Dr. WILEY. If it is mixed, or changed in any way whereby a valuable property is taken out or a less valuable property inserted, it is adulterated. The definition applies to an inferior article, something that is made inferior by adulteration. A thing which improves a body or substance and makes it better than it was before is not defined in this law.

Mr. HILL. That would be defined as a mixture, perhaps. Perhaps the word "adulteration means a deterioration.

Dr. WILEY. It does. It is a deterioration.

Mr. HILL. But a mixture might make it better?

Dr. WILEY. Oh, yes. You could mix a good thing with a bad thing and make the bad thing better; but you can not mix it without making the good thing worse. So I say that if this step is taken you have entered upon a career which means the absolute negation of the whole food law from beginning to end, as far as adulteration is concerned. You make simply a labeling law.

Mr. OLDFIELD. I think the contention here is that they are mixing two good things.

Mr. FORDNEY. Yes.

Dr. WILEY. I could not hear your suggestion.

Mr. FORDNEY. The gentleman says that mixing wheat flour and corn flour, as they contend, is the mixing of two good things. Dr. WILEY. Well, one of them is better than the other.

Mr. FORDNEY. Which of the two is the better?

Dr. WILEY. Wheat flour.

Mr. MOORE. Your position is unchanged to-day from what it was in 1898, when you were Chief of the Bureau of Chemistry? Dr. WILEY. It has changed a little; it is more firm.

Mr. MOORE. As I recall it, you were a single man then.

Dr. WILEY. I am glad that you have found out the cause of the change.

Mr. MOORE. I would like to call your attention to the letter you wrote to Mr. Augustine Gallagher on February 15, 1898. Do you recall such a letter?

Dr. WILEY. Well, I do not remember it; no.

Mr. MOORE. It is in the document to which you referred.

Dr. WILEY. Yes; I judge it is in here.

Mr. MOORE. I want to get this in the record. Do you care to read it, Dr. Wiley?

Dr. WILEY. I will ask you to read it; you read more eloquently than I do.

Mr. MOORE. Thank you.

Mr. MOORE. The letter is as follows:

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE,

Mr. AUGUSTINE GALLAGHER,

National Hotel, Washington, D. C.

DIVISION OF CHEMISTRY, Washington, D. C., February 15, 1898.

DEAR SIR: In reply to your inquiry in respect to the effect of an excess of starch on the wholesomeness of bread, permit me to make the following observations:

The wholesome ration is said, in scientific language, to be a well-balanced ration that is, one in which there is a certain definite proportion existing between the starch or sugar, the protein matter, and the fat. The bread made from wheat flour contains these elements in well-balanced proportions. effect of added starch to the flour made from wheat would be to increase inordinately the proportion of starchy matter, and thus the bread made from

The

such a flour would be no longer a well-balanced ration. In order to make it so, the consumer would be required to eat additional quantities of mea containing certain proportions of fat. The excess of starch in such a bread would tend to interfere with the digestion of the protein matters in the stomach, and to this extent might produce indigestion. While starch itself is not an unwholesome food, if it is eaten in too large quantities it produces derangement of the digestive organs, just as any other article of food, such as protein or fat, used in excessive quantities would interfere with the natural processes of digestion. It is evident, therefore, that the mixture of an excess of starch with wheat flour might work serious injury to those persons who make bread their chief article of diet.

.Respectfully,

H. W. WILEY, Chief of Division.

Mr. MOORE. The views expressed in that letter in 1898 are held by you to-day?

Dr. WILEY. They are held by me to-day, but I have a great deal more scientific ground for holding them to-day than I had then, because the progress of science has strengthened my views and shown their verity in a way I shall disclose to you in a few moments. But that is a good letter if I did write it myself.

Mr. MOORE. It was well read, too, was it not, Doctor? [Laughter.] Dr. WILEY. Excellently read.

And so I want to emphasize that point, gentlemen, because I do not know that it has been brought to your attention just in this way, that this is taking a step in the wrong direction; this is taking a step in which you propose to legalize an adulteration which deteriorates the quality of one of the most important food products we have. As I was about to go on to say, if you do that with flour, the man who wants to make adulterated honey will ask the same privilege, the man who wants to make adulterated butter will say, "You can call it mixed butter if we state the amount of oleomargarin which it contains." And so on with the whole range of human food. There will not be one left; you can not deny one food product what you give to another and be consistent.

Mr. LONGWORTII. In other words, Doctor, you think that it would be less of an encouragement to adulteration to merely repeal the present law than to succeed it with this proposed bill?

Dr. WILEY. Oh, yes. If you repeal this present law, do not go any further than just that. I think it would be a mistake to do that, because it has worked very well, and I am opposed to its repeal; but it would be infinitely better to repeal it and let it go by the way, and trust to the pure-food law, than it would be at the time of repeal to legalize an adulteration.

Mr. HILL. The pure-food law would not require putting on the brand the percentage of each product, would it?

Dr. WILEY. No; but it would require that they be named.

Mr. HILL. But this does

Dr. WILEY. But not in quantity.

Mr. HILL. Why, then, do you say that we would do better to repeal it entirely and trust solely to the pure-food law-and amend it so that the percentages would be named?

Dr. WILEY. I do not object to that at all.

Mr. HILL. Then you would qualify your former statement?

Dr. WILEY. I object to it because it legalizes adulteration; it says that flour is taken out of that clause and put in a separate clause, and it says it is not an adulteration, the mixing of other things with flour is not adulteration.

Mr. HILL. But it tells exactly what it is.

Dr. WILEY. I know; but the point I make is that that does not excuse nor remove the adulteration in the flour; there is just the same lack of nutrition.

Mr. MOORE. Do you think it legalizes the adulteration?

Dr. WILEY. It legalizes the adulteration. It not only permits it, but it permits the things we were doing in 1897, when there was no law; if this should become a law, it would be legalizing those things by the Congress of the United States, it would be saying that it is no offense to do this thing.

Mr. RAINEY. Would you prefer to proceed without interruption until you get through your statement?

Dr. WILEY. If I can hear you I would just as leave have questions now. Just as you like. You may ask me now or wait until

I get through.

Mr. RAINEY. I was referring particularly to questions asked you by other members.

Mr. CONRY. I suggest that the rule we adopted this morning would be the best rule to follow, that the doctor be allowed to proceed without interruption until he finishes his statement.

Mr. RAINEY. Very well. That is the best rule to follow.

Dr. WILEY. I will only occupy a few more minutes of your time, because what I have to say is right in my mind and I do not have to grope around for it at all.

Now, the next point is the dietetic point. That is the thing I want to urge most of all. You are familiar with certain dietetic diseases which ravage humanity. In fact, there are more diseases due to fault of diet than you have any idea of. There are more diseases which attack humanity by reason of fault of diet than those known as diet diseases. For instance, we do not think of tuberculosis as a diet disease, and yet it is. We do not think of pneumonia as a disease of diet, and yet to a certain extent it is. We do not know what the cause of cancer is, but I have no doubt when we do find out we will find that it is intimately related in some way with our diet.

Then there are certain diet diseases, such as scurvy, beri-beri, which is a diet disease of the Orient where polished rice is eaten, and pellagra, which is a diet disease, so proved by the investigations of the Public Health Service.

Now, it so happens that pellagra obtains in that very part of our country where most of the mixed flour will go, as we have already heard. That is, pellagra is more prevalent in the South than it is in the North, and it has long been suspected that it was a diet disease. It has been laid to Indian corn itself, as you know. A great many dietitians and physicians take the position that it was Indian corn largely which caused this trouble.

But the Public Health Service has taken this matter up experiinentally, not theoretically, but experimentally, and has gone down to where pellagra obtains so largely, and has studied the dietaries of the people who have it, and they have not only done that, but they have undertaken the cure of it by changing the dietary. Not only have they done that, but they have undertaken the production of pellagra purposely by a dietary similar to that which is eaten by those who are suffering from this disease, and they have caused pellagra in seven months by a diet of that kind.

What is the diet, now, that gives pellagra? What is it? It is an excessive carbohydrate diet in which the protein element and the mineral element are deficient.

Now, what do you propose to do by this law? You propose to legalize mixing a flour which renders it more strongly carbohydrate and sending it down to the people who are suffering from a supracarbohydrate diet and giving them more of the stuff which is now injuring their health. Do you want to do that?

Do you want to go down there among those poor mill workers and make their condition any worse than it is to-day? No. You want to safeguard their diet. You want to see at least that if they eat wheat flour they get wheat flour and not something that is more deficient in the food values which they need.

Three years ago, when I was on the circuit, as I am constantly, I went to Ames, Iowa. Being a farmer and interested in farming and farming operations, I asked to see their feeding of their live stock. The professor of animal husbandry went with me to show me his feeding experiments. The first thing we came to was a pen of pigs. I have some at home just like them. I said: "Those pigs have the mange." They were slender; they were built on the Gothic style of architecture; their hair had dropped off largely, and they were miserable-looking creatures. "No." he said; "they have not the mange.” I said: "What have they?" He said: "They have corn; they have corn. I said: "I thought corn was good for them; was good for hogs." He said: "It is good for hogs, but it is deadly for pigs. These pigs were taken away from their mother when they were 3 weeks old, and they have had nothing but corn since then, and some of them are dead, and all of them are going to die."

Now, I believe in corn and corn for human food; I have preached it. I preached it in Vienna at a great convention of scientific men. After I had told the virtues of corn bread and its use in this country, more than one distinguished man asked me in all seriousness whether it was true that the corn bread is a diet in the United States. He could hardly believe it, although I had assured them that it was. But corn is a diet on which children can not grow. If you feed your children nothing but corn bread, they will die, even the whole corn, And how much more quickly will children die if you take out of the corn you feed them about all that is suitable for food and then feed them the starchy remainder?

I tell you, gentlemen, it is a threat against the children of the South which you gentlemen ought not to permit.

Here are the documents which show that what I am speaking about is actually true, has been demonstrated by experiment, that an excessive carbohydrate diet is the cause of pellagra as well as many other diseases.

Mr. FORDNEY. May I ask what your documents are?

Dr. WILEY. They are from the Public Health Service; they are just issued-new from the press. That is my creed as it was 20 years ago, and as it is to-day.

The people of this country must have a balanced diet; they must not have any too much starch, and especially are those who are in strained circumstances likely to have too much starch. Starch is the cheapest food that we can buy. The starchier foods are always the cheaper. I will say this about one starchy food, namely, the

potato: That the potato starch does not have the same bad effects on nutrition that the starch of cereals has, and the reason of that is that the potato starch carries with it always more minerals. The potato starch is what we call a basic food; when it is digested it gives alkalinity to the blood, and the blood must be kept alkaline if we want to live. One of the most serious diseases we have is a diminution of the alkalinity of the blood, producing that condition. which is known as acidosis, and hence the foods which do not maintain the alkalinity of the body are those which will injure health and speedily make one a prey to every waiting disease that wants to put its fangs into you, because it is well known that the undernourished body is the one on which the disease fastens first of all.

Therefore any course of diet which tends to diminish the vitality of the body, that tends in any way to interfere with the development of all the tissues of the body, is a diatetic crime, and one which should not be sanctioned by the Congress of the United States.

And therefore I say that if we allow the staff of life to be attacked-and that is what we regard wheat bread in this countrythe staff of life-if we allow the staff of life to be attacked in this way we threaten the whole State.

Now, you have heard a great deal about preparedness, and I am one of the preachers of that gospel; I am one of those who believe, with our President, that this country should be prepared. But what is the greatest element that we should have in preparedness? I will tell you what it is. Healthy men and healthy women.

What is the use of calling us to arms if we are unable to bear arms? If we are not able to do the duties which as citizens of our country we should do in a crisis that may come upon us, whose fault is it? And how many of us are able to do it; how many men of military age in the United States, if they were called to the colors to-day, do you suppose would be excluded? I do not know how many would be excluded finally, but I know how many are excluded now. You only have to look at the reports of the Army and the Navy as to enlistment to see what a small percentage of those who volunteer are accepted. Look further and you will see that most of them are rejected; oh, 85 per cent of those who are rejected as unfit for military service are rejected for physical reasons. We are not building up in this country a citizenry which has the fiber to do its duty when a crisis comes, and a law of this kind will do a great deal toward diminishing still more the vitality of our people.

Now, Mr. Chairman, I have been in this fight for 40 years, a fight for the purity of foods. I have studied as well as I could all the laws of dietetics, and I want to warn you here, as one who knows something of this question, that the introduction of starch into the flour of this country is a threat to the very efficiency and welfare of the Nation, as well as the undevelopedness and the lack of resistance of each individual who eats this product. And if it is not to be eaten, if there is no market for it, there is no use of going to the trouble of making a law about it. You may rest assured that there are plenty of people in this country who will eat this adulterated article, and in eating it they will suffer just to that extent in the building up of their bodies.

You may feed a child a shipload of starch, it will never build a single iota of any tissue except fat. It will never make a fragment of tooth or bone or nerve or muscle or brain particle or skin or hair