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AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL, 



Dec. 6 1900. 



posed the intelligent eater will know when he gets poor bis- 

 cuit, and will know whether the class of the restaurant he 

 patronizes is the class he wants to patronize in order to sat- 

 isfy the cravings of his stomach, and it is not necessary to 

 have a great number of labels stuck up all over the State, 

 in various places where people eat, in order to execute the 

 law. The Brosius Bill simply makes it a criminal offense 

 to sell a man a thing for what it is not, just as the United 

 States makes it a criminal offense to counterfeit a dollar. I 

 have a silver dollar here in my hand. Now, the United 

 States does not throw any restraint around my counterfeit- 

 ing that silver dollar, doesn't even go so far as to explain 

 what a counterfeit of that silver dollar is, but simply says 

 in so many words, robbed of its technicality — we will let 

 some of the lawyers put the technicalities in, and I will 

 state the facts in so many words — "If you counterfeit that 

 dollar, and we catch you at it, we will put you behind the 

 prison bars." That is all ; it doesn't lay any restraints, or 

 say this thing, or that thing, or the other. 



What is the use of enacting laws all over the country, 

 in all the various States of the Union, that you shall not 

 color a thing green, or that you shall not color it black, or 

 it shall not be this color or that color ; shall not be made to 

 look like this thing or that thing. What is the use of that ? 

 What advantage is there in it? It is ol" advantage to a 

 man who wants to sell something that is of the color that 

 this other thing might be, of course : but that isn't what the 

 Legislature is for ; that isn't what laws are for ; laws are 

 to look after the common interest of all the people, not a 

 few of the people, or half oi the people, but all of the peo- 

 ple. The only law we need in the shape of pure-food legis- 

 lation is to make it a criminal offense to sell anything for 

 what it is not. 



If I come into your store and ask you for a pound of 

 honey, and you give me a half pound of glucose and a half 

 pound of honey, and you know it when you give it to me, 

 and charge me for a pound of honey, you are a thief and 

 a criminal, and you ought to be in the penitentiary. [Ap- 

 plause.] That is clear; you all understand that; there 

 isn't any scientific phraseology about that, but what you 

 can get thru your heads ; that is clear and plain. A man 

 who sells a thing for what it is not is a thief, a robber, 

 and a criminal, and ought to be so treated ; it doesn't make 

 any difference whether he sells a carload of glucose or IS 

 cents worth of ice-cream, he is as much a criminal in one 

 case as in the other ; it is the intention and the theory 

 which it embraces ; that is all there is to it, and that is why 

 we want you to support the Brosius Bill. 



We thrasht the ground all over, fought the battle time 

 and again, and simply settled down to this one proposition, 

 that every man who pays his money for an article is en- 

 titled to get the thing that he experts to get when he gives 

 his money. You trade a horse for a cow. Suppose the 

 man should give you a donkey, and the donkey should be 

 worth more than the cow that you were to get ; but per- 

 chance you wanted the cow that you might milk her, and 

 he would run in a S40 donkey instead of a S20 cow, and you 

 or your wife would go out to get some milk at night — there 

 would be trouble ; not because you had been defrauded of 

 your money. There might be reasons why the cow would 

 be worth S40 to you, while she wouldn't bring more than 

 $20 in the market. 



Now, then, you ask me what you can do to help bring 

 this about. I have already hinted what you can do ; you 

 can do a great deal ; you can do more than you think you 

 can. When I was a boy about 16 years old, I used to think 

 that I would just give my eyes to look at the president. I 

 thought if I could see a congressman it would be a wonder ; I 

 felt a certain kind of awe and a certain kind of reverence 

 for them, and sometimes would step a little higher over the 

 ground when I was talking about governors and presidents, 

 and congressmen, than I did when I was talking about ordi- 

 nary citizens and clodhoppers like I was myself, plowing 

 corn. But after awhile I began to come in contact with 

 these men ; after awhile I had seen a governor or two, and 

 they didn't look quite so magnificent as I thought they 

 would — they had ordinary common mustaches, and some- 

 times their hats were good and sometimes they were not ; 

 sometimes they had on boots, and sometimes they did not ; 

 and sometimes they were kind of sleepy looking, and some- 

 times pretty sleek. I sized them up, and I said: "You 

 are kind of human anyway, a little animal like myself; 

 may be you have a little more possibly than I have, but you 

 are an animal just the same as I am, anyway, and have all 

 the animal propensities that other clodhoppers have." 



After awhile I saw a president or two, and I began to 

 have that same kind of feeling ; after I had seen a good 



many congressmen I felt more and more that way ; but I 

 went up to Washington a few times, and I went into the 

 legislative halls and I saw those men. I heard them talk, I 

 met them face to face ; I came in contact with them, and I 

 discovered that they were men just like other men ; they 

 didn't know a great deal more than the average bee-keeper ; 

 they were susceptible to influences just like the average 

 bee-keeper, and if they were good congressmen they made 

 it a point to do the thing that their constituents wanted 

 done, and they devoted as much time as they could to the 

 interests of their constituents, and that they had to learn 

 to be congressmen. 



If this were a political meeting I would make a sugges- 

 tion, and I will make it anyway if it is not. That is, don't 

 forget the fact that it takes a man a little while to learn to 

 be a congressman ; it doesn't matter much about his poli- 

 tics. If you want him to be heard in Washington, see that 

 he stays there a little while ; don't send a new man every 

 time there is an election; that isn't politics; but it is 

 common sense. I have been up there ; I know men 

 who have gone there and staid 20 years. A man died while 

 I was in Washington the last time ; he had been in the 

 House 20 years, and every man lifted his hat reverentially 

 when he spoke his name. Twenty years of faithful service 

 in the House ! A congressman said to me, " When that 

 man arose to talk they listened whether he had anything to 

 say or not. He always had something to say because he 

 had been there so long, because he knew what to say and 

 when to say it." 



But to go back to my subject : All you have to do if 

 you want your congressman to do anything is to talk com- 

 mon sense to him. If you want a hired hand of yours to 

 plow your field a certain way, and cut the furrow so wide, 

 and make it so deep, and turn the grass over just so, why, 

 you simply tell him, " I want this field plowed so and so," 

 and he plows it that way. Go to your congressman when 

 you get home — it won't hurt if you call him John, treat 

 him just as you would your hired hand, that is all he is ; 

 we just pay him for doing the business. I often say to my 

 wife about the man who does my little banking — I don't 

 have much, and he is a millionaire several times over — I 

 say, " I have got him hired to take care of the few dollars 

 I have up there, and he is looking after it." Look at your 

 congressman that way, with that kind of feeling, and make 

 him understand that you mean something when you talk to 

 him, and that you mean if he doesn't look after your inter- 

 ests, and do the things he ought to do, you will see that he 

 doesn't go back there any more, without regard to politics ; 

 don't believe because he is a congressman, is a republican 

 and you are a democrat, that he won't listen to you. If you 

 are a republican and your congressman is a democrat, he will 

 listen quicker ; he wants to convince you, and vice versa. I 

 tell you that they want to hear from their constituents, and 

 they are just like a thermometer — they will bob up and 

 down with the change in the weather when they hear from 

 the people, just like the mercury bobs up and down when a 

 cold norther comes sweeping in, and the temperature 

 changes suddenly; they are just like thermometers, and 

 they are very responsive, too. I presume I am not 

 revealing any secrets ; I am not telling a good many of you 

 people anything new. 



As Dr. Mason says, " If you don't believe what I am say- 

 ing, just try it." 



But now I think I have talkt long enough. It was not 

 my intention to give you information or anything, but 

 simply to make you think about the importance of this 

 pure-food legislation. I would like to stand here and talk 

 to you for a solid hour about the terrible curse of food adul- 

 teration. I will say just this much, that we have gone mad 

 and crazy on the Almighty Dollar. The world has lost 

 sight of grand moral principles and has given itself over to 

 one grand scramble for money and gain [Applause]. And 

 unfortunately we have all been so influenced that, 

 the moment anything is broacht, we all stand up and say, 

 " What is there in it for me ?" Now, friends, we must get 

 beyond that, and rise higher than that, and feel that 

 life means something more than that. I believe in money ; 

 I get all the money I can, and I don't blame any man for 

 doing it; in fact, I condemn the man who does not lay up 

 something for his old age. I think it is wrong for many 

 men to be poor. Many people squander their money, and 

 they are criminal in the sight of God Almighty when they 

 do it, for they leave their families to suffer on account of 

 their squandering money when they ought to keep it and 

 provide for those that God has entrusted to their care. Let 

 us not live for that alone ; let us not give our whole lives to 

 the accumulation of a few paltry dollars, but let us feel 



