394 Dr. Wüey's Resignation [Mar. 



A REPRESENTATIVE PROFESSIONAL ESTIMATE OF DR. WILEY'S 

 WORK AS CHIEF OF THE BUREAU OF CHEMISTRY 



Dr. Wiley's service. " Damned with faint praise f rom the 

 nation's chief executive, hampered by a reactionary departmental 

 chief who has long since outlived his usefulness, badgered by a 

 pettifogging lawyer of the night-school variety who, as a represen- 

 tative of the vicious interests, was able to nuUify or render abortive 

 efforts made in the interest of pubHc health, Dr. Wiley has given 

 up the unequal fight and handed in his resignation. Thus retires 

 from the government service one of the most useful officials this 

 country has ever had. An implacable foe of fraud and deceit, Dr. 

 Wiley has for years stood between a more or less helpless public 

 and the vested interests that have developed to a science the busi- 

 ness of adulterating foods, sophisticating drugs and in other ways 

 threatening the public health. On every debatable question regard- 

 ing the wholesomeness of foodstuffs, Dr. Wiley was consistently 

 on the side of the people; his superior officers have beeh just as 

 persistently on the side of those who have made their millions by 

 substituting cheap and often poisonous drugs for more expensive 

 but wholesome foods. Assailed from without by some of the most 

 powerful, vicious and corrupt of organizations, he was also antago- 

 nized from within by the political benehmen of the same organi- 

 zations. To Dr. Wiley more than to any other one man, the public 

 owes the Food and Drugs Act and to Dr. Wiley it also owes what- 

 ever of good has been accomplished by that act. It is to be hoped 

 that his forced retirement will result in such an upheaval of public 

 Indignation that the forces of evil at present in control of the De- 

 partment of Agriculture will be driven into political oblivion and 

 the department filled by men who hold decency above dollars, 

 probity above pelf and public health above private gain." 



Dr. Wiley's successor. *' There are two groups of people who 

 are anxiously watching and waiting to see who will be Dr. Wiley's 

 successor. In one group are the dishonest manufacturers, the food 

 adulterators, the whiskey blenders, and the fraudulent patent medi- 

 cine Promoters : those ' interests ' that are preying on the people 

 through fraud and misrepresentation in various ways. In the other 

 group are the people of the United States, and the honest manu- 



