Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-01-06

When DR.. Harvey w. Wiley was
| fighting to get Congress to pass the
pure food and drug act the American
people heard a great deal about that
legislation. Many columns were print
| ed concerning the picturesque chief OF
| the Bureau of Chemistry's structures
against the adulteration of food. Older
readers will, perhaps, remember the
| "poison SQUAD" as it was called, which
/ DR. WILEY organized It consisted OF
volunteers, employees of the Depart
ment of Agriculture, who agreed TO SUD-
| sist for q stated period of weeks on
| nothing but canned foods OF the type
| from which DIR. Wiley desired TO pro-
tect the public. The deleterious Ell
| fects of the diet were made manl1eSt In
| the health Of the members OF tne
poison squad and the experiment heip-
! ed in getting the law passed.
! put latteriv very little is said about
the law, not because 1t is not working,
hut because it has become a matter OF
course The pure food and drug act
has done wonders in purifying the
| commercial food supplies OF that Ma
| ton. .4 -
However. eternal vigilance must be
maintained by the Federal authorizes
in charge of enforcement OF the law.
II is maintained and the law Is a
vigorous, working mechanism OF the
! Government, constantly giving protec-
| tion to American stomachs. DR.. whey
himself also Is carrying on vigorously.
| He no longer is chief of the Bureau OF
Chemistry, but works hard IN MS
private professional capacity and. al
! though he now has attained great
age. his is a familiar figure about
Washington, and his word is law on all
/ matters of diet and pure food:
| To enforce the pure food and drug act.
| the Department of Agriculture main
| tains a large staff of inspectors who
| constantly are on the alert to detect
adulterated food offered for sale. Lab
| oratorieS are maintained which are al
ways busily engaged in testing FOODS
and drugs to keep them up to the stand
ards of purity fixed.
OF great assistance to these diet
! policemen are the commercial COM
| petitors of manufacturers who seek to
! sell adulterated commodities. Rival f1rmS
| test each others product in their own
laboratories and when they find any
| article of food or any drug adulterateo
or misbranded they lodge an informa-
ton with the food and drug adminlStra-
1
/ which Immediately proceeds against the
| offending manufacturer and. If the
charges are substantiated, fines are i'm
| posed.
Labels Must Be Truthful.
| The law goes beyond protection
against impure food. If an article OF
| food or drug Is misbranded-that Is,
labeled one thing when 1t is In TACT
| l.
tute may be pure and harmless-never-
theless the law has been violated and
the offender is liable to court action
and fine.
When the law was new, convictions
under the act received considerable
publicity, but latterly such news has be-
come too routine TO attract newspaper
notice. The Department of Agriculture,
however, publishes periodically notices
| of Judgment under the act. These are
interesting to the trades involved, but
almost never are printed in the daily
press.
The last notice of judgments under
| the act, Just published, shows no less
than so cases. The wide scope Of oper-
atoms is indicated by the variety OF
products found to be adulterated or mis-
branded The list includes alfalfa
meal, apple chops, cookies, Brazil nuts,
butter, chocolate coating, canned corn,
eggs, cottonseed cake. meal, linseed
meal, fig bars. fig paste, figs, tuna fish,
| olive oil. oranges, Scallops, shellfish.
tomato pulp. tomatoes and various
bakery products.
A brief description of typical cases
will indicate how the law is being en-
forced. An inspector Of the food and
drug administration discovered ID cases
| of canned goods labeled tuna fish"
They were shipped by New York I'M
porter to a Virginia grocer. Acting on
| information from the Department OF
| Auric,,It,Ire the limited States attorney