The following day was one of rejoicing by the rectifiers all over the country. They felt assured that F. I. D. 45 would be repealed without carrying the matter to the courts. There was a slight error in their judgment. For two weeks subsequent to this event the newspapers were filled with accounts of pilgrimages, under the leadership mostly of United States Senators, of bodies of rectifiers to the White House. Senator Foraker conveyed the rectifiers from Cincinnati. Senator Lodge accompanied those from Boston. Senator Penrose led the Philadelphia delegation. Meanwhile I was patiently waiting word from President Roosevelt. One day while I was taking lunch at Harvey's a telephone message from my office said the President would see me at two o'clock. I had prepared a movable laboratory with all the elements necessary to manufacture ten year old Bourbon or Scotch in a minute. I carried with me samples of pure, refined alcohol from half a dozen different sources, namely from corn, barley, molasses, and fruits, all alike in character, and all of equal degree of purity. I carried an assortment of colors and flavors used by the rectifiers. When I drove up to the White House with this peripatetic laboratory, I encountered a dozen or more newspaper men who were eager to know what it all meant. I told them I had been invited to give a lecture to the President of the United States. One of the well-informed correspondents said to me: "You may think so, but you will find that the President will do the lecturing." I carried my laboratory into the President's office where I was politely received by the attendant and told that the President would soon be in. In five minutes my audience appeared, the President of the United States, and Mr. William Loeb, his secretary. For two hours I performed experiments showing the President how all kinds of rectified whisky, brandy and rum could be made in a minute. I received his undivided attention. If he interrupted me at all it was only to ask for more definite information on some points. At the close of this two hour lecture he came around to my side of the table and grasped my hand, saying to me, "Dr. Wiley, I have heard nothing but whisky for the last three weeks, and you are the first person who has ever given me a single idea that I can comprehend. Then turning to Mr. Loeb he said, "Send all these documents and samples, together with Dr. Wiley's brief to Mr. Bonaparte, and ask Mr. Bonaparte to advise me on this question." Mr Bonaparte did advise him. He sustained every single point that had been presented by the Bureau as to what is really whisky. President Roosevelt ordered the Commissioner of Internal Revenue and the Secretary of Agriculture, both of whom were friends of the rectifiers, to publish jointly a decision defining whisky in the light of evidence which had been presented. Thus ended the first attempt to violate the Food Law by a complete triumph of the law itself. The Secretary was convicted but not convinced. The breach thus made was never closed. The Secretary was irrevocably allied with the foes of the food law.
