Alma record. (Alma, Mich.) 1878-1928, 1910-07-28
M|LLERS WILL FIGHT ON
Say Decision in Kansas City Will Cost the
Farmers Millions Yearly

! listened for more than five weeks to
testimony for and against the charge
! that OPS sacks Of flour, bleached and
sold by the Lexington, Neb., Mill and
! Elevator company of Lexington, Neb.,
and seized by the government while |
in the possession of the purchaser,
grocer at Castle, Mo-, were adulter
ated and msbranded.
The verdicts, returned after seven |
hours of deliberation, were a COM
plete victory for the government, |
which prosecuted the suit under the |
national pure food and drug act The |
government charged that the -four
was adulterated in that it was bleached
by the Alsop process, which makes
use Of nitrogen peroxide in bleaching
flour. Msbranding was charged in
that the flour seized was labeled a
fancy patent and, the government con-
tended, it was not fancy patent be-
cause it was not made from first
grade hard winter wheat
Objected to Jury Trial.
Bruce Elliott, chief counsel for the
millers, made the following statement:
The case was not one that should
have been tried by a jury. | called
upon President Taft and assured him
all the millers desired was a fair test
case.
The president assured me the mill
ers would not be harried and that
fair test should be had. Immediately
thereafter under order of the attorney
III 10, I;FI1r.,+ ff-
Of the country We started ont TO
defend the cases on the assumption
that the government would permit
them TO be tried before a referee.
president Roosevelt appointed
board of scientific men for just such
j purpose and the board has settled
4 many cases that came up under the
4 pure food law. such for instance, as
4 the benzoate Of soda case. But when
3 this case came TO trial the attorney
; general refused TO let this board act
and insisted upon a jury trial
Say 1t Will Hurt Farmer.
Millers say the bleached flour de-
cision will handicap the farmers Of
}, the southwest to the extent OF from
o $15,O0O,OOO to $lSO00000 year. They
say the old differential of cents a
: bushel in vogue in Chicago and St.
: Louis markets before bleached -four
came in will soon reappear.
They further say that farmers of
S Missouri. Kansas. Oklahoma and Ne
n braska will lose ) cents bushel on
their present crop and that hard win
ter wheat soon will be selling at >
cents a bushel less than at present.
Already millers are considering the
e establishment OF bleaching stations in
states where the use OF bleached -four
V is not prohibited. Thus they say they
r may avoid the interstate commerce
law.
Big mills the product OF which Is
> turned out in states where bleached
% flour is illegal may ship their -four I'M
bleached into the states where the sale
is permitted, unload it at these bleach
ing stations, bleach it, and distribute II
in the state.
Contentious of Government.
The verdicts upheld the contentious
81 of the government chemists and law
yers that:
Bleaching flour by the use OF nitro.
gen peroxide is an adulteration OF
such nature that the evil cannot be
y cured by branding it 'bleached -four
e Poisonous nitrites are produced If
t. the -four by bleaching.
q. "The quality of the -four is really
ia impaired, although apparently inn
proved, by the bleaching.
- "Any amount of poison introduced
" into food is an adulteration, ever
10 though it amounts to only nine part:
D. in a million, as in this case"
IN The case is the result OF Ions
fight between the department of agri
or culture and its chemists and the mill
~ ers. The matter was thrashed out a
to a hearing before the secretary o.
ID agriculture in 1908, at which the secre
&C tary held that bleached -four was poi
"A sonously adulterated and could not b'
handled in interstate commerce.
.. 1t was shown at the hearing that 81
u per cent of the -four of the country
es was bleached by the nitrogen peroxide
e. process. Natural -four has a creamy
he tint, this tint being most pronounced
of in the cheaper grades, and leas
IN noticeable in patent flour The
ID nitrogen peroxide, poisonous red
1o brown gas, produced by uniting thu
49, oxygen and nitrogen of the air b,
= electric flashes, instantly bleaches thu
yellowest -four whittier than the high
Vs. est grade of patent" -four In so do
x, ing it leaves in the -four free nitrous
and nitric acids, both poisons, which
I'd in turn produce nitrites and nitrates.
The ancient way of bleaching fou