Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 69.djvu/61

Rh continue without profit. The profit is uncertain, often impossible, until the laws of the state and of the nation command that every article of commerce shall be sold under its own name and upon its individual merits.

In the enforcement of the state laws, in the committee hearings concerning the proposed national law, the dominant questions have been, and, in the event of the passage of the national law, will be, artificial colors, antiseptics, standards and labeling. And at the present time the adulteration and misbranding of drugs and liquors occupy a prominent place in the pure food issue.

In a pinch of aniline dye there is all of the color which a cherry-tree can produce in one season. The cherry juice or the cherry jelly is refreshing and invigorating, while the aniline dye, whether harmful or harmless, is without food value, lifeless and dead.

Genuine color and flavor are the truest representations of quality and purity, and the artificial color or flavor is per se a deception. Even in confections when the product purports to be flavored with lemon, vanilla, cinnamon, etc., and is not, the artificial color or flavor works a fraud. With the aid of color every article of food has been in appearance successfully imitated. With artificial color to depend upon, there is little need for selecting the best suited feeds and treating and culturing cream in such a manner as to produce a delicious butter with sufficient natural color. Little attention need be paid to the growing of fruit and vegetables uniform in color and quality, or to the treatment of the wholesale lot so that it will be uniform when it leaves the process of preservation, since no care in production or preservation can produce a color which can compete with that added by the aniline dye.

The manufacturers claim, and it can not be disputed, that the use of a harmless color to restore the appearance of a product of otherwise good qualities is not concealing inferiority, but makes the material, which is standard in all other qualities, pleasing to the eye. But where can the line be drawn? Once throw the gate open and the imitator enters with his saccharin and glucose, starch and waste products from the fruit factories and artificial acids to color compounds for the market which are often worthless and sometimes harmful.

Color should no longer be a subject of class discrimination. The dairy interests defend its use to improve the quality of cheese and butter; the packers, to change the appearance of their oleomargarine; the vinegar factories to help them make cider vinegar without apples; the French, to protect their industry in coppered peas; and all the imitators as their modus operandi in deceiving the public. In each and every instance it either deceives as to the quality of the product or aids in the sale of that which has no value, or assists the sale of