.
Nearly all of Sunday and for num-
Der of hours Monday, there were con-
ferences between the president and Va
rious leaders in congress- Emissaries
of the beef trust We're also in town, do
ing what they could to see if the bill
couldn't be headed off in the house,
From the best available reports, the
president stood pat demanding that
substantially the Beveridge rider be
retained on the agricultural appropria-
ton bill
Packers Make Demand.
Il iIdlly, II is Sdlu, lllG agents IOT lI6
packers demanded that the cost of in
spection be paid by the government
and not by the trust. To this the pres
ident also is understood to have OBJ
jected. 1t costs $750.O00 a year to fur
nish the present inadequate inspection
of packing house business. To admin
lister the Beveridge act in good faith
would require between $1,500,000 and
100000, and if this sum were not
set apart every session of congress,
the law would be crippled. 1t is ia
vorite plan in congress to nullify a
statute by failure to appropriate for it's
administration. BY making the pack
ers pay this cost, however, the law
would operate automatically.
Chairman Wadsworth, chairman of
the house committee on agriculture, to
which the bill as it passed the senate,
will go, is desperately opposed to the
Beveridge amendment. He is a big
shipper of cattle to the packing hous
es, but insists that this fact does not
bias his judgment. He would like to
kill the Beveridge proposal, and Mon
day he spent several hours with the
president, going over the case, and in
sisting that the Chicago packers are
not guilty as charged, but that they
conduct sanitary establishments and