Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 69.djvu/58

54 arrangement, or where monopoly operates, to put the combined product of many factories into the market under that trade-mark which is most in favor with consumers the public have no remedy at trade-mark law. The large wholesalers oppose the proposition to have the label tell, under all circumstances, the name of the real manufacturer. The independent manufacturing firms strongly favor it. There is nothing so fatal to monopoly or so stimulating to the competition of individual merit as where law requires an article of merchandise to be always identified in the market with the name of the person or firm who made it.

Congress has passed several laws relating to inspection and correct labeling. In 1890, a law was passed authorizing the inspection of meats intended for export, and forbidding the importation of adulterated foods and drugs. In 1891, the meat inspection provided for in the act was extended to meats intended for interstate shipment. The provisions of this law were further extended in the Appropriation Act of the United States Department of Agriculture for 1905 to apply to daily products intended for export. In 1896 congress provided for the bottling of genuine whiskey in bond and its identification to the consumer by means of a tax stamp over the cork. In 1897 a law was passed prohibiting the importation of inferior teas, and providing for a board of experts to adopt standards by which to measure the quality of imported teas. The law and the provision authorizing this board of standards have been held to be constitutional by the United States Supreme Court. During the war with Spain a special tax was levied upon certain products, among them adulterated flour. The tax stamp served to identify the flour subject to this tax, and the business was at once destroyed. In repealing the war taxes the act relating to adulterated flour was not repealed.

In 1896 Congress passed an act providing for the taxing and labeling of filled cheese. Oleomargarine was a subject of federal legislation as early as 1885. This act was passed as a tax measure, and in connection therewith provided for the proper labeling of oleomargarine. This law was amended in 1902, fixing the tax on oleomargarine, colored to resemble butter, at ten cents per pound, and on the uncolored at one fourth of one cent per pound. It also taxes renovated butter, and requires it to be so branded.

The Appropriation Act of the United States Department of Agriculture for 1903 and subsequent appropriation acts have authorized the Secretary of Agriculture to put into effect the act of 1890 relating to the importation of adulterated foods and drugs, and to adopt and fix standards for guidance in the enforcement of the law. Appropriation acts of the Department of Agriculture have also authorized the study of the effect of antiseptics and artificial colors on the human system. It was under these acts that the chief of the Bureau of