The $1,000 reward, which had been standing unclaimed for so many years, by that time had been increased to $2,000, since the national beekeepers' organization also had offered an amount equal to that offered by Root.

Only a beekeeper who has tried to sell his honey direct to the customer can have an idea of the extent of prejudice which was built up by this unfortunate publicity. In Gleanings for March 1, 1902, is a letter from a California honey producer telling of his troubles in selling honey at Bartlett Springs, a fashionable resort where the elite of San Francisco had their summer homes. Fancy comb honey was offered, but none sold. They were too wise to be fooled by a manufactured product, they assured him. "Wise in his day and generation, " he cut the honey from the sections, mixed in bits of leaves and rotten wood, and "womax it all up in a mess, " put it in rusty cans and, with a change of clothes, went back to offer wild honey for sale. It went like hot cakes, to the tune of numerous comments about the absence of paraffin and glucose, and the lament that such honey could not be had in the markets. It is significant that all the honey thus offered was sold promptly when the fancy product was avoided. The public wanted honey, but had been led to distrust anything offered in a neat package.

C. P. Dadant, in an article in Gleanings about the same time, called the beekeepers' attention to the fact that no two sections of comb honey were alike, while any machine-made product would exactly duplicate every other such article. This, he said, was the best argument to use in selling comb honey, but it was a slow and painful process to rebuild public confidence, and it has not yet been accomplished in some localities. A powerful and dangerous weapon is publicity, and it must be handled with care.

It was in 1897 that the organization known as the United States Beekeepers' Union was formed for the purpose of combatting the adulteration of honey, the defense of beekeepers' legal rights, and the prosecution of dishonest commission men. Eugene Secor was selected as general manager. He at once became active in pursuit of newspapers which published the Wiley statement, but little more success attended the organized effort than had been possible to individual beekeepers. Somewhat better success attended the efforts to prosecute adulteration. The first case, in the city of Chicago, resulted in the discharge of the defendant, but the attendant publicity was helpful in showing that an effort was being made to stop the practice. Another case in Michigan resulted in involving a man widely known in the beekeeping trade as a honey producer and supply dealer, who was accused of selling honey which was adulterated. The grocer who bought the honey for resale was convicted and fined.

After the passage of the pure food law in 1906, the government took over the pursuit of violators and there was no longer the same need for individual activity. Under the protection of the law, public confidence gradually returned.

With the passage of the law, Wiley became the recognized leader of forces demanding pure foods, and so he continued until his death at an advanced age. After he had been forced from his position in the Department of Agriculture, he remained a powerful influence through his department in Good Housekeeping magazine. When an attempt was made to amend the pure food laws to permit the use of com sugar in sweetening canned goods, and in confectionery goods, without showing the fact on the label, Wiley sounded the battle cry which was once again to bring the beekeepers into common action. They did not fully understand just what was at stake, but they remembered all that they had suffered from glucose in adulterating honey, and they were fearful of any opening which would make it easy to include that or any of its products in any food. They feared that the amendment was to be an entering wedge which would lead to all kinds of modifications of the law which had served them so well.

Although a few of the old-timers still harbored resentment against Wiley for his indiscretion of a half century ago, the rank and file were ready to follow where he led with little question as to his authority. This time Congress listened to the beekeepers. Letters and telegrams were poured into Washington in such numbers as to make any congressman hesitate. Several times the bill was up for consideration under the appeal that it would increase the outlets for corn, which was becoming a burden in the markets, but always it fell short of passage. The matter was finally settled by an executive order of the Secretary of Agriculture, permitting the use of com sugar as a sweetening agent.

Pure food laws are now a part of the established policy of the government, and there is little danger that adulteration again will be a common practice. The beekeepers who started the agitation, and who paid such a price, have benefited greatly from the general enforcement. Any suggestion of modification of the law at once arouses them to action. The general public, however, is unaware of the fact that it was a small group of beemen who started the movement and continued the long fight which finally led to this important protection of the food supply of the nation.