Show disease and death lurk in the meat product sent out from chicago president roosevelt sends a message to congress arg ng the passage of the bevenage Beven dge amendment to the cultural on bill ashington president roosevelt on monday transmitted to congress the report of reynolds and keiu on existing conditions in the chi cago packing houses accompanying the report was a message urging the passage of the bevenage Beven dge amendment to the agricultural appropriation bill making inspection of meat products compulsory at the cost of the packers the message follows the senate and house of depre I 1 transmit herewith the report of mr james bronson rey and commissioner charles P nelll the special committee whom I 1 appointed to investigate into the con editions in the stockyards of chicago and report therean to me this re port is of a preliminary nature I 1 sub mit it to you now because it shows the urgent need of immediate action by the congress in the direction of pro viding a drastic ana thoroughgoing in by the federal government of 11 stockyards and packing houses and of their products so far as the latter enter into interstate or foreign commerce the conditions shown by even this short inspection to exist in the chicago stockyards are revolting it is imperatively necessary in the in terest of soc ety and decency that they should be radically changed un der the existing law it is wholly am possible to secure satisfactory re suits when my attention was first direct ed to this matter an investigate invest igat on was made under the bureau of animal in austry of the department of agrical ture when the preliminary statements of this investigation were brought to my attention they showed such defects in the law and such ly unexpected conditions that I 1 deemed it best to hae a further im mediate investigation by men not con necked with the bureau and according ly appointed reynolds and neill it was impossible under the existing law that satisfactory work should be done by the bureau of an imal industry I 1 am now however examining the way in which the work actually was done before I 1 had received the report of reynolds and neill I 1 had directed that labels placed upon any package of meat food products should state only that the carcass of the an imal from which the meat was taken had been inspected at the time of slaughter it inspection of meat food products at all stages of preparation Is not secured by the passage of legis lation recommended I 1 shall feel corn belled to order that inspection labels and certificates on canned products shall not be used hereafter the report shows that the stock yards and packing houses are not kept even reasonably clean and that the method of handling and preparing food products is uncleanly and dan berous to health under existing law the national government has no power to enforce inspection of the many forms of prepared meat food products that are daily going from the packing houses into interstate commerce ow ing to an inadequate appropriation the department of agriculture is not even able to place inspectors in all establishments desiring that the present law prohibits the shipment of meat to foreign coun tries but there is no provision forbid ding the shipment of meats in interstate commerce and thus th avenues of interstate corn merce are left open to traffic in dis eased or spoiled meats if as has been alleged on seemingly good au thornty further evils exist such as the improper use of chemicals and dyes the government lacks power to rem edy them A lawa is needed which will enable the inspectors of the general government to inspect and supervise from the hoot to the can the tion of meat food products the evil beems to be much less in the sale of dressed carcasses than in the sale of canned and other prepared products and very much less as regards products sent abroad than as regards those used at home in my judgment the expenses of the inspection should be paid by a fee levied on each animal slaughtered it this is not done the whole purpose of the law can at any time be defeated through an insufficient appropriation and whenever there was no particular interest in the subject it would not be only easy but natural thus to make the appropriation insufficient it it were not for this consideration I 1 should favor the government paying for the inspection the alarm expressed in certain quarters concerning this feature should be allayed by a realization of the fact that in no case under such a liw will the cost of inspection exceed 8 cents per head I 1 call special attention to the fact that this report is preliminary and that the investigation is still anfin dished it is not yet possible to report en the alleged abuses in the use ol 01 deleterious chemical compounds in connection with canning and preserve ing meat products nor on the alleged doctoring in this fashion of tainted meat and of products returned to the pad ers as having grown or unusable from age or from other rea ons grave allegations are made in deference efe rence to abuses of this nature let me repeat that under the pres ent law there practically is no method t stopping these abuses it they hould be discovered to exist legisla ion is needed in order to prevent the possibility of all abuses in the future f no legislation is passed then the excellent results accomplished by the work of this special committee will en lure only so long as the memory oi ahe committee s work is fresh and re iridescence of the abuses is absolute certain I 1 agre the immediate enactment nto law of provisions provi siona which will en ible the department of agriculture adequately to inspect the meat ana meat food products entering into in er state commerce and to supervise he methods of preparing the same ind to prescribe the sanitary condi ions under which the work shall be performed I 1 therefore commend to TOW favorable consideration and urge he enactment of substantially the provisions known as senate amend anent no 29 to the act making ampro nations for the department of agri culture tor the fiscal year ending june 0 1907 as passed by the senate this enactment being commonly known as he beveridge amendment THEODORE ROOSEVELT the white house june 4 1906 |