INTERNATIONAL PURE-FOOD CONGRESS.
By Edgar L. Larkin
[PROF. EDGAR L. LARKIN, in San Francisco Examiner.] STOP to think, consider, meditate, for the adulteration of food and drink has assumed such proportions that an international congress had to be called to devise plans to put an end to the curse. They earnestly discussed the serious problem, and planned ways of securing the enactment of stringent laws by our own and foreign nations. The Pure Food Congress is made up of manufacturers of food products, canners of fruits, vegetables, meats, and fish, dealers—wholesale and retail—chemists, and workers in general. The merchants attacked the canners for putting up impure foods in cheap cans. The canners retorted by saying that trade kept demanding lower-priced goods. Manufacturers of tin used to put four pounds on one hundred pounds of sheet iron. Now it is common to put on two and one-fourth pounds. One heavy canner, from Massachusetts, started a “tinnery” of his own, plated on four pounds of tin to the hundred of iron, and had no goods returned puffed up at the ends from fermentation. One man said he kept some of his canned fruit twenty years, and then ate it himself. He announced that he would not sell anything he was afraid to eat. A mild sensation developed. He did not become ill. The stuff was in four-pound tins. Oleomargarine is continually sold for butter. Tons of glucose are sold for sugar at enormous profits. Saccharine is used for sweetening. Its sweetness is about fifty times more intense than that of sugar. It is made of coal tar. Dr. Charles P. Caspari, of St. Louis, favored its use, declaring that it is harmless. Dr. H. W. Wiley, United States Bureau of Chemistry, said that if it is used, the labeling ought to say so. Wiley is the experimenter who fed young men with food preserved with boracic acid and other chemicals. It’s the women. If only the women would stop demanding red and green and yellow and pink colors in their jellies, soda fountain syrups, salads, pickles, and such, the entire race would advance. But they will have pickles colored bright green with poisons. And then they tax the resources of the aniline and coal tar product workers to color up the stuff sold at many soda fountains. These jellies in buckets and wooden tubs, labeled with the names of all the fruits on earth, in many cases have no trace of fruit. Glucose, gelatine, glue, ethereal oils for fruit flavors, and aniline for colors, dispense with fruit in all snide factories. And the women will have white vinegar, instead of the natural color. A set of rags was on display, colored with “fruit” coloring. The dyes were aniline, and in some colors they could not be washed out. Many manufacturers said they did not want to color their products, for it costs to color; but they had to, for the demand is perpetual. They not only mix stuff with ground coffee, but they have put up a machine that stamps out the coffee beans in precise imitation of the natural. Vanilla is often made from a chemical called vanillin. Pie is made of the most incredible substances. But the wonders of chemistry appear in soda fountain flavors and colors. A whole range of ethers almost exactly counterfeit natural fruit tastes and odors. Ptomaines are deadly poisons that develop in canned meats. They arise first from spoiled meats being canned; secondly, from rust on the outside of the can, which eats through, admitting air. The hole may be so small that it can not be seen, so minute that the contents are unable to leak out, yet enough air enters to set up decay and death. A big vegetarian congress is also in session in another part of the fair. If only men would listen to the speakers there and stop eating decaying animals, what misery would be avoided! For it was shown that meat-eaters are more liable to fall victims to alcohol than vegetarians. Salicylic acid and boracic acid, acetic and sulphuric acids are injurious. But pure fruits, in the four-pound vacuum tin cans, will keep for many years; for tinned goods were put in caches up north for Arctic expeditions, and opened years later in good condition. Glass is better, but the expense is great on account of breakage. The merchants and manufacturers had mild contests during the first two days; but merciless war was raged during the third. It was a first-class baking powder war. The alum men were attacked right and left. A. Cressy Morrison made startling charges. He said distinguished chemists had been heavily bribed by the Baking Powder Trust. He intimated that legislatures had been “bought.” T. N. Barrett, editor of the American Grocer, said he could prove that in some states the state food commissioners had been bought up to not prosecute law violators. Pandemonium reigned. Coming from such a source, the charges had to be met. Loud calls for investigating committees were made. Finally, the congress did appoint committees to probe the entire case throughout the country. Trouble is in sight, and wholesale litigation. The war raged from 9:00 A. M. to 1:00 P. M., and is known as the “alum war.” Formaldehyde in milk got hit from every direction. Whisky simply must have a certificate of good character, stamped by the government of the United States on each label. And can it be said that every package of fruit must likewise be furnished with a certificate? The National Congress at Washington next winter will be deluged with petitions and drafts of laws for enactment. Each congress here at the Fair will send up many demands.