The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1911-09-30
WILEY SAVED: BUT HOW
ABOUT THE FOOD LAW?

A month ago the country was all ex-
element over the attempt to drive Dr.
Wiley out of the Bureau of Chemistry
1t was recognized that if he were forced
out and McCabe, Dunlap, ct al left to
administer the pure food act, that
measure might about as well be re-
pealed.
Wiley has been saved. But has the
food law?
McCabe and Dunlap are still on the
job. THE POWER TO MAKE THE
LAW EFFECTIVE AND USEFUL
HAS NOT BEEN RESTORED TO
THE VIGOROUS HANDS OF WILEY.
Is it going to beH
Here is something for the public to
get really excited about. For weeks,
during its long crusade to prevent the
Wiley outrage, The Times received a
bundle of letters daily commencing and
approaching its efforts and praising
Wiley. 1t was plain that the public
was in earnest.
Today, everybody seems to have for
gotten the case. 1t has been airily
assumed that with President Taft's
vindication of Wiley and direction that
he shall remain in his position the
whole victory has been won.
There could be no worse mistake.
The pure food law is not yet restored
to Wiley's actual administration. The
hamstringing executive orders, the
extra legal boards, and appeals and re-
strictions are all working away to pre-
vent him making the law mean what
Congress meant by it.
McCabe remains in exclusive con-
troll of prosecution under the law. A
bundle of notices of judgment under
the law is just to hand, which shows
how he is enforcing it.
Here is a case in which a big Chicago
concern sold a vinegar under a label
which gave the impression that it was
chiefly pure apple cider vinegar. Ex-
animation developed that it didn't con-
tain a drop of apple cider vinegar. 1t
was one of those cheap and vicious dis
titled limitations that can only be sold
by disappearing them. Making this
imitation of cider vinegar is a big in
dustry. Selling it as good vinegar is
almost the usual procedure. The only
way to put an end to it is to enforce
the real penalties of the law: TO
LOCK UP A FEW OFFENDERS.
Yet in this Chicago case we learn
that the department contented itself
with getting court order to confscate
ten barrels of the bogus vinegar Then
the marshal was told to brand it hon
estly-and sell it!
Uncle Sam will get the money, and
here's hoping it helped him. But how
much good will that sort of a penalty
do? How much respect for a food law
prosecution will it inspire in the corpo-
ration that perpetrated that fraud?
Here is another case: One hundred and
seventy-five crates of frozen eggs were
seized in a coldstorage warehouse.
They contained l5O,OOO,OOO bacteria to
the cubic centimeter; were. in fine,
thoroughly rotten. Just the same they
would have been fed out in pastries
and salad dressings if the Government
had not stopped them. What hap
pened?
Remember that purveyance of rotten
eggs has been shown to be an extern
sive business, carried on all over the
country. 1t peculiarly needs the dis
enlargement of prompt enforcement of
the utmost penalties.
Well, the lis crates of rotten eggs
were ordered destroyed.
That was all Nobody fined a sou.
nobody locked up, nobody even lectured
as a police judge lectures the man who
takes one too many drinks and stubs
his toe.
The manufacturer of magic head
ache wafer, guaranteed to contain no
harmful substances, and positively to
cure,'' was fined SIS when it was proved
that the chief ingredient was acetanlid.
He was guilty of misbranding, and also
of using harmful substance without