First let us produce the corpus delicti. The old friends of the Bureau of twenty-five years ago, who know of its struggles and passion under the assaults of the successive favorites of the Secretary of Agriculturel if still living on that most unhappy day, should come to take a long and lingering look at the form of the crucified Bureau, which they will see no more forever. And those true and tried friends of the Bureau in its twenty-five years of endeavor to secure a national food and drugs act, which it finally did on June 30th, 1906, come also, and while remembering the great victory with joy, shed a tear for the old Bureau that died on the 21st anniversary of the birth of that law. Yes, there is a corpus delicti with no shadow of doubt. Orphaned and homeless that poor law will be. No one yet knows what sort of step-father it will have. Let us hope he will be kind to the poor waif.
CAVEAT
In the following statements relating to the activities of the officials of the Department of Agriculture in securing these fundamental changes in the functions of administering the food law, there is a desire to emphasize the point that they are not of a personal character. The highest regard is felt for all these officials. Some of them are personal friends. This makes their mistakes more regretful.
The same remark applies to the Bureau of Soils. On the other hand, the Bureau of Soils, in respect to academic freedom in research and publication, and in its bizarre and thoroughly unscientific theories and its principal activities, has been from the start of a nature which has failed to commend it, both as to quality and character, to the great majority of scientific investigators. This disparagement does not affect the personnel of the Bureau, nor the late problems submitted to it.
