FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
81 
whom and your State’s Attorney, and 
who try the cases in violation of the law, 
will be able to handle it intelligently, in¬ 
stead of having to rely upon a chemist’s 
test to enforce the law. 
Mr. Hamlin: It seems to be a very 
simple matter. We have adopted a law 
which the Supreme Court has held to be 
good; not only this organizaton, but ev¬ 
ery other organization of citrus growers 
in the State of Florida have adopted and 
sanctioned the same thing. A part of that 
bill says that immature citrus fruit shall 
not be shipped. Now, here comes a bill 
that is introduced before us now, to de¬ 
fine what immature citrus fruit shall be— 
that is all that it amounts to. Now, 
then, it seems to me that it is inconsis¬ 
tent of us, after adopting a bill which 
says that, to vote against a bill that says 
you shall provide some test for it to see 
what condition a citrus fruit is in. It 
seems to me it is inconsistent—I don’t 
know whether I am for or against the 
bill, but it seems to me to be a common- 
sense view to furnish some standard of 
some kind. Of course, Mr. Chairman 
and gentlemen, you all know how difficult 
it is to frame a bill that will pass the test 
of court. 
■ ' The bill that we have voted in favor of 
endorsing has passed that test, both in 
the Circuit Courts and in the Supreme 
Court of this State, and those very same 
parties who believe just as Judge Stewart 
idoes, are testing it, and propose to go to 
the Supreme Court of the United States 
on the ground that no test is provided in 
that bill. That is the “nigger in the 
fwood pile.” 
Mr. Chase: Judge Stewart stated, I 
think very truthfully, that if we adopt 
chemical standards defining citrus fruit 
maturity, we would throw the question 
into the hands of experts. 
When I was in Washington, on the 
Florida rate case, we had experts on the 
side of the railroad, who proved they 
were losing big money on the fruit they 
handled out of Florida. The attorney 
who represented the Association, turned 
to me and said: “You know, liars are 
divided into two classes—liars, damn liars 
and experts.” 
I think it would be a great mistake to 
adopt a chemical standard defining what 
is immature citrus fruit. When decision 
133, of the Pure Foods and Drugs Act, 
was passed, I wrote to Dr. Wiley and 
asked him to please let me know when 
an orange ceased to be immature and be¬ 
came mature. He wrote back: “I can¬ 
not do it—nobody else can.” * He ad¬ 
vised me to go to Washington, which I 
did, and appeared before the Pure Food 
Commission and we talked the matter 
over the entire morning, and they said, 
“You people will have to decide; there is 
no chemical test possible, because there 
are other elements besides citric acid 
which go to make the mature fruit. You 
must take into consideration the elements 
which combine to make the flavors we 
enjoy.” 
The California people have to operate 
under Decision 133. I do not know 
whether the growers would like to hear 
it or not, but it has a clause in there pro¬ 
viding for certain varieties which mature 
earlier than other varieties, although the 
