PART II

FEDERAL PURE FOOD AND DRUGS ACT OF JUNE 30, 1906

CHAPTER II.

PURPOSE AND VALIDITY OF ACT OF 1906.

§ 83. Federal Act of June 30, 1906.

On June 30, 1906, Congress enacted a statute concerning Food and Drugs entering into Interstate Commerce that has had a far-reaching effect. Constructions by the courts have been placed upon many of the provisions of this statute, and many others have been construed by the Department of Agriculture in their practical applications to every day transactions. Not yet have all the powers conferred by the Act been fully ascertained, determined or settled, and there probably will be many debatable questions for many years yet to come. The statute has been attacked in many of its phases, and between the government and many manufacturers and importers much friction has arisen. The assumption of authority by the Department of Agriculture to condemn patent or proprietary medicines, whose proprietors claimed for them virtues or curative properties they did not possess, has met with signal defeat at the hands of the Supreme Court of the United States, which denied that the Act covered false claims concerning their curative powers. As a rule, the Department of Agriculture has been sustained by the courts in its construction and efforts to enforce the Act.

884. Purpose of Statute.

One needs go no farther than the title of the Federal Food and Drugs Act of 1906 to ascertain the purpose of the enactment of that statute. That purpose, as there declared, is to prevent "the manufacture, sale or transportation of adulterated or misbranded or poisonous or deleterious foods, drugs, medicines and liquors, and for regulating traffic therein.” The words "and for other purposes" are added to this enumeration, but they do not add to the force of the, words that precede them. Previous to the enactment of this statute, many States had enacted laws upon its subject matter, but, owing to the dual form of government under which we livethe right to ship articles of merchandise from one State to another, and its partial immunity from the laws of the State

to which it is shipped even on its arrival-these State statutes were found inadequate to thoroughly deal with the many questions of pure food and drugs that continually presented themselves. The two great purposes of this statute are "to prevent misbranding and to prohibit adulteration."" Upon the part of the consumers there was a demand for this legislation—a demand that constantly gained in force as the evils arising from the consumption of adulterated food and the use of adulterated drugs became better known; which gained impetus as the unscrupulous manufacturer, by experience, gained more and more ability every day to conceal the adulterated condition of his products, and thus deceive the public. There was a demand on the part of the consumer that he be protected from the evil results arising out of the nefarious practice of adulteration. On the part of reputable and honest manufacturers there was also a demand that their honestly made products be protected from competition of the adulterated and cheaper manufactured products. The consumer did not contemplate with much complacency the purchase of sand in his sugar or of chicory in his coffee, and the physician viewed with alarm the failure of the drug he prescribed to produce the result in his patient that his experience taught him it should produce. From these various sources arose demands for laws that would protect the consumers from these harmful practices which the Legislature in time took notice of and heeded. The purpose of the statute is, therefore, to secure to the consumer unadulterated food and drugs as far as it can reasonably be done." "Sev

1 F. I. D. 44, N. J. 543; United States v. Buffalo Cold Storage Co., 179 Fed. 865, N. J. 482.

2 "So you will see what the purpose of Congress was, and one who is desirous of knowing what the law is in that regard may not make any mistake about it. The law requires the manufacturer to be honest in his statement of the contents of the package, it requires him to

be honest in stating the truth upon the labels put upon it. That is all there is to the Act. That is what the act is intended to accomplish, and which, if properly enforced, in my judgment, it will accomplish.

It is the duty of you [as jurors] and of the Court to obey the law and to enforce it; to enforce this statute as you would enforce any other statute. But it is not out of

eral of the States within the past few years have enacted pure food statutes. Congress, June 30, 1906, enacted the statute in question. All these statutes were enacted to cure evils well nigh intolerable that had grown up during this age of greed and avarice and commercialism that has made money-getting the prime object of life with so many. The evils were such that much of the foods we ate, whether meats of any kind, including fish and poultry, or fruits in all forms, and breadstuffs, were so adulterated and 'loaded' or 'doctored' as to deceive the consumer. And the same was true of flavors and condiments. The evil as to confectionery and flavors and extracts was as great. Still greater was the evil as to drugs and medicines. In fact, the evils were everywhere present, as to food and medicine, and other things. And to eliminate some of these evils and to enable the purchasers to receive what they ordered and paid for, many States passed statutes aimed at those frauds. But it was soon found that the States in some instances were disposed to condone as to some articles of local manufacture, and in many other instances the States were powerless to work out a remedy. Thereupon Congress, acting upon the theory that the evil was of national concern, enacted the statute in question. The debates in Congress show that the measure was earnestly fought as being one of paternalism, and a police regulation with which the States only could act." "The object of the

place for me to say here, that in the judgment of the court, no Act of Congress has been passed in recent years of more importance than this one.

In dealing with food stuffs the seller should, and ought to know, what he is selling, and on the other hand the buyer should know what he is buying.

The statute is not to be evaded by mere subterfuge. It is to be enforced according to its letter and its spirit and when that is done no one

suffers by it." United States v. Edward Weston Tea & Spice Co. Notice of judgment, 194.

"The great object of the statute is to prevent injury to health and deception by words or devices on the label which naturally lead the purchaser to believe that he is getting one thing when in reality he is getting another." N. J. 990.

3 Shawnee Milling Co. v. Temple, 179 Fed. 517. Notice of Judgment 497.

law," said the Supreme Court of the United States, "is to keep adulterated articles out of the channels of interstate commerce, or, if they enter such commerce, to condemn them while being transported or when they have reached their destination, provided they remain unloaded, unsold, or in original unbroken packages."'4

§ 85. Scope of the Statute Territorially.

By the first section of the Food and Drugs Act, it is provided "that it shall be unlawful for any person to manufacture, within any Territory or the District of Columbia, any article of food or drug which is adulterated or misbranded, within the meaning of this Act," and by the twelfth section it is declared "that the term 'Territory' as used in the Act shall include the insular possessions of the United States." These clauses relate only to the manufacture of adulterated or misbranded food and drugs within any Territory or the District of Columbia or any of the insular possessions. They do not relate to the manufacture or misbranding of adulterated food or drugs within a State. In these clauses Congress recognizes its limitations and lack of power to legislate concerning the manufacture and misbranding of food and drugs within a State. That is a matter of legislation for the State,

ated or misbranded is declared to be forfeited as an offending thing which threatens the health of the citizen and therefore subject to seizure without regard to the acts or knowledge of the owners or claimants." United States v. Five Boxes of Assafoetida, 181 Fed. 561.

"The great object of the statute is to prevent injury to health and deception by words or devices on the label which may naturally lead its purchaser to believe that he is getting one thing when in reality he is getting another." N. J. 990 in Appendix C.