It may have something to do with numbers. 45 Inspectors to cover the US. Come on now someone some where does not want our food inspected.
The corps of forty-five Inspectors, under a Chief Inspector, who reports directly to the Chief of Bureau, has headquarters at Washington, and the Inspectors receive their directions from and make their reports to the Chief Inspector at that point. The taking of samples for analysis constitutes their chief duty, though special investigations in collaboration with the chemists are also made, and factories where articles of food or drugs are prepared, are also inspected. The Chief Inspector has an assistant who visits the various stations throughout the country from time to time in a supervisory capacity, suggesting improvements, criticizing and reporting confidentially to the Chief Inspector, whose place he assumes during the illness or absence of the latter.
DUTIES OF AN INSPECTOR
To put it in general and concise terms, the duty of a United States Food and Drug Inspector is to assist in the enforcement of the Food and Drugs Act of June 30, 1906, by collecting samples of products embraced in that act for analysis, collecting evidence of the interstate shipment of such products, and pave the way for the complex machinery of the Department to successfully prosecute violations of said Federal law.
More specifically, the primary duties of an Inspector are:
(1) To inspect the stock of foods, drugs, liquors, condiments and confectionery in the warehouses of manufacturers, jobbers and dealers (generally wholesale, but occasionally retail) with the object of locating such products as have been or are about to be transported in interstate commerce and are adulterated or misbranded within the meaning of the Food and Drugs Act of 1906.
(2) To purchase and collect samples of above products, packing them properly and forwarding them to a United States Food Laboratory for analysis.
(3) To collect original, or copies of, records, such as freight bills, bills of lading, invoices and other written or oral evidence tending to establish the interstate shipment of products covered by such records.
(4) To confer with United States District Attorneys, United States Marshals and other Government officials relative to the seizure, destruction or sale of adulterated, misbranded, poisonous or rotten products, or the prosecution of any violator of the law.
(5) To accompany the United States Marshal in seizure proceedings, especially with a view to assisting him in the proper identification of the commodity.
(6) To act as a witness for the government at trials involving any violation of the national food law.
(7) To interview dealers, manufacturers, experts, etc., in behalf of the government and solicit their views on any particular subject for the benefit of the Department.
(8) To do detective work, such as surveilling factories of questionable repute, following up wagons or other conveyances suspected of carrying adulterated or misbranded foods its interstate commerce.
(9) To investigate and report on the condition of industries in a particular locality, such as the maple sugar industry in New York or Vermont, the citrus fruit industry in Italy, etc.
Some of the incidental but necessary tasks of Federal Inspectors are as follows: Hunting up boxes and other shipping containers, excelsior, nails, hammer, marking crayon and other promiscuous paraphernalia necessary for the proper packing and shipping of samples; carrying samples from the dealer's place to the express or post office; photographing labels on containers having food products of questionable wholesomeness; tracing labels on the cover of a barrel; typewriting letters; breaking into freight cars to get a sample of the contents; disguising as a laborer or "hobo" so as to facilitate the getting of employment in an establishment suspected of doing "dirty work," as in the case of the horse-meat sausage factory.
Every inspector is assigned to a particular city which is considered his official station or permanent headquarters and is the central or principal point of the territory covered by him during the year. Stations have from one to four Inspectors according to the size of the city and the commercial activity of the surrounding territory, particularly as regards the manufacturing, selling and interstate transportation of foods and drugs. Stations in cities like Buffalo. Louisville and Cincinnati, for instance, each have only one man, whereas New York, Boston, Chicago, St. Louis, etc., have each from three to four Inspectors, one of whom is known as the "Inspector-in-Charge."
The time spent on the road by each Inspector, varies according to the general nature of the territory within his jurisdiction and the business conditions prevailing at a particular time. On the average, it may be stated, that each Inspector travels five months of the year, during which time he is allowed $4.25 per day for board, lodging and personal expenses besides his regular salary, which varies from $1,400 to $2,500 per annum, and his transportation expenses.
The regular hours for work are from 9 A. M. to 4:30 P. M. on week-days and from 9 A. M. to 1 P. M. on Saturdays, except in Washington, where the time is prolonged to 4 P. M. on Saturdays. While these are the actual hours of service ordinarily, the inspector is under a technical obligation to work at any time that the exigencies of unforeseen or special circumstances may demand.
The day's work is usually begun by reading and answering the mail and mapping out the work for the day. Should a communication in the form of a letter, telegram or long distance telephone be received from the Chief Inspector at Washington requesting an investigation of a particular matter or the performance of some special task, such an order would precede all other work the Inspector might have contemplated. In the absence of any such assignment to a special duty, our "pure food guardian" will sally forth on his usual inspection tour, visiting wholesale grocers and druggists, factories, spice and grain mills, packing houses, docks, wharves, railroad freight depots and every other locality where he is likely to find food and drug products that have been or will be transported in interstate commerce.
