The Washington times., 1911-07-19
GET YOUR REPRIMAND, GUN
AIMED RIGHT. Mr.. TAFT.


a nice little chemist but a thoughtless
administrator, and sent back to his
cheerless job of trying to enforce the
law when everything is set up around
him with the purpose of preventing re-
suits.
Perhaps DR.. Wiley will look pleasant
when he accepts his reprimand, but we
doubt it. Being a vicarious sacrifice is
seldom agreeable.
Attorney General Wickersham held
that the Remsen board members, five
of them, could be paid $1,000 each per
year as experts, despite the law limit
ing payment to experts. They have not
been earning the money at the rate of
$ll per day, which in the Rusby case.
is declared to be the limit that can be
paid
If the law was violated in the Rusby
case, the precedent was set in the
Remsen case.
The RemseN case is peculiarly fla
grant. Not only did it involve yio-
lation of the law about expert services,
but it set up an extra legal body with
tremendous authorities, which in actual
operation has greatly weakened the
administration of the law.
Nobody but Congress has any bust
ness creating such an elaborate ma
chinery, and endowing it with the pow
ers that have been reposed in the Rem
Nsen board
If DR.. Wiley has gone wrong on his
law, it is because he followed, to the
letter, the precedent established by the
Attorney General in the Remsen board
affair.
The reprimand, if there is to be one,
should be aimed at the people respon-
sible for the Remsen board, not at DR..
Wiley.
The good doctor, knowing more
about chemistry than about law, seems
to have made no more serious mistake
than to assume tina: the Remsen opin
ion meant what it said He didn't
know, innocent soul, that under this
Administration the law is apt to mean
one thing in one case and another in
another.
Let us know all about the Remsen
board. 1t has conferred on the food
posoners the privilege of doping up
half -decayed vegetable matter so that
its rottenness should be disguised, and
palming it off on the public as decent
food.
1t has conferred on the public the
privilege of eating, not only unlimited
doses of benzoate of soda, but train
loads of this same doped-up garbage,
And what has it cost, thus to create
an legal supreme court of chem
istry by Executive order?
There are five members of the Rem
sen board
DR.. Ira Remsen, of Johns Hopkins,
chairman.
DR.. Russell Chittenden, of Sheffield
Scientific School, Yale.
DR.. J. H. Long, of Northwestern Uni
versity.
DR.. A. E. Taylor, of the University
of Pennsylvania.
DR.. Theobald Smith, of Harvard
These eminent gentlemen decided that
benzoate of soda, fed in small amounts
to healthy young men for three months,
didn't do them any harm worth while.
THEY WERE NOT ASKED TO AS
CERTAIN WHETHER IN FACT BEN
ZOATE IS USED TO EMBALM ROT
TEN FRUITS AND VEGETABLES.
THEY DID NOT DECIDE WHETH-
Err ROTTEN FRUITS AND VEGE-
TABLES THUS EMBALMED ARE
FIT FOR USE.
The real benzoate question relates to
its use to disguise unfit food articles
and conduit them into the systems of
millions of people who would never use
them if they had not been disinfected,
deodorized, and rendered apparently
decent and fit.
THAT QUESTION WAS NOT BE-
FORE THE REMSEN BOARD.
Now let us see what it cost to get
this wonderful decision which the sci
entifc authorities of really progressive
countries and States have completely
rejected.
If the Congressional committees will
investigate, they will learn that sal.
aries, expenses, publications, expert.
ments, cost between 100000 and $780,.
600.
THE LAW WAS BROAD ENOUGH
/ TO PERMIT THE WASTE OF OVER
: 100000 BREAKING DOWN THE
l. PURE FOOD STATUTE.
BUT IT Is NOT BROAD ENOUGH
5 TO JUSTIFY SPENDING $1,000; A
5 YEAR SUSTAINING THE PURE
= FOOD CODE.
: 1t will not do to let DIR. Wiley of
5 with a reprimand. The only cours,
that will purge the Administration o
this scandal is TO reprimand the peopl,
who have thus broken down the Law
L. ,-;l of