by Deborah Blum
Newspaper coverage made it clear: All newspapers quoted are from a clippings file, Wiley Papers, box 229, folder 1908.
The chorus of public dismay: James Harvey Young, “Two Hoosiers and the Food Laws of 1906,” Indiana Magazine of History 88, no. 4 (1992): 303–19.
That same December: Harvey W. Wiley, The Influence of Preservatives and Artificial Colors on Digestion and Health, vol. 5, Formaldehyde (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1908), https://archive.org/details/influenceoffoodp84wile_3.
a “violent poison”: Wiley, Influence of Preservatives and Artificial Colors, p. 30.
Wiley also could take: Anderson, Health of a Nation, pp. 234–35.
For some years, magazines: “Booming the Borax Business,” Journal of the American Medical Association 49, no. 14 (October 5, 1907): 1191–92; “Preservatives and Press Agents,” Journal of the American Medical Association 303, no. 1 (January 6, 2010): p. 81 (reprint of January 1, 1910, article).
It surprised neither: James C. Whorton, Before Silent Spring: Pesticides and Public Health in Pre-DDT America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1974), pp. 106–8.
“You will find it”: James Harvey Young, “The Science and Morals of Metabolism,” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 23, no. 1 (January 1968): p. 97.
“slight modifications in”: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Referee Board of Consulting Experts, The Influence of Sodium Benzoate on the Nutrition and Health of Man (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1909), pp. 9–13.
“hot, dry New England”: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Influence of Sodium Benzoate, pp. 88–90.
Preservative makers declared: Smith, Pure Ketchup, pp. 97–103.
“a first class fight”: Young, “Science and Morals of Metabolism,” p. 100.
“[T]his decision of”: E. E. Smith, MD, “Benzoate of Soda in Foods,” Journal of the American Medical Association 52 , no. 11 (March 13, 1909): p. 905.
“If you could see”: Anderson, Health of a Nation, p. 218.
Wilson was unmoved: Literary Digest 38 (March 20, 1909): pp. 463–64; J. F. Snell, “Chemistry in Its Relation to Food,” Journal of the Chemical Industry 28 (January 30, 1909): pp. 52–53.
Wiley thought again: Harvey Washington Wiley, An Autobiography (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1930), pp. 241–43.
Chapter Twelve: Of Whiskey and Soda
“I expect to give Dr. Wiley”: Oscar E. Anderson Jr., The Health of a Nation: Harvey W. Wiley and the Fight for Pure Food (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958), p. 224.
But the sitting president: Nicholas Lemann, “Progress’s Pilgrims: Doris Kearns Goodwin on T.R. and Taft,” New Yorker, November 18, 2013, www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/11/18/progresss-pilgrims; Doris Kearns Goodwin, The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and the Golden Age of Journalism (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2013), pp. 605–21.
Roosevelt had quietly tried: H. Parker Willis, “What Whiskey Is,” McClure’s, April 1910, pp. 687–99.
“[T]he term ‘whiskey’”: Willis, “What Whiskey Is,” p. 696.
In response, Taft asked: James Files, “Hiram Walker and Sons and the Pure Food and Drug Act” (master’s thesis, University of Windsor, 1986), pp. 84–89.
“reminiscent of a German”: Willis, “What Whiskey Is,” p. 697.
“The evidence shows”: Willis, “What Whiskey Is,” pp. 693–95.
In late May, Bowers: Harvey Washington Wiley, An Autobiography (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1930), pp. 257–59; memo, Harvey Wiley to Frederick Dunlap, October 2, 1909, Harvey Washington Wiley Papers, Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, box 71 (“My opinion of the letter of Mr. Hough, addressed to the commissioner of the IRS, is that Mr. Hough will use every effort in his power to protect the adulterers and debasers of distilled spirits from receiving the penalty they should under the law.”).
“drugs and oils and colors”: Willis, “What Whiskey Is,” p. 698.
Less openly, Taft also: The background on Taft’s inquiry about the legality of the Remsen Board and the suppression of the findings comes from congressional testimony during hearings held by U.S. senator Ralph Moss of Indiana in August 1911. Full coverage of the hearing can be found in a report from the U.S. Senate, “The Referee Board,” Expenditures in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Report No. 249 (Moss Hearings), 62nd Cong., Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, January 22, 1912.
“I do not think”: “The Remsen Board’s Opinion,” New York Times, August 6, 1911, p. 8.
“I consider there is”: Harvey Wiley to George McCabe and Frederick Dunlap, memo, July 2, 1909, Wiley Papers, box 71.
a “ludicrous recommendation”: George McCabe to Harvey Wiley and Frederick Dunlap, memo, July 6, 1909, Wiley Papers, box 71.
Many of their disagreements: By the fall of 1909, the departmental warfare among Wiley, Dunlap, and McCabe was ceaseless, at least judging by the memos archived at the Library of Congress. And Wiley’s tone was shifting from outrage to resignation. Two examples: On October 30, 1909, Dunlap rejects Wiley’s concern about phosphoric acid as a health issue and demands evidence. On November 9, 1909, Wiley’s response begins, “I have no time to hunt up information to convince you that articles are injurious to health. It is too much of a task.” On December 21, 1909, Wiley writes to Dunlap, “I regret that I have no time to expound all the reasons which lead me to believe that the addition of a substance to foods which is not a food and which takes no part in nutrition need not be proved absolutely harmful before it can be excluded under the law.” Wiley Papers, box 71.
“If sodium acetate is”: Frederick Dunlap to Harvey Wiley, memo, July 15, 1909, Wiley Papers, box 71.
“I have not time”: Harvey Wiley to Frederick Dunlap, memo, August 2, 1909, Wiley Papers, box 71.
In another dispute: C. D. Regier, “The Struggle for Federal Food and Drug Regulation,” Law and Contemporary Problems 1 (1933): pp. 11–12.
The battle over sodium: Andrew E. Smith, Pure Ketchup: A History of America’s National Condiment (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2011), pp. 105–13; Samuel F. Hopkins, “What Has Become of Our Pure Food Law?” Hampton’s Magazine 24, no. 1 (January 1910): 232–42.
In anticipation of: Anderson, Health of a Nation, pp. 228–32.
But the standoff between: “Injunction Granted in Favor of Benzoate of Soda,” American Food Journal 4, no. 4 (April 15, 1909): pp. 15–16; the decision is outlined in the legal record of the ruling, Curtice Brothers v. Harry E. Barnard et al., United States Circuit Court of Appeals, 4:2987–3043, National Archives Great Lakes Region, Chicago.
“It must be evident”: William Williams Keen, “The New Pure Food Catsup,” National Food Magazine 28, no. 1 (July 1910): pp. 108–9.
Wilson knew that Ladd: Smith, Pure Ketchup, pp. 105–13; Clayton Coppin and Jack High, The Politics of Purity: Harvey Washington Wiley and the Origins of Federal Food Policy (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999), pp. 128–32.
Just weeks earlier: Suzanne Rebecca White, “Chemistry and Controversy: Regulating the Use of Chemicals in Foods, 1883–1959” (PhD diss., Emory University, 1994), pp. 127–34.
“I am utterly hostile”: “Bleached Flour Men Try to Get Wilson Reversed,” American Food Journal 4, no. 3 (March 15, 1909): p. 25.
“This can come only”: Anderson, Health of a Nation, pp. 220–22.
Despite agreeing to seizures: Anderson, Health of a Nation, pp. 220–22.
He moved to block: Suppressed documents are listed in Harvey W. Wiley, The History of a Crime Against the Food Law (Washington, DC: self-published, 1929), pp. 62–64.
“I regret that I shall”: Harvey Wiley to R. U. Johnson, September 13, 1909, Wiley Papers, box 71.
“James Wilson, secretary”: “Pure Food Feud Nearing a Climax,” Chicago Tribune, August 26, 1909, p. 4.
&n
bsp; “a bear pit”: Anderson, Health of a Nation, p. 230.
“As the inside facts”: “Politics Reign at the Agriculture Department,” Los Angeles Herald, September 3, 1909, p. 3.
“We fully smashed the”: Ronak Desai, “James Wilson, Harvey Wiley and the Bureau of Chemistry: Examining the ‘Political’ Dimensions of the Administration and Enforcement of the Pure Food and Drugs Act 1906–1912” (student paper, Harvard Law School, May 2011), p. 29, https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/8592146.
“low class fellow”: Desai, “James Wilson, Harvey Wiley and the Bureau of Chemistry.”
“foe to fakers”: Dennis B. Worthen, “Lyman Frederick Kebler (1863–1955): Foe to Fakers,” Journal of the American Pharmacists Association 50, no. 3 (May–June 2010): pp. 429–32, www.japha.org/article/S1544-3191(15)30834-7/abstract.
The indiscriminate use of: Lyman F. Kebler, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Habit-Forming Agents: Their Indiscriminate Sale and Use a Menace to Public Welfare (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1910), https://archive.org/details/CAT87202997; “Medicated Soft Drinks,” 1910 Report of the Bureau of Chemistry, U.S. Department of Agriculture, p. 156; and backgrounder on “so-called soft drinks” by Harvey W. Wiley for James Wilson, Wiley Papers, box 208. The issue had also been gaining some public health attention, as seen in “Drugged ‘Soft’ Drinks: The Food Law Has Partly Revealed Their Character,” New York Times, July 7, 1909, p. 8.
“representing 300,000,000 glasses”: “All Doubts About Coca-Cola Settled,” National Druggist, August 1908, p. 274.
he was especially wary: Coca-Cola Company, “The Chronicle of Coca-Cola: The Candler Era,” January 1, 2012, www.coca-colacompany.com/stories/the-chronicle-of-coca-cola-the-candler-era; Mark Pendergrast, For God, Country & Coca-Cola (New York: Basic Books, 2013), pp. 45–66.
The U.S. Army in 1907: Stephen B. Karch, A Brief History of Cocaine (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2005), p. 126.
Wiley, who, as his colleagues: White, “Chemistry and Controversy,” pp. 134–39.
“I am not a believer”: Harvey Wiley to James Wilson, October 28, 1909, Wiley Papers, box 71.
“highly objectionable both”: Harvey Wiley to George McCabe, November 2, 1909, Wiley Papers, box 71. (The memo also argues that “an effort should be made to stop traffic in this dangerous beverage.”)
They got support from: White, “Chemistry and Controversy,” p. 139.
“Coca-Cola is one of”: Harvey Wiley to James Wilson, November 13, 1909, Wiley Papers, box 71.
“there is much”: Wiley to Wilson, November 13, 1909.
“What I did say”: “Dr. Wiley Throws a Stone at Our Industry and Then Runs,” American Bottler, December 1909, p. 182.
What he didn’t mention: Pendergrast, For God, Country & Coca-Cola, pp. 107–9.
“I was, of course”: Wiley, An Autobiography, pp. 261–63.
“contains an alkaloidal”: Pendergrast, For God, Country & Coca-Cola, pp. 109–10.
“It is remarkable”: Wiley, An Autobiography, pp. 261–63.
On October 21, 1909: United States v. Forty Barrels and Twenty Kegs of Coca-Cola, 241 U.S. 265 (1916), http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/241/265.html.
“Taft Whisky,” which would: Bob Eidson, “The Taft Decision,” Bourbon Review, February 17, 2014, www.gobourbon.com/the-taft-decision/.
On December 26 the president: Wiley, An Autobiography, pp. 257–59; Michael Veach, “20th Century Distilling Papers at the Filson,” Filson Newsmagazine 7, no. 4 (no date), www.filsonhistorical.org/archive/news_v7n4_distilling.html.
“Whiskey appears to be”: H. Parker Willis, “What Whiskey Is,” McClure’s, April 1910, pp. 698–99.
“What do you think”: Wiley, An Autobiography, p. 258.
“What I fear is”: A. O. Stanley (Glenmore Distilleries) to Harvey Wiley, January 14, 1910, Wiley Papers, box 81.
“that neutral spirits, which”: Alice Lakey to Harvey Wiley, January 12, 1910, Wiley Papers, box 81. Wiley too was deeply unhappy. He prepared a rebuttal, should the occasion occur again, arguing strongly for the old classifications of whiskey: whiskey folder, 1908–1910, Wiley Papers, box 209.
“We believe that”: from Alice Lakey to Detroit News, January 12, 1910, Wiley Papers, box 81. This letter is also cited in “Pure Food Progress,” Collier’s, March 12, 1912, p. 3.
“It is a very”: Alice Lakey to Harvey Wiley, January 12, 1910, Wiley Papers, box 81.
“There is but little”: Harvey Wiley to Alice Lakey, January 22, 1910, Wiley Papers, box 81.
Chapter Thirteen: The Love Microbe
In January he had promised: Wiley’s schedule, Harvey Washington Wiley Papers, Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, box 81.
That interest encouraged: Oscar E. Anderson Jr., The Health of a Nation: Harvey W. Wiley and the Fight for Pure Food (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958), p. 242.
Before the law, even: Adam Burrows, “A Palette of Our Palates: A Brief History of Food Coloring and Its Regulation” (paper submitted as a Food and Drug Law course requirement, Harvard Law School, May 2006); H. T. McKone, “The Unadulterated History of Food Dyes,” ChemMatters, December 1999, pp. 6–7.
A resulting 1907 Food: Dale Blumenthal, “Red Dye No. 3 and Other Colorful Controversies,” FDA Consumer 24 (May 1990): pp. 18–21.
McCabe decided to review: Daniel Marmion, Handbook of U.S. Colorants (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1991), pp. 11–12.
While Hesse worked: The Lexington Mill case and the first stages of litigation are described in Suzanne Rebecca White, “Chemistry and Controversy: Regulating the Use of Chemicals in Foods, 1883–1959” (PhD diss., Emory University, 1994), pp. 127–33; and William G. Panschar, Baking in America: Economic Development, vol. 1 (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1956), pp. 235–39. The first public victory was celebrated in newspaper stories such as “Bleached Flour Is Adulterated: Government Wins Important Test Case,” Sacramento Union, July 7, 1910, p. 2; and deplored in great detail in “Government Wins Bleached Flour Case,” American Food Journal 5, no. 7 (July 15, 1910): pp. 1–11.
“a blast of God’s”: and “Flour Bleachers to Be Prosecuted Pending Appeal,” American Food Journal 5, no. 8 (August 15, 1910): pp. 8–12.
Bernhard Hesse’s eighty-page: Bernhard C. Hesse, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Chemistry, Coal-Tar Colors Used in Food Products, (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1912), https://archive.org/details/coaltarcolorsuse14hess. (The report was first circulated in 1910.)
he’d named it Grasslands: Eldsley Mour, “Dr. Wiley and His Farm,” Country Life in America 28, no. 4 (August 1915): pp. 19–21.
he’d even purchased a: Harvey Washington Wiley, An Autobiography (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1930), pp. 279–80.
In late October 1910: Anderson, Health of a Nation, p. 242.
DR. WILEY WILL TAKE A BRIDE: The Tribune story and other newspaper clippings regarding the engagement can be found in Anna Wiley’s scrapbook, Wiley Papers, box 227; Wiley, An Autobiography, pp. 281–83.
“There is a shade”: James Wilson to Ira Remsen, December 11, 1910, Wiley Papers, box 189.
After the passage of the: Peter Duffy, “The Deadliest Book Review,” New York Times, January 14, 2011, www.nytimes.com/2011/01/16/books/review/Duffy-t.html.
Barely two months later: The Coca-Cola trial appears in Mark Pendergrast, For God, Country & Coca-Cola (New York: Basic Books, 2013), pp. 110–15; White, “Chemistry and Controversy,” pp. 139–47; and countless newspaper stories, including the one cited in the next note and others which can be found in the Coca-Cola clippings file, Wiley Papers, box 200. The American Food Journal’s coverage of the trial, “Coca-Cola Litigation Ends with Defeat for the Government,” April 15, 1911, pp. 10–17, provides an invaluable witness-by-witness review of the case.
McCabe began the prosecution: “Candler Cursed
Me, Says the Inspector,” Atlanta Georgian, March 4, 1911, p. 1.
Coca-Cola had also hired: Ludy T. Benjamin, “Pop Psychology: The Man Who Saved Coca-Cola,” Monitor on Psychology 40, no. 2 (2009): p. 18, www.apa.org/monitor/2009/02/coca-cola.aspx. For more about Hollingworth and the trial, it’s worth checking out Anne M. Rogers and Angela Rosenbaum, “Coca-Cola, Caffeine, and Mental Deficiency: Harry Hollingworth and the Chattanooga Trial of 1911,” Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 27 (1991): pp. 42–55, www.researchgate.net/publication/229960591_Coca-Cola_caffeine_and_mental_deficiency_Harry_Hollingworth_and_the_Chattanooga_Trial_of_1911.
“20 dopes daily”: “Coca-Cola Drinkers Suffer No Harm,” Chattanooga Daily Times, March 16, 1911, archived in Wiley Papers, Coca-Cola files, box 200.
“if the government proved”: “Coca-Cola Trial Was Only the Start,” Chattanooga Daily Times, April 30, 1911, archived in Wiley Papers, Coca-Cola files, box 200.
The defeated delegation: Referee Board of Consulting Scientific Experts, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Influence of Saccharine on the Nutrition and Health of Man, report 94 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1911).
It had come about: James Harvey Young, “Saccharin: A Bitter Regulatory Decision,” in Research in the Administration of Public Policy, ed. Frank B. Evans and Harold T. Pinkett (Washington, DC: Howard University Press, 1974), pp. 40–50.
