Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 69.djvu/64

60 said that in some instances these poisons are not active in the combinations in which nature puts them, but whether active or not active when people eat a natural product they know the nature of that which they eat, and when a food law requires this product to be put up in its best form and to be identified to the consumer, it has gone as far as is necessary.

The opponents of the Hepburn-McCumber-Heyburn Pure Food Bill argue that it is unfair, because it prohibits the addition of poisonous ingredients, and yet permits a poisonous ingredient when inherent or normal in the product. This argument is plainly invented to divert attention from the question of honest labeling. It seems at first plausible; but its fallacy and purpose are evident upon short analysis. The proposed law prohibits directly the sale of animal or vegetable substances which are diseased, spoiled, or otherwise unfit for food, and the majority of the other provisions of the bill apply indirectly to adulterations present without having been added. Adulteration by inferior methods of production or preparation necessitate the artificial colors and flavors, antiseptics and other added substances which the bill proposes to regulate. Imperfect natural food bears its own condemnation in its unpalatable flavor and inferior color, and such a food, therefore, must be supplemented and disguised by the added artificial before it will sell. When the artificial is added the law operates. Foods which possess a natural color and flavor pleasing to consumers are the result of the highest arts of production and preparation, and it is not for such foods that food control legislation is needed.

The whiskey rectifier or blender in particular has attacked the word 'added' in the following provision:

If the package containing it (the article of food) or its label shall bear any statement, design or device regarding the ingredients or the substance contained therein, which statement, design or device shall be false or misleading in any particular, provided, that an article of food which does not contain any added poisonous or deleterious ingredient shall not be deemed to be adulterated or misbranded in the following cases.

No open argument can be put forward against the first part of this provision, but from the overwhelming evidence of such misbranding, not only in the sale of liquors but in the sale of all foods, it is evident that there must be a powerful secret opposition to it. This opposition manifests itself in charges of 'government bureaucracy,' 'the tyranny of standards,' 'differences of opinion between scientists,' 'the competency of the agricultural chemist versus the competency of the physiological chemist in determining adulterations,' 'added or otherwise,' 'the constitution,' 'the enforcement of law by an individual instead of by the courts,' as if it were possible under the state and federal constitutions to enforce any law in case of dispute by other than the courts.