IN EARLY DAYS

In the early days of the enforcement of the food and drugs act great encouragement was given, due to the soundness of President Roosevelt's views as to what is whisky. On the other hand the temporary support of the harmfulness of benzoate of soda, which lasted for only a few minutes, was then entirely abandoned. There was another incident which led me to believe that the President thought the Bureau of Chemistry was entirely too radical in its efforts to carry out the provisions of the law under the mandates which the law gave it. Of course the Bureau simply tried to do, to the best of its ability, the duties imposed upon it by the law. All the Bureau of Chemistry could do was to serve as a grand jury. Any indictments it might bring could only be reported to the Department of Justice and could only be ratified by the decision of the Court. Soon after the law went into effect I was called to the White House by the President and directed to bring with me Mr. Harrison, the chemist in charge of the New Orleans laboratory. At the appointed time Mr Harrison had not arrived, due to a failure of the Southern Railway to reach Washington on time. I therefore went to the President's office alone. On my arrival I found the President in rather an ugly mood. The French Ambassador had complained to him that a shipment of vinegar from France to New Orleans had been refused admission because of a cluster of grape vines hanging full of grapes portrayed upon the label. The analysis had disclosed that the vinegar in question was not sour wine, as both name and label indicated, but was an artificial vinegar made by passing dilute alcohol, presumably distilled from beet sugar molasses, over beech shavings. The shipment was ordered returned to France, with the instructions that the grapes should be removed from the label. This was done but the grapevine was left. The shipment a second time reached New Orleans, whereupon I instructed Mr. Harrison to send it back as the grapevine was just as indicative that the vinegar was made of sour wine as were the grapes themselves. On reaching the President's office and explaining why young Harrison had not accompanied me, he said very sternly:

"The Food Law is an excellent measure, but it should be administered with some discretion. Full particulars in regard to the proper branding should have been furnished at once."

Explaining as best I could to the President I quoted the very words of the law itself, namely that an article was misbranded if the label bore any design or device or statement which was false or misleading in any particular, that as the executive officer I had no choice in the matter, but my only purpose was to execute the law as it was written. The scowl on the President's died away and a rather benignant smile took its place. He grasped my hand cordially and said:

" If the French Ambassador bothers you again in matters of this kind tell him to go to Hades."

Inasmuch as I valued my friendship for the French Ambassador and his for me very highly, I am certain that no one would have expected me to use any such language in any subsequent protest made from the French embassy in regard to the exclusion of French products from this country under the law. Nevertheless, this incident increased the feeling in my own mind that the President was not entirely in sympathy with a rigid enforcement of the food and drugs act.

He evidently felt that the Congress had made a great mistake in placing the execution of the law in the Bureau of Chemistry. Mr. Loeb, private secretary to President Roosevelt, was strongly impressed that the President considered the Chief of the Bureau entirely too radical in his views concerning the harmfulness of preservatives. He thought the Chief of the Bureau was lacking in diplomatic discretion. The President was undoubtedly still of the opinion that an underling who had the temerity to appear before a Congressional committee and denounce a presidential policy on reciprocity had few, if any, redeeming traits.