The Greenville times. [volume] (Greenville, Miss.) 1868-1917, 1906-06-30
WASHINGTON LETTER

WASHINGTON. June 13-In the
closing days Of the session it is hard
to tell what will happen. But it is
safe guess to say that the Pure
Food Bill will be defeated. The fore
IS opposed to it are made up of food
manufacturers all over the country
and the owners of patent medicines
of various sorts all grouped under
the standard of the Proprietary As
ISOLATION. They have all made dead
set at the Pure Food Bill and the
chances are that they will succeed in
killing it.
But there is powerful object les
son on the subject offered by Mr..
Mann, of Illinois, in the House this
week. Mr. Mann had a table placed
near his desk and spread out upon it
were the greatest assortment of pre-
pared foods imaginable. They were
all furnished by the Agriculture De-
partment, Dr.. Wiley, the chief chem
list, being an ardent champion of the
Pure Food Bill and being cordially
hated by all the purveyors of adulter-
ated foods and medicines in the .coun-
cry. Mr.. Mann's assortment included
various drugs and proprietary med
icines, notably opium cures con-
tanning enough opium to establish
the habit in healthy individual. Be-
side this there were samples of coffee
made of parched wheat and saw dust
sold as "Old Government Java" and
Pure Mocha There were Maris-
chino cherries, picked green and dyed
SO as to be both firm and the right
color. There were pepper corns
made of corn meal and lamp black,
the finest olive oil made from cotton
seed, and short weight cans and
packages of all sorts purporting to
be the real thing but all of them sew
eral ounces shy of their supposed
weight.
Mr.. Mann went relentlessly through
the list, telling how each article was
doctored and adulterated, demon
strating how it was short with a pair
of scales or how it was short of con-
tents with a graduate glass. Then
he told the members that all the bill
in question contemplated was to |
force manufacturers to state on the
label what the weight or bulk of each
package contained, what it really pur
- ,l>k
a very simple and honest measure on
a very simelp and honest measure on |
the face of it. But it raised storm
of protest and the chances are that
it will be defeated.
The President has expressed al
great deal of pleasure over the de-
cision of Congress in favor Of the |
lock canal. The chances are that
it will not take much practical diff
ference whether the canal is at sea
level or some. other level SO long as
the question OF type is settled. That
has been the main thing delaying the
work, at least according tot he men,
bers of the commission and those in
terested in the War Department.
Chief Engineer Stevens. who has
been in Washington about a month
will start next week for the Isthmus
He expressed himself as very we'll
satisfied with the decision in favor of
the lock canal, but he said the type
should have been settled several
months ago. Now that it is done,
however, he says that the engineers
will all know just what they have to
do and they can rush the work of
clearing the great Culebra Cuts as it
has never been rushed before. Count
ing the work that both French and
this section of the. canal the excava-
ton is about 40 per cent done. But
Mr.. Stevens says that the length OF
time taken to complete the canal will
of the Culebra Cut as has been gen.
orally supposed, but by the building
of the great dams which will take
some what longer.
The question of labor is still un-
solved and probably will be expert
mented with for some years to come.
The commission has been trying Span
ish laborers from Cuba and while
they are paid twice as much as the
Jamaica negroes, they are more than
twice as efficient, SO there is econo
my in their employment. There are
now about 10000 men on the pay roll
of whom fully $1,000 are at work,
and if the negro 1aborers are more
largely employed than the Spaniards
the force at its maximum will reach
10000. But if the Spaniards are en-
ployed, it probably will never get
quite that high.
The Rate Bill is still In confer
ence 1t is expected to get out early
next week, and it is said that all the
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