The Washington times., 1913-08-28

Suardnteed by Bunkem n tOolerl,
Wnder the food and drug act Of June
80, 1906, serial number I'll"
Everybody knows the label that can't
he-but does It's going to quit lying,
for it's going to be taken off the food
and drug Packages. The Bureau Of
Chemistry and the Department of Agri-
culture, which administer the food and
drug act, have decided on that course.
There is little doubt of the outcome.
The solicitor of the Department of Agri-
culture already has passed on the ques-
ton, and held that the label is not re-
quired by the law and can be taken on
by o. .er of the three Cabinet Officers
who make the food law regulations.
These are the Secretaries of Treasury,
Agriculture, and Commerce. The Sec
retaries and the food administrators
want the label removed because in
actual experience they have found it
misleading. misrepresentation, and
protection to fraud rather than TO the
people.
Ask ten~men what that label means,
and they will tell you it indicates that
the United states Government knows
what's inside the package, and certifies
that it's coed for you. Some people
Will explain that it guarantees that no
poisons or adulterants are used. Others
will say it means that the Government
knows the formula. and, having tried
It on the poison squad or the dog.
knows it will not injure the consumer.
But practically everybody thinks the
label is a guarantee of good quality.
Yet IT is absolutely nothing of the
kind There might be arsenic or mer-
inc AaCn a
Bureau Of Chemistry may never have
seen the preparation or heard of the
formula under which it is made. In
short, the guarantee label guarantees
nothing whatever to the consumer.
The guarantee is simply a document
filed by manufacturers with the Depart
ment of Agriculture, which reads thus:
THE undersigned hereby guarantee
that all articles of food or drugs which
are now or which hereafter may be
manufactured, packed, distributed,
shipped, or sold by me Cus) are not and
VIII not be adulterated nor misbTanded,
within the meaning of the Food and
Drugs Act OF June 80, 1906"
No Guarantee of Quality.
The guarantee" as required by the
law, simply means that the manufac-
turer agrees that if jobbers or retailers
of his products are prosecuted under the
food and drugs act, he, the manufac-
turer, will defend the case and save the
secondary dealers from expense of re-
sponsibility. That is absolutely all. II
is no guarantee of quality whatever.
But the public has come to believe it
is such guarantee, and millions of peo-
pie attach an importance to it that it
doesn't deserve In actual operation Of
the law, the authorities believe, the
label has done more harm than the rest
of the law has done good.
How did the label get on the food
and drug packages, then?
When the law passed, IL provided that
regulations for it's enforcement should
be made by the Secretaries of Treasury,
Agriculture, and Commerce and Labor
(now Commerce).
These gentlemen knew about as much
about the details of such a measure and
its administration as Percheron horse
knows about Paleolithic relics At that
they knew as much as anybody else did.
When they. sat down TO make the regu-
lations, bunch of clever agents for
manufacturers convinced them that this
label would be just the right thing, and
IL was ordered to be used. The law
doesn't require it the regulations only,
do.
Alsberg Has Fought Label.
A manufacturer might be making
nothing but apple butter when he files
his guarantee But he gives a blanket
guarantee, and il later he goes to
making headache powders with. four
kinds Of poison in them, he can sell them
under the same guarantee. A few par
ticular things must be shown on the
label, II they are used, because the law
euumerates them; but a vastly greater
number are not enumerated, and need
net be named on the label at all. Mer-
chry, for instance, need not be on the
label; nor arsenic The guarantee"
can be used on preparations that con-
tain these and many other dangerous
elements. and the average buyer will
fondly imagine that he is guaranteed"
against all harm
For long time DR.. Alsberg now
chief OF the Bureau Of Chemistry, has
been inveighing against the label in its
present form. on the ground that il is
utterly misleading. Just how much the
public has been fooled by II is realized
only by the people who have had to ad-
minister the law Not a few Of these
sincerely believe that 1t would be better
TO have no pure food. act at all than to