The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1911-08-03
Our Washington Letter.

w
able series of facts which have come
to light within the last twenty-four
hours indicate that packers of en-
balmed beef are the influences that
have been principally behind the
the public service.
| Manufacturers of embalmed beef
are at present, by virtue of an order
issued by the department of agricul-
ture, permitted to use benzoate of
soda in whatever quantities they
may desire. DR.. Wiley not only 0p-
posed the issuance of this order,
maintaining that the preservative is
decidedly harmful in its effects upon
the human system, but has worked
untiringly to educate the people to
the danger lurking in packed meats
in which benzoate is used. The re-
suit is that several states have passed
Legislation absolutely forbidding the
use of the drug in any quantity what
soever. Therefore DR.. Wiley has be-
come a standing menace to the en-
balmed beef industry. This man
Wiley has got to co." was the edict
that went out from the embalmed
meat manufacturers.
When DR.. Wiley held that benzoate
of soda was harmful to the human
system, the packers appealed to the
Remssen referee board, especially
packed with friends of the food dop-
ers, which board very promptly and
obligingly reversed DR.. Wiley. The
board held that benzoate of soda in
small quantities, specified as five
tenths of one gram per day, was not
injurious to healthy persons. But
when the order was issued legalizing
the use of benzoate, no limitation
whatever was made as to the amount
of the drug the packers might use.
Remarkable circumstances attend
ed the issuing of the order letting
down the bars to the food dopers.
The order was issued on March 3,
1909, and was placed in circulation
March 4 the day President Taft went
into Office. 1t was signed by George
B. Cortelyou, Oscar S. Strauss and
James Wilson, three cabinet officers.
as required by law. OF the three
men, two were to retire from office
the next day and actually retired be-
fore the scope Of their order became
known.
This order giving government
sanction to the use of a product of
benzoic acid meant that we were go
ing back 5000 years, for benZoin or
it's products had not been used in the
preservation of flesh since the Egyp-
tians stopped embalming their dead.
Chemist Floyd w. Robinson, one
of DR.. Wiley's prominent assistants,
recently appeared as witness
against benzoate brought by the
state of Indiana to prevent the sale
of foods containing benZoate, and be-
fore Dr.. Wiley had a chance to inter-
vene Robinson's dismissal ''for the
good of the service followed.
Find the influence that was pow
erful enough to have the three cabi-
net officers issue the order legalizing
friends, land you will learn the iden-
tity of the men who have ever since
been plotting to have DR.. Wiley
ousted."
Taft Against Wiley.
Since Taft has been in the White
House he has invariably opposed DR..
Wiley instead Of having co-operated
with him in the interests Of pure food.
In his decision against DR.. Wiley,
in the interests of adulterated Whis-
key, the President reversed the find
ings Of eX-President Roosevelt, form
err Attorney General Bonaparte, Chief
Government Chemist DR.. H. w.
Wiley, Secretary of Agriculture Will
son, the Remssen board, the United
States Pharmacopeia, the internal
revenue Bureau of the treasury, the
standards adopted by twenty-siX
states, fifteen of the United States
courts, and President Taft*s father,
the former attorney general of the
United States.
Following the mysterious disap-
pearance of the Dick to Dick letter
from the files of the interior depart
ment comes the discovery that a full
set Of Controller bay maps have also
disappeared from the files of the War
department.
The maps in question were sen
not only by NJ. F. Abbott, but by Del
egate Wickersham of Alaska, Clifford
Pinchot and by Secretary of War,
Henry l.. Stimson. Yet Major J. j.
Cavanaugh of the War department
testified before the Graham commit
tee that the maps are not, in the files
now.
1t is believed by the members. of
the committee that the Ryan con-
spirators as soon as the present
exposure was threatened, took means
to have moved from the government
files all discriminating evidence.
'The files have been tempered
with. This is obvious, and in fac+,
the only conclusion this committee
can reach in the face of the evidence
at hand, said Chairman Graham
1T would seem that the files are not
to be relied upon to give us the
TRUTH
ALTERING records is a serious Of
Tense and this committee will go to
the bottom of it.
DR.. Wiley's Offense.
Doctor Wiley took one-third of a
first-class man instead of all the time
of third-class man. That is the
actual "offense' for which the great
friend of the people is being harried