That no person or persons, company or corporation, shall introduce into any State or Territory of the United States or the District of Columbia from any other State or Territory of the United States or the District of Columbia, or sell in the District of Columbia or in any Territory any dairy or food products which shall be falsely labeled or branded as to the State or Territory in which they are made, produced, or grown, or cause or procure the same to be done by others.
Section 2 makes a violation of the act a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of not less
than $500 or more than $2,000.
In the opinion of September 20, after stating that the mere omission of the place of manufacture can not be said to constitute a violation of the law and that the name of the wholesale dealer on the label or brand is not necessarily a representation that he is the producer or manufacturer of the goods, it was observed: "Of course, if goods are manufactured or produced in one State, and the wholesale dealer is a resident of another, and the label or brand is so worded as to represent the dealer as the producer, there would be a violation of the law if such commodities were introduced into one state from another."
The Company, it is stated, purchases all their goods in Iowa. But the words " Daisy Sugar Corn, Company, Milwaukee, Wis.," clearly imply that the goods referred to are manufactured or prepared by that company in Wisconsin. The general public, unfamiliar with trade practices, would inevitably reach that conclusion. It seems to me, therefore, that these labels come within the statute as above construed. To hold otherwise would be to say that nothing short of direct and positive misrepresentation is inhibited. But that is more than the rule as to the strict construction of penal statutes can be said to require. The act in question aims to prevent the false labeling or branding of food and dairy products entering into interstate commerce. It does not, however, undertake to say what shall be held to constitute a false label or brand. Each case must therefore rest upon its own particular facts. But wherever the natural inference to be drawn from the form or words of a brand or label is contrary to the fact as to the State or Territory in which the articles referred to are made, produced, or grown, the case would seem to be within both the letter and the spirit of the law.
The papers inclosed are herewith returned as requested.
Respectfully,
P. C. Knox, Attorney-General.
Department of Justice,
Washington, D. C., June 18, 1903.
The Honorable the Secretary of Agriculture.
Sir: In your note of June 2, 1903, you transmit to me an excerpt from the appropriation act of March 3, 1903 (32 Stat., 1157, 1158), authorizing the Secretary of Agriculture to investigate the adulteration of foods, drugs, and liquors, and forbidding the Secretary of the Treasury to deliver to the consignee any such goods imported from a foreign country which the Secretary of Agriculture has "reported to him to have been inspected and analyzed and found to be dangerous to health, or which are forbidden to be sold or restricted in sale in the countries in which they are made or from which they are imported, or which shall be falsely labeled in any respect in regard to the place of manufacture or the contents of the package," and a copy of the act of July 1, 1902 (32 Stat., 632), in regard to the introduction into any State or Territory or the District of Columbia of any dairy or food products which shall have been falsely labeled or branded as to the State or Territory in which they are made, produced, or grown; and you ask my opinion, in substance, whether, under the provisions referred to, you have jurisdiction or power to prevent the false labeling or
