The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1910-09-23
DEBAUCHING
 THE. LABEL
The Federal Pure Food Law
 Undermined.

l What has Happened to the Federal l Pure Food Law? Does the label on 1 the food no longer tell the truth, and 1 the whole truth2
 In an article in the October Good
 Housekeeping Magazine James B.. l Tower the editor. says:
 i The reader has been educated to the 1 fundamental importance of the label; consumers are no longer asleep-con- 1 tent to accept hayseed and glue for jam Or fill their system with powerful l preservative drugs; they have learned
 to read the label and rely upon it., 1 selecting reliable brands and inform 1 ing themselves, as R matter of sci 1 entffic interest as well as of caution, ast ito what they are putting into their StOmachs.
 Of course, the assaults upon the new 1 law began Immediately after it's pas | sage. Vast interests whose trade i might suffer heavily from the elinina ] tion of poor materials, from forbidden 1 preservatives and from honest label l ing, brought great pressure to bear 1 upon the administration at washing 1 ton. When Secretary Wilson, the head of the United States Department of Agriculture ruled that glucose might be labeled corn syrup-although l it is not syrup of corn in the sense that other syrups are derived from their various sources-he established a bad precedent. This was the first 1 considerable drop from the high stan dard of accuracy and hon esty which had prevailed since the passage of the act.
 And nowhere was the struggle to get rid of specific labelling more per
 sistent and determined than on the ton whiskey, known as rectifiers- These concerns, representing many. millions of capital and large political l influence, laid siege to President
 Roosevelt with the aid of distinguish ed counsel and backed by stpong men | in Congress and the cabinet. Suf- 1 xy@1f sustained the attorney general, Bon aparte, in his decision that whisky must reach certain standard of strength and maturity and not be a connection of neutral spirits and fla
 voring matter.
 The part which the women of the United States through their national organizations played in upho1ding the arm of the federal government at this
 juncture was an important one. While the rectifiers were stirring heaven and "whisky',, the General Federation of Women's Clubs and the National Con, suLflers League were on the alert, bringing pressure to bear upon Presi- dent Roosevelt to sustain the law in it's integrity. These organizations, the Federation in particular, had been large factors in bringing about the original passage of the law. During his last week in the White House MT. Roosevelt for the third time sustain ed his attorney general in his whisky decision, which set precedent for all other drink and food products. Secretary Wilson, in Food Inspection Decisions A and 45 December l, 19O6) had taken the same position. The standard thus established was adopted by the food commissioners of twenty six states. The Bonaparte decision in Ohio and Illinois. also by the court of appeals of the district of Columbia.
 Thus established and fortified, the Pure Food law encountered in 1909 a new national admihistration-Whic always means new possibilities. The enemies of pure food were not idle. The rectifiers secured from President Taft a reopening of the whisky case Both sides were heard again, before United States SoIieitor-Genera1 Bow CTS, and in January, 1910, came the de- c:sion of President Taft, ordering the Roosevelt (Bonaparte9 ruling on whis- ky changed.
 held that whisky and neutral spirits were not like substances; MT. Taft ruled that they were like substances, whisky being any drinkable liquor dis titled from grain but when sold as whisky neutral spirits should be la- beled as whisky made from neutral quite different in quality and effect from real whisky, though the same in it's origin, the rectifiers were not satisfied. se,s To three three seeTetarles % WIT 9r son of the Department of Agriculture, McVeagh of the Treasury and Nagel of Commerce and LabOr-waS left the prornulgatior of a working plan for carrying the new decision into effect. The outcome was the now famous De- cision 113, signed by these secretaries and issued February IT, 1910. But somehow or other the secretaries had overlooked the Presidents decree that the label must disclose the presence of neutral spirits in whisky! Decision 113 calmly omitted the label require ment. Cheap stuffs unfit for consump- tion favored and tinted by a turn of the hand, can be labeled and sold as "whislxy'' in competition with the real article, ripened by four years storage in expensive stone buildings
 The General Federation of Women's clubs and the National Consumers League had been alive to the situa- tion bringing to bear what pressure they could to have the Roosevelt standard maintained, but to no effect. The Consumers League, in executive board issued under date of January a1 1910, a resolution to protest against the Taft decision, and the League at it's annual ieeting in Milwaukee in March adopted resolutions which de- cLared the Taft decision to have "dis- credited all food standards.' The General Federation at it's biennial in Cincinnatf felt that action was too late and adopted no resolutions on the decision and the new regulations.
 Under this free and easy labelling,