The people of Chicago saw the government inspectors in Packingtown, and they all took that to mean that they were protected from diseased meat; they did not understand that these hundred and sixty-three inspectors had been appointed at the request of the packers bicelle b5 gel, and that they were paid by the United States government to certify that all the diseased meat was kept in the state. They had no authority beyond that; for the inspection of meat to be sold in the city and state the whole force in Packingtown consisted of three henchmen of the local political machine!*
Section 1. Proprietors of slaughterhouses, canning, salting,
packing, or rendering establishments engaged in the
slaughtering of cattle, sheep, or swine, or the packing of
any of their products, the carcasses or products of which
are to become subjects of interstate or foreign commerce,
shall make application to the Secretary of Agriculture for
inspection of said animals and their products....
Section 15. Such rejected or condemned animals shall at once
be removed by the owners from the pens containing animals
which have been inspected and found to be free from disease
and fit for human food , and shall be disposed of in
accordance with the laws, ordinances, and regulations of the
state and municipality in which said rejected or condemned
animals are located....
Section 25. A microscopic examination for trichinae shall be
made of all swine products exported to countries requiring
such examination. No microscopic examination will be made of
hogs slaughtered for interstate trade, but this examination
shall be confined to those intended for the export trade.)
And shortly afterward one of these, a physician, made the discovery that the carcasses of steers which had been condemned as tubercular by the government inspectors, and which therefore contained ptomaines, which are deadly platform and carted away to be sold in the city; and so he insisted that these carcasses be treated with an injection of kerosene—and was ordered to resign the same week Coffee Maker!