The Washington times., 1911-09-15
GOOD POLITICS, Mr.. PREST-
DENT, BUT DoYOUMEANIIi

| dSdlusL Luo 5LOIi VI PuOAiS hhAS"siSiAt
and hold up the hands of the men
who expected his full support in their
efforts to break down the law and
drive Wiley out of the public service.
That is the full explanation of the
decision which comes from Beverly to-
day, in which the President vindicates
Wiley and rejects the coupsels of those
who would have had Wiley forced to
retire in disgrace from the position he
has so long and honorably held.
President Taft was early arrayed
against the Wiley program of rigorous
enforcement of the food law. Before
he was President the Cincinnati whisky
rectifers were urgently seeking his aid
and influence to overturn the Wiley
rulings on whisky. Wiley insisted
that whisky must be whisky, and if
it were not, then it must not bear the
label of whisky.
Under the Roosevelt administration
the Wiley rulings were sustained.
They were set forth clearly and point
eddy by Attorney General Bonaparte in
his finding that:
l. Straight whisky might be labeled
as such. +.
2. A mixture of two or more kinds
of straight whisky might be called a
blend of WHISTLES.
3. A mixture of straight whisky with
neutral spirits, coloring matter, ETC.,
might be called compound.
- 4. Neutral spirits, favored and color
ed, might be called an imitation of
whisky.
Roosevelt sustained this decision.
The rectiiers, who wanted to label any
old thing as whisky, just SO it con-
tanned plenty of alcohol and was prop
erly intoxicating, reopened the case IS
soon as Taft became President. Among
the earliest acts of the new Admins
tration was the submission of this
question to Lloyd Bowers, solicitor of
the Department of Justice, for investi-
CATION. Bowers decided, in essence,
that the Wiley Bonaparte- Roosevelt
dictum was correct.
Thus far every decision was in favor
of honest, literal enforcement of the
law. But what followed? President
Taft called for the papers, and after
study of the case wrote just the de-
cision that his Cincinnati rectifying
friends had desired.
He overturned all the previous de-
cisions, and left the rectifers, the
mixers, the dopers, and the imitators
free to make whatever concoctions
might please them, and use the label
"Whisky.'
That was the greatest blow ever ad-
minstered to the integrity of the pure
food act.
The President had no business inter
iecting his conclusions at such point.
If he had legal right, it was yet a
violation of the good taste, the pro-
prieties, the decencies, of orderly ad-
ministration.
But that was what the President did
in the case Of whisky. Was it any
wonder that, after he had gone to such
extremes in order to nullify the law
and humiliate the Wiley administra-
ton, the anti-Wiley plotters assumed
that they would be sustained in any
measures they might adopt, looking to
the discontinue and the ultimate de-
struction of the chief chemist?
The story of the conspiracy against
the food law and its chief apostle has
been told so many times that everybody
knows it in a general way. That is
why the President has decided in favor
of Wiley. He has been actuated, not
by devotion to the public interest and
regard for Wiley, but by a wholesome
fear of the consequences if he should
decide against Wiley.
Such a demonstration of confidence,
affection, and gratitude as has been
extended by the whole public to DIR.
Wiley during the last few weeks has
not been paralleled in many years.
Political heroes and idols have their
admirers, and their equally Jealous
detractors. Roosevelt was admired
and hated. Mckinley was beloved
and despised.
But everybody was for doc Wiley"
And the President HAD to be for
him.
There is an intimation, running
through the Presidents letter to Sec
rotary Wilson, that something serious
may happen to other people later. 1t
suggests that maybe the Secretary
himself may be in trouble over the
administrative methods in his depart
ment. 1t justifes the suspicion that
Solicitor McCabe, Poo-Bah of the de-