of state food departments as well, and to report its findings to this association at this session.

At the same time, your executive committee voted to instruct your president to invite Dr. Remsen, chairman of the referee board, to present a paper at this session of our association, discussing the report of the referee board.

The statement of your executive committee to President Roosevelt, above referred to and made in the closing days of his administration, contained the following:

"In view of the conflict of results among national authorities and in view of the tremendous interests of all the people involved in the final determination of these questions, may we not ask of you, Mr. President, the designation by you of a Committee of Five from among the State Food Chemists for the purpose of finally reviewing not only the experiments and the work of the Bureau of Chemistry and of the Referee Board on these subjects, but the work of the State Food Departments as well; this Committee to report its findings to the President and to the Department of Agriculture on the earliest possible date; this report to be received before the conclusions of the Referee Board are approved or made official by the President or the Secretary of Agriculture."

This statement and request was referred by President Roosevelt to the Honorable, the Secretary of Agriculture, who reported back to the President against granting that request.

Thereupon, the committee of eleven state food chemists was appointed by your President, and Dr. Remsen was invited to present a paper at this session, discussing the report of the referee board. Upon request of Dr. Remsen, this invitation was made to include Drs. Chittenden, Long and Herter.

Without any wish or any intent to trespess upon the prerogatives of either of these committees, I desire to make a few remarks on the report of the referee board relative to benzoic acid and sodium benzoate and the construction put upon that report by the three secretaries in F. I. D. No. 104. I lay no claim to being an expert chemist, pharmacologist or physician, but I do claim to have a knowledge of the principles of inductive reasoning and of scientific investigation.

The three secretaries (Cortelyou, Wilson and Straus), the officials at the time charged with making regulations for the enforcement of the national food and drugs act of June 30, 1906, in F. I. D. No. 104, made the following assumption with reference to the report of the referee board, "it having been determined that benzoate of soda mixed with food is not deleterious or poisonous and is not injurious to health." That assumption is unwarranted by the reported conclusions of the referee board in relation to benzoic acid and sodium benzoate. That referee board, according to its published reports, did not make that broad generalization or assumption.

The following is one of the questions, submitted to the referee board for its determination: "Does a food to which there has been added benzoic acid, or any of its salts, contain any added poisonous or other added deleterious ingredient which may render the said food injurious to health? (a) In large quantities? (b) In small quantities?" The answer of the referee board to this question, “(a) In large quantities?" was as follows: "Sodium benzoate in large doses (up to 4 grams per day) mixed with the food has not been found to exert any deleterious effect on the general health, nor to act as a poison in the general acceptation of the term. In some directions there were slight modifications in certain physiological processes, the exact significance of which modifications is not known.”

It is beyond my comprehension how any candid, intelligent person can claim that this second item in the answer of the referee board to the question submitted to it, warrants the broad assumption of the three secretaries to which I have referred. The referee board distinctly admits that feeding for one month a limited number of healthy young men, under proper sanitary regulations, food to which large doses (up to 4 grams per day) of benzoate of soda has been added, resulted in modifications in certain physiological processes, the exact significance of which they did not understand. Does that warrant the three secretaries in their broad assumption? Most certainly not.

Again, the referee board said in this second answer, re

lating to healthy young men to whom food to which benzoate of soda had been added in large doses had been administered for only one month, that said food "has not been found to exert any deleterious effect on the general health, nor to act as a poison in the general acceptation of the term." Does that statement warrant the three secretaries in making the assumption which they did? Most certainly not. The referee board in that second answer did not make the determination attributed to them by the three secretaries. To say that they had not in that brief experiment on healthy young men for one month found the food to which benzoate of soda had been added to be deleterious, etc., is not by any means the broad generalization that benzoate of soda added to foods in large doses, administered to people of all ages and physical conditions, all classes, for any length of time, is harmless. But this conclusion is what the three secretaries have attributed to the referee board. That assumption is unwarranted and false.

The answer of the referee board as reported in F. I. D. No. 104 to the question, “Does a food to which there has been added benzoic acid, or any of its salts, contain any added poisonous or other added deleterious ingredient which may render the said food injurious to health? (b) In small quantities?" is as follows: "Sodium benzoate in small doses (under 0.5 gram per day) mixed with the food is without deleterious or poisonous action, and is not injurious to health."

I say that this conclusion by the referee board was not warranted by the published data of the experiments. That conclusion from the data published is illogical and unscientific. Those experiments upon which that conclusion was based were conducted upon healthy young men only for a period of only two months. The most that board was warranted in concluding in accordance with the well-established rules of inductive reasoning is that sodium benzoate in doses under 0.5 gram per day, mixed with food, is without deleterious or poisonous action and is not deleterious to health when administered to strong, healthy young men under the conditions that prevailed in their experiments for a period of two months. Their reports do not show data for a broader generalization.

The process of reasoning that would broaden the conclusion of the referee board beyond these limits, and reach broad general conclusions from their limited and negative data, reminds one forcibly of the reasoning reported of a Pennsylvania justice. A man was brought before him charged with the stealing of a pig. A witness appeared who testified positively that he saw the defendant steal the pig. Five other witnesses were sworn by the defendant, who testified that they had known the defendant for several years and that during all that time no one of them had ever seen him steal a pig. The justice decided, so the report goes, that the preponderance of testimony was with the five witnesses.

This association at its last annual session pledged itself as follows:

"This association further pledges its every effort to formulate within the coming year a food bill founded upon the determinations of the joint standards committee, which food bill shall be formulated with a view toward uniform requirements throughout the several states; and it also pledges its best services toward securing effective co-operation between the food departments of the several states in their efforts toward the securing of such uniformity,"

It also adopted the following resolution:

"Resolved, That this association hereby authorizes and directs the present president of the association to appoint a committee of seven, of which he shall be the chairman, to prepare a model state food bill, the determinations of the joint standards committee to be used as a basis of facts in the preparation of such bill.”

The committee called for by that resolution was duly appointed and its report is expected at this meeting. A paper by Dr E. F. Ladd on that subject has a place upon our program. The following paragraph is taken from a communication which I received in June of this year from the general counsel of the National Wholesale Grocers' Association of the United States:

"There seems to have been a misunderstanding as to the position of the national association in connection with stand

ards. We are not opposed to standards as such, but we believe that the incorporation of standards for food products into state statutes will bring about a state of chaos and confusion, if all the states undertake to do this. Our solution of the problem is that the states should grant to their respective commissioners the power to establish standards for food products."

The general counsel of the National Wholesale Grocers' Association of the United States may have this childlike belief that clothing each state dairy and food commissioner with authority to fix standards for food products, if indeed such a procedure were constitutional, would do away with chaos and confusion and bring about the much talked of and much desired uniformity; but if he does have that childlike faith in the means proposed, he certainly is lacking in some of the attributes usually attributed to the legal counsel of great financial organizations. I can readily understand how at the present time, if this association should by such a suggestion be diverted from its purpose of a year ago, of directing its efforts to secure a model state food law into which shall be written the standards for food products as determined by the joint committee on standards, and change to the policy of having each state food commissioner clothed with authority to fix standards, that general chaos and confusion would prevail. I can see how the food adulterating interests and the cuckoo food journals could raise the clamor against "one man power," as they did in the case of Dr. Wiley; how those interests could bring political and other pressure to bear upon the food commissioner against the faithful, independent and energetic performance of duty which such a law would impose. I can see how such consequences could be brought about by such a course of procedure; but I fail to see how the establishment of food standards by the law making power of the respective states, by writing into these laws the definitions and standards for food products as recommended by the joint committee on standards, would bring about a state of chaos and confusion. Rather, it would bring about a state of stability and uniformity that nothing else possibly can.

A careful consideration of this subject, as presented to you by Dr. Ladd, is urged upon this association. I cannot forbear, however, making an added contribution to this subject. In an address delivered before this association at its St. Paul meeting in 1903, before Congress had enacted the national food law, speaking upon the subject of a national pure food law, the late Hon. H. C. Adams, who for seven and one-half years was the dairy and food commissioner of Wisconsin, and who during that period was a member of this association, and who at the time that address was made was a member-elect of the House of Representatives of the United States, made the following statements: "We want a national pure food law into which shall be clearly and explicitly written a standard for every form, combination and mixture of food now known, that shall be the plain law of the land. * * * A national pure food law should have written into its letter such a specific standard for every food product known as will satisfy the best judgment of this association. * Instead of delegating to this body and to that body, year after year, this matter of food standards, and having interminable discussions and interminable conventions, why not do the best we can with the knowledge we have and give notice to the trade in the letter of the law of what is required of it?"

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Upon the floor of the United States Senate, while the national food law was pending, the Hon. John C. Spooner, then U. S. Senator from Wisconsin, made the following statements: "I am persuaded that the lack of standard provided by law, in connection with the offenses denounced in bill and punished by the provisions of the bill, is very dangerous to it. * No lawyer will challenge the proposition for a moment that there is an utter lack of standard, * that there is no standard except as to drugs. Whether an article is adulterated or not is a question of fact to be determined by a jury. All through the bill there are questions of fact to be determined by a jury. There is no standard rendering definite the offense. There is nothing putting a man on notice in advance of a standard to which he must live and toward which and in obedience to which he must shape his business." Senator Spooner then called attention to specific opinions of the Supreme Court of the United States where uncertainty as to standards was held to be a fatal defect of law.

The writing of specific definitions and standards of food products into the food laws removes uncertainty as to what

constitutes an offense under the law and is a "square deal" alike to consumer, retailer, jobber and producer. It also removes some of the conditions which former President Roosevelt in his message to the sixtieth Congress, second session, so forcefully described as "the danger to American democracy" in the following language:

"The danger to American democracy lies in having the administrative power insufficiently concentrated, so that no one can be held responsible to the people for its use. Concentrated power is palpable, visible, responsible, easily reached, quickly held to account. Power scattered through many administrators, many legislators, many men who work behind and through legislators and administrators, is impalpable, is unseen, is irresponsible, cannot be reached, cannot be held to account."

I have called attention to the fact that the states have been the leaders in this country in the movement to protect the consuming public against adulteration, fraud and deceit in food products, by the enactment and enforcement of state food laws. Throughout this pure food campaign by the states, the paramount issue has been adequate protection and a "square deal" to consumers. They have persistently refused to adopt any shibboleth that would decoy them away from this one issue.

The splendid achievements of the states in securing purity and honesty of food products were so clearly and forcefully set forth by President Ladd in his annual address one year ago, that I here quote his statement. Contrasting the conditions a little less than a decade ago with what they were at the time of his address, he said:

"Jellies and jams were largely adulterated and misbranded, made from apple stock and waste fruit products, often containing starch paste and mucilage, colored with aniline dyes. preserved with salicylic acid, sweetened with glucose and saccharin and the whole falsely labeled. Our canned corn, almost without exception, was bleached with sulphites, preserved, and sweetened with the coal tar product-saccharin. Our peas and string beans frequently contained copper and alum salts and often contained chemical preservatives. Our meats were embalmed with chemicals, and some of the canned products contained little besides gristle, connective tissue and waste matters, seasoned and flavored, but sold as potted ham, chicken, etc. Our sorghum syrup came largely from glucose factories, while the maple syrup was almost wholly an imitation product, worth fifty cents a gallon and retailed for $1.50. Our strained honey was largely flavored syrups and glucose. Our candies were made from glucose, containing sulfites, to which further sulfites were added, colored with coal tar colors, many of which were known to be harmful, and flavored with chemicals or synthetic flavors. Our whiskies, brandies and wines, most generally sold even in the drug stores, the good Lord only knows what they did contain, but our chemists have shown that they seldom contained real whisky. Our cider vinegars were unknown to the apple family. Our spices were but a semblance of the real thing, made as they were, from corn meal, cocoanut shells, olive stones and other waste products. Not a few of our drugs, drug preparations, extracts, etc., contained wood alcohol known to be a deadly poison. Cereals and chicory were the basis of much ground coffee. Lemon and vanilla extracts were largely imitation products and put up with wood alcohol. Many of the preparations dispensed at the drug stores varied from 25 to 150 per cent of the U. S. P. strength; and fully 75 per cent of the patent medicines were fakes, pure and simple.

"But why dwell upon this longer than to show what has been accomplished through the enactment of state laws and their enforcement. Today the conditions are largely changed. Pure foods, pure drugs of proper strength and truthful labeling are in a large measure being realized."

That this summary of achievements, thus quoted, is true. is a matter of common knowledge.

But this is by no means the full record of the achievements of the states in food law matters. The states have secured decisions from that great legal tribunal, the Supreme Court of the United States, settling the question of the prerogaIn tives and duties of the states in food law matters. Plumley vs. Mass. 155 U. S., the Supreme Court makes the following clear and ringing statement:

"If there be any subject over which it would seem that the states ought to have plenary control, and the power to legislate in respect to which it ought not to be supposed

was intended to be surrendered to the general government, it is the protection of the people against fraud and deception in the sale of food products.'

This statement of the Supreme Court of the United States is respectfully commended to that small group of our people who urge that the states should surrender all that has been gained through the administration of state laws for the past one or two decades. Until the constitution of the United States as thus interpreted by this decision of the United States Supreme Court is changed, the states are not likely to surrender those prerogatives, nor disregard those duties.

That same court, in the same case, also held that it is within the power of a state to exclude from its markets any food product so prepared as to cause it to look like another article of food in general use and thereby mislead the public into buying what it would not otherwise purchase; and that the states, exercising their police power, have the right to determine that a food product shall not be sold under a name or under conditions which mislead the public. The states, in their contest for purity and honesty of food products, have obtained from the Supreme Court of the United States the decisions that "The constitution of the United States does not secure to anyone the privilege of defrauding the public," and in Sherlock vs. Aling, 93 U. S. 99-103, "In conferring upon Congress the regulation of commerce, it was never intended to cut the states off from legislating on all subjects relating to the health, life and safety of their citizens."

In the case Heath and Milligan Company vs. Worst, generally known as the North Dakota Paint Case, the United States Supreme Court has made it very clear in a decision secured by the North Dakota state food commission, that it is within the power of the state to prevent the adulteration of articles and that the establishing of standards for various articles by the legislatures of the respective states is a constitutional prerogative and a legitimate exercise of the police powers of the states, and that the United States Supreme Court will not interfere with the exercise of those prerogatives by the state legislatures.

Of the splendid achievements of the states in securing numerous State Supreme Court decisions directing, regulating and greatly strengthening state food laws and their administration, I cannot here speak.

The states must not be halted in such splendid achievements, either by those who have been particeps criminis in the manufacture and sale of fraudulent and deceitful articles of food, or by the national government which in the matter of food laws has not, in the three years of its administration, reached the efficiency of the more progressive states of longer experience in the work. However, critics of the administration of the national law should not forget that that law was enacted only three years ago; and it may well be doubted whether any state law of such wide scope was ever made more effective during the first three years of its life. They who do not advance, recede. As states we cannot stand still in food law enactment and administration. We must advance or we shall recede. We are here to take counsel as to the future. Remembering that the rights of the consumers have not yet been fully and permanently secured, let us firmly resolve that any step we here take shall be forward, and not backward.

As used in this address, the relation of the terms food adulterators and food adulterating interests to the terms food manufacturers, food distributors and food dealers is not that of synonyms. They are used rather in the relation of a part to the whole. There is a large portion of food manufacturers and dealers who not only are not to be put into the food adulterating class, but are openly and actively as strongly opposed to food adulterations and frauds as this association or any of its members. Their practices are a standing demonstration that food adulteration in any of its many forms is unnecessary.

The former class comprises those who on the streets and in the market places openly proclaim their belief in the principles of food laws, but with bland artfulness do all they can to prevent any effective application of those principles.

The latter class includes those who not only proclaim their belief in the principles of food laws, but also support the application of those principles in the enactment and enforce

ment of food laws that furnish adequate protection to consumers and honest manufacturers and dealers.

The former class includes those who not only "have not kept the word of promise to the ear, but have also broken it to the hope;" those who have appropriated to themselves the word "reputable" and rolled it as a sweet morsel in their mouths, yet have manufactured or sold, as and for the genuine, food products that were rank adulterations; for example, have sold as lemon extract, a product that was manufactured from oil of lemon grass, then when put under pressure of law have stamped on it in small, indistinct, blurred letters made with rubber type, the word "Imitation"; have sold as butter, a slaughter house product made of beef tallow, hogs' fat and cottonseed oil; have sold as syrup, table syrup, fancy table syrup, honey drips, pure sorghum, pure molasses, etc., a product made by treating starch with a mineral acid and then flavoring and coloring it with sugarhouse molasses, in semblance of true syrup; have sold as jelly or jam a product made from the waste of canning factories, glucose, artificial coloring and benzoate of soda; as port wine, a product containing no wine; as "whisky," a product made from alcohol diluted with water, artificially colored and flavored to imitate the genuine, and so on in an almost interminable list well known to food commissioners and food chemists.

The latter class includes those who are not only "reputaple," but are also honest; those who "keep the word of promise both to the ear and to the hope"; those who manufacture or sell genuine, unadulterated, honest foods and whose labels tell the truth. They are recognized as among the most potent forces in advancing the cause of pure and honest foods. Their number is large; may it continue to grow larger.

The question of what shall be the purpose and spirit of the work of this association is of the highest importance. If its purpose is to aid in securing the enactment and enforcement of food laws, state and national, that shall secure the greatest protection to the public against the harmful consequences of food adulteration with as little burden to producers and distributors as is consistent with that result, the purpose is most worthy and the service greatly needed. This purpose is paramount to any question as to who shall be the recipients of any honors at the hands of the association. If this purpose is uppermost in the minds of the membership of this association, then they who can with greatest ability, tact, skill, courage and devotion advance those objects will be the recipients of honors and will thus become at the same time the bearers of the burdens and responsibilities of the association.

For myself, I wish to say that having received the honor of an election by this association as its president, and having borne the responsibilities of that office for a year, I shall, when the time for adjournment sin die arrives, yield it with unalterable unwillingness to continue it longer; and having for the three previous years served as a member of the executive committee, I feel that I have earned the right to claim immunity from further service in that capacity.

In the performance of the duties as presiding officer at this, the thirteenth annual meeting of this association, my highest purpose shall be to perform its duties faithfully and to the best of my ability in carrying out the program and the wishes of the association. In this, I need and ask your sincere and cordial co-operation. (Applause.)

Commissioner Wright: Mr. Chairman, I move that at this time the convention invite the Secretary of Agriculture, the chief food official of the United States, to address us. (Great applause.)

Commissioner Jones: Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Convention:

It is with great pleasure that I rise, as a member of this association, from the state of Illinois, the great state I have the honor of representing, to second the motion of the gentleman from the great state of Iowa and say a few words upon the question, as has been well and truly said by the governor of this great and imperial state of Colorado in his welcome address to this convention, welcoming the convention to the beau

tiful state of Colorado to hold this thirteenth annual meeting.

The governor states in his welcome address to this convention, in regard to Secretary Wilson of the department of agriculture, that he has known Secretary Wilson personally and as a member of congress during his administration, observed the course of Secretary Wilson in the administration of his office, and the great ability shown in the management of same, and how the agricultural and food industries of this country had grown, developed, been purified and made. wholesome since Secretary Wilson had taken charge of the department of agriculture, and the wealth and prosperity of the agricultural and food industries had increased under his administration-in paying this high tribute to Secretary Wilson, the governor of this great state has stated what the governor of every state in the union can truly state that Secretary Wilson has looked after, preserved and protected the agricultural and food industries of this great nation of ours in every state of the union; in the administration of this great office he has known no north-no south-no east and no west, but has treated every section of our country with equality and justice and today, I care not where you go, whether in the manufacturing districts. of New England; in the rice, cotton and sugar districts of the south; in the fruit and stock raising districts of the west, or in the wheat and dairy fields of the north, or in the corn, wheat, grazing and dairy lands of the Mississippi valley, the same feeling and sentiment exists for our beloved secretary that exists here in the arid lands of the west, where, by irrigation, the lands of this part of the west have advanced from a nominal price of one to five dollars an acre to from three to fifteen hundred dollars an acre, and where more wealth is being added, owing to the great change on account of irrigation under the administration of Secretary Wilson in the wealth of this western country on account of the beet sugar, alfalfa and cereals than from all the gold, silver and copper mines taken from these mountains.

We are proud of Secretary Wilson and love him, not only for his honesty and integrity, his fairness to all interests and industries-but for the great things he has done and accomplished during the eleven years of his administration of his great office.

Mr. Chairman: I am pleased to second the motion for another reason. This association was organized for the purpose of and the chief object of-obtaining a national food law, and under the law-a national food department-with authority and right to make rulings and standards for the preparation, manufacture and sale of all the various food products coming under the interstate commerce laws-so that after this national food law was written upon the statute books of the nation, and rulings and standards made thereunder the different states of the union might have laws passed, modeled after same, and rulings and standards. made in harmony therewith in order that manufacturers of the various states of the union might not be compelled to keep a set of labels and standards for every state in the union, but that one set of labels and standards might answer for all.

Mr. Chairman, in other words, the National Association of State Dairy and Food Departments was organized chiefly for the purpose of securing a nationa! food law, so that the various states of the union might frame their laws, modeled after the national law, and

also make rulings and fix standards for the various food products, so that the commissioners of the different states could make similar rulings and standards— and thus obtain uniformity of action and thereby the work of co-operation could be carried on between the national and state food officials.

It took

We have now secured a national food law. seven long years of hard work, with the various committees of the house and senate in congress to secure the law. We now have a splendid national food law, and already twenty-five states have re-written their laws, and modeled them along the line of the national food law, and have made rulings and standards in conformity with those of the national food authorities.

Co-operation has been secured between the national and state food authorities in these states, and many of the other states are arranging to have their laws modeled after the national food law and make rulings and standards in conformity therewith.

Mr. Chairman: Already the manufacturers and packers of foods understand the national food law and the rulings and standards made thereunder, as well as the new food laws made by these various states and modeled after the national law.

Now, the manufacturers and packers of foods are only required to keep one set of labels for these various states, and when they have done this they know that their labels will conform with those required by the national food law, and in this way much inconvenience had been overcome.

Mr. Chairman: In Illinois, the state that I have the honor to represent, we have an ideal state food law. modeled after the national food law, and we have, as we think, the most complete co-operation between national and state food officials, as well as between the manufacturers and packers of foods. Already all interests understand the national and state food law, and 85% of the trade are absolutely conforming thereto, and it would be a great mistake, in my judgment, to now change position, and for the states to cut loose and undertake to have a model state food law, independent of the national food law and the national food authorities. If this were done, the work of the past ten years would be a failure.

Mr. Chairman: My mind goes back to the work performed by such celebrated food officials as Commissioner Hamilton of Pennsylvania; Commissioner Blackburn of Ohio; Commissioner Grosvenor of Michigan; Commissioner Adams of Wisconsin: Commissioner Bailey of Oregon, and Commissioner McConnell of Minnesota, and many other noted officials, who served their states long, arduously and well, and should we now take the backward track, all the work that they accomplished, all the good they did, would be lostand in my judgment-the results would be fearful to food industries and to food officials-it would create chaos and from this time on, no two states would agree or co-operate; there would be no co-operation between state and national food officials, and manufacturers and packers of foods would again be at the mercy of the whims of every commissioner in the union. The consumer would be equally distressed, for he would not know from the label what the real article of food was or its ingredients, for the reason that no two states would define them alike on the label.

Mr. Chairman: Let us make no mistake; let us see that the good work, that has been accomplished in the past ten years, is not lost. Let us go on along the