In view of present day protection, it is difficult for the beekeeper to appreciate the importance of the pure food law. Without it, it is doubtful whether the honey producing industry could have survived. When glucose, then known as grape sugar, came into use, it offered a cheap and easy form of adulteration of honey. Although adulteration was general in many foods, it was the honey producers who first felt the competition keenly enough to begin agitation for legal protection.

It was about 1870 that Charles Dadant had shipped several barrels of honey to a dealer named Perrine, in Chicago, getting 17 cents per pound. A little later he found on the shelves of a local grocer in his own town of Hamilton, honey put up in small glass jars by this same dealer at 16 cents per pound. Dadant saw at once that there was something wrong when a packer could sell honey in small containers for less than he paid in barrels. This seems to have been the first case of honey adulteration to be called to public attention. Dadant at once wrote to the bee magazines, calling attention to the facts and suggesting that every beekeeper publish a statement on his label that granulation was the best proof of purity of honey.

In 1878 Dadant went to St. Louis to sell his honey, and was shown glass jars of glucose put up in New York and sold as honey at a price below what he expected to receive for his honey in bulk. He bought a jar of this glucose and learned that it was substituted in like manner for maple syrup, molasses and other sweets. He learned that the presence of glucose could be detected by putting a few drops in a cup of tea. The sulphate of iron then present in glucose turned the tea black. A little in-vestigation disclosed that the sweets then on the market were very generally adulterated in this manner.

The Western Illinois and Eastern Iowa Beekeepers' Society met at Burlington, Iowa, on May 8, 1878, and to this convention Dadant went with his sample and his information. Although he had difficulty at times in making himself understood because of his uncertain accent and his tendency to revert to his native French, he did arouse the beemen in attendance to a feverish excitement, for they realized that the industry was at stake. When Dadant stated that it should be as much the business of the government to stop a counterfeit food product as to stop a counterfeit of money, it was decided to petition Congress to enact a law against the adulteration of honey.

A committee was appointed to draw up a petition and to submit it to the beekeepers. Dadant was made chairman of the committee, with Thomas G. Newman and Reverend Clute the other members. A resolution was also adopted asking that copies of the petition be printed in all the bee papers, with request that the readers copy it and present it to the public for signature.

The petition, as drawn, contained five sections. The first recited that sweets were very generally adulterated with glucose, and that, in many cases, glucose was entirely substituted for the product it was supposed to be. The second section described the manufacture of glucose and mentioned the chemicals which were at that time retained in the product. Section three described the analysis of seventeen samples of table sweets and the poisons found in them, while section four gave the reasons for legal protection, and section five outlined the right and duty of Congress to guard against fraud in food as well as in money.

The American Bee Journal and the Beekeeper's Magazine at once launched the movement with enthusiasm, but Editor Root of Gleanings was more cautious and hesitated. This resulted in a heated argument between Dadant and Root and some rather caustic correspondence in the bee magazines regarding the merits of the controversy. The argument became somewhat personal and drifted into matters entirely apart from the question at issue. Later, however, Root became an ardent supporter of the pure food movement, and his sons recognized leaders.

Charles F. Muth, a dealer in honey at Cincinnati, Ohio, became an ardent champion of the proposed law and stated that glucose was the worst obstacle in the honey trade.

In May, 1879, the society met at Hamilton, and Dadant, as chairman of the committee, made a report of progress. The committee had several thousand copies of the petition printed and distributed. A large number of papers supported the movement by printing the petition. It went to Congress with signatures from every state, more than thirty thousand in all, was referred to the committee on ways and means, and was never reported for action.

A movement of this kind, which proposed a radical departure in the matter of an important government policy, hardly could be expected to obtain favorable action immediately. Several sugar refiners joined with the beekeepers in the attempt to obtain legislation against the adulteration of sweets. The net result was far better than would be expected under such circumstances. A vast amount of publicity resulted, which called public attention to the general condition. This was not without its objectionable features, however, since it served to arouse suspicion of all liquid honey.

Four states, Michigan, Minnesota, Kentucky and New Jersey, did, in fact, pass laws against the adulteration of honey and that was an accomplishment of no mean importance.

The same committee was reappointed and continued the agitation. It is doubtful whether any group of beekeepers ever offered any other action which finally resulted in such far-reaching results. Although it was destined to be many long years before Congress finally acted, the time came when enough influence was brought to bear to obtain the enactment of a measure covering the whole field of foods and drugs. In the meantime, one group after another had joined with the beekeepers, until the originators of the movement were nearly lost sight of and their numbers seemed insignificant in comparison to other groups seeking the same outcome.