iyS  Information  on  Detained  Imports.  {Am'_lp^\'f9h^m' 
Association  leads  the  officers  of  that  body  to  count  upon  you  as  a 
part  of  us;  and  I  hope  that  at  this  meeting  your  organization  may 
see  fit  to  become  a  member  of  the  Metric  Association.  We  want 
you  with  us.  We  have  placed  organization  membership  at  a  low 
figure  ($10  per  annum)  to  show  that  we  primarily  wish  the  moral 
support  of  friendly  organizations.  In  passing,  I  might  point  out 
that  some  organizations — The  National  Wholesale  Grocers  Associa- 
tion, and  the  Philadelphia  Bourse,  for  instance,  have  gone  further 
than  mere  membership,  each  of  these  bodies  giving  us  a  $50  dona- 
tion. 
And  now  I  think  I  hear  some  of  you  saying :  "  But  what's  behind 
the  whole  thing? "  In  answer  I  will  say  that  the  organization  of  the 
Metric  Association  is  a  tangible  expression  of  the  opinion  of  prac- 
tical men — engineers,  chemists,  grocers,  druggists,  merchants  and  a 
sprinkling  of  those  "theoretical  fellers,"  the  teachers — that  now  is 
the  psychological  moment  to  throw  over  the  archaic  standards  with 
which  we  have  been  wrestling  all  these  years  and  to  turn  to  the  inter- 
national language  of  commerce,  The  Metric  System.  We,  who  ap- 
preciate the  value  of  the  metric  system,  must  educate  our  business 
friends,  who  do  not  yet  understand  its  time-saving  and  its  trade- 
getting  qualities ;  and  when  these  qualities  are  understood  the  tran- 
sition from  the  old  units  to  the  new  will  be  easily  accomplished. 
The  officers  of  the  Metric  Association  are  a  unit  in  the  opinion 
that  metric  education  must  precede  metric  legislation.  But  they 
also  believe  that  their  metric  propaganda  plus  the  international  calls 
of  to-day  will  surely  result  in  bringing  all  practical  Americans  to  a 
realization  of  the  fact  that  it  is  high  time  for  this  country  of  ours  to 
throw  off  the  shackles  of  an  Elizabethan  set  of  standards  and  to  add 
our  110,000,000  people  to  the  437,000,000  already  using  the  metric 
system. 
PUBLICATION  OF  INFORMATION  ON  DETAINED 
IMPORTS  OF  FOOD  AND  DRUGS  AT  PORTS 
OF  ENTRY. 
The  Bureau  of  Chemistry,  Department  of  Agriculture,  gave  a 
public  hearing  in  the  building  of  the  Bureau  of  Chemistry  at  Wash- 
ington, D.  C,  on  Tuesday,  March  20,  1917,  at  10  a.m.,  to  consider 
the  question  of  publishing  data  on  the  detention  of  food  and  drugs 
offered  for  import  at  ports  of  entry.    Dr.  Carl  L.  Alsberg  presided. 
