Waterbury evening Democrat., 1907-06-12
THE PURE FOOD LAW.
Meat Packers Association Will Oppose
 the Government.

Fl Washington, D. C., tune PA check is to be established on the gov ernment's pure food investigations through private enterprise. The American Meat Packers association, Ian organization recently formed for protective and educational purposes, has formulated plans for the testing of food products in opposition to the government.
 A pure food laboratory is to be established at the University of H. llnois, and Dr E. J. James, presi- dent of that institution and one of the foremost scientists in this country, has agreed to undertake the conduct of the experiments and investiga- tions. The Meat Packers associa- tion has endowed the laboratory with "a fund of $250,000 and it is proposed l to make the inquiries as exhaustive as science and money will permit. President James now IS organizing a corps of scientists to do the work in contemplation. The men have been selected carefully and with the idea that they shall do their work with out prejudice and with tho best pos sible equipment Several of the best l known universities in the country l will be represented on the laboratory
 board, including Yale, Harvard, Mich
 igan, Cornell ard Johns Hopkins. It is proposed that the special inquiries shall be made at the various institu-
 tions and that the results shall be az gregated together by the general l 5h1o,d x,,h;oh sbalI drouy itc onpnluc- L. ions from the experiments and in- squiries that have been made.
 While the plans of the laboratory board yet are incomplete, 1t Is known to have been decided to adopt the .'poison squad' idea first used by pr H. W. Wiley, chief of the bureau of chemistry of the department of ag- riculture. The idea can be carried out
 well in the big colleges where there
 are many students who will be glad Ito volunteer their services in the in Iterest of science and, incidentally, to iget their board free.
 It Is understood that the meat pack Hers have not been satisfied with many
 of the conclusions reached by Dr
 Wiley in his experiments and they
 concluded, therefore, to conduct a series of experiments and inquiries entirely independently Of the depart ment of agriculture. They told Dr James that 1t was their desire that E the work should be absolutely impar. ! tlal and scientific and that they want < ed the board to be composed of men < in whom the general public would
 have perfect confidence. They explain-
 ed that what they wanted was a
 check on the conclusions reached by
 Dr Wiley and the government lnves-
 tigators. in order to prevent the lia-
 bility of prejudice against interests
 that have not been at all times in CO.,
 operation with him. It Is proposed tc
 determine, by the investigations to he
 made, just what is good and what is
 bad for the human being. The ex-
 periments also will determine Just
 what may be saved for practical use E of those animal products which are unwholesome as human food.
 In a communication to the depart. ment of agriculture General Michael
 Ryan, president of the Neat Packers
 association, says:
 "we should be abfe pathologically tc know what animals should be de stroyed and what saved for food. We want the public fully enlightened
 with us. The kind of loose informa.
 ton current year ago Is what the 3 packers dread"
 It can be said that the agricultural
 department welcomes such inquiries
 as 1t Is satisfied its inevestlgationi
 and experiments have been conducted
 fairly aud impartlally.