Feb. 21, 1901 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



121 



covering of the whole tree as explained by Prof. Lowe 

 (with the result that little or no fruit had set) showed clearly 

 that the bees, and they alone, did the mixing- of the pollen. 



At the conclusion of both addresses, both professors 

 were given a most hearty vote of thanks for the interesting 

 and valuable testimony they had produced ; and this testi- 

 mony was the more valuable because both men began these 

 experiments at the solicitation of the fruit-men, anxious to 

 show that spraying during blooming-time was not detri- 

 mental but decidedly advantageous. Verily, the bees in 

 York State have been and are being vindicated on every 

 hand. 



President Marks said he had made the statement that 

 ')5 percent of the bee-men of the State were also fruit- 

 growers. He wisht it understood that a large number, yes, 

 the majority of fruit-growers, acknowledged that the bees 

 were their best friends ; that it was only a few of the fruit- 

 men who were at variance with the bee-keepers ; that there 

 was no real tight between bee-keepers and fruit-growers. - 

 Gleanings in Bee-Culture. 



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Convention Proceedings. 



'WT^TfTs^WT? 



Report of the Proceeding-s of the 31st Annual 



Convention of the National Bee-Keepers' 



Association, held at Chicag-o, 111., 



Aug. 28, 29 and 30, 1900. 



BY DR. A. B. M.\SON, SEC. 



[Continued from pa.ge lot.) 

 r,.\ST BVKNING SESSION. 



The convention met at 7 o'clock, with Pres. Koot in the 

 chair. 



Pres. Root — The pure-food commissioner of Illinois, 

 the Hon. A. H. Jones, is present, and will address us. I 

 have askt Mr. York, the president of the Chicago Bee- 

 Keepers" Association, to introduce him. 



Mr. York — Some other States have been heard from, 

 but finally Illinois has caught up with them. For a long 

 time we workt to organize a Pure-Food Commission in this 

 State, and succeeded at the last session of the legislature, 

 when the new law was past which provides for a pure-food 

 commission. It was our pleasure at the meeting of the Chi- 

 cago Bee-Keepers' Association last December, to have with 

 us the pure-food commissioner who spoke to us and who 

 made such a very favorable impression upon us. We were 

 very thankful to have him with us then, and we assured 

 him we would stand by him in his work to put down the 

 adulteration of food, and I think I can say to him to-night 

 the same thing that we did then — we as bee keepers will co- 

 operate with him in his work, and do all we can to help him 

 ■ make it a success. It gives me very great pleasure to-night 

 to introduce to you our pure-food commissioner, the Hon. A. 

 H.Jones. [Applause.] 



ADDRESS OF PURE FOOD COMMISSIONER JONES. 



yi/r. C/iainiuin, /.adies and Ccntlenien: — 



When I look over this vast audience, and know the 

 cause in which you are gathered, it affords me pleasure to 

 be here this evening to address you : for if there is anything 

 that is dear to the human heart, it is something good to eat. 

 That is what we are all striving for, to get the very best 

 product we can ; and if there is anything better than honey 

 — real good, pure, old-fashioned honey — we have not yet 

 discovered it. [Applause.] 



There has something been said about the Illinois State 

 Pure-Food Commission ; if there is anything on the part of 

 the commission I can saj', it is also for my friend. Dr. 

 Eaton, the State Analyst ; if there is anything that will 

 build up this cause more than another, it will be the State 

 Food Commission. You have here, as I can testify, a very 

 zealous friend in Dr. Eaton. The reason why I speak of 

 that is, that all these food products come to him for analy- 

 sis, and he must pass upon them. Now, I suppose that a 

 good many of you who have been rather like good old Jacob 

 of old, wrestling with the bee-question, have not thought of 

 what a pure-food commissioner and a State analyst 



have to do. Think of it I When you look around over all 

 the vast products of the State and see what we have to en- 

 compass, it is almost beyond imagination. You can hardly 

 appreciate what we have to do ; but I want to say to you 

 that we have the fellows who are manufacturing these adul- 

 terated products — I don't care whether it is honey, I don't 

 care whether it is maple sugar, or what it may be— we have 

 them, in the State of Illinois, on the run. [Applause.] 

 And we are going to keep them on the run. [Applause.] I 

 had the pleasure last January, the latter part of it, as I rec- 

 ollect the time, of meeting with the Retail Grocers' Associ- 

 ation of this State, down at Rock Island. There were 1200 

 or 1500 of them. I want to illustrate about how we are do- 

 ing this in Illinois. After I had talkt to them for a day or 

 so — you know that is a good while— jand we had gone thru 

 the law and exhausted it, and the rulings, I said to them, 

 "Now, gentlemen of the Retail Grocers' Association of the 

 State of Illinois, if you will not prosecute under this law, 

 it is your own fault. The manufacturers of this State want 

 to give a good product. All you have to do is to say to the 

 manufacturer, ' We want a pure article, something that 

 will comply with the food laws of Illinois, and we want you, 

 upon each bill that you send us, to make the statement, that 

 these goods were manufactured in conformity with the food 

 law of Illinois.' " And that pretty generally has been re- 

 quired, so that to-day, I don't care whether it is baking 

 powder, I don't care whether it is maple syrup, or what the 

 article is, we don't have very much trouble now. 



I said to them, " If you do this, gentlemen ; if you see 

 that that is done, and then it proves to be an impure article, 

 we will then prosecute the manufacturers and not the re- 

 tailers." 



What was the result? I will give you a little inside 

 history of it, the secret history on the quiet — don't want 

 you to say anything about it to those baking-powder people 

 or any of them, how we managed it. In the first place, the 

 first people who objected to this were the Royal Baking Pow- 

 der people ; they said, " We have been manufacturing Royal 

 Baking Powder 28 or 30 years ; now to compel us to change; 

 the label will be equal to saying to the public, our goods are 

 not as pure goods as we have been telling them all the time." 

 I went to work with Dr. McMurty, the analyst for the com- 

 pany, and showed him wherein it was to their interest. I 

 told him. "We feel confident the Royal Baking Powder is 

 one of the best preparations; " and I also said, " You sell 

 for 30 or 40 cents a can ; and the powders with alum in sell 

 for 25 and 30 cents. This is to your interest ; the others 

 who have been manufacturing cheap powders have been 

 palming it off on the buyer. This ruling that every article 

 should be stampt or labeled according to what it really con- 

 tains, as for instance, bakin'g powder, is in the interest of 

 the best article. If yours is the best article, you want to 

 uphold the hands of the commission." He went away, 

 said he did not know about it ; he would go back and re- 

 port. 



In about 5 or 6 weeks he came back — or, rather, he sent 

 Mr. Boyesen, an attorney here in Chicago, to us and he 

 came in with a letter from Dr. McMurty, stating that they 

 had accepted our ruling, and they wanted to uphold the 

 commission and they wanted us to make every other com- 

 pany label and carry out the law as our ruling required. I 

 wondered why it was they had changed their ideas, and I 

 askt Mr. Boyesen, and he said, " The fact is, we tried to sell 

 it without that on the label, and the retailers would not buy 

 it." 



Now, wherever we have the retailers back of us, there 

 is no trouble at all in this State. I want to say to you, we 

 have the retailers of the State back of us, and we have had 

 so far with all of these companies no trouble. You see 

 what it led to. Here in Illinois they come to us— the larger 

 cities, and especiaUy in Chicago — saying, "Here, you are 

 ruining our trade. We have had a good trade in syrups 

 and honey and all that ; we have been able, by making 

 these ' blinds' or mixtures to sell, to compete; if we don't 

 do it, we can't compete with these cheap fellows." We said 

 to them, when they came to the office, " The cheaper fellows 

 have to get out of the road ; we are going to have nothing 

 but the pure article ; when it comes to maple syrup, it has 

 to be maple syrup, nothing else goes on the label ; and 

 when vre find any manufacturer that is making maple 

 syrup that is not pure, we will prosecute him for it. That 

 has not been the ruling. If they want to manufacture 

 maple syrup and put anything in, let them label it partly 

 glucose, and then it will be all right. It is the same way in 

 regard to honey or to any food product, and when the con- 

 sumer wants to purchase, he knows what he is doing. He 

 inows what he is getting and he pays for what he gets. 



