Foreword: This is the second of three posts in a series on national figures whose activities more than a century ago set the pattern for the whiskey industry even into the present day.
Dr. Harvey Washington Wiley, more than any other single individual, was responsible for the design and passage of the Pure Food & Drugs Act of 1906.
That legislation, sometimes referred to as the “Wiley Act” was responsible for two important reforms in the whiskey industry, one plagued by adulteration and false claims of medicinal qualities.
Born in a log farmhouse near Kent, Jefferson County, the young Harvey was a man on the move from his youth. Although, he left college to enlist in the 137th Indiana Infantry Regiment, rising to corporal, at war’s end he embarked on enriching his educational credentials. A true polymath, Wiley earned degrees in Greek and Roman literature, medicine as a physician, and after a short stay at Harvard a B.S. in chemistry.
Although his career included teaching in fields of literature and medicine, Wiley’s main chance arrived in 1874 when he accepted an appointment in chemistry at the newly opened Purdue University in Indiana. Recognized as an outstanding intellect on the campus, it was not long before he also was appointed state chemist of Indiana. Eight years later at the age of 38 Wiley was a candidate for president of the entire university. He was passed over, allegedly because he was "too young and too jovial," unorthodox in his religious beliefs, and a bachelor. He married in 1911.
The same year the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture reached out to offer him the position of Chief Chemist of the United States and he accepted. As one author has put it: “Wiley brought to Washington a practical knowledge of agriculture, a sympathetic approach to the problems of agricultural industry and an untapped talent for public relations.”
When he got to Washington pure food and drug legislation had been languishing in Congress for decades. Employing a variety of publicity generating gambits, Dr. Wiley used his position and staff to take hold of the campaign to prevent the adulteration of food, beverages and medicinals. With a reform-minded Theodore Roosevelt in the White House, the Food and Drugs Act was enacted in 1907 and Wiley was put in charge of its enforcement.
Dr. Wiley’s primary mission was to prevent ingestion of harmful substances by the American people and his attention to whiskey was on that basis, not that of a prohibitionist. In fact, as a result of his agricultural background, he understood that wheat, rye and corn were the backbone of whiskey, and income for farmers. Considered an expert on both whiskey and wine, he pushed sales of both.
He decided that the Paris Exposition of 1900 was a perfect time to show Europeans the decided benefits of American made alcoholic products. Using his many contacts in the liquor industry, Dr. Wiley collected commitments from fourteen “leading houses” to submit their whiskeys for exhibit in Paris. Shown here, they were displayed in the United States pavilion, sponsored by the U.S. Government under the auspices of the Agriculture Department.
In his final report on the results of the showcase, Dr. Wiley had this to say: “Some of the best brands of rye and indian-corn whiskey made in the country were on exhibition and all the whiskies were of exceptional high quality. This exhibit has the unique merit, I believe, of being the only one containing more than one display in which every sample secured an award. One-third of the samples received gold medals and all the others silver or bronze. The whiskey exhibits were most attractively arranged and commanded a great deal of attention.”
When Dr. Wiley looked at whiskey through the Pure Food Lens he saw something different. He recognized that “rectified” whiskey was being adulterated with poisonous substances to add color and substance to otherwise watered-down products. He also saw distillers and liquor dealers making all manner of “purity” claims against the evidence, including whiskey men brazen enough after its passage to advertise falsely that their products were sold “Guaranteed under the Pure Food and Drugs Act,” as shown below. Finally, he saw some in the liquor trade continuing to make claims that their whiskey had medicinal properties that could cure diseases like malaria and tuberculosis.
Dr. Wiley often was frustrated in enforcing the pure food laws, dependent on Federal authorities at the state level who often were reluctant to curb local businesses. Frequently the levels of fines by lenient judges amounted to little more than slaps on the wrist for perpetrators. Jail time was almost unknown, even for repeat offenders. Nevertheless, over the next few years following passage of the Act, Wiley was able to curb much adulteration of whiskey and to eliminate “guarantee” citations of the Act on liquor labels. He was considerably less successful, however, in ending medicinal claims for whiskey.
A key example was Wiley’s personal battle against Walter Duffy, a liquor dealer from Rochester, New York, shown here. The 1880s were a time when patent medicines began their meteoric rise in popularity by aggressive advertising and other ploys. Many whiskey makers began to advertise their wares as being “for medicinal use” without being specific as to the ills they were meant to remedy. Duffy took a different approach. He decided to hawk his booze as a cure for specific diseases.
Thus, early in the 1880s was born the “Celebrated Duffy’s Malt Whiskey,” that Duffy advertised as the “greatest known heart tonic.” He also claimed that his product could cure consumption (tuberculosis), bronchitis, dyspepsia (chronic indigestion), and even malaria. To make his point about its medicinal value, Duffy supplied a dose spoon with his liquor. Samuel Hopkins Adams, whose series of articles in Colliers Magazine in 1905-1906 lead to the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act, took particular aim at Duffy’s Malt Whiskey because of its claims to “cure” and its inferiority even as whiskey. Adams also exposed as phony the newspaper testimonials to its healing effects by purported clergymen and temperance advocates.
Wylie sought to shut Duffy down: “I stated that Duffy's Malt Whisky was one of the most gigantic frauds of the age and a flagrant violation of the law, and that there was no necessity that we delay at all in the matter.” After his pleas for Justice Department prosecution were ignored for two years, the doctor denounced the “determined efforts of my colleagues to protect Duffy’s Pure Malt Whisky from being molested either by seizure or bringing any criminal case against the maker.”
Frustrated by the antagonism he had received and the paralysis that had gripped enforcement, symbolized by the Duffy case, Wiley resigned as head of the Chemistry Bureau in March 1912 and left government. For the next eighteen years, however, he directed the laboratories of Good Housekeeping magazine where he continued his work on behalf of consumers. In the meantime National Prohibition spelled the ended of medicinal claims for whiskey, not to be revived with Repeal.
Wiley lived long enough to see enforcement gradually strengthened and his former bureau become the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Dying in June 1930, however, he never saw the law itself largely replaced by the more comprehensive Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938. Recognition of Dr. Wiley’s important role in protecting the American consumer came in June 1956, the 50th anniversary of the Food and Drugs Act, when a postage stamp was issued in his honor.
Note: More information about Walter Duffy and his whiskey is contained in a post of May 31, 2011.
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