Some Facts About Meat by L. A. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 7, 1906

_Some Facts About Meat_

By L. A. S.

(Continued)

L. A. S.

In Vol. II of “Testimonies for the Church,” page 404, is printed this statement from a personal testimony on the subject of meat eating:—

“Could you know just the nature of the meat you eat, could you see the animals when living from which the flesh is taken when dead, you would turn with loathing: from your flesh-meats. The very animals whose flesh you eat, are frequently so diseased, that, if left alone, they would die of themselves; but while the breath of life is in them, they are killed and brought to market. You take directly into your system humors and poisons of the worst kind, and yet you realize it not.”

Let the reader keep this statement in mind and note how fully it tallies with the following testimony which has been elicited by governmental investigation of the conditions under which the meat-packing industry is conducted.

Since the first article of this series was written, public attention has been called to this subject by a bill which is now before Congress providing for a competent inspection of meat prepared for food at the large packing plants. Accompanying this bill is a report, as yet only partially made public, of Messrs. Charles P. Neill and James B. Reynolds, who recently made an investigation of the packing plants at Chicago at the instance of President Roosevelt. This report has been brought before Speaker Cannon of the House of Representatives, who, says the New York Times, is “horrified by the revelations.” It is from this testimony as printed in the Times that we take the quotations which follow.

These commissioners, it is stated, “investigated the plants of Armour & Co., Nelson Morris & Co., Swift & Co., Schwartzschild & Sulzberger, the Hammond Company, the Cudahy Company, the Standard Slaughtering Company, and numerous other concerns of more or less importance.” The commissioners, it is further stated, “spent two or three weeks in Chicago, during which time its members interviewed persons of all classes who were in the stock-yards and who were engaged in the packing-houses. The commission was assisted in its work by Dr. W. K. Jaques, formerly the head of the Chicago inspection service, and who was forced out of office because he insisted that his inspectors should inject kerosene into all condemned meat.”

Some Sources of Lard

“It has been frequently stated in published criticisms of stock-yard conditions,” says the Times, “that the carcasses of hogs which had died of cholera in shipment, or which had been smothered in transit, were loaded in box cars and shipped to Globe, Ind., to be rendered into lard. The commission traced this story carefully and found that the carcasses were rendered into hog grease, which was sold without any restriction or precaution. They got positive evidence that portions of this grease were regularly sent to France to be used in the making of a grade of sardine oil. They investigated the use which the packers made of the filth which they gathered from Bubbly Creek, an arm of the Chicago River, which is practically an open sewer near Globe. They could not learn whether this grease was rendered into lard, but they did find that it was used for some purpose or another. They found that the carcasses of hogs which had been condemned for cholera were regularly rendered into lard.”

Conditions “Disgraceful Beyond Description”

“It was in dealing with the sanitary conditions in the packing-house district that the commission found conditions which warrant the use of the most vigorous language. It declares that the unsanitary conditions of the packing-houses there were disgraceful beyond description. It says that the plants were dark and dingy, and that they resembled huge meat factories rather than slaughterhouses. That is to say, the commission says that the packing-house people regard meat in the same light they might regard dry goods, and not as an exceedingly perishable article of food.

“The commission found that there were sections of the packing-houses to which fresh air could not possibly penetrate. Large numbers of the workmen never see daylight in the winter except on Sunday. The commission found, particularly at Armour & Co.’s and at Nelson Morris & Co.’s, that the pillars of the buildings were caked with flesh, and that the pillars had apparently never been washed since the construction of the buildings. The commission discovered that the workmen follow the example set by their employers.

“They are mostly ignorant foreigners or negroes who have no knowledge of the sanitary requirements, and care nothing about the quality or the cleanliness of the food which they prepare. Some of them are suffering from tuberculosis. In these packing-houses the meat is dragged about upon the floors, spat upon and walked upon. In the pickling rooms in some of the plants it is the custom to empty the contents of the vats upon the floors and to shovel up the meat. And the packing-houses swarm with rats.”

“Preserved” and “Made-Over” Meats

“The commission found that the use of preservatives is universal; that spoiled meats are ‘doctored;’ that smoked meats are imitated by means of artificial coloring and preserved with borax and still more dangerous chemicals. The commission found also that many of the packing-house products bear false labels, and that imitations are made with the help of aniline dyes.

“In many cases the commission discovered when meats spoil they are subjected to various processes and worked over again for public sale. The commission declares in regard to all these practises that a most sweeping reform is needed to conserve the public health.”

Is it any wonder that General Miles, when he saw the stuff that was being furnished by these packing companies for food for his soldiers, raised the cry about “embalmed beef,” which caused such a stir some years ago?

Here is a statement by H. Adolph

Smith, an expert who made an investigation of Packingtown conditions for the London Lancet:—

“Conditions in the Chicago Stockyards are worthy of medieval barbarism, and are a disgrace to American civilization. The system of the Chicago packers is as unsanitary as it would have been if modern bacteriology had never been discovered. Packers pay no attention to the fact that meat is a perishable substance, and that such things as germs are bound to get into it. Instead, they treat meat as if it was dry goods. Even when they condemn meat the inspectors have no right to see that it is destroyed, and they are barred from those portions of the packing-houses where the by-products of meat are prepared—where the canning, salting, pickling, sausage making, and lard rendering are done.”

“Nice Fresh Hams”

“In Armour’s establishment I saw with my own eyes the doctoring of hams that were so putrified that I could not force myself to remain near them. The hams were on a working table, and a man with a foot pump, which worked on the principle of a gigantic hypodermic needle, filled them with a chemical which killed the odor.

“Skinned hams are taken from hams so old that nobody could eat the skin. Without the skins there is a sale for them. Then the skins are taken and ground up in a big mortar, flavored with spices, and sold as headcheese.”

The next statement will interest those who are fond of “potted chicken” and similar high-priced delicacies:—

“Potted chicken consists of the meat of unborn calves and cows’ udders. They never have any chickens at all in Packingtown except cold-storage chickens, and these are sold whole.

“Armour & Co.’s recipe for potted hams, as verified by two former superintendents, is to take the nubs of smoked beef, moldy and full of maggots, and grind it in great hoppers with ham trimmings.”

The same thing is stated by another man, a traveling salesman who was for seven years in the employ of Swift & Co. He says:—

“As to canned goods, it is an open question what they are made of. In all the time I was with Swift & Co., I never saw any chicken except in cold storage, and I am certain there is none used in making potted chicken and such. The cows’ udders are most generally used for this purpose, being colored with a composition of iron to take away the white effect. . . . They also use unborn calves for this same purpose.”

A former salesman in the employ of Swift & Co., makes this affidavit:—

Affidavit of a Salesman

“For eight months I was employed as a salesman of Swift & Co., and studied the packing-house business in Chicago. Previous to that time I had been in the butcher business all my life, and I was an expert judge of meat. My attention was immediately attracted to the quality of the cattle which were killed by Swift & Co., and canned by Libby, McNeil & Libby. Numbers of these cattle were sold emaciated, when they were hardly able to drag themselves along. Many of them were old cows with calves.

“While I never personally witnessed it, it was the common belief among the men in the place that the carcasses of unborn calves went to make veal loaf. I personally investigated the process of preparing the so-called ‘boiled’ hams. They were not boiled, but steamed, as this added greatly to their weight. The inside of these hams would be hard and absolutely raw. I have seen sausages hung in vats to be dyed red, for the same reason. The process of smoking took a great deal of time and caused a great deal of loss of weight.

“As a result of what I witnessed in Packingtown I have never since eaten canned or potted meat, or any sausage except that which I knew was not made in the large packing establishments, and I can state positively that no marketman who is familiar with the methods of Swift & Co., would taste any of their canned goods.”

Human Flesh in Sausage

Mr. Upton Sinclair, author of “The Jungle,” a book dealing with conditions at Packingtown, said to the commissioners:—

“I charged that dead hogs were shipped from Chicago packing-houses to Globe, Ind., and there rendered into lard. These were hogs that died in shipment from cholera or from smothering. Hogs are cannibals, and when one dies from cholera the others are all infected by eating the dead. The president’s commissioners learned that these dead hogs were not rendered into lard, but were transformed into what is known as unrendered hog’s grease, which is sold all over the world, for every purpose conceivable. Some of it, under contract, goes to France, and comes back to this country as sardine oil.

“I also charged that human beings fell into the lard rendering vats in Chicago establishments, and were rendered into lard which was sold. I presented, through a representative, the facts in one specific case, but the commissioners held that it was not sufficiently proved. There was another case in which two men fell into a vat, and the flesh from their legs was boiled off and rendered into lard. This lard was sold.

“There is no such thing as stopping a sausage machine when one of the operators loses a finger or even a hand. The member goes in human flesh and comes out sausage. Instances of this kind are so common that they cause not the slightest comment. The operators are all uncleanly, and many of them afflicted with tuberculosis. They spit on the meat in preference to spitting on the floor. I have seen this time and again myself.”

Mr. Sinclair also presented a letter he recently received from a friend in Brooklyn, N. Y., containing the following:—

“Here is a statement I can vouch for: An acquaintance of ours (a relative of a nurse we had in our family when living in Hartford, Conn.) found, perhaps three years or so ago, the little finger of a child in a can of corned beef she was opening. After reading your book, I can see that such occurrences might be numerous, and that (while nothing could seem more horrible) even more unexpected ingredients are now and then if not continually mixed with the prepared food sent out from Packingtown.”

(To be concluded)