always tinged a little with the side that pays for it-that is natural— while this would be a totally unbiased body of experts, without reference to any courts or case.

Mr. RICHARDSON. As I understand it, then, you mean on that question that when this commission fixes the standard of pure food and thereby declares the ingredients that shall not go in there because they are unwholesome you do not mean to say that when the courts come to pass upon a question of that kind that other and different evidence can not be brought in to show that they are mistaken?

Mr. WILEY. Certainly not; this standard has nothing of that kind in it.

Mr. RICHARDSON. You do not propose to prejudge the matter?
Mr. WILEY. Not at all.

Mr. RICHARDSON. It is just to get the opinion of experts on that question?

Mr. WILEY. That is all.

Mr. RICHARDSON. And let it go for what it is worth?

Mr. WILEY. Yes, sir.

Mr. DAVIS. Is it not true that there are more frauds perpetrated by using poorer qualities, mixing and blending poorer qualities of the same article with the better qualities of that article? Are not more frauds perpetrated in that way than in introducing foreign substances, as in the case, for instance, of a cigar? That is all tobacco. And the fraud there, if there is any fraud, consists in putting into that cigar a poorer tobacco, blended with the superior tobacco, and attempting to palm it off on the public as composed entirely of the better quality. Is it not also true that in the case of food products that the same practice is followed of putting a poorer quality of an article into the product, blended with the better quality? Is not that done more often than

a foreign substance is introduced, and how are you going to deal with that subject? What standard are you going to fix?

Mr. WILEY. I think that is quite true. That is

The CHAIRMAN. Let me suggest would it not be better to let the Doctor finish this portion of his address and take up the bill afterwards? Mr. MANN. I have to go away early to-day and would like to ask a couple of questions.

Mr. DAVIS. You need not trouble with my question.

Mr. WILEY. I will come to that question later, Mr. Davis.

The CHAIRMAN. I hope we will conclude the examination of witnesses on Monday.

Mr. WILEY. I would be very glad to answer Mr. Mann's questions if I can.

Mr. MANN. It will not take very long. How would you label the preserve that had a very small amount of glucose in it?

Mr. WILEY. Of course this is my individual opinion, as we have no official control of such matters at all in our Department.

I have never been in favor of asking manufacturers to put on a label anything which reveals in any way any secret of their trade.

Mr. MANN. Then, before you are through with your statement, I wish you would for a moment take up this point. As I understand it, under all the bills before the committee it would require simply the exporters of meat products, and so forth, not to use borax or boracic acid in the preparation of their goods. You had that question up recently with reference to Germany. I understand that the British

trade demands goods that are prepared with borax or boracic acid, and before you are through, if you will, I wish you would explain in reference to what the effect of this bill or this legislation would be upon the export trade in that regard.

Mr. WILEY. The Secretary of Agriculture is authorized by the law as it stands to-day to examine food products intended for the countries requiring physical or chemical tests before admitting them for sale: that is, we are empowered now by the law to certify for shipment to foreign countries that the invoice contains nothing which is contrary to the laws of those countries.

I should think the procedure under the Hepburn bill would not go further than that. If we were to certify that the invoice contained no product prohibited in the country for which it is intended, that would entirely cover the purpose of the act.

Mr. MANN. I have here a letter from one of the principal exporting concerns of the world, in which they make this statement:

Whatever may be thought necessary to do for the protection of the domestic trade, we respectfully submit that where orders are received from foreign buyers requiring meats, and so forth, prepared in moderate quantities of borax or other harmless preservatives and where said preservatives are substitutes it is an unnecessary restriction of trade to prohibit the filling of such orders in this country. We mention borax because that is the article almost entirely used for English shipments. Mr. WILEY. I should say the Hepburn bill as it stands to-day would not operate in any way to prohibit the use of any such substance. If it would so operate it should be amended.

Mr. MANN. You would not regard that as anything that was improper?

Mr. WILEY. On the contrary I would say that it was entirely and eminently proper to act in accordance with the demands of the foreign trade.

Mr. RICHARDSON. What objection have you to stating what the quantities in a commodity are? Say, for instance, in jelly. You put this and that in, and glucose, but you do not state the quantity of either one. Now, what reason have you got for not stating the proportion?

Mr. WILEY. Manufacturers of long experience learn certain ways of mixing bodies to produce the best results, and it is hardly fair to ask them to give the benefit of their years of experience to anybody else. That is the only objection in the world I have to it.

Mr. RICHARDSON. You do not think that they ought to be required to give away the knowledge they have acquired by study and application in their business?

Mr. WILEY. I do not; that is my opinion. And I would not ask any marking of goods to go further than to state plainly the contents or materials of which the object is made.

Mr. RICHARDSON. Because none of those ingredients, as I understand, are unwholesome; they do not injure anybody?

Mr. WILEY. Of course no one would favor the admixture of an injurious substance. That is universally prohibited or, if not, should

be.

Mr. RICHARDSON. I admit, Doctor, that the trouble I have had about this matter is to know exactly how to mark those kinds of things. I believe all things that are unwholesome ought to be prohibited by law and there ought to be such prohibition put upon those substances

as will stop it; but the trouble with me in this investigation has been how to reach that point and not to put in anything that will be unfair or stop legitimate manufacture or commerce.

Mr. WILEY. I will come to that later in this discussion, and, unless the committee would like to ask further questions, I am going to close with just one thing, and that is to show the members of the committee a point that was brought up yesterday.

You wanted to know how you could know the difference between cane sugar and beet sugar. I have brought the two kinds as they come from the custom-house every day to our labortory for our examination. One is a high-grade beet sugar, polarizing 94.95, and the other, cane sugar, polarizing 96. These are about the average grade sugars that come into this country. You will not have to take the labels; you will know, everyone of you, which is which-which is the beet sugar and which is the cane sugar. [Showing samples with labels removed.]

Which is the beet sugar?

Mr. TOMPKINS. This is it.

It

Mr. WILEY. That is right. You do not need the labels at all. That is the reason I said that raw beet sugar could not enter commerce. is because of its bad taste and bad odor. One other thing, these two buckets show how these jellies are marked when they come into a State where the law requires that they shall be labeled. That is not the regular paster on this tub; that is, if they are sent into a State that does not have a pure-food law that label does not go on. But if they come into the District of Columbia they could not be sold here without that little paster on them. In my opinion there is nothing reprehensible in selling all this you can with this paster on it. It is absolutely in harmony with the principles of the Hepburn bill. The CHAIRMAN. What does the paster recite?

Mr. WILEY. It says it is a pound of apple jelly, and it tells how much of each substance is in it; I do not want that particularly. That is all we want; that is all we ask in trade.

Now, Mr. Chairman, I want to take up briefly the provisions of the two bills which we have under discussion; namely, the Hepburn bill and the Corliss bill, and I will spend the rest of my time in going over these bills. I am pretty familiar with them, and unless some one calls for some special section (I have the bills here to refer to in case you do) I will begin with the purpose of the bill.

The Hepburn bill is for the purpose of preventing adulteration, misbranding, and imitation of foods, beverages, candies, drugs, and condiments in the District of Columbia and the Territories, and for regulating in the States traffic therein, and for other purposes. The other bill (the Corliss bill) is to prevent the transportation of deleterious foods and drinks, and for the establishment of a food bureau in the Department of Agriculture. Those are the purposes of the two bills.

Now, the Hepburn bill does not seek to prevent transportation, but only to regulate it. There is nothing in the Hepburn bill which is aimed at the railroad companies, and there is no provision of the Hepburn bill whereby an officer of a railway company can be prosecuted. They regulate the traffic in it solely by going to the manufacturer on the one hand and the dealer at the other end of the

Now, I can not quite go as far as my friend from Alabama in prohibition. I am not a prohibitionist in any sense of the word. I believe every human being has a right to eat and drink and wear anything he pleases, provided he does not offend the laws or his neighbor.

Mr. RICHARDSON. But you agree with me about prohibition, do you not, prohibiting that which is unwholesome?

Mr. WILEY. We will come to that. I do not believe any man has a right to say to another man what is unwholesome. In my opinion that is illegal. He may advise him, and the Hepburn bill permits him to do that. He gets high scientific advice in regard to what is unwholesome, but then if he wants to eat the substance after all that is his business, and I do not believe any law ought to go so far as to prohibit any substance in a food product not a poison, which is plainly marked and the nature of which is publicly proclaimed by high authority. If this is done, trade should be absolutely unrestricted in such a commodity.

Now look for a moment at the legitimate result of the Corliss bill. It appoints one man sole judge of what is deleterious to health. It does not even require that that man shall have any qualifications whatever to judge.

Mr. ADAMSON. Entertaining the correct and liberal views just stated, do you not think that we, as members of Congress, can serve our country better by simply making your Department educational and advisory in this matter, and stopping there?

Mr. WILEY. I believe, sir, when you do that that it will hardly ever be necessary to institute suits. The American people will inform themselves

Mr. ADAMSON. Give you all the money you need for that purpose! Mr. WILEY. But if you leave out of the bill any method of enforeing its provisions, then there will be some people always who will take advantage of that omission to practice fraud. But I think you are exactly right, sir, in saying that you authorize us to study this question in that way

Mr. ADAMSON. And publish your findings?

Mr. WILEY. Publish in this way the findings of the highest court, that it will do more than all the food prosecutions you can bring in a thousand years to correct the evils of which we complain.

Mr. ADAMSON. And be unattended by the necessary evils that attend these prosecutions?

Mr. WILEY. Of course there are some evils, but I think they are reduced to the minimum in the provisions of the Hepburn bill.

Mr. RICHARDSON. Who is going to see to the enforcement?

Mr. WILEY. There ought to be some way of enforcing the provisions of the bill and correcting violations of the law after they are pointed out. I stated yesterday that under the authority which Congress gives now of examining and publishing the result of our investigations we never publish anything until we submit it to the man whom we think has been guilty-never.

A moment in regard to the provisions of the Corliss bill to prevent the transportation of substances injurious to health. There is not a single article of food, not a single thing we eat, that is not injurious to health in some cases. Physicians will tell you that half the ills which humanity suffers are due to excesses in food. The injury which

excesses or the eating of food at the improper time will bring upon you is common and well recognized.

Under the provisions of the Corliss bill you could not send a bottle of wine from one State to another, you could not send a cask of whisky from one State to another; because you can get hundreds of people to testify that these things are injurious substances. You would absolutely paralyze interstate commerce, because if you had this law in force the commissioner, any food commissioner, who might be a Prohibitionist-they are good men and ought to hold office, more of them than do but do you suppose there is a single food commissioner who is a Prohibitionist who would not decide that whisky is an injurious article to health? And he would be backed up by nearly the whole medical profession, and that too in the "quantities used or intended to

be used.

There is no such provision in the Hepburn bill, no intention of such a provision.

Mr. MANN. What is the number of the Corliss bill; does anybody know?

Mr. WILEY. 12348. But there is another provision in the administrative feature of this bill that I desire to call attention to, and that is the one which permits the manufacturer of the food product to submit a formula to the food commissioner, and this formula shall either be approved or disapproved, and he shall enter in a book, which it has been proclaimed shall be a secret record, not open and public, this formula and his reasons for approving or disapproving the same, and that is the end of it. No one has any chance to see that formula, no one has even an opportunity to see why the food commissioner approved it or disapproved it, and it says that when so approved that articles of food which are made in harmony with this formula shall not be subject to this act. Where in the world can you find

Mr. MANN. Why do you say a secret record?
Mr. TOMPKINS. What does the bill say?

Mr. MANN. The bill says that the formula shall be kept in the records of his office. It would undoubtedly be a public record.

Mr. WILEY. In the Mann bill it was a public record, but the gentlemen who made the change have stated before the Senate committee that they took out the word "public" deliberately

Mr. MANN. It would be public just the same.

Mr. WILEY (continuing). So that it would be secret. They stated they took it out for a purpose.

Mr. COOMBS. I suppose that idea is to preserve any secrets of trade. Is that the idea?

Mr. WILEY. That is what they said it was for-to protect the firms in respect of their trade secrets.

Another point in the administrative feature to which I wish to call attention is that ostensibly it is put in the agricultural department. In the Mann bill that was not done, but a separate bureau was established. But if you will look for a moment at the Corliss bill you will see that the connection with the Department of Agriculture is wholly ostensible. The Corliss bill provides that the bureau shall be absoutely independent of the Secretary of Agriculture. The only point where it touches him at all is that he shall approve of the appointment of one official at a salary of $2,000 a year. Have you ever seen any legislation, a bureau created in a great department of this Govern