UNE CAUSE CELEBRE

In the fight for the food law the question "What is Whisky?" cut quite a figure. As early as 1898 the question of the character of distilled alcoholic beverages became quite acute. A heavy tax was laid on manufactured alcohol, both for beverage and industrial use. A great change had been made in the method of making pure alcohol. The continuous still, an implement which was continuously charged with a fermented mash and which continuously produced a very pure spirit revolutionized the process of distillation and made pure untaxed alcohol remarkably cheap. This method of making neutral spirit was entirely different from the manufacture of beverage whisky. The Congress of the United States had legalized the mixing of genuine whisky with this neutral spirit, and coloring and flavoring the mixture, by an Act defining rectifying. The so-called rectified product was placed on the market under the name and appearance of the genuine article. Existing law provided no penalties for this fraud.

In order that consumers might be able to protect themselves, certain precautions were provided in the law. When a genuine whisky was first made it was always placed in oak barrels for aging purposes. A stamp was placed on the package, giving date produced, distillery making it, and other data required for revenue purposes. When the package was tax paid and ready for consumption, an additional stamp was affixed. The double stamp was the consumer's evidence that no rectifier had handled that package. This assurance however, affected only the first owner. When he decided to put the contents on the retail market he was under no further obligation. He sold it by the drink at the bar or in small packages to carry away.

For the protection of the individual consumer, Congress, in 1898, passed the bottled in bond act. This law permitted dividing the product in fractions of a gallon, each package having a United States little green stamp pasted over each cork, showing the distillery where made, the size of the package, the date of manufacture, and a guarantee of freedom from rectification.

This guarantee followed a rigid investigation of the wiles of the rectifier, carried on in 1898, in which the Bureau of Chemistry took an active part. It was then learned that there was a radical difference between a genuine whisky at least four years old and the rectified product bearing the same name. Under the pending food bill the rectifiers clearly saw that the products they were making would have to bear labels showing just what they were. Their whole business was founded on fraud. They made heroic efforts to prevent the passage of the Act. After its passage they moved heaven and earth, or better, hell and earth, to nullify its provisions. In the following pages will be found the high lights of these efforts.

In the final hearings the rectifiers made every possible endeavor to kill the bill. Anticipating the probability of the passage of the bill, it was deemed advisable to study ab initio the whole question, historical and technical, of the manufacture of whisky in this and other countries. The investigations made by the Bureau of Chemistry covered fundamentally all angles of the problem. The results were collected in typewritten form and were the basis of all the testimony before the courts in the cases subsequent to the passage of the law. A witness to the sound conclusions drawn therefrom is the universal approval given by every Federal court before which the problem has been presented. No further publication of this brief has been made. I have, as one of my most precious documents, a copy, which, by the way, was the document called for by Judge Thompson of Cincinnati in the effort of the rectifiers to have Food Inspection No. 65 declared illegal.

In closing the discussion of the pending food bill before the Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee in 1906, the following reference to whisky (page 322) was made:

Now we are ready, Mr. Chairman, for a short talk on whisky, if my assistants will bring the samples forward.

I will not call attention to the testimony of Mr. Hough, because he was not under oath; it is not expert testimony, but I want to say just this in regard to his contention: As you know, I was instructed last year, with a view of executing our food law respecting imported food products, to visit the manufacturers in Europe, as far as I could in the time I had at my disposal; and, especially, I was instructed by the Secretary to visit the distilleries in Scotland and Ireland, where Scotch and Irish whiskies are made. I may say that it was a very pleasant task to which I was assigned. [Laughter.] I was also instructed to visit the Charente to see how the real French brandy is made, and the Gironde to see how the real French wines are made, and the Rhine and Mosel to see how the real German wines are made. I spent three months in this very delightful task.

On my return I made a report to the Secretary of Agriculture, which he gave, in abstract, to the press, and which was published all over this country and in Europe. I stated that I had found that in Scotland whisky was made solely from pure barley malt, fermented in the proper way and distilled in a pot still, and that nothing else, in my opinion, was entitled to be called Scotch whisky except that product.

I stated also that in Glasgow and Edinburgh I found distilleries importing American maize, Indian corn--I was glad they were doing it; it is a good market for us--and making a spirit out of it, and that this spirit was mixed with the real Scotch whisky and sent to this country; and I doubted if there was a barrel--and that was about true, as events have shown--of real Scotch whisky in the United States.

I went to Ireland, and I found that whisky was made there exactly as it is in this country in Kentucky, just as Mr. Taylor (who is the only expert called on the question) has testified it was made. It is made there of barley malt and unmalted grain, just as in this country, the malt being used to convert the rest of the starch, and then it is fermented and distilled in a pot still and placed in the warehouse, just as it is in England and in Scotland.

In this country, too, we have great distilleries of spirits which make immense quantities of alcohol, and our law permits the mixing of different spirits, under what is known as the rectifiers' clause of the internal-revenue law, which says that anyone who "mixes without rectifying" these spirits and makes a spurious whisky or gin or brandy shall be deemed to be a rectifier and must take out a rectifier's license. So that the law specifically says in this country that every mixed whisky is a spurious imitation of whisky. That is the act of Congress of the United States, a pretty good authority when it comes to definitions of that kind.

I said to the Secretary that in my opinion, if I were enforcing the law about whiskies coming to this country--I am not; I have simply tried to get all the information I could, and I did not want to begin to enforce a law without knowing what I was doing--I believed I could exclude from this country, under our law, any of these rectified whiskies which were offered.

At that time, while I was in London, they were about to begin a great trial, which it was said would be the greatest trial that ever took place in that city in regard to a manufactured product, in which a publican had been cited under the English foods act for selling a bottle of whisky which was not of the character, quality, and kind demanded. That is the language of the English food act, and a very good one it is. That one sentence is the whole essence of the act.

This publican was cited to appear. He was defended by the greatest lawyer in England, Mr. Frederick Moulton, the leader of the English bar; and I was told that $50,000 (Ј10,000) had been raised simply to pay the legal expenses of the defense. This poor publican was worth nothing, but he was the man who was charged with this offense, and this great rectifying industry was behind him. They wanted to establish the fact that a rectified whisky was a Scotch whisky; and that was what this suit was brought for, to show that it was not. I was asked to go over there as a witness, and of course I could not go; but they introduced my report to the Court, which the judge promptly ruled out unless they produced me.

Yesterday, after I left the committee, I got this cablegram from London: "Wiley, Agricultural Department, Washington. Whisky defendants convicted." And it is the best news I have had across the ocean in my opinion, for a long time.

MR. MANN: Did you not see the account in the newspapers?

DR. WILEY: Yes, this morning; but this came yesterday.

Now, I want to say, Mr. Chairman, that I have not the least opposition to rectified whisky. I will admit, for the sake of argument, that it is better than the straight whisky. I. will admit it for the sake of the argument; I do not really think so, but I will say that it is better. That is what the magistrate said. I got the printed proceedings of the trial as they came off every week; they sent out a. bulletin, and they had expert witnesses to testify that the rectified whisky was less injurious, had less poisonous matter in it than the straight whisky, and the magistrate said: "Well, perhaps that is true. If so, why not say 'This is a rectified whisky'? because then you will get the trade."

MR. RYAN: But that was not the question at issue in that case, was it?

DR. WILEY: That was not the question at issue. The question was whether a spirit that had any Indian corn spirit in it was a Scotch whisky or an Irish whisky.

MR. RYAN: That was it?

DR. WILEY: Yes, sir.

MR. BARTLETT: It was sold as Scotch or Irish whisky?

DR. WILEY: It was sold as Scotch or Irish whisky.

MR. BARTLETT: And it turned out to be a rectified whisky.

MR. RYAN: The extract of corn is what they objected to?

DR. WILEY: Yes--spirit made from Indian corn. That covers this whole contention.