A™ovJemberi9iu'{     How  Food  Preservatives  Affect  Health.  507 
poisoning.  Unless  the  public  demanded  more,  none  but  delayed 
goods  would  require  the  use  of  preservatives,  and  they  would  be 
added  before  the  food  had  had  a  chance  to  begin  its  decay.  In  con- 
sequence of  such  treatment  it  would  reach  the  market  in  a  perfectly 
fresh  and  safe  condition.  Such  food  could  be  marketed  as  preserved 
food  and  left  to  the  law  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest  to  settle  its 
fate.  Legislation  that  forbids  this  sort  of  saving  of  food  threatened 
with  decay  puts  a  premium  on  deception  and  encourages  packers 
and  others  to  put  upon  the  market  goods  that  appear  all  right,  but 
that  are  laden  with  death  and  suffering.  They  throw  away  the 
least  deadly,  because  no  one  will  buy  it,  but  they  sell  the  most 
deadly,  because  they  know  that  even  food  experts  cannot  tell  but 
that  it  is  all  right.  Somebody  knew  that  it  was  delayed  away  from 
refrigeration,  and  could  have  saved  its  slaughter  of  human  beings 
but  for  vicious  law. 
"  But,"  you  ask,  "  are  not  preservatives  harmful  ?  "  What  if  they 
are  ?  No  living  being  dare  assert  that  they  ever  did  the  harm  that 
decayed  food  has  done.  Because  they  might  do  a  little  injury,  is 
that  any  reason  why  they  should  not  be  permitted  to  save  hundreds 
of  lives  ?  What  injury  have  our  most  frequently-used  preservatives 
ever  done  ?  Can  you  find  a  single  recorded  case  of  a  human  being 
having  been  injured  by  preserved  foods  ?  No  one  has  yet  suc- 
ceeded in  finding  such  a  case.  Salicylic,  benzoic  and  boric  acids, 
with  their  salts,  have  been  in  use  for  over  twenty  years,  and  no  one 
can  point  to  the  record  of  a  single  person  having  been  maimed  or 
killed  by  any  article  of  food  containing  them.  Thousands  have 
been  killed  and  thousands  more  tortured  through  having  used  food 
that  should  have  been,  but  was  not,  protected  by  these  chemicals. 
Has  it  ever  occurred  to  you  to  ask  the  grounds  upon  which  the 
opposition  to  preservatives  is  maintained  ?  Do  you  know  that  in 
all  the  swearing  in  our  courts  by  witnesses  against  preservatives,  it 
is  done  on  purely  theoretic  grounds  ?  Do  you  know  that  the 
theory  is  an  old  one  of  a  generation  ago,  that  no  living  authority 
now  dares  to  maintain  ?  Let  me  quote  a  statement  from  the  words 
of  a  man  who  is  an  American  leader  in  this  war  against  preserva- 
tives :  «'  There  is  no  preservative  which  paralyzes  the  ferments  which 
create  decay  that  does  not  at  the  same  time  paralyze  to  the  same 
extent  the  ferments  that  produce  digestion.  The  very  fact  that  any 
substance  preserves  food  from  decay  shows  that  it  is  not  fit  to 
