Harvey Washington Wiley - Government Career

Government Career

Wiley was offered the position of Chief Chemist in the United States Department of Agriculture by George Loring, the Commissioner of Agriculture, in 1882. Loring was seeking to replace his chemist with someone who could employ a more objective approach to the study of sorghum, the potential of which as a sugar source was far from proven. Wiley accepted the offer after being passed over for the presidency of Purdue, allegedly because he was "too young and too jovial," unorthodox in his religious beliefs, and also a bachelor. Wiley brought with him to Washington a practical knowledge of agriculture, a sympathetic approach to the problems of agricultural industry and an untapped talent for public relations.

After assisting Congress in their earliest questions regarding the safety of the chemical preservatives then being employed in foods, Wiley was appropriated $5,000 in 1902 to study the effects of a diet consisting in part of the various preservatives on human volunteers. These famous "poison squad" studies drew national attention to the need for a federal food and drug law.

Wiley soon became a crusader and coalition builder in support of national food and drug regulation. His work with Alice Lakey spurred one million American women to write to the White House in support of the Pure Food and Drug Act.

Wiley was nicknamed the "Father of the Pure Food and Drugs Act" when it became law in 1906. Wiley authored two editions of Foods and Their Adulteration (1907 and 1911), which detailed the history, preparation and subsequent adulteration of basic foodstuffs to a broad audience. He was also a founding father of the Association of Official Analytical Chemists, and left a legacy to the American pure food movement as its "crusading chemist" that was both broad and substantial.

The fact that enforcement of the federal Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 was given to the Bureau of Chemistry rather than placed in the Department of Commerce or the Department of the Interior is a tribute to the scientific qualifications which the Bureau of Chemistry brought to the study of food and drug adulteration and misbranding. The first food and drug inspectors were hired to complement the work of the laboratory scientists, and an inspection program was launched which revolutionized the country's food supply within the first decade under the new federal law.

Wiley's tenure was marked by controversy over the administration of the 1906 statute which he had worked so hard to secure. Concerns over preserving chemicals, which had not been specifically addressed in the law, continued to be controversial. The Secretary of Agriculture appointed a Referee Board of Consulting Scientists, headed by Ira Remsen at Johns Hopkins University to repeat Wiley's human trials of preservatives. The use of saccharin, bleached flour, caffeine, and benzoate of soda were all important issues which had to be ultimately settled by the courts in the early days under the new law.

Under Wiley's leadership, however, the Bureau of Chemistry grew significantly, both in strength and in stature after assuming responsibility for the enforcement of the 1906 Act. Between 1906 and 1912, Wiley's staff expanded from 110 to 146. Appropriations, which had been $155,000 in 1906 were $963,780 in 1912. The Bureau moved into its own building and used the healing symbol of Aesculapius' staff, or Ophiuchus. In 1911, his enemies urged for his dismissal from the Department of Agriculture on the technical charge that an expert in his department had received recompense exceeding the legal rate. Later in the year, President Taft wrote a letter wholly exonerating Wiley.

On March 15th of 1912 Dr. Wiley resigned because from nearly the beginning he had been antagonized in the enforcement of the Pure Food And Drugs Act, and had seen the fundamental principles of that act either paralzyed or discredited.