The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1911-08-09
DEMORALIzED DEPARTMENT

| Wilson, Secretary of the Department OF
! Agriculture, has disorgani2ed depart
ment (nominally only under him; thnt
each head of the bureau considers him
self supreme, Just as Pinchot did when
ne was head of the Forestry Bureau
that the Solicitor Of the Department
runs his pnrt of the business to suit
himself, and that, in short, there is no
discipline in the department., no recog-
milton by the petty chiefs of any
departmental head This apparently
has been the status of the Department
Of Agriculture for good while past,
perhaps almost from the first, and al
most certainly from the time that the
petty chiefs found out that they could
trifle with Mr., Wilson s authority,
The testimony reported in yesterday
mornings Tribune, that given by So
licitor George r, McCabe against DR..
Wiley, Chief Chemist of the Depart
ment of Agriculture, goes far to sup
port the rumors referred to. 1t appears
that Mr.. McCabe, backed by the
Remsen board has been fighting DR..
Wiley right along; that the Remsen
board was McCabe' creation, and the
tool used by him to trim Wiley, SO
open and bold was this warfare Of one
part of the Department of Agriculture
upon another part of the same depart
ment that McCabe admits his open
hostility TO Wiley couple of years
ago, and his activity In trying to
pack the State and Dairy Inspectors
convention at Denver in 1909 against
Dr., Wiley, and in favor of the find
lngs of the Remscn board. The chief
point Of difference between these au
thoritics was that DR.. Wiley held that
the use of benzoate of soda as a pre-
servalive of food was injurious; the
Remsen board claimed that il was not
and in favor of Remsen, and now Nc
Cabe admits his ofliciousness i'll under
taking to pack the Denver convention
against Dr. Wiley McCabe not only
testifies to this activity as against DR..
Wiley. but claims now that he was
justified in taking that course, because
manufacturers who did not use benzoate
of soda were stating so in their ad-
vertisements, and claiming credit there
for on the authority of DR.. Wiley.
McCabe, therefore, thought it was his
duty to thwart such advertising claims
by downing Wiley and supporting the
Remsen board with its Endorsement Of
benzoate of soda.
1t appears that not only did McCabe
make himself ofiicious in thus using one
part of the organization of the Depart.
ment Of Agriculture to down another
part Of that same department., but
he was at private antagohism with DR..
Wiley, challenging his statements as
to the number Of curealls'' and
patent medicines that were imposing
upon the public. That is, Solicitor
McCabe stood forth, not only as the
champion of benzoate of soda, but of
those "curealls" and patent medicines
which DR.. Wiley was denouncing. But,
as DR., Wiley is an expert chemist,
as he knows his business, knows the
effects Of deleterious substances upon
the human body, has experimental
largely in foods, and in the effect of
various preparations upon the human
system. it would strike the average
fair minded person as something de"
cidedly presumptuous for McCabe to
challenge Wiley on those grounds. If
it had been matter of law, then there
would be some reason for the solicitor
to object to the chemist, but, on ques,
tions that are peculiarly, especially. and
in the department of
chemistry, for the solicitor to make this
was not only the height Of
but may Justly be con-
sidered suspicious and in the interests
of the frauds that Dr. Wiley was con-
demning.
AS to the dispute between McCabe
and Wiley, when it comes To questions
of food, food preparations, chemical
analysis, and the effect of different
upon foods and upon the
human system, there is no comparison
whatever between the experience and
possessed by DR.. Wiley aud
that which is not possessed by Solicitor
McCabe; and. it seems as though there
ought not TO have been any diff
Guilty on the part of Secretary Wilson
in coming to an emphatic and prompt
conclusion as between these two in this
line of activity. But he seems to
have backed McCabe rather than
Wiley, and was himself involved in the
McCabe meddlesome obstruction. For
it surely is obstruction for the solicitor
to enter the field of the chemist and
undertake to call him down, question
his methods and results, and to chal.
lenge his conclusions. 1t would seem
as though the hard.headed common
sense with which Secretary Wilson has
been so generally credited ought to
have stood him in good stead in this
case. and led him to the unquestIoning
support Of Dr. Wiley on all disputes rs
between Wiley and the solicitor on