The Washington times., 1911-08-06
REAL ISSUE IN THE CASE OF
DIR. WILEY.

1t becomes palmer with every day of
investigation that the real issue at the
Bureau of Chemistry is not whether
We are to keep Wiley, but whether we
are to keep a pure food law.
Suppressing Wiley, it is evident, was
dictated less by hostility to Wiley than
to the law.
No more popular piece of legislation
has been passed in twenty years. Yet
the policy of its real administrators has
been to minimize the vigor of its en-
forcement, to concede everything pos
sible to the people it was designed to
control.
We know now that Wiley was obiec-
tionable, not because he was pig head
ed and impossible to get along with,
but because he was for enforcing the
law.
Wiley was advised not to testify in
the Indiana benzoate case. His
superiors didn't want him to appear be-
cause he was opposed to benzoate.
But the Remsen board members were
ordered to testify, and the Government
paid their expenses to do it. They
favored benzoate.
Thus the national pure food author
ity was lending itself and using the
Governments money to BREAK
DOWN THE PURE FOOD LAW OF
INDIANA, AFTER BREAKING DOWN
THAT OF THE NATION.
What respect is to be entertained
for scientific testimony which is biased
and partisan to such degree as this?
We are beginning to get a look into
the unattractive inwardness of the
situation at the Department of Agri-
culture. We find that the policy there
seems to have been to break down the
national law, and to employ the pres
tige of the national administration to
break down also the State acts of the
same kind.
This is shown, not SO much in the
affair of the Remsen board and ben
zoate, but still more in the depart
ment's attitude about prosecutions.
On the record now being barred,
Solicitor McCabe looks like the last
man who should have been entrusted
with the tremendous power to deter
mine policy in the matter of prosecu-
tions.
There has been wonderment, amaze
ment, and disgust for years at the in
adequate penalties imposed in food law
cases. At last, we are getting accurate
understanding of the policy and purpose
which explain that supine attitude.
1t is no less than a scandal that the
national law, which ought to be a
model and inspiration to the State
authorities, should be made an instru
mentality for weakening their hands
and discouraging their work.
Government science has long been
held up as honest, Straightforward, and
beyond bias in behalf of special in
terests.
But Government science, supervised
and edited by such complaisant gentle
men as Solicitor McCabe, will not long
retain its hold on public confidence.
Congress ought forthwith to amend
the pure food law in such manner as
to end forever the possibility of back
door scientific intervention, of political
management and outrageous dealings
with the people the law is intended to
control.
Then there ought to be a provision
for the establishment of food and drug
standards in accordance with which the
administration of the law would be a
mere affair of routine, not one of
scientific" judgment administered by
unscientific people.
Chemistry as administered by chem
lists will ultimately command more con-
fidence than chemistry handed down by
political lawyers.