Meat Packing Safety Case Study:
The Beveridge Amendment to H.R. 18537 “the Agriculture Bill”
Compelling Policy Question: Who is responsible for making sure the Nation's meat supply is safe?
Historic Literature Review:
Upton Sinclair, The Jungle, 1905, (modified/link to original)
context: Socialist writer Upton Sinclair’s visits to Chicago’s “Packingtown” area and a meat-packing plant provided him with stories he used to write The Jungle. The book showed the unsanitary meat-packing process. But Sinclair’s goal was to show how badly the workers were treated, not upset people about the food.
Jurgis was amazed by all the products made out of the carcasses of animals. He found that each area of production was a separate little hell, all as bad as the floor where the animals were slaughtered. The workers in each area had their own unique problems related to their job, each had evidence of them about on his own body—generally he had only to hold out his hand.
Butchers, and others who used knives, rarely had the use of his thumb- it had been slashed till it was a mere lump of flesh. Workers at the fast paced stamping-machines rarely could work so fast, without making a mistake and having part of his hand chopped off. The odor of the fertilizer-man would scare a visitor a hundred yards away. Many of the men in the Cooking Rooms had fallen into the cooking vats; and when their bodies were fished out, there was nothing left,—sometimes they would be overlooked for days, till all but the bones of them had gone out to the world as Durham’s Pure Leaf Lard!
They didn’t pay attention to what was cut up for sausage: Old sausage that had been rejected and sent back from Europe -that was mouldy and white- it would be dosed with borax and glycerin , and dumped into the hoppers, and made over again for home consumption.
It was too dark in these storage places to see well, but a man could run his hand over these piles of meat and sweep off handfuls of the dried dung of rats. The packers would put poisoned bread out for them; they would die, and then the rats, bread, and meat would go into the hoppers together.
Policy Case Study: The Beveridge Amendment to H.R. 18537 “the Agriculture Bill”
Meat and meat food products are an important source of the Nation's food supply. It is important that consumers are protected by making sure meat and meat food products are healthy, not adulterated, properly labeled, and packaged. All regulation of animals and meat products will be done by the Government to protect the health and welfare of consumers.
Inspection of meat and meat food products.
(a) Examination of animals; All animals must be inspected for disease before they are slaughtered. Sick animals must be slaughtered separately. The carcasses of sick animals must be inspected before made into food.
Examination of carcasses: The carcasses of slaughtered animals for human food will be inspected and labeled as ''Inspected and passed''; or as ''Inspected and condemned''. Condemned items will be destroyed.
Labeling, marking, and container requirements.
(a) Labeling: Inspected Products marked ''Inspected and passed'' must be sealed in a labelled container under the supervision of an inspector.
(e) Products with false labeling will not be allowed for sale.
Sanitary inspection and regulation of slaughtering and packing establishments; rejection of adulterated meat or meat food products. Inspections of all slaughtering, meat canning, or similar establishments will be inspected to make sure they are sanitary. Unsanitary establishments’ products will not be labeled ''inspected and passed.''
Prohibited acts. No person, firm, or corporation may-
(a) Slaughter animals or prepare anything to be sold for use as human food in any establishment not meeting the requirements of this law
(c) Sell, or transport: any food that has not been inspected and passed;
(d) Adulter any food, causing the food to be adulterated or misbranded.
Historical Context of the Beveridge Amendment:
In the late 19th Century two different, but related, trends occurred. The Meat Packing Industry rapidly grew into a very large industry as a result of the expansion of railroads, refrigerated railway cars, and plants run on electricity made year round business possible. In addition to the growth of the Meat Packing Industry was also a growing interest in making sure food was being safely produced. In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln created the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and hired a chemist to create a Division of Chemistry for the USDA. Three years later the USDA asked Congress to create laws to quarantine imported animals, because they had been identified as a source of disease. In 1883 Harvey W. Wiley, M.D., was made the chief chemist at USDA. Wiley raised public awareness of problems with food. In 1884 President Chester Arthur signed an act creating the USDA Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) to prevent diseased animals from being used as food. Many foreign countries had their own meat inspection programs, and since the US did not meet their standards they restricted the importation of meat from the United States. This meant many American meat packing companies were unable to sell their products internationally. In response, in 1890, President Benjamin Harrison signs first law requiring inspection of meat products. The USDA is required to inspect salted pork and bacon meant for export. In 1891 that law is amended, and all cattle and beef being exported must be inspected.
The biggest shock to the Meat Packing Industry, and what led to the biggest push for Government inspections came in 1905 when author Upton Sinclair published The Jungle. Sinclair wanted to expose the poor working conditions in a Chicago meatpacking house. However, it was the filthy conditions that made people angry. Sinclair urged President Theodore Roosevelt to require federal inspectors in meat-packing houses. In response to the publishing of the Jungle, in 1906 President Roosevelt sent Commissioner of Labor Charles P. Neill and James Bronson Reynolds to inspect Chicago meat-packing plants. The Neill-Reynolds Report tells of unsanitary and unsafe conditions in the meat-packing industry
Following the publication of the Neill-Reynolds Report, President Teddy Roosevelt gives a speech to Congress requesting the creation of Meat Inspection Legislation. (below)
Section One Supporting Question - Why do some people think regulation of the meat packing plants is the Government's responsibility?
Congress needs to take action now. The government should inspect all stockyards and packing houses. These places make meat products that are sold in other states or foreign countries. A short inspection of the Chicago stockyards found the conditions there are disgusting. For the sake of health and of decency they should be radically changed.
Mr. Reynolds and Mr. Neill were sent to investigate the stockyards and packing plants. Their report shows that the stockyards and packing houses are not kept clean. The way the food products are handled and prepared is dangerous to our health. Current laws do not require companies to inspect meat products.
It is against the law to ship uninspected meat to foreign countries, but there is no law against shipping uninspected meat to another state. Businesses can ship diseased or spoiled meats to other states in America to sell them.
It has been claimed that there are even worse evils in this business. There are some bad things things done when butchering the animals. There are claims of using harmful chemicals when canning and preserving meat products, and claims of people treating spoiled meat with chemicals. These are serious claims and under the present law there is no way to stop these acts if they are discovered.
I urge the immediate creation of laws allow the Department of Agriculture to inspect the meat and meat products. They should also be allowed to be in charge of how to prepare these products. They should be able to make sure the work is performed in clean conditions.
Thomas F. Dolan, Affidavit on the Conditions in Armour’s Meat Packing Plant, New York Journal, which published it on March 4, 1899. (modified/link to original)
Dolan was a superintendent at Armour & Co’s Chicago Plant.
There were many ways of getting around the inspectors—so many, in fact, that not more than two or three cattle out of 1,000 were condemned.
The superintendent of the beef houses for Armour & Co. had me take off any part of a sick cow so it would not show signs of sickness during inspection.
They tell an inspector he needs to to come supervise the condemned meat being disposed. The Inspector goes to see the meat destroyed, and the condemned cattle are thrown into the hissing steam-boilers and disappear. But the condemned steer drops through the boiler down to the floor below, where he is caught on a truck and hauled back again to the cutting room. I have witnessed the trick done many times.
Of all the evils of the stockyards, the canning department is perhaps the worst. No matter how bad the meat is, it is steamed until tender. Bundles of gristle and bone melt into pulpy masses and are stirred up for the canning department.
I have seen cattle come into Armour’s stockyards so weak and exhausted that they died in the corrals, where they lay one or two hours until they were hauled in, skinned, and put on the market for beef or into the canning department for cans. In other words, the Armour establishment was selling carrion.
What I am telling you is based on ten years of experience. It is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God. THOMAS F. DOLAN.
Packers Scared—Sinclair. Tried to Influence the President’s Investigators, He Alleges. The New York Times , 1906 (modified/link to original)
Upton Sinclair, the author of “The Jungle”which helped inspire President Roosevelt to investigate the Beef Trusts, commented upon the situation today.
He said, “The 700 telegrams that have been received from the stock raisers protesting against the bill proposed by Senator Beveridge are easy to explain. The Beef Trust is frightened by the possible law. I have no idea that these packers’ telegrams will make the least difference to President Roosevelt in his action.
Dr. M. K. Jaques, Professor of Bacteriology at the Illinois State University and head of the Chicago Inspection Service claims that the Inspectors are on the pay rolls of the packing houses. He said: “I have received letters from workmen saying that the packers got wind of the private commission and were well prepared when it arrived. They kept the men working at night to get things in cleanly order. Even then the Commissioners obtained many compromising facts for their report, and I happen to know that the Beef Trust sent a representative to the Commissioners to try to get them by some means to suppress part of the unpalatable findings.”
The New York Times, LONDON VIEW OF MESSAGE. Englishmen Urged to Avoid American Meats, Pending Sweeping Reform. , 1906, (modified)
President Roosevelt's’ message on the meat scandal, is the subject of the London newspapers this morning. It is used as a warning to British consumers to avoid all American products of the kind until a sweeping reform is established.
The papers encourage the public to ignore the statements that meat products for export are any better inspected than those for American use.
The London newspapers praise the President’s courage in attacking the scandal, they also are telling the public only to purchase British or colonial products.
One newspaper insists on the Canadian and Australian products are still good to eat.
As a consequence of the American scandal some British people now want an investigation into British food preparations.
Dr.Cooper, Liberal member of Parliament for Bermondsey, in a letter to the Daily Mail says: “Let us not forget while throwing stones at the Americans, that we ourselves live in glass houses. If the truth were known about the preparation conditions of much of the food eaten in this country the British public would have an unpleasant shock.”
Dr. Cooper goes on to complain of defective inspection in Great Britain, declaring that there is no scientific training in meat inspection such as there is in Germany, with the result that much more unsound meat is sold in England than in Germany.
THE NEILL-REYNOLDS REPORT, 1906 (modified)
While investigating Chicago packing houses and stockyards we saw meat shoveled from filthy floors, piled on tables rarely washed, pushed from room to room in rotten box carts gathering dirt, splinters, floor filth, and the spit of workers with tuberculosis and other diseases. When we asked the floor supervisors about this, they said the buyers will cook the meat, and that would sterilize it. This is not completely true. A large portion of the meat so handled is sent out as smoked products and in the form of sausages, which are eaten without being cooked.
We saw a hog that had just been killed and washed fall on the floor and slide into a filthy men’s privy. It was put back with other meat without being cleaned.
The current inspections do not go far enough. We only inspect the animals at the time of killing; but the meat that is used in sausage, and other meat foods goes through many processes, and could be contaminated through insanitary handling, or treated with chemicals. Despite the lack of supervision all the products have a label saying they have passed Government Inspection.
Examination before slaughter is of minor importance. Examination after slaughter is of supreme importance and should be compulsory.
GENERAL SUGGESTIONS. –
1. Increase the number of inspectors.
2. Special Government inspection should be carried on continuously.
3. Inspection methods in other countries should be studied.
4. We should reconsider the labeling of all carcasses sold as fresh meat, which, upon examination after slaughter, show signs of disease, but are still deemed suitable for food.
JAMES BRONSON REYNOLDS, CHARLES P. NEILL.
In 1904, the Saturday Globe newspaper published a cartoon titled "A Nauseating Job, But It Must Be Done".
Caption: President Roosevelt takes hold of the Investigating muck-rake himself in the packing-house scandal.
Carl Hassmann, Chicago Style Meat Market, Puck, 1906
Library of Congress Summary
A verse from the Bible appears below the counter:
"Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink." Matthew VI:25.
In 1906, Puck Magazine published an illustration titled "Watch the Professor".
Library of Congress Summary
Caption: A monstrous and amazing feat of magic.
Maurice Ketten, An Awful Case of June Odors, The World, [New York, N.Y.] evening edition, 1906
Uncle Sam and a man from Great Britain hold their noses above an opened can of “Canned Beef” made by the “Beef Trust”, that was “Guaranteed Fresh”. The odors coming from the can read: “Putrefied Meat”, “Beef Trust Scandal”, and “Cholera”
This cartoon was included on a page dedicated to a series of articles written by Upton Sinclair in which he discussed how he had researched the information for his book, The Jungle.
Homer Davenport, None But the Brave Deserve the Fare, New York Mail, 1906
Jamieson, News Reaches the Farm, Pittsburg Dispatch, 1906
One Pig says to the other “Aren’t Men Dirty Creatures?”
Newspaper reads “Daily Paper. Neill-Reynolds Report. Filthy Conditions in Packingtown”
Louis M. Glakens, The real packingtown-- if you let the packers tell it, Puck, 1906
Library of Congress Summary
Section Two Supporting Question - Why do some people think inspections of a meat packing plant are the Meat Packing Company's responsibility?
In response to President Roosevelt's statements, J. Ogden Armour said...
(modified)
J. Ogden Armour was the owner of Armour & Company, the largest meat-packing company in America.
It is crazy to believe that the Chicago meat-packing plants, with hundreds of millions of dollars invested in their business, are, or could be guilty of the wild accusations against them. It is obvious that it is in their interest to run their business in the cleanest and most scientific manner possible, with the best quality of material and the most modern appliances.
I don’t know about the conditions in some of the small packing houses, but no sane man would ever believe what the newspapers have written.
These stories have been made by President Roosevelt. The truth is that Mr. Roosevelt hates the packers of Chicago and is doing and will do everything in his power to hurt them. The reason is obvious to anybody who knows anything about American politics.
The system of inspecting the American packing industry is good enough, but even if some changes were necessary, was the best way to fix them to create newspaper stories?
If Mr. Roosevelt wanted a change and improvement in the inspection, he should have just told us so.
John Lamb, Sydney J. Bowie, E.S. Chandler, Jr., Minority Report during the Hearings before the Committee on Agriculture on the “Beveridge Amendment”, 1906 (modified/link to original)
The Beveridge Amendment is going to add $2,000,000 annually to the cost of inspection of meat and meat-food products to the burden already borne by the Federal Government.
The need for the increased cost of inspection is due to two causes;
1. To help the meat-packing businesses.
2. To protect the public health against the practices of the meat-packing businesses.
Neither of these are the fault of the American people.
The packing industry of this country needs the Government inspection and certificate in order to ship their goods to other countries. It is an injustice to saddle the whole burden of helping the meat-packing businesses on the taxpayers.
If the question is considered from the standpoint of the preservation of public health alone, the argument is the same. Can we allow those whose acts have endangered the public health and undermined the public confidence shall escape from the situation they have created without penalty of any kind? Why should the taxpayers have to pay the expenses to correct the businesses’ wrongs?
We are willing to consider the annual cost of $800,000 to continue the existing government inspections, but strongly object to an addition of $2,000,000 for the inspection of canned goods and meat food products for the benefit of the industry that created the need for the inspections.
G.N. Haugen, C.R. Davis, Minority Report during the Hearings before the Committee on Agriculture on the “Beveridge Amendment”, 1906 (modified)
We want a law that will produce the best possible inspection of all meat and meat food products that are consumed not only by our own people, but by all the people of the world. We do agree with many of the ideas of the “Beveridge amendment”.
However, we want to call attention to the cost of this inspection, and upon whom this burden or expense shall fall. We agree the $2,000,000 is needed to meet the demands of the new inspections.
We wish to emphasize that in addition to protecting the consumers of these products, we should be protecting and encouraging the people who raise the livestock..
The stock raised by our farmers are the natural products of the soil, and are one of the main food products consumed by our people. It should be the duty of the Government to pay for these inspections.
But once those carcasses have been inspected, any change of this carcass into food products of any kind, should be paid for by the individual, company, or corporation making the food product.
Packers Answer President. Favor Government Inspection and Sanitary Regulation of Plants, the New York Times, 1906 (modified)
Chicago packers today declared that they would welcome any practical inspection that would improve conditions at the stockyards. That was their answer to the criticism by President Roosevelt of the alleged unsanitary conditions there, followed by his promise to see them remedied and the old buildings torn down as soon as possible.
At the same time the packers contended that the large houses were already clean and sanitary. They called attention to the “present strict Government inspection” and to the fact that the packing houses are always open to public inspection, and have been visited by millions of people from all over the world, who have complemented the huge meat-packing establishments for how clean and organized they are.
While they do not think the criticism of them is justifiable, the packers did not believe that the criticisms would injure their business, except in foreign countries.
Official statements were made by Armour & Co., Nelson, Morris & Co., Swift & Co., and the National Packing Company saying that they were in favor of Government inspection and sanitary regulation of packing plants as contemplated in the Beveridge bill, with possibly, some modifications.
Statement of Armour & Co., Swift & Co., Nelson Morris & Co., G. H. Hammond Co., Omaha Packing Co., Anglo-American Provision Co., Libby, McNeil & Libby, and Schwarzschild, Suizberger & Co. 1906, (modified)
These eight Chicago meat packing companies wrote this reply to the report written by the Neill and Reynolds Investigation and President Roosevelt’s speech to Congress
Every pound of meat in our packing houses comes from animals which are inspected and passed by agents of the Department of Agriculture. This is a fact. We do not by condemned animals. Every animal is inspected both before and after slaughter, following the strictest inspection rules in any country. Every animal or carcass that does not pass this inspection is condemned and disposed of under the supervision of the agents of the United States Department of Agriculture.
We have been believers meat inspection since it started. Every year we lose $1,000,000 of profits to pay for the inspections to make sure our animals are healthy. We are in favor of making this inspection better.
The statements made about our plants are being used by foreign companies are using as a weapon against us to help them sell their products.
When Neill and Reynolds began their investigation we assumed that its purpose was help us improve packing house conditions. We invited from them in, and said we would follow any practical suggestions for improvement.
We did not expect the reports would just be used to gather ammunition for an attack upon the livestock and meat producing industry.
Report of Professor T. J. Burrill, Ph. D., Vice President and Professor of Bacteriology of the University of Illinois, and Professor H. S Grindley, Professor of Chemistry at the same institution. , 1906 (modified)
Our observations make it impossible for us to believe the horrible stories recently appearing in print or that anything approaching the described conditions in this industry really exists.
It was apparent to us that the work of the Government Inspectors was done in strict accordance with the regulations issued by the Bureau of Animal Industry.
The condemned carcasses or parts of carcasses are followed by these officials to the rendering tanks, and these tanks are sealed and unsealed in their presence, and only in their presence.
We paid particular attention to the charges that the employees spit on places which come in contact with the products. We saw only one man spit during our entire investigation and he was a Government official.
The packing business is for butchers, and anyone having any connection with the actual work has no use for dress suits or kid gloves, as it is not milliners’ or jewelers’ work.
We did not find anything seriously unacceptable to cleanliness or wholesomeness in the operation of the meatpacking plants,, but we did find a desire on the part of all the employees we came in contact with to avoid unclean practices.
New York Evening Post, 1906 (modified)
The Beef Trust has no friends. However, the fact the packers are not liked is not a reason to punish them, or a reason to create a dangerous habit for our government.
The report of the President’s investigators uncovers very bad conditions in some of the packing-houses. The lack of sanitization, the disregard of the health and comfort of the employees, the dirty handling food-products, and the lack of quality inspections is shocking.
The President describes the picture as disgusting. But to put the United States in charge of the packing-houses is not smart.
The beef report makes out an excellent case for strong inspection and control by the State of Illinois or the city of Chicago, but what has the national government to do with local exercise of the police power?
Other States and cities are attacking the abuses in factories and sweatshops. In cities all over the land the Health Departments are working to fix the sanitary and moral outrages described in the beef report.
Why should the President propose to make an exception of Illinois and Chicago, telling them, that they do not need to clean up their own dirty buildings because he will do it for them?
The New York Herald published a cartoon by William Allen Rogers titled "For he's a jolly good fellow" in 1906.
Library of Congress Summary
Man representing railroads at left with paper, "A few little amendments to the rate bill"; bull at right with cleaver, "Beef trusts" and bag labeled "U.S. to pay $3,000,000 for inspection"; man in center probably Joseph Cannon.
What were the results of the debate?
The publication of Upton Sinclair’s book “The Jungle” caused a public uproar about food production. However, the uproar that happened was not the one Sinclair was hoping to cause. He wrote his book hoping to expose people to the terrible working, and living, conditions of the meatpacking employees. However readers were more upset by what they read about their food, than what they read about the workers.
Sinclair famously later commented, "I aimed for the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach."
Once passed, the Beveridge Amendment became known as the “Meat Inspection Act.” Since the passage of the Meat Inspection Act in 1906 Congress has passed dozens of Acts related to regulations on food production. While some of these are about safe working conditions, most of them are about the safety of the food itself.