Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1913-08-21
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BY + WALKER
COLOR TEST DOOMED
Soc staR oorrespondent.
Star Bureau,
Metropolitan National Bank Bldg,
WASHINGTON Aue o.

cratic caucus had consented to keep
it in existence until next March. 1t
took the motion of Bristow, progress
sive Republican, and combined votes
of Democrats and Republicans to get
1t out of the Underwood bill.
Probably no feature or phase OF
tariff incongruities and absurdities
has ever SO completely shown the
necessity for an expert tariff commits
sion and the futility of attempts to
make tariff laws as political issues
The value of sugar is determined
by It's degree of sweetness-saccharin
content. Refining sugar not only
bleaches it and makes 1t white, but
refines 1t and makes 1t sweeter. 1t
doesn't follow though, that the
whltest sugar is always the sweetest.
Years ago, before science discovered
how to test the saccharine content
of sugar, the Dutch government con-
trived the color test. Sugar of vary.
ing tints. from dark brown to pure
white, was put into bottles. There
were thirty bottles, each containing
a sample of a different shade. Sugars
as white or whittier than the sample
in bottle No. Is were considered re-
fined while the samples in bottles of
lower numbers were regarded as
crude or only partially refined. In
making duties other countries fol-
lowed the example of Holland. plac-
ing a higher import tax on refined
than on raw or unrefined products,
with the idea of protecting and en-
couraging domestic reflneries. And at
first all countries adopted the Dutch
color test, because there was no other
way known.
When science produced the polari-
scope, an instrument which shows the
degree of sweetness of sugar. other
countries abandoned the Dutch color
test. Most other countries, including
Holland, abandoned it years ago. The
United States is one of the last TO
give ii up. There was a desperate
fight, led by Republican insurgents,
to get rid of it when the Payne
Aldrich tariff was made, but it was
left in the law.
As the tariff law now stands the
duty on crude sugars is about half
of that on refined sugar. So the
Dutch standard. or color test, oper-
ates to keep light colored sugars out
of the country and give the sugar
trust control of the price and output
of white sugars. II has been shown
that some sugar made by centrifugal
processes, and not refined at ALL is
actually sweeter than graduated
white sugar.
With the Dutch standard as the
test, however. we now tax light col
ored sugars twice as much as darker
colored products, regardless of the
degree of sweetness shown by the
polariscspe test. 1t has been urged
for years that since the real value of
sugar is In it's sweetness, and a dark
sugar that contains more sweetness
is really more valuable for domestic
purposes than a white sugar that
doesn't contain as much sweetness,
the only test of sugar that should be
made Is the polariscope test. This
has until now been ignored, however,
and dark sugars, no matter how
sweet they may be, have been let in
at low duty, while whittier sugars,
regardless of how little sweetness
they may contain. have been barred
out by the high tax. And the public,
educated to the idea that white sugar
is always the sweetest, has refused to
buy dark sugar giving the refiners
their monopoly.
NOW, as soon as the tariff bill
passes, the old Dutch color test Is to
go, and the tax on sugar will be
wholly governed by the question of
how sweet it is. If the tariff does
make a difference in the price, the
housewife who wants sweet sugar
and doesn't care about the color may
save some money by buying a poari-
scope. making her own tests and buy
ing dark sugar at lower prices as
soon as the new tariff goes into effect.
II is very doubts;.i If the duty on
sugar will make any difference In the
price of sugar beets received by the
farmer who grows them. | have been
in many sections of the country where
sugar beets are grown, and have
found that the price paid the farmer
is controlled almost entirely by the
railroad freight rate and the trust,
Just as Is the price of sugar charged
the consumer A sugar beet farmer
has to sell his crop to the nearest
factory. and he takes anything the
refiners choose to pay him for the
product.
Senator Lane says that If the jokers
are taken out of the industrial alcohol
law the farmers of the country can
make more money growing sugar
beets and mangel wurtzels and manu-
featuring them into alcohol than they
do now in selling sugar beets to the
trust factories. With the trusts
monopoly of refining destroyed by the
adjustment of the Dutch color test,
1t is believed by Democrats that there
will be an encouragement for the
establishment of really independent
sugar refineries all over the country,
and real competition in buying beets
and sugar cane that will both Increase
the price paid the cane and beet
growers and decrease the price to con-
sumers.
II Is pretty well understood that the
President has little use for Tammany,
In view of this fact, the appointment
of Francis Burton Harrison as gov
ernor- general of the Philippines is ex-
citing a lot of speculation at the
Capitol. Young Harrison has been in
CONGRESS several years, and is one of
the most loyal of the Tammany group
i'm the House. In the famous In
surgent fight against Cannonism a
few years ago he was one of the i'm
mortal twenty-three Democrats who
Joined with Speaker Cannon and the
Republican reactionaries to prevent
revision of the rules and the over
throw of the speakers czardom.
The job of governor is
looked upon as one of the most inn
portant in the gift of the administra-
ton. 1t was by his work in this office
that william ii. Taft made repu-
tation which won hing place in the
Roosevelt cabinet and led to his nomi-
nation for the presidency.
The explanation offered of the Har-
rison appointment Is that it is in,
tended to aid in the disruption of
Tammany and the overthrow of Muir
ply by winning away from him some
of his strength through the alienation