This paper challenges the recent research of public interest historians and argues the evidence supports a public choice interpretation of the 1906 Meat Inspection Act. First, the Beef Trust’s slaughter of diseased meat was due to the uncertainty over the science of disease transmission and...

“Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made.” -John Godfrey Saxe, 1869 (Shapiro 2008) Abstract: This paper analyzes the relationship between government intervention and the Chicago Beef Trust in the late 19th and early 20th century up to the...