The Caucasian. (Shreveport, La.) 1900-192?, 1911-08-27
DIR. HARVEY w. WILEY
"The Guardian of Ninety Million
StomachS."
Copyright by Scientific American,

(COpyFlgnt by SclentlIIc AmeflcaH.J
Because one man saw great
light, because he was a great scient-
list, a great politician, great phi
losopher, a great fighter, great
publicity agent, the ninety million
have come to have dependable food
on their. tables three, times a day.
Because this man fought, the ba-
bies of nation are no longer
drugged into degeneracy and death.
Because of his activities the adults
of a nation are no longer unknow-
ingly acquiring drug habits that sap
their vitality.
Because of the standard his influ-
ence has set in the matter of pure
foods and drugs a new spirit IS
abroad in the land which promises
TO put all lines of business on a ba-
sis of honesty that they have never
known before.
For DR.. Harvey w. Wiley, chief
chemist of the Department of Agri-
culture, has so wrought as to bring
to bear upon the every day lives of
all the people an influence among
the greatest of any man of his time.
He has a theory that the man of
tomorrow is product of what goes
into his stomach today. He set out
Icing ago to make better men
through giving them better food
and preventing the injuries that
were being done them through de-
ceptive drugs. He has encountered
stupendous difficulties.
And now, suddenly, his enemies
execute a coup that was intended to
prove his undoing. He is charged
with irregularity in the employment
of a necessary expert at a salary OF
$1,000 a year. 1t is recommended that
because of this alleged irregularity
all the accomplishment of his thirty
years of labor be set aside and that
he be summarily dismissed.
But the ninety million have in
sisted on being heard from They
have arisen en- masse and have
used every organ at their disposal
in voicing their displeasure at the
proposal to remove the pure food
expert. There never was salary
Of $1,000 paid to an expert, legitimate
or otherwise, that so aroused a ma
ton or promised so many embar-
easements to men high in public life.
All this calls particular attention
to DIR. Wiley, whose activities have
been a matter of comment flor a
quarter of century, whose person
atty has given him a position that
is unique, yet whose enemies though
few ase powerful, for the money of
all the illicit business he has dis
turbed is back of them. ~ 'eS
DR.. Wiley is an interesting char
acter. His father was an Indiana
farmer of Scotch descent who mas
tered Greek unaideG and preached
thirty years without pay. His son
grew up on a farm and became the
champion corn planter of the neigh
horhood. He paid his way through
Hanover College with money earned
doing manual labor on the farm.
Later he taught and saved, money
for a year at Harvard, then taught
at Purdue. He became State Chemist
in Indiana and in 1882 investigated
maple sugar authorizations, one of
the first food Investigations the
united States knew. The following
year he was made chief chemist of
the Department of Agriculture, a
position so obscure that its only
duty was passing upon the mixture
of fertilizers. This was twenty-eight
years ago, and with the growth of
the Bureau of Chemistry from fer
tilizeP mixing to the supervision Of
the foods and drugs of a nation has
Eeen the growth of Wiley, for he
has been the Bureau of Chemistry.
DR.. Wiley is now a man of sixty
eight years of age, great, hulking
man, six feet tall, weighing 220
pounds; in perfect health and ap-
parently twenty years younger than
he is.
Soon after DR.. Wiley became as
sociated with the Department of
Agriculture he began his pure food
investigations. In Indiana had been
born an ambition which was moth
ing less than giving the people Of
the nation honest food. Everywhere
there was deception in the things
that were sold. II one bought pepper
it was SO per cent ground up shells.
If one bought meat it was EN-
balmed." If one bought fruit it
was picked in injurious chemicals.
If one bought proprietary medicine
it might have any. amount of opiates
in it without his knowledge. There
was no dependence to be placed in
labels and names. Wherever money
was to be made through deception,