Speech #590174206

I showed that what was prophesied at that time about the improvement in the meat business instead of its decline had come true. and that in the month of January meat and meat food products increased from fourteen millions and something to seventeen millions and something. and I tried to point out how absurd was the proposition that if the packers paid the cost. the people would lose faith in the products. because the charge made on the packers does not go from the packers to the inspectors. It is collected by the Treasury of the United States. It constitutes a special fund in the Treasury. upon which the Secretary of Agriculture draws checks in payment. of the salaries of the inspectors. and therefore that it was not only false but bizarre and gr6tesque to hold that the faith of the people in the products would be impaired if the packers. like the national banks or like the immigrants or like the oleomargarine manufacturers. pay the cost of inspection. I have finally asked why it is if in all these other cases we make the business that receives the benefit pay for the inspection that renders it safe. why it is that the packers should be excepted? I shall insist on keeping on with that question. as suggested to me so kindly by the Senator from New Hampshire [M r.