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No. 2048, —————— — — ——— = 33212 se oe =5 2 > es = = — os a eee > © 2909 99 > ary e > > > a230 222 9 929 oo 2 > 3d ) ; o " wis De. ie eps Se > > >» 4 Ki cr) , OLEOMARGARINE AND OTHER IMITATION DAIRY PRODUCTS, ETO. (ipary OF CONGRESS, RECEIVED FEB 121901 January 26, 1901.—Ordered to be prinfHY{SiON OF DOCUMENTS, Mr. Procror, from the Committee on Agriculture and Forestry submitted the following REPORT, WITH THE VIEWS OF THE MINORITY. [To accompany H. R. 3717.] The Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, to whom was referred House bill 3717, known as the Grout bill, and entitled ‘*An act to make oleomargarine and other imitation dairy products subject to the laws of the State or Territory into which they are transported, and to change the tax on oleomargarine,” begs leave to submit the following report and recommend the passage of the bill: This bill proposes to increase the tax on oleomargarine colored in semblance of butter and reduce that not colored in imitation of butter to the mere nominal sum of a quarter of a cent a pound, the purpose being to encourage the sale of the genuine article, and to discourage the sale of the imitation article and to protect the honest producer, dealer, and consumer of both butter and oleomargarine. So far as the identification of the commodity to the wholesaler is con- cerned, the law of 1886 has been successful. So far as the identifica-~ tion of the commodity to the consumer is concerned, the law of 1886 is of little value, the evidence being that a very large proportion of the oleomargarine manufactured goes to the consumer finally as butter, either as a purchaser of the retailer or as a guest at a hotel, restaurant, or boarding house. * Your committee, realizing the importance of the questions involved in the bill, has inquired very carefully and exhaustively into the exist- ing conditions, as shown by the report of the testimony before the committee, which occupies 580 pages, the taking of which was begun December 19 last and occupied the attention of your committee much of the time from that date to and including January 16. Your commit- II OLEOMARGARINE AND OTHER IMITATION DAIRY PRODUCTS. tee can conceive of no interest which would be affected that was not represented at the hearings and does not see how anything new could have been presented had the hearings been continued indefinitely. It apears from the testimony that through the legislature s of 32 States, with four-fifths of the population of the United States, the peo- ple have expressed their disapproval. of coleomargarine colored in sem- blance of butter; that those who have ‘been charged with the duty of enforcing, the. State laws regarding this product are positive in the opinion that.so tong as iis colored , in imitation of butter fraud upon the consumer, if not: upon ‘the dealer;‘can not be prevented. Your committee is of the opinion that such fraud is actually sanctioned and defended by some of the largest manufacturers, who guarantee their retailers protection in case of prosecution for the sale of oleomargarine in contravention of State laws. It also appeared, and it was not denied by the manufacturers them- selves, that they do not feel in any way bound to respect the laws of the States against selling oleomargarine colored in imitation of butter, claiming that they are ‘unconstitutional; and the testimony revealed methods by which such laws ure evaded or their enforcement defeated, despite the fact that such laws have been sustained by the courts of last resort in the States and also by the Supreme Court of the United States. So far as the committee has been able to ascertain, this measure has the approval of all State officials and food commissioners whose duties are the enforcement of the laws regulating the manufacture and sale of oleomargarine. It appears to be unanimously desired by the farmers of the country who are engaged in dairying, and has the earnest approval of the Sec- retary of ‘Agric ulture, who appeared before the committee at its request and who has made an exhaustive study of the question from a broad, economic point of view. Your committee has listened with interest to the representations of the live-stock interests and the cotton-seed oil manufacturers, and is unable to see in this measure anything that can greatly injure either. The Secretary of Agriculture expressed the opinion before the com- mittee that the dairy cow was a necessity to the restoration of the exhausted cotton lands of the South. We have heard some objections to this measure from organized labor; and while it is true that some laboring men may, as repre esented, preter, as a matter of pride, to consume oleomargarine that is yellow instead of white, yet your committee believes that while the pride of some may suffer under this measure, which will raise the tax on the colored and reduce it on the uncolored, a far greater number are now being deceived througa the sale of oleomargarine as butter and at butter prices. Your committee is of the opinion that if oleomargarine is the whole- some and nutritious product that those interested in its manufacture and sale claim it to be, it will meet with a ready demand in its natural color, and space) as the tax on the uncolored product is by this bill reduced from 2 cents to one-quarter of a cent per pound. We submit herewith the report on this measure by the committee of the House and the views of a minority of that body. FEB 12 100; D) of By OLEOMARGARINE AND OTHER IMITATION DAIRY PRODUCTS. III [House Report No. 1854, Fifty-sixth Congress, first session. | The Committee on Agriculture, to whom was referred H.R.3717, known as the Grout bill, ‘‘ To make cleomargarine and ot] er imitaticn Cairy yrcducts subject to the laws cf the Stete or Territory into which they are transported and to change the tax on oleomargarine,’’ beg leave to submit the following report and recommend the passage of the bill: We are of the opinion that the people have ample cause for alarm at the tremen- dous illegal growth of the oleomargarine traffic in this country during the past few years, Which now appears to have reached proportions beyond the power of the States to successfully regulate or control, and the present Federal 'aws are apparently altogether inadequate for the emergency. After carefully weighing the evidence and suggestions offered for remedies for the regulation of this traffic we are constrained to hold that the provisions of H. R. 3717 offer the best practical solution of the difficulty. We believe that the States should be protected in their rights to regulate their internal affairs to the fullest extent in relation to articles of food which have been adjudged adulterated or of a deceitful character, and we do not think that the inter- state-commerce law of the Government should protect a deceitful imitation from the jurisdiction of the State’s laws, even if the article in question is in the original pack- age and is shipped from an outsider into the State in such package. We find that the very foundation and cause of the enormous amount of fraud and illegal selling of oleomargarine is in the great profits which are derived from the sale of the imitation because of its absolute counterfeit of butter, which enables unsecru- pulous dealers to impose upon unsuspecting customers. These profits are sufficiently large to cause the retailer to run the chances of detection and prosecution; and they are further emboldened and encouraged through the guaranties of the manufacturers of protection against prosecutions under the State laws. Thirty-two States, having four-fifths of the entire population of the United States, absolutely forbid the manufacture and sale of oleomargarine colored to resemble butter. These laws have been upheld in the higher courts without a single excep- tion, and the question has twice been passed upon favorably by the Supreme Court of the United States. Therefore, the policy of a very large majority of our people is plainly against the existence of the article in such counterfeit form. The tax of 10 cents per pound upon oleomargarine colored to resemble butter will not deprive the manufacturers and dealers or consumers of any great amount of legal right they now possess. Four-fifths of the colored article made is sold illegally now, as indicated by the reports of the Treasury Department, and the only effect of this tax, even were it prohibitive upon this class of oleomargarine, would be to prevent the manufacture of an article the sale of which is contrary to the laws of 32 States of the Union. This tax will bring the cost of the colored article up to a figure that will take from it the possibility for the large profits which have been the incentive to violate the laws of the State and Government and defraud innocent purchasers, while the reduction of the tax on oleomargarine in its natural color from 2 cents to one-fourth cent per pound will make it possible for the man who really desires to consume oleowargarine to procure it at a much lower cost than heretofore, the only difference being that it will not contain coloring matter, which not even the oppo- nents of this measure claim contributes anything to its palatableness or nutritive value. We believe the manufacture and sale of oleomargarine will continue under this measure, and that those who desire a cheap substitute for butter will purchase the uncolored article. The only difference is that the counterfeit article, colored in imi- tation of butter, will no longer be accessible to hotel keepers, restaurant keepers, and boarding-house proprietors at such prices as will be an inducement for them to deceive their guests, as is now, we believe, absolutely universal where it is served, and thus another class of consumers, who have been subject to imposition for more than twenty years, will be able to know whether they are eating butter fat or hog fat when they spread their bread. If colored oleomargarine is served it will be because it is better and not because it is cheaper than butter. - Serious conditions require drastic measures, and it certainly appears from the tes- timony of those representing the producers of butter, as well as from the admissions of the witnesses for the other side, that those who are engaged in this oleomargarine traffic have absolutely no regard for State laws, and regard the public as their legiti- mate victim, in whose behalf they resent the interference of the General Govern- ment. The continued existence of such a condition we can not but believe furnishes a demoralizing example to our people in trade, who are being tutored by this oleo- margarine interest in the art of evasion and defiance of the legally constituted authorities, ig OLEOMARGARINE AND OTHER IMITATION DAIRY PRODUCTS. APPENDIX. The population of the States which have passed laws forbidding the sale of oleo- margarine colored in semblance of butter, as shown by the census of 1890, is as follows: Population. | Population. ING We On Koes Su ere one oe By EMacctasy | teouslla (Chirolbhine yee ol 1, 151, 149 pennsylvania so. 5 see oy225) Ol4a le Nebraskaenn a: |. suena 1, 058, 910 Ain Ova ees ee ee 31926, dol) | Marviand 2 061). eae 1, 042, 390 COTO eee Te A, SiOterolonl West vamolnmiae 2. 2!) alee 762, - IMSS 0 tte ee es Gee eet Bee 2679, 184.) Connechcutee..-..- 22. 22a 746, 2 2 IMASSACIUSEUISi ene cece e 2 LOO ROL ||| Uae eee ee ae ok eee 661, 086 MichiCaMe eset erste se 2093. 889) | Coloradomese- 2.2. ae eee 412, 198 Mpa ae Series oe ae ue 2 1,911, 896 | New Hampshire............ 376, 530 TEC TO CO) ELS I I Soov050) |s Washinenome es = 4252 sees 349, 390 CeOLOl te. gotten see se. cee eh SOo) |) OFESOnme enna es... 2. kee 313, 767 MNETINGSSCO LR yee ea ee I olohaylleial) Manon 5 Been eee ea see- 332, 442 WASCONSIM Ge yee eee eee TFOSby scOm South Wakota) sae... au eee 328, 808 WW TOE Wie es OS a I GDOSO SOU Nuleiea int meryeamwet en Fu abe em 207, 905 AU BANE Seok whee seen Lol3, O17) North Dakota’. 0' 5 s222 422 182, 711 INGW JeTSCY, ston ce os cee nee 1444 933" | Delawane fons 5.2.62 22 ee 168, 495 IMIIRESO Lana cya Meese eee 1, 301, 826 | - Calitormia. 203. | BALM tee Abe 1, 208, 130 | Wotal oie See 50, 117, 440 The States and Territories which have not passed laws forbidding the sale of oleo- margarine colored in semblance of butter are: Population. | Population, CESSES) eS AR LE SESS Dwaoudzo || New Mexico i: 21.20) See 153, 593 1 aye Leese fA aes aly 55 ge eh a ZNO An 404. | vonbana. to. 2) ae 132, 156 North @arolima: ssc. eee GMOs laain@: 2 S21. 52 ot ee 84, 385 LUNG RYSTS SS Se 2 Pa eOToN Oklahoma 525.32) eens 61, 834 NT SEVEST Gs 0) a aaa Ah, soe Wivoming:. 2)! Us 2c eee ee 60, 705 PAT KATISAS ee wee ee AS ees aoe) Aor zona sol. . ee 59, 620 ILDUASTE NTE Ae A ee ee ae he PSS aS mNeVata ti): : Aaa eee 45, 761 LRU IGWETCG Fete SY SAE COSTAE ag 321, 422 inodeslslandis ees a6 sees 345, 506 | Total: 2322 Se ee 12, 604, 790 District of Columbia. - =... .- 230, 392 | VIEWS OF THE MINORITY. The minority of the Committee on Agriculture of the House of Representatives beg leave to submit the accompanying bill, which we offer as a substitute for H. R. 3717, known as the Grout bill. We first wish to bring to the attention of the House proof positive that oleomar- garine is a wholesome and nutritious article of food, and is therefore entitled to a legitimate place in the commerce of our country. In substantiation of this statement we beg to submit the following testimony taken before the committee: OPINIONS OF LEADING SCIENTISTS. Prof. C. F. Chandler, professor of chemistry at Columbia College, New York, says: “‘T have studied the question of its use as food, in comparison with the or dinary but- ter made from cream, and have satisfied my self that it is quite as valuable as the but- ter from the cow. The product is palatable and wholesome, and I regard it as a most valuable article of food.”’ Prof. George F. Barker, of the University of Pennsylvania, says: ‘‘ Butterine is, in my opinion, “quite as valuable as a nutritive agent as butter itself. It is perfectly wholesome, and is desirable as an article of food. I can see no reason why but- terine should not be an entirely satisfactory equivalent for ordinary butter, whether considered from the physiological or commercial standpoint.” Prof. Henry Morton, of the Stevens Institute of Technology, New Jersey, says: “‘T am able to say with confidence that it contains nothing whatever which is injurious as an article of diet, but, on the contrary, is essentially identical with the best fresh butter, and is superior to much of the butter made from cream alone which is found in the market. The conditions of its manufacture involve a degree of cleanliness and consequent purity in the product such as are by no means necessarily or generally attained in the ordinary making of butter from cream.’ Prof. S. W. Johnson, director of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, OLEOMARGARINE AND OTHER IMITATION DAIRY PKODUCTS. V and professor of agricultural chemistry in Yale College, New Haven, says: ‘‘It isa product that is entirely attractive and wholesome as food, and one that is for all ordi- nary and culinary purposes the full equivalent of good butter made from cream. I regard the manufacture of oleomargarine as a legitimate and beneficent industry.’’ Prof. 8. C. Caldwell, of Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y., says: ‘‘While not equal to fine butter in respect to flavor, it nevertheless contains all the essential ingredients of butter, and since it contains a smaller proportion of volatile fats than is found in genuine butter, it is, in my opinion, less liable to become rancid. It can not enter into competition with fine butter, but so far as it may serve to drive poor butter out of the market, its manufacture will be a public benefit.’’ Prof. C. A. Goessmann, of Amherst Agricultural College, says: ‘‘Oleomargarine butter compares in general appearance and in taste very favorably with the average quality of the better kinds of dairy butter in our markets. In its composition it resembles that of ordinary dairy butter, and in its keeping quality, under corresponding circumstances, I believe it will surpass the former, for it contains a smaller percent- age of those constituents which, in the main, cause the well-known rancid taste and odor of a stored butter.”’ Prof. Charles P. Williams, professor in the Missouri State University, says: ‘‘It is a pure and wholesome article of food, and in this respect, as well as in respect to its chemical composition, fully the equivalent of the best quality of dairy butter.”’ Prof. J. W.S. Arnold, professor of physiology in the University of New York, says: ‘‘T consider that each and every article employed in the manufacture of oleomargarine butter is perfectly pure and wholesome; that oleomargarine butter differs in no essen- tial manner from butter made from cream. In fact oleomargarine butter possesses the advantage over natural butter of not decomposing so readily, as it contains fewer volatile fats. In my opinion oleomargarine is to be considered a great discovery, a blessing for the poor, and in every way a perfectly pure, wholesome, and palatable article of food.” Prof. W. O. Atwater, director of the United States Government Agricultural Exper- iment Station at Washington, says: ‘‘It contains essentially the same ingredients as natural butter from cow’s milk. It is perfectly wholesome and healthy and has a high nutritious value.’’ _ Prof. Henry E. Alvord, formerly of the Massachusetts Agricultural College, and president of the Maryland College of Agriculture, and now chief of the Dairy Division of the United States Department of Agriculture, and one of the best butter makers in the country, says: ‘‘The great bulk of butterine and its kindred products is as wholesome, cleaner, and in many respects better, than the low grades of butter of which so much reaches the market.”’ Prof. Paul Schweitzer, Ph. D., LL. D., professor of chemistry, Missouri State Uni- versity, says: ‘‘As a result of my examination, made both with the microscope and the delicate chemical tests applicable to such cases, I pronounce butterine to be wholly and unequivocally free from any deleterious or in the least objectionable sub- stances. Carefully made physiological experiments reveal no difference whatever in the palatability and digestibility between butterine and butter.”’ ' Professor Wiley, chief of the Division of Chemistry of the United States Depart- ment of Agriculture, also appeared before the committee and testified to the nutritive and wholesome qualities of oleomargarine. The Committee on Manufactures of the United States Senate, in a report dated February 28, 1900, finds, from the evidence before it, ‘‘that the product known com-. mercially as oleomargarine is healthful and nutritious.’’ Judge Hughes, of the Federal court of Virginia, in a decision, says: ‘Tt is a fact of common knowledge that oleomargarine has been subjected to the severest scientific scrutiny, and has been adopted by every leading government in Europe as well as America for use by their armies and navies. Though not origi- nally invented by us, it is a gift of American enterprise and progressive invention to the world. It has become one of the conspicuous articles of interstate commerce and furnishes a large income to the General Government annually.”’ P Believing that this testimony establishes beyond controversy that oleomargarine is a nutritious and wholesome article of food, the main question to be considered is the complaint that fraud is practiced in its sale. The only just complaint (indeed the only complaint) against the existing oleomar- garine law consists in the facility with which the retail dealer, in selling from the original or wholesale package and substituting a new and unmarked wrapper, may violate the law. There is nothing in H. R. 3717 (known as the Grout will) which would decrease the temptation or increase the difficulty of such violations. On the contrary, the increased taxation would either be fraudulently evaded or else would force the honest manufacturer out of business. H. R. 3717 merely increases taxation without providing any new or additional penalties or any new methods to prevent the sale of oleomargarine as butter, either in its colored or uncolored state. In fact, VI _ OLEOMARGARINE AND OTHER IMITATION DAIRY PRODUCTS. the radical advocates of the Grout bill do not seek this end, as they have declared in their testimony before the committee and in declarations elsewhere that their sole intention is to absolutely crush out the manufacture of oleomargarine and eliminate it as a food product. In substantiation of this assertion we quote the following: Mr. Adams, pure food commissioner of the State of Wisconsin, in his testimony before the committee on March 7 7, 1900, said: ‘‘There is no use beating about the bush in this matter. We want to pass this law and drive the oleomargarine manufacturers out of the business.”’ Charles Y. Knight, secretary of the National Dairy Union, in a letter to the Vir- ginia dairymen, dated May 18, 1900, writes: “Now. is the time for you to clip ‘the fangs of the mighty octopus of the oleomar- garine manufacturers, who are ruining the ‘dairy interests of this country by manu- facturing and selling in defiance of law a spurious article in imitation of pure butter. We have a remedy. almost in grasp which will eliminate the manufacture of this article from the food- product list. The Grout bill, now pending’ in the Agricultural Committee of the House of Representatives in Congress, meets the demand.”’ W. D. Hoard, ex-governor of Wisconsin and president ¢ of the National Dairy Union, stated in his testimony before the committee on March 7, 1900, as follows: “To give added force to the first section of the bill, it is provided in the second sec- tion that a tax of 10 cents a pound shall be imposed on all oleomargarine in the color or semblance of butter. In plain words, this is repressive taxation.”’ In view of this testimony the minority believe they are justified in claiming that the Grout bill, if enacted into law, would destroy the business of the legitimate oleo- margarine manufacturers. In other w ords, Congress is being asked to ruin one indus- try to benefit another; and this, in the opinion ‘ot the minority, is a thing Congress ought not to do. The minority believe it to be class legislation of the most pro- nounced kind and would establish a precedent which, if allowed, would create monopolies, destroy competition, and militate against the publie good. The substitute bill offered by the minority would, in our opinion, eliminate all possibility of fraud, and would compel the manufacturers of and dealers in oleo- margarine to sell it for what it really is and not for butter. The substitute offered is practically an amendment to section 3 and 6 of the existing oleomargarine law. The licenses for manufacture and sale of this article are not changed, and are as follows: Manufacturers, $600 per annum; wholesale dealers, $480 per annum; retail- ers, $48 per annum, while the penalties imposed for violations of the law are materially increased. We quote in full section 2 of the substitute bill, and ask for it the careful and thoughtful consideration of the House, believing that it is just and fair to all the interests involved: “Src. 2. That all oleomargarine shall be put up by the manufacturer for sale in packages of one and two pounds , respectively, and in no other or larger or smaller package; and upon every print, brick, roll, or lump of oleomargarine, before being so put up for sale or removal from the factory, there shall be impressed by the man- ufacturer the word ‘oleomargarine’ in sunken letters, the size of which shall be prescribed by regulations made by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue and approved by the Secretary of the Treasury; that every such print, brick, roll, or lump of oleomargarine shall first be wrapped with paper wrapper with the word ‘oleomargarine’ printed thereon in distinct letters, and said wrapper shall also bear the name of the manufacturer, and then shall be put by the manufacturer thereof in such wooden or paper packages or in such wrappers, with the word ‘oleomargarine’ printed thereon in distinct letters, and marked, stamped, and branded in such man- ner as the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, with the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury, shall prescribe, and the internal-revenue stamp shall be affixed so as to surround the outer w rapper of each one and two pound package: Provided, That any number of such original stamped packages may be put up by the manufacturer in erates or boxes, on the outside of which shall be marked the word ‘oleomargarine,’ with such other marks and brands as the Commissioner of Internal Revenue shall, by regulations approved by the Secretary of the Treasury, prescribe. ‘* Retail dealers in oleomargarine shall sell only the original package to which the tax-paid stamp is affixed. “Every person who knowingly sells or offers for sale, or delivers or offers to deliver, any oleomargarine otherwise than as provided by this act or contrary to the regulations of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue made in pursuance hereof, or who packs in any package any oleomargarine in any manner contrary to law, or who shall sell or offer for sale as butter any ‘oleomargarine, colored or uncolored, or who falsely brands any package, or affixes a stamp on any package denoting a less amount of tax than that required by law, shall be fined for the first ‘offense not less than one hundred nor more than five hundred dollars and be imprisoned not less than thirty days nor more than six months; and for the second and every subsequent offense OLEOMARGARINE AND OTHER IMITATION DAIRY PRODUCTS. Wate . shall be fined not less than two hundred nor more than one thousand dollars and be imprisoned not less than sixty days nor more than two years.” One of the claims made by the friends of the Grout bill is that it will protect the interests of the farmer. We call attention to the fact that every ingredient that enters into the manufacture of oleomargarine is as much a product of the farm as is butter, and that such ingredients are made more valuable on account of their use in the manufacture of oleomargarine. Your committee has had before it representatives of both the cattle and hog raisers of the country, and also representatives of the cotton industry, and they are unani- mous in their opinion that their business will be materially injured and the price of their product lowered by the passage of the Grout bill and the destruction of the oleomargarine industry. The manufacture and sale of oleomargarine does not interfere with the growth and prosperity of the butter industry. Statistics show a much greater percentage in the increase of the production of butter than in the production of oleomargarine. Though similar in ingredients, they are not strictly competing, as the oleomargarine is prac- tically all bought by the poorer class of our people. In justification of this statement we have received a large number of petitions from the labor organizations of our country protesting against the passage of this bill for the above-given reasons. It being possible to keep oleomargarine in a sweet and sound condition much longer than butter, it is also used extensively in the mining and lumber camps, on exploring and hunting expeditions, on ships at sea, and by armies in the field. The claim made by the friends of the Grout bill that the manufacture and sale of oleomargarine has greatly depreciated the price of butter will not obtain when it is known that there is now manufactured in the United States nearly 2,000,000,000 pounds of butter annually, and it is positively known that there only were 83,000,000 pounds of oleomargarine manufactured last year, which shows that the amount of oleomargarine produced is about 4 per cent of the amount of butter produced. Therefore, the argument that oleomargarine in any material sense controls the price of butter is not justified by the facts. The manufacture and sale of oleomargarine have in no way depreciated the price of butter, as more butter is being sold at a higher price in this country than ever before, as shown by testimony. It is a suggestive fact that those sections of our country which are most exclusively devoted to the dairy interests are blessed with the greatest prosperity, as brought out in the testimony of ex-Governor Hoard, of Wisconsin, before our committee, who said that a few years ago land was worth only $15 an acre in that State, but as the State began to be devoted more exclusively to the dairy interests land had rapidly appreciated in price, and that farmers had gotten out of debt, had paid their mort- gages, and the land is now worth the sum of $80 per acre, this price averaging much higher than agricultural lands in other parts of the country. In conclusion, the members of the Committee on Agriculture who have joined in this minority report beg to assure the House and the country in the most solemn man- ner possible that it has been their earnest intention, and is now their determination, to do everything possible to be done to enforce the sale of oleomargarine as oleomar- garine and to prevent its sale as butter. To prevent fraud and not to stamp out an industry has been and is our purpose. We believe that it ought to be the sole pur- pose of all legislation and the sole motive of all just men. J. W. WaApDSWoRTH. Wm. Lorimer. W. J. Barwey. G. H. Wurre. Joun 8. WILLIAMS. J. Wm. SToKEs. H. D. ALLEN. {Substitute for H. R. 3717.] A BILL To amend sections three and six of an act entitled ‘‘An act defining butter, also imposing a tax upon and regulating the manufacture, sale, importation, and exportation of oleomargarine,”’ approved August second, eighteen hundred and eighty-six, and also to define manufacturers and dealers and to provide for the payment of special taxes by them. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of Ainerica in Congress assembled, That sections three and six of an act entitled ‘‘An act defin- ing butter, also imposing a tax upon and regulating the manufacture, sale, importa- tion, and exportation of oleomargarine,’’ approved August second, eighteen hundred and eighty-six, be amended so as to read as follows: “Sec. 1. That special tax on the manufacture and sale of oleomargarine shall be VIII OLEOMARGARINE AND OTHER IMITATION DAIRY PRODUCTS. imposed as follows: Manufacturers of oleomargarine shall pay six hundred dollars perannum. Every person who manufactures oleomargarine for sale shall be deemed a manufacturer thereof. ‘Wholesale dealers in oleomargarine shall pay four hundred and eighty dollars per annum. Every person who sells or offers for sale oleomargarine in quantities greater than ten pounds at a time shall be deemed a wholesale dealer therein; but a manufacturer of oleomargarine who has given the required bond and paid the required special tax, and who sells oleomargarine of his own production only at the place of its manufacture in the original packages to which the tax-paid stamps are affixed, shall not be required to pay the special tax of a wholesale dealer on account of such sales. ‘Retail dealers in oleomargarine shall pay forty-eight dollars per annum. Every person who sells or offers for sale oleomargarine in quantities not greater than ten pounds at a time shall be regarded as a retail dealer therein. ‘Sec. 2. That all oleomargarine shall be put up by the manufacturer for sale in packages of one and two pounds, respectively, and in no other or larger or smaller package; and upon every print, brick, roll, or lump of oleomargarine, before being so put up for sale or removal from the factory, there shall be impressed by the manufacturer the word ‘oleomargarine’ in sunken letters, the size of which shall be prescribed by regulations made by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue and approved by the Secretary of the Treasury; that every such print, brick, roll, or lump of oleomargarine shall first be wrapped with paper wrapper with the word ‘oleo- margarine’ printed thereon in distinct letters, and said wrapper shall also bear the name of the manufacturer, and shall then be put by the manufacturer thereof in such wooden or paper packages or in such wrappers and marked, stamped, and branded with the word ‘oleomargarine’ priated thereon in distinct letters, and in such manner as the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, with the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury, shall prescribe, and the internal-revenue stamp shall be affixed so as to surround the outer wrapper of each one and two pound package: Provided, That any number of such original stamped packages may be put up by the manufacturer in crates or boxes, on the outside of which shall be marked the word ‘oleomargarine,’ with such other marks and brands as the Commissioner of Internal Revenue shall, by regulations approved by the Secretary of the Treasury, prescribe. ‘Retail dealers in oleomargarine shall sell only the original package to which the tax-paid stamp is affixed. “Every person who knowingly sells or offers for sale, or delivers or offers to deliver, any oleomargarine otherwise than as provided by this act or contrary to the regulations of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue made in pursuance hereof, or who packs in any package any oleomargarine in any manner contrary to law, or who shall sell or offer for sale, as butter, any oleomargarine, colored or uncolored, or who falsely brands any package, or affixes a stamp on any package denoting a less amount of tax than that required by law, shall be fined for the first offense not less than one hundred nor more than five hundred dollars and be imprisoned not less than thirty days nor more than six months; and for the second and every subsequent offense shall be fined not less than two hundred nor more than one thousand dollars and be imprisoned not less than sixty days nor more than two years.” VIEWS OF THE MINORITY. The minority of the Committee on Agriculture and Forestry beg ‘leave to submit to the Senate a substitute. for the bill H. R. 3717, with favorable recommendation. The substitute is as follows: {Substitute for H. R. 3717.] A BILL to amend sections three and six of an act entitled ‘“‘An act defining butter, also imposing a tax upon and regulating the manufacture, sale, importation, and exportation of oleomargarine,”’ approved August second, eighteen hundred and eighty-six, and also to define manufacturers and dealers and to provide for the payment of special taxes by them. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That sections three and six of an act entitled ‘‘An act defining butter, also imposing a tax upon and regulating the manufacture, sale, importation, and exportation of oleomargarine,’’ approved August second, eighteen hundred and eighty-six, be amended so as to read as follows “Sec. 1. That special tax on the manufacture and sale of oleomargarine shall be imposed as follows: Manufacturers of oleomargarine shall pay six hundred dollars per annum. Every person who manufactures oleomargarine for sale shall be deemed a manufacturer thereof. “Wholesale dealers in oleomargarine shall pay four hundred and eighty dollars per annum. Every person who sells or offers for sale oleomargarine in quantities greater than ten pounds at a time shall be deemed a wholesale dealer therein; but a manufacturer of oleomargarine who has given therequired bond and paid the required special tax, and who sells oleomargarine of his own production only at the place of its manufacture in the original packages to which the tax-paid stamps are affixed, shall not be required to pay the special tax of a wholesale dealer on account of such sales. ‘* Retail dealers in oleomargarine shall pay forty-eight dollars per annum. Every person who sells or offers for sale oleomargarine in quantities not greater than ten pounds at a time shall be regarded as a retail dealer therein. “Sec. 2. That all oleomargarine shall be put up by the manufacturer for sale in packages of one and two pounds, respectively, and in no other or larger or smaller package; and upon every print, brick, roll, or lamp of oleomargarine, before being @6° put up for sale or removal from the factory, there shall be impressed by the manufacturer the word ‘oleomargarine’ in sunken letters, the size of which shall be prescribed by regulations made by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue and approved by the Secretary of the Treasury; that every such print, brick, roll, or lump of oleomargarine shall first be wrapped with paper wrapper with the word ‘oleo- margarine’ printed thereon in distinct letters, and said wrapper shall also bear the name of the manufacturer, and shall then be put by the manufacturer thereof in such wooden or paper packages or in such wrappers and marked, stamped, and branded with the word ‘oleomargarine’ printed thereon in distinct letters, and in such manner as the Commissioner of Internal Rev enue, with the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury, shall prescribe, and the internal-revenue stamp shall be affixed so as to surround the outer w rapper of each one and two pound package: Provided, That any number of such original stamped packages may be put uyvby the manufacturer in crates or boxes, on the outside of which shall be marked the word ‘oleomargarine,’ with such other marks and brands as the Commissioner of Internal Revenue shall, by regulations approved by the Secretary of the Treasury, prescribe. ‘Retail dealers in oleomargarine shall sell only the original package to which the tax-paid stamp is affixed. ‘‘Every person who knowingly sells or offers for sale, or delivers or offers to deliver, any oleomargarine otherwise than as provided by this act or contrary to the regulations of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue made in pursuance hereof, or who packs in any package any oleomargarine in any manner contrary to law, or who shall sell or offer for sale, as butter, any y oleomargarine, colored or uncolored, or who IX x OLEOMARGARINE AND OTHER IMITATION DAIRY PRODUCTS. falsely brands any package, or affixes a stamp on any package denoting a less amount of tax than that required. by law. shall be fined for the first offense not less than one hundred nor more than five hundred dollars and be imprisoned not less than thirty days nor more than six months; and for the second and every subsequent offense shall be fined not less than two hundred nor more than one thousand dollars and be imprisoned not less than sixty days nor more than two years.”’ Oleomargarine is a legitimate article of commerce. This has been distinctively held by the Supreme Court of the United States. In the case of Schollenberger v. Pennsylvania (171 U.S 30), which was decided May 26, 1898, the Supreme Court held as fi lows: In the examination of this subject the first question to be considered is whether oleomargarine is an article of commerce. No affirmative ey idence from witnesses called to the stand and speaking directly to that subject is found in the record. We must determine the question with reference to those facts which are so well and universally known that courts will take notice of them without particular proofs being adduced in regard to them, and also by reference to those dealings of the com- mercial world which are of like notoriety. Any legislation of Congress upon this subject must, of course, be recognized by this court as of first importance. Tf Con- gress has affirmatively pronounced it a proper subject of commerce, we should rightly be influenced by that declaration. After referring to the act of Congress of August 2, 1886, being the law now in force, imposing a tax of 2 2 cents a pound on 1 oleomargarine, the court further stated as follows: This shows that Congress at the time of its passage in 1886 recognized the article as a proper subject of taxation, and as one which was the subject of traffic and of exportation to foreign countries and of importation from such countries. Its manu- facture was recognized as a lawful pursuit, and taxation was levied upon the manu- facturer of the article, upon the wholesale and retail dealers therein, and also upon the article itself. Concluding upon this branch of the case, the court stated as follows: The article is a subject of export and is largely used in foreign countries. Upon all these facts we think it apparent that oleomargarine has become a proper subject of commerce among the States and the foreign nations. Coloring matter is used both in the making of butter and in the manufacture of ole omargarine for the purpose of catering to the tastes of consumers who have been accustomed to a generally ‘yellow tint in both food products. Neither the makers of butter nor the manufacturers of oleomarga- rine can claim rightfully any exclusive right to the use of coloring mat- ter in their respective products. Both admit that coloring matter is used for the reason that their customers prefer an article of a yellowish tint. If consumers preferred the article white, or free from any tint whatever, the makers of butter and the manufacturers of oleomarga- rine could just as easily, and even more easily, respond to that taste. The question for the lawmaking power to consider is this: Should the law interfere in a case of this kind and aid the makers of one product and injure the manufacturers of the other? The second section of the proposed bill imposes a tax of 10 cenis a pound upon colored oleomargari ine, or, in the language of the act, ‘‘col- ored in the imitation of butter.” The advocates of this pr oposed leg is- lation admit that their object is to place the tax on oleomargarine so high that it can not be placed upon the markets of the country if colored. It is the universal opinion of those engaged in the manufacture of oleomargarine that a tax of 10 cents a pound upon the product colored a vellow tint will destroy that industry, for the reason, which expe- > OLEOMARGARINE AND OTHER IMITATION DAIRY PRODUCTS. XI rience has shown, there would not be any considerable demand for oleomargarine in an uncolored condition. This opinion is based upon efforts which have already been made to introduce and sell the uncol- ored product in States where anticolor laws now prevail. The object, therefore, of imposing this excessive tax of 10 cents a pound upon colored oleomargarine is not for the purpose of raising revenue, but for the purpose of prohibiting its manufacture, and of thus destroying the industry. It is of no importance that the proposed legislation reduces the tax on uncolored oleomargarine from 2 cents a pound to one-fourth of a cent a pound. Unless ‘there is reason to believe there would be a substantial production of that kind of article, the increase of the tax of 10 cents a pound would, in all probability, prevent any substantial revenue being derived from its manufacture. The alleged frauds committed in the sale of oleomargarine are not attributed to the manufacturers, but to the retail dealers in the article. This brings us to the consideration of the question whether fraud in the sale of oleomargarine as butter can better be prevented by the proposed legislation, which imposes a tax of 10 cents a pound upon its manufacture, or by the enactment of more stringent regulations governing the retail dealer. Under the present law the retail dealer is required to break the original package in which he receives oleomargarine from the manu- facturer. The smallest package which the law permits the manufac- turer to place upon the market contains 10 pounds. ‘The retail dealer is only permitted to sell from the manufacturer’s original packages. If he desired to sell in 10-pound packages or over, he would be required to take out a wholesale dealer’s license, which is fixed at $480 a year. This makes it necessary for the retailer to break the original pack- age, and it is conceded that whatever frauds may be committed occur by reason of this fact. If the retail dealer desires to commit a fraud upon his customer, the opportunity for so doing is thus afforded. If legislation can be enacted which will require the retail dealer to sell oleomargarine in the origi- nal package put up by the manufacturer without breaking the wrap- per or the internal-revenue stamp of the Government, and if such wrappers and stamps were clearly and distinctly marked and branded, under regulations of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, the opportunity, to commit fraud upon the customer would be wholly eliminated or reduced toa minimum. This opinion is entertained by those most intimately connected with the manufacture and selling of oleomargarine; and it is also the opinion of the Secretary of the Treas- ury, given in his statement before the Senate Committee on Agricul- ture: and also the opinion of ex-Commissioner of Internal Revenue, Mr. Wilson, given in his statement before the House Committee on Agriculture. Under the proposed bill the temptation to fraud on the part of the retail dealer would be largely increased from the fact that he will be enabled to buy the uncolored oleomargarine, on which one-fourth of a cent per pound tax is imposed, and by coloring the same himself increase the value of his product 9% cents per pound, for the reason that he could sell the same at this largely increased profit for either butter or oleomargarine. We assume that the lawmaking power of the Government desires to prevent the possibility of fraud in the sale of oleomargarine as but- XII OLEOMARGARINE AND OTHER IMITATION DAIRY PRODUCTS. ter and not to destroy the industry itself. We therefore recommend legislation upon the subject which will make fraudulent sales as near impossible as laws can provide. We have omitted reference heretofore to the first section of the pending bill. This section has for its object the placing of oleomarga- rine under the police laws of the several States, notwithstanding its introduction into a State in the original package. This provision is for the purpose of avoiding the effect of the ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Schollenberger v. Pennsyl- vania, reported in 171 U. S., 1-380. The opinion of the Supreme Court in that case was to the effect that a lawful article of commerce can not be wholly excluded from importion into a State from another State where it was manufactured. It was conceded in that opinion that a State has power to regulate the introduction of any article, including a food product, so as to insure purity of the article imported. but that such police power does not include the total exclusion even of an article of food. The States may provide for a reasonable inspection of all food prod- ucts imported into them, but the object of this legislation must be inspection and not prohibition of the traffic. . It is true that Congress, in 1890, passed an act which placed intoxicating liquors under the police power of the States; but oleomargarine, which is a wholesome . and nutritious food, ought not to be tr eated in the same manner that the law regards intoxicating liquors. The States should not be per- mitted by ‘Congr ess to interfere in its sale, and especially should Con- gress refuse to place the article subject to the laws of the States, which might exclude its manufacture or sale entirely. The States my inspect oleomargarine for the purpose of ascertaining whether it was free from adulterants or unwholesome ingredients; but Congress should not recognize the right of a State to “exclude it from importation and sale therein, so long as it is conceded to be nutritious as an article of food. The pr oposed bill is not a revenue measure. It is not for the pur- pose of raising revenue or reducing surplus revenue. In fact, in no sense is it a measure resting for its authority upon the taxing power of the Government. Its object is to pr event competition between two home industries by building up the one and destroying the other. Such use of the taxing power of the Government is an abuse which should not be encouraged or even tolerated fora moment. , The prece- dent will open wide the door for all manner of vexatious schemes and instigate selfish greed to demand legislation involving every conceiv- able interference of (government with private interests. It is an effort to so frame our internal-revenue laws that one class of home producers will be protected from competition with another class of home producers. While our Government has adopted the policy of protecting home producers against foreign producers of the same kinds of articles, there can be no excuse or justification for interfering among our own citizens by aiding one industry at the expense and to the injury or destruction of another. This policy would tend to destroy all benefits which consumers receive from improved processes of production, from labor-saving machinery, and from the results of invention. By such means all progress could be arrested and mankind could be deprived of the blessings which modern science and genius are securing to the world. % The taxing power of the Government can not be used for any object OLEOMARGARINE AND OTHER IMITATION DAIRY PRODUCTS. XII other than the public needs. As was said by the Supreme Court of the United States, in Loan Association v. Topeka (20 Wallace, 664), ‘*To lay with one hand the power of the Government on the property of the citizen and with the other to bestow it upon favored individuals to aid private enterprises and build up private fortunes is none the less a robbery because it is done under the forms of law and is called taxation.” While under the proposed bill the object is not to donate the taxes which may be raised to aid a particular industry, yet the imposition of the tax is for the purpose of enabling one industry to sell its products free from competition with another, and thus to exact from the public an increased price for the product, not for the benefit of the public Treasury but for private purposes solely. The effect upon the people is the same in both cases. As was stated in the opinion of the Supreme Court in the Topeka case, ‘* there can be no lawful tax which is not laid for a public purpose.” This doctrine is so well recognized that it is unnecessary to produce further authorities upon the subject. There is no conflict of judicial opinions; all are in harmony with the opinion in the Topeka case. The proposed bill is class legislation of the most dangerous character. It is not demanded by any existing economic conditions in this country, and its passage would be a perversion of the taxing power of the Goy- ernment, and a violation of the Constitution, both in its letter and spirit. The Hon. Lyman J. Gage, Secretary of the Treasury, was invited to come before the committee and give his view from a revenue stand- point. The following is a part of his testimony: Secretary Gace. Of course I only feel at liberty to state my views as the Secretary of the Treasury, and only upon that part of the bill which involves the question of revenue. I might have personal views which go far beyond those; but you would probably not care much about them. There is, in my opinion, an objection to the bill on either theory. If it is a rev- enue producer, it is superfluous; we do not need it. If it is not a revenue producer, then the title of the bill is a misnomer, and it is inoperative in the name of revenue. It seems to me that on either theory there are serious objections to it. I think that covers all I care to say directly on the subject. * * * * * * * The Actinc CHarrMAN. Mr. Secretary, can you tell us what has been the experi- ence, in a general way, of your Department in the collection of the revenue on oleo- margarine? You know, of course, that there is now a 2-cent tax on it. Secretary Gacr. Yes, sir; I think the revenue is well collected. There has been considerable discussion of that subject between the Commissioner of Internal Rev- enue (especially Commissioner Wilson) and myself, at different times; and we think we are cheated to some extent, as we are in all revenue matters. * * * * * * * Senator Barr. Then I suppose the losses in oleomargarine internal-revenue col- lections are about on a par with the losses in all other revenue collections? Secretary Gace. Well, they are on a par with the losses in most of the revenue collections. There is not any great disparity. Senator ALLEN. Of course the liquor can not go out without the consent of the Government? Secretary Gace. No, sir; but the tax on liquor is $1.10 a gallon, while that on but- terine is 2 cents per pound, so that the temptation is very much greater in the one case than in the other. — Senator ALLEN. The only thing with which you are concerned is the tax? Secretary Gace. That is the main thing, of course. Senator Monty. The remark you have just made, Mr. Secretary, suggests this question: You say the greater the tax the greater the incentive to fraud. The same rule would apply here, would it not? Secretary Gace. Undoubtedly. XIV OLEOMARGARINE AND OTHER IMITATION DAIRY PRODUCTS. Conflicting interests have appeared before the committee, one to demand the exercise of the taxing power in order to crush a rival in the business, and the other to ask that it be permitted to continue the manufacture of a product, wholesome and nutritious, for the benefit of the thousands who are unable, by their poverty, to buy butter. The makers of oleomargarine, of dairy butter, of creamery butter, of the process or renovated or resurrected butter, have all appeared, person- ally or by representatives, to insist upon their interests being more or less protected or not to be interfered with. The producers of cotton- seed oil and the live-stock growers have also been represented, asking that there be no further interference with the profits of their several industries for the benefit of the dairy men. In the consideration of this subject the quarrels of the respective manufacturers and parties at interest as to the profits to be lost or made from this legislation are not so important as the rights of the consumers of the several products. There are millions of working people who are not producers of any articles of food, but who must con- sume these various products. They can not all of them buy butter, and, as the object of this bill is evidently—from the expressions of the lead- ing advocates of the bill—to exterminate the oleomargarine industry, these great numbers of people are interested that such nefarious legis- lation should be defeated. They have rights as well as the manufac-’ turers of butter and oleomargarine, as well as the cotton-seed-oil and the live-stock men, and it is the cry of the consumer, the cry of the poor, that should have the first attention of the Senate. Below is appended statements by accredited representatives of the various labor organizations of the country, and it can not be doubted that they speak not only for those who have formally accredited them to us, but also for the vast number of unrepresented poor people whose interests and whose wants are the same. Mr. Patrick Dolan, president of the United Mine Workers’ Asso- ciation, testified as follows: Our people, Mr. Chairman, are against the passage of the measure. I represent over 40,000 miners and their families, and I know from the sentiment in other sec- tions of the country to which I go, from talking to people who are interested in our organization, that they do not want to be deprived of the ability to purchase this wholesome article of food. If it is not made in a wholesome way, then they do not want it; but if it is just as good to them to spread their bread with as 35-cent butter, they do want it. And if this measure passes the chances are that butter will go up to 50 cents, and poor people will not be able to purchase it at all. Mr. John Pierce, representing the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers, said: Colored oleomargarine is at present retailed at from 123 to 20 cents per pound. On investigation I am satisfied that most of our people are paying about 15 cents per pound for it, and I can not admit that those who buy it can afford to pay more. I therefore arrive at the conclusion that they must either find 10 cents per pound more to pay this proposed robbery (for I can not dignify it by the name of tax) or buy and eat white oleomargarine. And this to satisfy the greed of the manufacturers of but- ter, who think that white oleomargarine is good enough for those who can not afford to pay 10 cents additional for yellow, or the 20 cents or more additional for creamery butter, or use the off grades of butter now unsalable as food. Shall those thus defrauded of what should be their inalienable constitutional right be compelled either to wear in their homes, on their very tables, flaunting before the eyes of their children and of those who may share their board, a badge of their poverty, and an emblem of their inability to pay a legalized robbery; or, on the other hand, to contribute from their meager board to the hellish greed of the butter interests, of OLEOMARGARINE AND OTHER IMITATION DAIRY PRODUCTS. XV whom it has been doubtless truly said that they seek to follow the fashion and form a trust, but are deterred by the existence of oleomargarine? * * * * * * * Now, Mr. Chairman, there are a good many of our people who make pretty good wages, and of course they can buy butter; but the majority of them make small wages now, especially since we got into this trust business. I know there are lots of men who do not like to buy this white oleomargarine, because it looks more like lard than anything else. It does not look like butter at all. Why should they be made to pay 10 cents a pound more because they get butter that resembles country butter and looks a little better on the table? That is why I am here to oppose the passage of this bill. It is for our people alone, for of course I do not know much about the butter business myself. Mr. John F. McNamee, vice-president and chairman legislative com- mittee Columbus Trades and Labor Assembly, Columbus, Ohio, said: I bear from the Central Labor Union of the city of Columbus, Ohio, officially known as the Columbus Trades and Labor Assembly, credentials which, with your permis- sion, I will.read to you: CotumBus, Onto, January 5, 1901. To whom it may concern: This is to certify that the bearer, Mr. John F. McNamee, vice-president of the Columbus Trades and Labor Assembly, is authorized and empowered by said body to exert every effort and use all honorable means in accomplishing the defeat of a measure now pending in the United States Senate, and known as the Grout bill, the object of which is to destroy a legitimate industry in the interest of its competitors, said Grout bill being regarded by said Trades and Labor Assembly and all it repre- sents as a gross injustice, class legislation, an invasion of citizenship rights, and a serious menace to the best interests of all citizens, particularly those in moderate circumstances. Any courtesies extended to our representative, Mr. McNamee, will be fully appre- ciated and remembered by the Columbus Trades and Labor Assembly. [SEAL. ] FRANK B. Cameron, President. Wiituiam P. Hauck, Secretary. This letter of introduction which I have presented represents but faintly the bitter antagonism which prevails in the ranks of organized labor to said measure. The members of organized labor are thoroughly familiar with all of the phases of this bill. They speak about the chemical analyses which have been made of oleomar- garine by official chemists, and they discuss all of the various components and ingre- dients of the product with almost as much familiarity as the manufacturers themselves are capable of doing. So I say that they are wide awake to the necessity, in the pro- tection of their own interests, of having the bill defeated. Not only that; but as patriotic American citizens they feel deeply the indignity to which our legislative bodies have been subjected by this attempt to utilize them for the promotion of the interests of certain individuals and corporations in violation of every sense of right and justice and at the expense of the constitutional prerogatives of other citizens. They feel that the legislative bodies of some of our States and the Congress of the United States have been insulted by this attempt to utilize them as tools for the pro- tection of certain interests which can not sustain themselves against competitors. * * * * * * * Gentlemen, there are hundreds of thousands of our citizens in moderate circum- stances who are now looking to the United States Senate for protection against the per- petration of sucha gross injustice. They are depending absolutely upon that sense of Justice, that sense of honor, fair play, and conservatism which has always character- ized this body to protect them from this, one of the most culpable violations of their rights which any individual or combination of individuals has ever attempted to perpetrate upon the American public. They are looking to this body with the firm hope that its traditional love of justice will prevail and predominate in this crisis. Should this measure become a law, arising from the mists of the near future there will come a monster into whose insatiable maw the contributions of our citizens shall continually flow, and whose appetite shall be increased by all attempts at its gratifi- cation. This monster we have all, in our apprehensive conviction of the certainty of its existence, learned to regard as the creamery trust of the future—the combination of creamery interests into one great organization, which shall monopolize the manu- XVI OLEOMARGARINE AND OTHER IMITATION DAIRY PRODUCTS. facture, not only of the food product known as butter, but of everything of that nature. That octopus is now being conceived. If the United States Senate should consent to the passage of a bill so outrageously unjust as this one is, then its birth will have been accomplished. * * * * * * * Now, we can not see that there is any justice whatever in placing any tax upon oleomargarine. Heaven knows that its manufacture is already sufficiently restricted and that it is an utter impossibility, under the stringent laws which exist in almost all of our States regulating its sale, for any deception to be practiced therein. And I want to assure you, gentlemen, that if any deception in this connection should be attempted in our part of the country it would be, and often is, in undertaking to palm off inferior butter for the product known as oleomargarine. I am myself a con- stant consumer of the article, and I propose that it shall “be continually used by my family, because I know, and so do all of the members of organized labor who have listened to the discussions relative to this product in their various unions, that it is absolutely free from all disease germs; that the process of its manufacture is such as to destroy all the bacilli of tuberculosis and various other disease germs that exist in the cow and through the medium of butter consumption are conveyed to the human system, and that butter is not subjected to any process which will eliminate that element of danger. * * * * * * * Here is an expression from one of the largest representative labor bodies in the United States—the Chicago Federation of Labor—and here is what they say relative to the tax: “We believe the efforts to place a tax of 10 cents per pound on colored butterine is inspired by selfish motives, so that the manufacturers of butter may charge an unreasonable price for their commodity and enable the large creameries to establish surely and securely a butter trust which may raise prices as their cupidity may dictate.”’ Here is another expression: ‘* Justice demands equal rights for both manufacturers of butter and butterine both products having equal merit. Any adverse legislation against either must be condemned.”’ This is from the Journeyman Horseshoers’ Union: ‘“‘We feel that all people having arrived at the age of discretion should be left to exercise their own choice as to whether they shall use butter or oleomargarine: Therefore, be it “* Resolved by Journeyman Horseshoers’ Union No. 40, of Columbus, Ohio, That as long as butterine is colored with a healthful ingredient said coloring should be encour- aged, as it improves the appearance of the product; that we do most emphatically condemn the persecution being waged against the butterine industry; that we pro- test against the attempt to increase the tax thereon, and that copies of this resolu- tion be forwarded to every Congressman, with the request that they each and every one exert the most strenuous efforts to crushingly defeat once and for all any and all measures providing for the further taxing of butterine.”’ * * * * %* * * Here is something from the Painters and Decorators of Cleveland, Ohio. It speaks in very plain language. This is in the form of a letter signed. by Mr. Peter Has- senpflue, 442 Erie street, Cleveland, president of said union. “T have been instructed by our union, containing over 400 members, to write and inform you that we are unanimously and bitterly “Opposed to the bills now pending in Congress providing for the persecution of the butterine industry. As you doubt- less know, there are laws now that are being carefully enforced and lived up to that make it impossible for butterine to be manufactured and sold for anything else but butterine, and it is the unanimous opinion of our members that butterine made according to these laws is better for all uses than three-fourths of the butter that can be bought. It won’t get strong, and it don’t come from feverish cows that are full of disease germs, and butter frequently does. “We feel this w ay—that if butterine is wrong, or poison, or liable to injure public health, then do away with it altogether; but. if it is not (and years of experience in using it have taught us it is not) then why persecute the industry and keep passing laws against it? Our belief is that this is kept up just for political reasons, and that some people in Congress that are sworn to protect the rights and interests of all the people are willing to increase our already too high cost ‘ot living and add to our taxes just to catch the farmer vote and increase the business of the butter trust OLEOMARGARINE AND OTHER IMITATION DAIRY PRODUCTS. XVII or trusts (and if butterine is killed they will soon be in one), and make them a pres- ent of the butter market, so they can either rob the people or make them go without butter. It is the rankest kind of injustice to kill one industry that is right and legitimate in order to accommodate another. We want butterine; we know what it is; we would rather have it than butter, and it is an outrage, in order to gratify the people who make butter, that we should have to go without it and pay two prices for butter which we are compelled by law to eat, and which, nine cases out of ten, is not fit for human use. It is getting to be pretty serious when the Congress of the United States is asked to go into the business of booming certain interests, and for their accommodation driving their competitors out of existence simply because they are competitors, and for no other reason on earth. A great deal is being said about butterine being a certain color. Now, the only reason that a kick is made on that color is because it helps to sell that commodity. If the butterine makers were to use red or black or blue; these patriotic statesmen, and others so solicitous for the people’s protection, would raise no objection, because that would make the same point that they want to make by law, and that is to hurt its sale and thereby tickle the farmers and advance the interests of the creamery trusts. The ingredient used in butterine which gives it its color has been proven by official chemical analysis to be a natural and healthful product. As there is no reason to kill butterine but because it hurts another business, then why not do away with these hose painting machines because they hurt our business? ‘“‘We know it would be unreasonable to ask this, but it would be no more so thae for butter makers to try, as they are doing, to drive butterine out of existence becausn it hurts their business. **T will close by saying that we consider any further legislation by Congress tam- pering with the butterine business as a prostitution of that dignified body to the greed and avarice of certain corporations and individuals, at our sacrifice and that of the people in general who don’t own farms or creamery factories; and in the name of my union, under its seal, and by its unanimous instruction, I earnestly request you do everything you can to defeat all measures that provide for the increase in the tax of or further interference with the manufacture or sale of butterine.”’ From the Chicago Federation of Labor: CuicaGco, March 21, 1900. Hon. Wiiit1am McALeErr. Dear Str: The following resolutions were unanimously adopted by the Chicago Federation of Labor at regular meeting, Sunday, February 4, and I was instructed to forward a copy of same to you: ‘“Whereas the Chicago Federation of Labor is deeply interested in and desires to encourage every legitimate industry which furnishes employment to the laboring classes; and ‘“ Whereas efforts are being attempted by contemplated legislation at Washington to destroy the manufacture and sale of butterine, thereby displacing large numbers of the industrial element and preventing them from gaining a livelihood as well as the use of an article of food which has received the highest testimonials of every chemist in this country and the indorsement of every standard work that treats on the subject of hygiene; and ‘“Whereas we believe the efforts to place a tax of 10 cents per pound on colored butterine is inspired by selfish motives, so that the manufacturers of butter may charge an unreasonable price for their commodity and enable the large creameries to establish surely and securely a butter trust which may raise prices as their cupidity may dictate; and ** Whereas justice demands equal rights for both manufacturers of butter and butter- ine, both products having equal merit, any adverse legislation against either must be condemned; and ‘“Whereas the late published reports furnished to Congress by the Secretary of the Treasury proves the legitimate and growing demand for butterine and discloses the large amount of revenue derived therefrom; and “Whereas we believe that the present Federal law taxing butterine 2 cents per ° pound and the additional regulations imposed by the Commissioner of Internal Rey- pai ae sufficient to properly regulate the manufacture and sale of butterine: There- ore, be it “Resolved, That we, the representatives of the industrial classes in Chicago, and voicing, as we know we do, the sentiments of the mechanic and the laborer through- out the country, protest against the passage of the Tawney, Grout, or any other bills that have for their object the further increase of tax or the relegating to the different , States the right to enact laws that are opposed to the interests of the people and in S. Rep. 2048——im XVIII OLEOMARGARINE AND OTHER IMITATION DAIRY PRODUCTS. ay way in harmony with the inventive and progressive spirit of the age; and be it urther ‘‘Resolved, That we instruct our secretary to have sufficient copies of these resolu- tions printed that one be mailed to every Senator and Congressman in Washington and one to each of the labor organizations affiliated with the Federation of Labor, requesting them to indorse same or pass others of a similar character, so that a full expression of our condemnation of such legislation may be made known.”’ Respectfully submitted. Watrer CArMopy, Secretary Chicago Federation of Labor. * * * * * * * Bui~pine TRADES CoUNCIL, Cleveland, Ohio, April 27, 1900. Dear Str: The Building Trades Council of Cleveland, Ohio, and vicinity, repre- senting over 5,000 mechanics, has by unanimous vote indorsed the action of the Chicago Federation of Labor and all the other labor organizations who are so doing in opposing the persecution of the butterine industry. We can not see any justification in placing a larger or, in fact, any tax on butterine or oleomargarine. The article is sold on its merits, and it would rather hurt than help its sale to attempt to sell it for butter, as it is more popular and generally regarded as more healthy than butter. Any of our people that may not want but- terine can, while it is on the market, buy butter at a reasonable price, but if the attempt to kill it by legislation is successful, the butter manufacturers will have no competitors, and the result will be that the present butter trust will absorb the butter industry and control the purchase of milk by having little creameries in every farming locality on the plan of the Standard Oil Company, and we will have the pleasure of paying 50 or 60 cents per pound for butter or going without it altogether, the chances being in favor of the latter. We feel that as butterine is demanded and sold for what it is, and as the laws regulating its manufacture and sale are operating successfully in preventing its adulteration, that the legislative bodies of our country have gone as far as they have any right to go, and that further interference on their part is persecution and intended to advance private interests at the expense of the rights of the people. There is, undoubtedly, political motive behind all this. There area hundred different cases in which legislative vigilance could protect the people from adulterated foods where such vigilance is not exercised, or if in any remote way ever applied it is not being taken advantage of by the officials supposed to enforce it; and why? Simply because the manufacturers of adulterated foods or the beneficiaries of their existence have no influential competitors to be served by their suppression. Butterine has been the victim of legislative attacks for a number of years, and we feel it is now time to let up on it and devote the effort wasted in the persecution of this legitimate industry to some more worthy cause in the protection of the real interests of the people. There is an old saying that ‘‘ He who is bent on an eyil deed is never lacking for an excuse,’’ and it is certainly applicable in this case, the excuse being that it is wrong to color butterine because it is likely to be sold as butter, whereas, in fact, owing to the extreme popularity of the former, there is more lability of an attempt being made by some butter manufacturer to imitate it, and the only reason why an attempt is made to prevent the use of the material in butterine imparting color to it is to hurt its sale, as it has been proven this material is perfectly healthy. And eee is the justice of prohibiting its use simply because it helps the sale of an honest product? : As long as the people want butterine and it is good to use, as the Goverment chemists have proven, why should it be abolished? We can not see that there is need to say more. You can not but see the rank injustice of this whole business, and we would, therefore, earnestly request, in the name of common American justice, ‘that you would strenuously oppose and exert every means in your power to defeat all such legislation. This letter has the hearty indorsement of our body, and as a testimony of which it bears our seal. W. C. Davis, President. GRANT MorGAN, Secretary * x * * * x s OLEOMARGARINE AND OTHER IMITATION DAIRY PRODUCTS XIX The minority insert here, as a part of their report, the views of the minority of the Committee on Agriculture of the House of Repre- sentatives, which is as follows: VIEWS oF THE MINORITY. The minority of the Committee on Agriculture of the House of Representatives beg leave to submit the accompanying bill, which we offer as a substitute for H. R. 3717, known as the Grout bill. We first wish to bring to the attention of the House proof positive that oleomarga- rine is a wholesome and nutritious article of food and is therefore entitled to a legiti- mate place in the commerce of our country. In substantiation of this statement we beg to submit the following testimony taken before the committee: OPINIONS OF LEADING SCIENTISTS. » Prof. C. F. Chandler, professor of chemistry at Columbia College, New York, says: ‘“‘T have studied the question of its use as food, in comparison with the ordinary but- ter made from cream, and have satisfied myself that it is quite as valuable as the butter from the cow. The product is palatable and wholesome, and I regard it as a most valuable article of food.”’ Prof. George F. Barker, of the University of Pennsylvania, says: ‘‘ Butterine is, in my opinion, quite as valuable asa nutritive agent as butter itself. It is perfectly wholesome, and is desirable as an article of food. I can see no reason why butterine should not be an entirely satisfactory equivalent for ordinary butter, whether con- sidered from the physiological or commercial standpoint.’’ Prof. Henry Morton, of the Stevens Institute of Technology, New Jersey, says: ‘‘I am able to say with confidence that it contains nothing whatever which is injurious as an article of diet, but, on the contrary, is essentially identical with the best fresh butter,-and is superior to much of the butter made from cream alone which is found in the market. The conditions of its manufacture involve a degree of cleanliness and consequent purity in the product such as are by no means necessarily or generally attained in the ordinary making of butter from cream.”’ Prof. 8S. W. Johnson, director of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station and professor of agricultural chemistry in Yale College, New Haven, says: ‘‘It isa product that is entirely attractive and wholesome as food, and one that is for all ordinary and culinary purposes the full equivalent of good butter made from cream. I regard the manufacture of oleomargarine as a legitimate and beneficent industry.’’ Prof. 8. C. Caldwell, of Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y., says: ‘‘ While not equal to fine butter in respect to flavor, it nevertheless contains all the essential ingredients of butter, and since it contains a smaller proportion of volatile fats than is found in genuine butter, it is, in my opinion, less liable to become rancid. It can not enter into competition with fine butter, but so far as it may serve to drive poor butter out of the market, its manufacture will be a public benefit.”’ Prof. C. A. Goessman, of Amherst Agricultural College, says: ‘‘ Oleomargarine but- ter compares in general appearance and in taste very favorably with the average quality of the better kinds of dairy butter in our markets. In its composition it resembles that of ordinary dairy butter, and in its keeping quality, under corresponding cir- cumstances, I believe it will surpass the former, for it contains a smaller percentage of those constituents which, in the main, cause the well-known rancid taste and odor of a stored butter.”’ Prof. Charles P. Williams, professor in the Missouri State University, says: ‘‘ It is a pure and wholesome article of food, and in this respect, as well as in respect to its chemical composition, fully the equivalent of the best quality of dairy butter.”’ Prof. J. W. 8. Arnold, professor of physiology in the University of New York, says: ““T consider that each and every article employed in the manufacture of oleomargarine butter is perfectly pure and wholesome, that oleomargarine butter differs in no essen- tial manner from butter made from cream. In fact, oleomargarine butter possesses the advantage over natural butter of not decomposing so readily, as it contains fewer volatile fats. In my opinion oleomargarine is to be considered a great discovery, a blessing for the poor, and in every way a perfectly pure, wholesome, and palatable article of food.”’ Prof. W. O. Atwater, director of the United States Government Agricultural Experi- ment Station at Washington, says: ‘‘ It contains essentially the same ingredients as natural butter from cow’s milk. It is perfectly wholesome and healthy and has a high nutritious value.’’ xX OLEOMARGARINE AND OTHER IMITATION DAIRY PRODUCTS. Prof. Henry E. Alvord, formerly of the Massachusetts Agricultural College, and president of the Maryland College of Agriculture, and now chief of the Dairy Division of the United States Department of Agriculture, and one of the best butter makers in the country, says: ‘‘The great bulk of butterine and its kindred products is as whole- some, cleaner, and in many respects better, than the low grades of butter of which so much reaches the market.’ Prof. Paul Schweitzer, Ph. D., LL. D., professor of chemistry, Missouri State Uni- versity, says: ‘‘Asa result of my examination, made both with the microscope and the delicate chemical tests applicable to such cases, I pronounce butterine to be wholly and unequivocally free from any deleterious or in the least objectionable substances. Carefully made physiological experiments reveal no difference whatever in the pala- tability and digestibility between butterine and butter.”’ Professor Wiley, Chief of the Division of Chemistry of the United States Depart- ment of Agriculture, also appeared before the committee and testified to the nutritive and wholesome qualities of oleomargarine. The Committee on Manufactures of the United States Senate, in a report dated February 28, 1900, finds, from the evidence before it, ‘‘that the product known commercially as oleomargarine is healthful and nutritious.”’ Judge Hughes, of the Federal court of Virginia, in a decision, says: “Tt is a fact of common knowledge that oleomargarine has been subjected to the severest scientific scrutiny and has been adopted by every leading government in Europe as well as America for use by their armies and navies. Though not origi- nally invented by us, it is a gift of American enterprise and progressive invention to the world. It has become one of the conspicuous articles of interstate commerce and furnishes a large income to the General Government annually.”’ Believing that this testimony establishes beyond controversy that oleomargarine is a nutritious and wholesome article of food, the main question to be considered is the complaint that fraud is practiced in its sale. The only just complaint (indeed, the only complaint) against the existing oleo- margarine law consists in the facility with which the retail dealer, in selling from the original or wholesale package and substituting a new and unmarked wrapper, may violate the law. There is nothing in H.R.3717 (known as the Grout bill) which would decrease the temptation or increase the difficulty of such violations. On the contrary, the increased taxation would either be fraudulently evaded or else would force the honest manufacturer out of business. H.R.3717 merely increases taxation without providing any new or additional penalties or any new methods to prevent the sale of oleomargarine as butter, either in its colored or uncolored state. In fact, the radical advocates of the Grout bill do not seek this end, as they have declared in their testimony before the committee and in declarations elsewhere that their sole intention is to absolutely crush out the manufacture of oleomargarine and eliminate it as a food product. In substantiation of this assertion we quote the following: Mr. Adames, pure-food commissioner of the State of Wisconsin, in his testimony before the committee on March 7, 1900, said: “‘There is no use beating about the bush in this matter. We want to pass this law and drive the oleomargarine manufacturers out of the business.”’ Charles Y. Knight, secretary of the National Dairy Union, in a letter to the . Virginia Dairymen, dated May 18, 1900, writes: ‘“Now is the time for you to clip the fangs of the mighty octopus of the oleomar- garine manufacturers who are ruining the dairy interests of this country by manu- facturing and selling in defiance of law a spurious article in imitation of pure butter. We have a remedy almost in grasp which will eliminate the manufacture of this article from the food-product list. The Grout bill, now pending in the Agricultural Committee of the House of Representatives in Congress, meets the demand.’’ W. D. Hoard, ex-governor of Wisconsin and president of the National Dairy Union, stated in his testimony before the committee on March 7, 1900, as follows: ‘“To give added force to the first section of the bill, it is provided in the second section that a tax of 10 cents a pound shall be imposed on all oleomargarine in the color or semblance of butter. In plain words, this is repressive taxation.”’ In view of this testimony the minority believe they are justified in claiming that the Grout bill, if enacted into law, would destroy the business of the legitimate oleo- margarine manufacturers. In other words, Congress is being asked to ruin one industry to benefit another; and this, in the opinion of the minority, is a thing Con- gress ought not to do. The minority believe it to be class legislation of the most pronounced kind and would establish a precedent which, if followed, would create monopolies, destroy competition, and militate against the public good. The substitute bill offered by the minority would, in our opinion, eliminate all possibility of fraud and would compel the manufacturers of and dealers in oleomar- OLEOMARGARINE AND OTHER IMITATION DAIRY PRODUCTS. XXI garine to sell it for what it really is and not for butter. The substitute offered is practically an amendment to sections 3 and 6 of the existing oleomargarine law. The licenses for manufacture and sale of this article are not changed, and are as follows: Manufacturers, $600 per annum; wholesale dealers, $480 per annum; retailers, 548 per annum, while the penalties imposed for violation of the law are materially increased. Wequote in full section 2 of the substitute bill, and ask for it the careful and thoughtful consideration of the House, believing that it is just and fair to all the interests involved: “Src. 2. That all oleomargarine shall be put up by the manufacturer for sale in packages of one and two pounds, respectively, and in no other or larger or smaller package; and upon every print, brick, roll, or lump of oleomargarine, before being so put up for sale or removal from the factory, there shall be impressed by the manu- facturer the word ‘‘oleomargarine’’ in sunken letters, the size of which shall be pre- scribed by regulations made by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue and approved by the Secretary of the Treasury; and every such print, brick, roll, or lump of oleomar- garine shall first be wrapped with paper wrapper with the word ‘‘oleomargarine”’ printed thereon in distinct letters, and said wrapper shall also bear the name of the manufacturer, and then shall be put by the manufacturer thereof in such wooden or paper packages or in such wrappers, with the word ‘‘oleomargarine”’ printed thereon in distinct letters, and marked, stamped, and branded in such manner as the Com- missioner of Internal Revenue, with the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury, shall prescribe, and the internal-revenue stamp shall be affixed so as to surround the outer wrapper of each one and two pound package: Provided, That any number of such original stamped packages may be put up by the manufacturer in crates or boxes, on the outside of which shall be marked the word ‘‘oleomargarine,’’ with such other marks and brands as the Commissioner of Internal Revenue shall, by regulations approved by the Secretary of the Treasury, prescribe. ‘‘Retail dealers in oleomargarine shall sell only the original package to which the tax-paid stamp is affixed. ‘“« Every person who knowingly sells or offers for sale, or delivers or offers to deliver, any oleomargarine otherwise than as provided by this act or contrary to the regula- tions of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue made in pursuance hereof or who packs in any package any oleomargarine in any manner contrary to law, or who shall sell or offer for sale as butter any oleomargarine, colored or uncolored, or who falsely brands any package, or affixes a stamp on any package denoting a less amount of tax than that required by law, shall be fined for the first offense not less than one hundred nor more than five hundred dollars and be imprisoned not less than thirty days nor more than six months; and for the second and every subsequent offense shall be fined not less than two hundred nor more than one thousand dollars and be imprisoned not less than sixty days nor more than two years.”’ One of the claims made by the friends of the Grout bill is that it will protect the interests of the farmer. We call attention to the fact that every ingredient that enters into the manufacture of oleomargarine isas much a product of the farm as the butter, and that such ingredients are made more valuable on account of their use in the manufacture of oleomargarine. Your committee has had before it representatives of both the cattle and hog raisers of the country, and also representatives of the cotton industry, and they are unani- mous in their opinion that their business will be materially injured and the price of their product lowered by the passage of the Grout bill and the destruction of the oleomargarine industry. The manufacture and sale of oleomargarine does not interfere with the growth and prosperity of the butter industry. Statistics show a much greater percentage in the increase of the production of butter than in the production of oleomargarine. Though similar in ingredients, they are not strictly competing, as the oleomargarine is prac- tically all bought by the poorer class of our people. In justification of this statement we have received a large number of petitions from the labor organizations of our country protesting against the passage of this bill tor the aboye-given reasons. It being possible to keep oleomargarine in a sweet and sound condition much longer than butter, it is also used extensively in the mining and lumber camps, on explor- ing and hunting expeditions, on ships at sea, and by armies in the field. The claim made by the friends of the Grout bill that the manufacture and sale of oleomargarine has greatly depreciated the price of butter will not obtain when it is known that there is now manufactured in the United States nearly 2,000,000,000 pounds of butter annually, and it is positively known that there only were 83,000,000 pounds of oleomargarine manufactured last year, which shows that the amount of oleomargarine produced is about 4 per cent of the amount of butter produced. There- XXII OLEOMARGARINE AND OTHER IMITATION DAIRY PRODUCTS. fore, the argument that oleomargarine in any material sense controls the price of butter is not justified by the facts. The manufacture and sale of oleomargarine have in no way depreciated the price of butter, as more butter is being sold at higher price in this country than ever before, as shown by testimony. It is a suggestive fact that those sections of our country which are most exclusively devoted to the dairy interests are blessed with the greatest prosperity, as brought out in the testimony of ex-Governor Hoard, of Wisconsin, before our committee, who said that a few years ago land was worth only $15 an acre in that State, but as the State began to be devoted more exclusively to the dairy interests land had rapidly appreciated in price, and that farmers had gotten out of debt, had paid their mort- gages, and the land is now worth the sum of $80 per acre, this price averaging much higher than agricultural lands in other parts of the country. In conclusion the members of the Committee on Agriculture who have joined in this minority report beg to assure the House and the country in the most solemn manner possible that it has been their earnest intention, and is now their determina- tion, to do everything possible to be done to enforce the sale of oleomargarine as oleo- margarine and to prevent its sale as butter. To prevent fraud and not to stamp out an industry has been and is our purpose. We believe that it ought to be the sole purpose of all legislation and the sole motive of all just men. J. W. WADSWORTH. Wo. Lorimer. W. J. Barney. i G. H. WHire. Joun 8. WILLIAMS. J. Wm. SToKEs. H. D. ALLEN. Mr. W. E. Miller said: At this juncture we would like to introduce as evidence an article from Experiment Station Record, United States Department of Agriculture, on the nutritive value of oleomargarine: ‘(THE NUTRITIVE VALUE OF MARGARIN COMPARED WITH BUTTER. E. Bertarelli (Ri. Ig. eSan. Pubb., 9 (1898), Nos. 14, pp. 538-545; 15, pp. 570-579).—Three experiments with healthy men are reported in which the value of margarin and butter was tested when consumed as part of a simple mixed diet. In one experiment the value of a mixture of olive oil and colza oil, which is commonly used in Italy in the neighbor- hood of Turin, was also tested. The author himself was the subject of one of the tests. He was 24 years old. The subjects of the other tests were two laboratory servants, one 27 years old, the other 32 years old. The coefficients of digestibility at the balance of income and outgo of nitrogen in the different experiments were as ollows: Digestion experiments with margarin, butter, and oil. Coefficients of digestibility. Nitrogen. Time. she Carbo- In In In hydrates.| food. | urine. | feces. Gain. Protein. Days. | Per cent. | Per cent. | Per cent.| Gms. | Gms. | Gms. | Gms. Laboratory servant, P. G.: 500 gm. white bread, 270 gm. veal, 70gm. butter, 250-300 ec. wine.....-..--- 5 81.75 92. 67 97.25 | 15.7 9.6 2.6 3.5 Laboratory servant, P.G.: 500gm. white bread, 250 gm.veal, 70 gm. margarin, 250-300 ce. wine ..---- 5 79.50 93. 90 97.207.) 1bs7 |) 10s3: 3.2 2.2 Author: 450 gm. white bread, 250 gm. meat, 70 gm. butter......... 6 81.85 94. 25 97 30N\ (loan | melee 2.5 ot) Author: 450 gm. white bread, 250 gm.meat, 70 gm. margarin.. .... 6 77.80 | 93.73 | 96.70 | 138.5 9.6 3.1 .8 Laboratory servant, F. D.: 824gm. white bread, 250 gm. meat, 61.6 UNS WWI OE oss Soe esa oas ae aobc 5 85. 32 95. 80 97.388 | 16.5 | 13.2 2.9 4 Laboratory servant, F. D.: 859 gm. white bread, 250 gm. meat, 61.6 SS NALS ATI eee see eee e en oe ae 5 82.92 95. 33 97.24] 16.9] 12.5 3.4 1.0 Laboratory servant, F. D.: 910 gm. white bread, 250 gm. meat, 61.6 gm. olive and colza oils......... 5 83. 27 95, 82 97.56.) 7spul| ales: 3.5 .6 OLEOMARGARINE AND OTHER IMITATION DAIRY PRODUCTS. XXIII ““The principal conclusions follow: When properly prepared, margarin differs but little from natural butter in chemical and physical properties. On an average 93.5 to 96 per cent of fat was assimilated when margarin was consumed and 94 to 96 per cent when butter formed part of the diet. The moderate use of margarin did not cause any disturbance of the digestive tract.’’ This is a resolution passed by the Sioux City Live Stock Exchange: ‘‘Whereas a bill has been introduced in the House of Representatives known as House bill 6, providing for an amendment of ‘An act defining butter, also imposing a tax upon and regulating the manufacture, sale, importation, and exportation of oleomargarine;’ and. ‘Whereas such a bill, if enacted, is calculated to build up and restore one industry at the expense of another by means of uncalled-for and unjust taxation; and ‘‘Whereas the destruction of the oleomargarine industry would greatly impair the market value of beef cattle, and would thereby deprive the producer of a large amount of revenue: Therefore, be it “« Resolved, That the Sioux City Live Stock Exchange of Sioux City, lowa, emphat- ically protests against the enactment of the law proposed in House bill No. 6. ‘‘Witness the signatures of the president and secretary of said exchange and the official seal thereof affixed at Sioux City, Iowa, December 28, 1899. “¢J. H. Nason, President. ‘Wn. Maaivny, Secretary.”’ These are resolutions passed by the Texas Cotton-Seed Crushers’ Association: ““‘Drar Str: At a meeting of the Cotton-Seed Crushers’ Association, held in Dallas on Tuesday, November 14, 1899, T. P. Sullivan, of Jefferson; R. K. Erwin, of Waxa- hachie; W. R. Moore, of Ardmore, Ind. T., and Robert Gibson, secretary, of Dallas, were appointed a committee to draft resolutions expressive o/ the sense of the meet- ing on the matters discussed. The resolutions as submitted were unanimously adopted, and are as follows: “Marton Sansom, Chairman: ‘‘The undersigned committee appointed by you beg leave to submit the following preamble and resolutions: ‘‘ Whereas the line of industrial business represented by this association is coexten- sive with the entire area of the cotton-cultivated zone of our Southern States and, in conjunction with cotton in its various uses, represents the wealth of the South; and ‘*Whereas Texas represents over 30 per cent of the cotton and cotton seed annually produced in the United States, any embargo placed by legislation on the growth and development of our industry is detrimental to the vast interests committed to our care. It is therefore of most vital necessity that all avenues leading to the sale and con- sumption of our cotton-oil products should be free and unrestricted, and inasmuch as cotton oil is used to a large extent in the manufacture of butterine, which is a most wholesome and healthful substitute for butter; and ‘“Whereas a tax at present exists of 2 cents per pound on the manufacture of this most healthful article of food, and that it is contemplated to introduce at the next session of Congress an increased tax of 10 cents per pound on same: It is, therefore, ‘* Resolved, That this association enter its protest against the existing tax of 2 cents per pound on butterine and ask for its abrogation and repeal, and against the intro- duction or adoption of any future tax on same as an article of food, as it directly affects our great industry both at home and on the continent of Europe, where a cheap and wholesome article of food, such as butterine, is appreciated. ‘* Resolved, That we believe the imposition of a special tax of this nature is class legis- lation and should be combatted by all the means at our command, and that our Sen- ators and Representatives in Congress are hereby requested to give us all the neces- sary aid in this behalf; and it is further ** Resolved, That thesecretary of this association transmit a copy of these resolutions to each cotton-oil mill in the South, with the request that they interest their Senators and Representatives therein, and also to our Senators and Representatives in Con- gress from Texas. ““T. P. SuLLIVAN, Chairman, Jefferson, Tex. “R. K. Erwin, Waxahachie, Tex. “W.R. Moore, Ardmore, Ind. T. ‘‘ Ropert Gipson, Secretary, Dallas, Tex.” XXIV OLEOMARGARINE AND OTHER IMITATION DAIRY PRODUCTS. Resolutions against oleomargarine tax offered at meeting of cotton-oil mill super- intendents: ‘““CHARLESTON, 8S. C., July 6. ‘““Cotton-oil superintendents from South Carolina and North Carolina met yester- day at the Calhoun Hotel for the purpose of organizing the cotton-oil mill superin- tendents’ association; ‘After the constitution and by-laws were read and adopted, the following resolu- tions were offered by A. A. Haynes: ‘* “Resolved, That this association, representing millions of dollars of invested capital in the South, strongly protest against national class legislation which aims directly at the destruction of competition in the manufacture and sale of wholesome and health- ful articles of food. “* “Resolved, That we protest strenuously against the passage by Congress of the Grout oleomargarine bill, which proposes to tax oleomargarine 10 cents per pound, and thus to drive it from the market. ‘* ‘Resolved, That this association implores Congress not to destroy an industry which now uses nearly 10,000,000 pounds of the best grade of cotton-seed oil annu- ally, and thus kill that quantity of our most profitable output. ‘“* Resolved, That we urge the legislatures of South Carolina and of other Southern States to remove from their statute books the antioleomargarine legislation thereon, because such acts are only in the interest of the renovated and process butter facto- ries of the North and Northwest, and against the hog fats, beef fats, and cotton-seed- oil products grown on our Southern farms. ‘** Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be sent to the National Provisioner, of New York and Chicago, the indomitable champion of the cotton-oil interests, for publication, and that the members of this association proceed to secure, if possible, the repeal of the obnoxious State laws above referred to. ‘“* Resolved, That this association will do what it can to cause the defeat of the Grout antioleomargarine bill in Congress during the coming session.’ ”’ Mr. John C. McCoy presented the following resolutions: Weak = THe Kansas Crry Live Stock EXCHANGE, Kansas City, Mo., February 8, 1900. The following preamble and resolutions were unanimously adopted by the board of directors of the Kansas City Live Stock Exchange at a regular meeting held Feb- ruary 5, 1900: ‘“Whereas certain bills have been introduced in the House of Representatives of the United States looking for the enactment of a law, by way of taxation, whereby the manutacture, sale, importation, and exportation of oleomargarine will be ruined; and ‘*Whereas such bills, if passed and allowed to become laws, will build up one industry at the expense of tearing down and ruining another, the logical effect of which will be the granting of a monopoly to the industry sought to be benefited; and ‘“Whereas the destruction of the oleomargarine industry will reduce the value of cattle and hogs to the farmers and raisers thereof, as well as work a hardship upon millions of poor people who are unable to pay the fancy prices asked for butter: Therefore, be it Resolved, That the Kansas City Live Stock Exchange, of Kansas City, Mo., earnestly protest against the enactment of the law proposed relating to oleomargarine; and be it further Resolved, That the board of directors of this exchange be requested to memorialize the Congress of the United States against the passage of a law or laws inimical to the live-stock industry, and that a copy of these resolutions be sent to the honorable the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States.’’ Respectfully, yours, W.S. Hannan, President. Mr. William H. Thompson, president National Live Stock Exchange, Chicago, IIl., said: ‘In round numbers there are 75,000,000 people in this country. I believe a reason- able estimate of the number of Indians and children under a butter-eating age to be 25,000,000, which would leave a population of 50,000,000 outside of these classes who are consumers of butter. Of this 50,000,000 people at least one-half are able to buy the best butter manu- factured, irrespective of price, while the other 25,000,000 are a class of people whom the butterine manufacturers aim to reach and benefit, and are a class of our citizens OLEOMARGARINE AND OTHER IMITATION DAIRY PRODUCTS. XXV known as laborers, not in the common acceptance of the term, but as a class of peo- ple following a variety of pursuits at small salaries, and in most cases, owing to their dependencies and meager earnings, compelled to go without the luxuries of life. It is this class of people whose interests need careful consideration, whose claims upon you as their representatives are invariably backed by justice, who are always the greatest sufferers by and the most sensitive to inimical legislation, who always are the first to respond to and cheerfully comply with all just and reasonable laws. As the representative of the National Live Stock Exchange, I also plead for a con- sideration of the rights of this class of our citizens, who, from the nature of their sur- roundings and conditions, are unable to appear before you in their own behalf. They, who are the principal consumers of butterine, are not asking for any legisla- . tion. The producers and raisers of fat cattle are not asking you for any legislation in this respect. Why should it be any more unlawful to put into butterine, the product of the beef steer, the same coloring matter as is put into butter, the similar product of his sister, the dairy cow? Is there any equity or justice in such denial? Is it made necessary by the condi- tions? Is it warranted upon any grounds? If it is, 1 am at a loss to comprehend it. This kind of legislation is most assuredly the worst and most vicious kind of class legislation, because it is inaugurated solely for the purpose of destroying a competi- tive industry equally as important and equally as deserving of legislative support and protection. The Grout bill represents an attempt on the part of Congress to tax one legitimate industry out of existence for the benefit of another industry. The ostensible pur- pose is protection to the consumers against ‘‘imitation butter;’’ but the public has never asked for such protection. It does not even object to the coloring of butterine the same as butter, so long as the butterine is properly labeled and sold on its merits. As a matter of fact, the consumers of butterine prefer to have it colored, so long as the coloring material used is harmless. They like butterine because of its cheapness and because they are satisfied with its purity and wholesomeness. The enactment of this bill will not only deprive the consumer of a healthy and nutritious article of food, but immediately it becomes a law will depreciate the value of the beef cattle and take from the producers of this country upward of forty-five millions of dollars. The following is not part of the hearing before the committee, but is vouched for as the true resolution passed by the convention. At the Fourth Annual Convention of the National Live Stock Asso- ciation, held at Salt Lake City, Utah, January 15, 16,17, and 18, 1901, at which 1,412 delegates were represented and 5,000 visitors were pres- ent, from nearly every State and Territory in the Union, the following memorial to the Senate of the United States was adopted: To the honorable the Senate of the United States: Your orator, the National Live Stock Association, respectfully represent unto your honorable body that it is an association composed of 126 live-stock and kindred organizations, all directly interested in the production, marketing, and disposing of live stock, and whose holdings thereof represent an investment of over $600,000,000. Your orator, in annual session assembled at Salt Lake City, Utah, desires to enter its emphatic protest against the enactment of what is commonly known as the Grout bill (House bill 3717), and in behalf of its protest desires to record a few of the many reasons in support of its contention. This measure is a species of class legislation of the most iniquitous and dangerous kind, calculated to build up one industry at the expense of another equally as important. It seeks to impose an unjust, uncalled-for, and unwarranted burden upon one of the principal commercial industries of the country for the purpose of prohibiting its manufacture, thereby destroying competition, as the manufacturers can not assume the additional burdens sought to be imposed by this measure and sell their product in competition with butter. ““The passage of this law would destroy the demand, except for export, for that product of the beef of animals, oil of oleo, of which 24,000,000 pounds was used in the year 1899 in the manufacture of oleomargarine, and also would seriously injure the hog industry by a similar destruction of the demand, except for export, of neutral lard, 31,000,000 pounds of which was used in the year 1899 in the manufacture of this food product, and by thus eliminating the demand for these legitimate articles XXVI OLEOMARGARINE AND OTHER IMITATION DAIRY PRODUCTS of commerce force dealers to seek other channels for their disposition, at greatly reduced prices, thereby entailing a loss to the producers of live stock of the United States of millions of dollars annually. “The measure seeks to throttle competition, and, if enacted, will render useless immense establishments, erected at great expense, for the manufacture of oleomarga- rine, deprive thousands of employees of the opportunity to gain a livelihood, and deny the people—and especially the workingmen and their dependencies—of a whole- some article of diet. “‘Tn oleomargarine a very large proportion of the consumers of this country, and especially the working classes, have a wholesome, nutritious, and satisfactory article - of diet, which, before its advent, they were obliged—owing to the high price of butter and their limited means—to go without. ; “*Your orator contends that it is manifestly unjust, unreasonable, and unfair to deny manufacturers of the product of the beef animal and the hog the same privileges in regard to the use of coloring matter that are accorded to the manufacturers of the product of the dairy, and that the rights and privileges of the producers of cattle and hogs should be as well respected as those of others, and, as they are the beneficiaries in the manufacture of this wholesome article of food, they should not be burdened with unnecessary and oppressive special taxes or needless restrictions in the manu- facture of this product, other than is absolutely necessary for the support of the Goy- ernment and the proper governmental regulations surrounding the handling of the same. Your orator respectfully contends that these products should receive at the hands of Congress no greater exactions than those imposed upon competing food products; and that the manufacture and sale of oleomargarine is already surrounded by numer- ous safeguards which Congress, in its wisdom, has seen fit to provide, stipulating a severe punishment for selling same under misrepresentation as to its composition: and that this produce has, by experience, proven to be just what a large majority of the people of this country want, and that none but the dairy and allied interests are asking tor or seeking any further legislation in this matter, and their indorsement of the proposed legislation is purely and simply selfish. In conelusion, your orator, in behalf of the producers and consumers of this great country, solemnly protests against the enactment of the Grout bill or any other legislation calculated to entail an enormous loss on the live-stock producers of this country, to ruin a great industry, and to deprive not only the working classes, but many others of a cheap, wholesome, nutritious, and acceptable article of food. THe Nationa Live Srock AssocraTIon. JoHn W. Sprincer, President, By C. F. Martin, Secretary. The bill recommended by the majority is, in the opinion of the minority, an unconstitutional measure in that it is class legislation. If it is designed as a revenue measure, then it would be unconstitu- tional, because it taxes one man for the benefit of another, which, according to the language of the Supreme Court, ‘tis robbery under the form of law.” H. D. Money. Henry HEITFExp. I concur generally in the views expressed in this minority report, without indorsing all the expressions therein used, especially in the testimony of witnesses and extracts made a part of it. I coneur fully, however, in the conclusion of the minority that the bill ought not to pass. Wm. B. Bare. THE OLEOMARGARINE BILL. a HHARINGS BEFORE THE COMITEE ON AGRICULTURE: AND. FORESTRY, UNITED STATES SENATE, ON THE BILL (H. RB. 3717) TO MAKE OLEOMARGARINE AND OTHER IMITATION DAIRY PRODUCTS SUBJECT TO THE LAWS OF THE STATE OR TERRITORY INTO WHICH THEY ARE TRANSPORTED, AND TO CHANGE THE TAX ON OLEOMARGARINE. S. Rep. 2043——1 1 HEARINGS ON THE OLEOMARGARINE BILL. WasurneTon, D. C., Wednesday, December 19, 1900. The committee met at 10.30 a. m. Present: Senators Proctor (chairman), Hansbrough, Warren, Foster, Bate, Money, Heitfeld, and Allen. Also, Hon. William W. Grout, a Representative from the State of Vermont; Hon. W. D. Hoard, ex-governor of Wisconsin and presi- dent of the National Dairy Union; C. Y. Knight, secretary of the National Dairy Union; Hon. William M. Springer, of Springfield, Il, representing the National Live Stock Association; Frank M. Mathew- son, president of the Oakdale Manufacturing Company, of Providence, R. I.; Rathbone Gardner, representing the Oakdale Manufacturing Company, of Providence, R. I.; Frank W. Tillinghast, representing the Vermont Manufacturing Company, of Providence, R. I.; Charles E. Schell, representing the Ohio Butterine Company, of Cincinnati, Ohio; and others. STATEMENT OF HON. W. W. GROUT. The CHatrMANn. General Grout, whose name has been given to the bill, is here, and we shall be glad to have him make any statement in regard to the bill which he sees fit. Mr. Grout. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I shail detain you only a moment. It was thought best that the friends of the bill should open with a very brief statement, and we do so by submitting the hearings before the House Committee on Agriculture, which were quite full, and the report of that committee of the bill to the House, together with the minority views. It has also been thought well that some one should explain somewhat to you, as the subject I presume is new to most of the committee, the general scope of the bill. The first section puts all imitation dairy products under the control of State laws the moment they come from the State of manufacture, or from one State into another, to state it more exactly. This princi- ple has already been established by the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Plumley v. The State of Massachusetts, which came up to the Supreme Court on a writ of error from the supreme court of that State. Plumley was indicted for a violation of the State law in the sale of oleomargarine and was convicted and imprisoned. He brought a writ of habeas corpus before the State court. The State court held the proceeding regular. It was brought here on a writ of error, and the Supreme Court decided that the State of Massachusetts 3 + OLEOMARGARINE. had the right to pass a law taking control of this article so soon as it came into the State, the interstate clause of the Constitution to the contrary notwithstanding; and that the State had the right to enforce that law on the ground that this article was calculated to deceive, it being made in imitation of butter. It was upon that ground that the case went off in the State court, and it was upon that ground that it was affirmed by the Supreme Court. You may ask, then, why do we need any statute law on the subject, the Supreme Court having settled it? Here is the reason why: That decision was made by a divided court, Chief Justice Fuller and two associate justices dissenting from the view taken by the majority of the court, the opinion having been given by Mr. Justice Harlan. It has been thought for these many years—-this was a decision some eight or nine years ago; I have forgotten the exact date of it—it has been thought by the dairy interests that they wanted this written in the statutes of the country as well as in a Supreme Court decision, for the question is very likely to arise there again, and it might result in a different decision by the court. Mr. Knieur. Allow me to make a suggestion. In the Schollenber- ger case, in Pennsylvania, the circuit judges—some of them, at least— overruled or reversed the Plumley case, and it was so held in the State of Minnesota by Judge Lochren. Mr. Grout. That has been done by one or two circuit or district judges certainly, and in some of the State courts, but I thought it well to refer only to the court of last resort, the Supreme Court, not wishing to take time to go into the details. It is true this decision has already been brought in question by some decisions of subordinate courts. Senator AnLEN. Let me ask a question. Did the case to which you refer go off on the ground that the property, having gone into Massa- chusetts and become mingled with the property there, at the end of transit is subject to the police regulation of the State? Mr. Grout. Precisely.. It is the police power of the State which gives this right to take charge of the article. Senator ALLEN. Do you know that there is a decision which holds that Congress may abdicate its power to control interstate commerce to the State ? Mr. Grour. Yes, sir; there is such a decision, under what is known as the Wilson law. The Wilson law was passed to overcome.what was known as the original package decision, and there is a decision by the Supreme Court in a case coming up from the State of South Carolina under the constabulary act of that State, or whatever name it went by, in which it is held that that power could be passed to the States. I am not able now to name the case, but I have examined it. Senator AtLen. Under the Iowa liquor law originally the court held that liquors which went in original packages were not subject to State regulation. Mr. Grout. Certainly; that was the original package decision. The Wilson law conferred power on the States to take charge of it. Senator AnLEN. Mr. Wilson introduced a bill, which became a law, remitting that power to the States. Has that act itself been passed upon / Nis Grout. Yes, sir; it was passed upon by the Supreme Court in the case from South Carolina, already referred to, the opinion having OLEOMARGARINE. 5 been delivered by Mr. Justice White, as I remember, in which the authority of State law is recognized. So there can be no question on that score, I think. This feature of the bill has been pending in the two Houses for several years. I introduced the first section of the bill in the House six or eight years ago, certainly, and four years ago this very winter, I think, the first section of the bill passed the House. Iam speaking now of the first section of the present bill. It passed the House and came to the Senate, but was not acted upon by this body. In addition to that, there is the second section of the bill, which puts a tax of 10 cents a pound on all oleomargarine made in imitation of butter, and reduces the present tax of 2 cents per pound to one-fourth of 1 cent a pound on all that is left in its natural, uncolored state. The great objection thus far to this bill has been to the second section. Very few complain of the first section, but it is to the second section that objection 1s principally leveled. Iam not going into any long statement here. Read the testimony which we have submitted, and you will see that the testimony is abundant on all sides that oleomargarine is sold constantly for butter. You will learn from that testimony that the manufacturers arrange with the retailers to sell it—they do not say as butter in their circulars, but to sell it. They know very well that the retaiier will sell it for butter—that is a part of the programme—but he is to sell it, and they will stand between him and all State laws for payment of fines, costs, and damages, this being substantially the language used in their circulars. You will find that in the printed hearings before the House committee. There is no question about this. They in fact make no reply to it, or have thus far made no reply, and I presume they will not undertake to do so. Only a small portion of oleomargarine relatively, however, as I believe, is really sold through the retailers. There are no statistics on the subject, because it is a matter wholly within the knowledge of the manufacturers. The great body of it is worked off through hotel keepers and restaurant and boarding-house keepers, who buy directly of the manufacturers; if not, perhaps they buy of some intermediary wholesale dealer this stuff, and palm it off upon their guests as butter. The great share, I believe, of the article is marketed in that way. Now, the oleomargarine men claim, or have claimed, that they are not parties to this fraud, that persons buying it know just what it is. This is undoubtedly true of the hotel man and the restaurant and boarding-house keeper. They know what they are buying, but the manufacturer knows that they intend to palm it off on their guests as butter. There is no question about.this, and it makes them, morally at least, parties to the fraud. Senator ALLEN. Howare you going to sustain the constitutionality of the second section ? Mr. Grout. In what respect, if you please, sir? Senator ALLEN. In respect to its being a tax to destroy an industry. Mr. Grout. The decisions are all one way, as undoubtedly the Sen- ator knows. You may go back to an early decision by Chief Justice Marshall, in which the Supreme Court denied itself the power to inquire into, ‘‘to review,” to use the language of that authority, the discretionary power of the legislature to tax. The tax must be laid alike, of course, upon the same class of articles. The legislative power 6 OLEOMARGARINE. may, in its discretion, single out one thing and tax it and leave another untaxed; but wherever you levy a tax it must be levied uniformly on the same class of articles. The courts insist upon uniformity, but they never question the discretionary power lodged with the legisla- tive body to impose the tax. Senator ALLEN. I know of but one precedent for this proposed legis- lation, and that is the taxation of State bank issues. Mr. Grout. Exactly. That is a notable instance, the rankest instance probably, our opponents would say, that has ever been fur- nished of the exercise of the power to tax out of existence. Mr. Hoarp. In addition to the State bank tax, there is the tax on filled cheese and adulterated flour. Mr. Grout. Yes, to be sure, and along the same line of this pro- ceeding. The power to tax and tax out of existence is unquestioned, as I believe, gentlemen. The only question which the court ever inquires into is whether the tax is laid evenly, uniformly, upon the class of articles which it proposes to deal with. It may select a single thing and tax it and leave another thing untaxed. That is according to the discretion of the legislative power. The cure for any wrong in this respect is with the constituency. If an unjust tax be imposed, the people will send men here who will exercise better discretion. Senator ALLEN. The court can not inquire into the motive of the legislative department; but if that motive is apparent upon the face of the act, then it does enter into the litigation and become a part of the construction of the act. Mr. Grout. Yes; but they do not, then, even give it effect to the extent of setting aside the power of the legislature to tax. How could it have been otherwise than that the intent was apparent in the law taxing State banks? Senator ALLEN. Suppose it is apparent on the face of this bill that the motive for imposing the tax is to destroy the thing taxed? Mr. Grour. We deny this. We say that is not the motive. Senator ALLEN. What would be the rule, then? Mr. Grout. I do not think it would change it a particle. Judge Collamer, up in our State, who was a Senator with you gentlemen, and held a high place when in this body—the very first in his time, as tradi- tion will tell you, and as discussions will disclose if you turn to them— Judge Collamer, on the bench up in Vermont, said you could not inquire into the motive by which one did a legal act; and that I understand to be good law everywhere. Senator ALLEN. That is true; but suppose the motive is apparent upon the act itself? Mr. Grout. Very well; the motive makes no difference, providing the act be legal, and here unquestionably the act is legal. Senator ALLEN. Then you must take into consideration the motive, because it is a part of the act? Mr. Grout. Well, I have expressed to the committee my views on this subject, but let me say it is not the purpose here to tax out of existence. The object of this second section is to prevent the sale of oleomargarine as butter, to prevent a fraud. And we say that is the only rational construction which can be given, because if the purpose of the section was to destroy the article it would not provide as it does in the closing clause for a small tax, the least possible tax, on the OLEOMARGARINE. 74 uncolored article. It might be made still less, if the legislative power thought best to do so, although I do not think it ought to be less, for it ought to be large enough to cover the cost of policing the business. Now, when it reduces the tax to the lowest possible limit, so that oleo undisguised can go to the consumer at the cheapest possible price, who can fairly say that this second section is intended to destroy the manu- facture of oleomargarine? No, instead of destroying, it encourages the manufacture of the honest article. All that it seeks to destroy is the fraud that is perpetrated when it is colored like butter. It may stop its sale as butter and yet not go to the extent of pre- venting its manufacture, as I will show you a little later. The profit on the sale of 104,000,000 pounds of oleomargarine and a little more, last year, fairly estimated, must have been anywhere from $13,000,000 to $15,000,000—thirteen to fifteen million dollars between the cost of the article and the price paid by the consumer. Some oleomargarine friend present smiles—I hear a smile—but such is the case, disguise the matter the best they can. But we will, to accom- modate the gentleman’s state of mind, call the profit $12,000,000, or any large sum you please along there; it can not be less than that amount, as it costs but 9 cents per pound, tax paid, and the consumer pays anywhere from 18 to 30 cents per pound for it. Call it 22 cents, and for 104,000,000 pounds it would amount to $22,880,000. Take from this $9,360,000, cost of production, and you have left $13,520,000 profit. But call it $12,000,000 for safety, if you please. Remember this stuff is sold as butter almost exclusively to the consumer; that is, the consumer takes it supposing it is butter. The guest at table eats it and pays his $5 a day to the hotel. It passes with him as butter and he pays the price of butter. The same is true at the restaurant and the boarding house. And the retailer everywhere sells it as butter and for the price of butter. 3 Senator ALLEN. Is not that a subject of police regulation in the tate? Mr. Grout. Yes; but we have got a regulation here in this second section which transcends police regulations, and, if the Senator will allow me a moment, I will make it plain to him. Senator ALLEN. Can you do that? Mr. Grout. Oh, yes, sir, in the way we propose to do it here, as I believe. Here are the large profits of which I have spoken. I might go more into details, but I feel that I must not detain the committee. I intended to be very brief when I began, and I will now be as brief as possible. The profits are what I have indicated, twelve or thirteen million dollars annually. If you puta 10-cent tax on 104,000,000 pounds of oleo- margarine, that will make $10,400,000 the manufacturer would have to pay before he could put the stuff afloat. And this would so reduce the profits that it would take away the inducement to enter into the fraudulent practices now resorted to to work it off as butter. It would reduce the profits $10,400,000. If it be true, however, as the oleomargarine crowd claim, that people really prefer oleomargarine to butter and they desire to have it colored, that large numbers of the middle class of people prefer it to butter—that is the way one circular puts it—if that be true, it can be colored and sold to those people for oleomargarine at just about the price it is fraudulently sold now for butter; so they can have it at 8 OLEOMARGARINE. a price not exceeding the present cost. But this is not true, and I believe this 10-cent tax on the colored article will stop the sale of oleomargarine for butter by making the business unprofitable. Senator WarrEeN. Would it disturb you if I should ask you a question 4 Mr. Grout. Not at all, if the committee wish to delay the hearing for this talk by me. Senator WarrEN. The bill proposes to tax oleomargarine 10 cents a pound when it is colored in imitation of butter. Is there any estab- lished color that butter has? Mr. Grout. Yes, sir; it is yellow. Senator WarrREN. And always the same? Mr. Grout. The world over and through all time it has been yel- low—varying shades of yellow. Senator WARREN. Is it always the same? Mr. Grout. No; not always the same shade, but always yellow—the cow colors it yellow. Senator WARREN. Is it the same color at different seasons of the rear ¢ : Mr. Grout. Oh, no, it varies; but it is yellow, different shades of yellow at different seasons of the year. Senator ALLEN. Depending on the condition of the cow? Mr. Grout. Yes, sir; but there is no cow so poor nor fed so poorly in all the world, I believe, but that the butter made from the cream of her milk would be yellow in some degree; I do not say highly yel- low, but I say yellow. Senator WarREN. If that were the case there would not then be any necessity of coloring butter? Mr. Grout. Yes, there is, because many people want it a little yel- lower than the cow at some seasons of the year makes it. Many people think it tastes better. There is a demand in certain localities to have it colored a little, and in some places more than a little, and butter makers have to cater to the taste of their customers. I did not intend to enter upon a discussion of this color question, but I am perfectly willing to do so if the committee wish to hear me. ‘There is much that can be said about it. Senator WarREN. One question more. When in New England, say in Vermont, at this time of the year and from now until, say, April 1, a farmer has one or two or three cows and is making butter, what is the color of that butter if it is not colored with anything except the milk which comes from the cow? Mr. Grout. It is yellow, but not as yellow as when the cow is fed on grass in June. Then, too, it would be yellower if the cow were were well fed during the winter—fed on corn meal, shorts, and early- cut hay, and the like—and kept in a healthy condition. Senator WarrEN. I ask for information whether oleomargarine is colored different shades at different seasons of the year to follow the different shades of butter ? Mr. Grout. Yes, sir; these very circulars to which I have alluded disclose that fact. You will find them in this printed report here. They do that very thing, sir, to meet the varying shades of butter. That is one of the tricks of the trade. They are up to it, Senator, clear up to it, you may be sure; and they are up to every other pos- sible scheme that ingenuity can devise to work this stuff off for but- OLEOMARGARINE. 9 ter. But if you will put this 10-cent tax on it and stop coloring it like butter the game will then be up. Senator Foster. They put on a June color or a December color? Mr. Grout. Yes, sir; that is it exactly. They advertise to do it and they do it with neatness and dispatch. They say in these circulars, which you will find in the printed testimony, that they will give it just such color as may be wanted. Senator WARREN. As a matter of fact, butter made naturally from the milk of cows will vary at different times of the year almost as much as the difference between the color of that desk and the color of this sheet of paper. If that is so, where is your guard against coloring oleomargarine / Mr. Grout. Safety consists in the fact that oleo is white. But the Senator will not seriously claim that the color of butter varies as much as indicated by him Senator WARREN. But in imitation butter, as to what degree? Mr. Grout. They are not to color it at all. Senator WarREN. It must be purely white? Mr. Grout. Yes, sir; it must be white or some other color than but- ter. The bill, if law, will prevent its assuming the color of butter— that is the only object—so that it can not go forth and practice these frauds. The closing clause in the section puts the tax so low that it enables pure oleo, without disguise, to go at the cheapest possible price to the consumer, and he can get it for 10 or 11 cents a pound with great profit to the manufacturer and a fair profit to the retailer, who will then do an honest business. Senator ALLEN. Suppose a man says from choice that he wants to use oleomargarine, but he wants it colored, has he not that right? Mr. Grout. Yes, he has the right, and let him color it himself if he wants to be to that trouble. But the legislative power, to prevent fraud, has a right to intervene and say that it shall not take a color which is calculated to produce fraud, and then put it on the market, even though it contravenes the taste of some gentlemen. Senator ALLEN. Do you think it is within the legislative power to compel all butter to be colored, December butter, for instance 4 Mr. Grout. I do not think Congress will ever enter that field. If it does, and I am here, I will then enter on the discussion of that question. Senator ALLEN. Suppose Congress should pass a law that no Decem- ber butter should be sold unless it were colored as June butter. Do you think that would be within the power of Congress? Mr. Grout. I do not quite see how Congress would get jurisdiction of the question. We would not, certainly, unless it could be made clear that some fraud was to be perpetrated, and took jurisdiction by the taxing power in some way. We might do it then, but otherwise we could not take jurisdiction of it. Senator ALLEN. Suppose the article is stamped as oleomargarine. Do you then contend that it is within the power of Congress to con- demn the afticle or to give it a particular color? Mr. Grout. No; we are not asking you to give it any particular color. We are only asking that you make so expensive the coloring of this stuff like butter as to leave no temptation to so color it and fraud- ulently sell it as butter. Senator ALLEN. You want to prevent fraud? 10 OLEOMARGARINE. Mr. Grout. That is it exactly. Pass this bill and I believe you will stop this great fraud—the greatest the world has ever known in the manufacture and sale of a food product. Do this and you will have the thanks of the millions of hard-working men and women who make honest butter, and the thanks also of the millions on millions more who want to eat honest butter. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I thank you for your kind attention. ORDER OF PROCEDURE. The Cuarrman. I am obliged to attend a meeting of the Committee on Military Affairs, and I will ask Senator Hansbrough to preside while I am away. I may say before going that I am sure it is the desire of the committee to give all interests a fair hearing, but we wish you to bear in mind that we are very busy—busy without prec- edent, almost, at this time—with the measures before Congress, and we hope you will make your statements as concise and brief as possi- ble and, so far as possible, not repeat what is already before us. The testimony given in the House is before us, and it will be received on both sides. That is all I need to say. Mr. Garpner. May I say a word before the chairman retires? The CHarrMAN. The committee will remain, and the hearing will continue. Mr. Garpner. Owing to the lack of opportunity we have had to prepare for this hearing, I desire to express the hope that we may be allowed to present our case at a somewhat later date. The parties whom I represent have never had an opportunity to appear before any committee with reference to this subject. They were informed of this meeting very recently for the first time. They feel that they come here to-day utterly unprepared, and they are most anxious that they shall have an opportunity to present their view to the committee after a reasonable preparation may have been made. The CHarRMAN. The committee will try to be reasonable and fair. I can not speak about that definitely. You represent the oleomarga- rine interest Mr. Garpner. I represent simply one, the Oakdale Manufacturing Company, of Providence, R. I. The CHatrman. I wired you Wednesday morning, did I not? Mr. Garpner. Yes; some time during the week. The Cuatrmay. I think I wired you Wednesday morning. That gave you just a week’s notice. We hope that we may get through with the hearing speedily, because after the holidays we shall be extremely busy. It is for your advantage to have the hearing as early as possible, because after the holidays it will probably be a very small subcommittee that we could get together. So, in order to have the hearing by the entire committee, the earlier the better, and we shall determine as we go along when we must close. But I merely want to urge you to be as expeditious as possible. Mr. Sprincer. May I ask, Senator, whether you head: to continue this investigation from day to day during the holiday recess? The Cuarrman. Certainly, if necessary. I expect to be here most of the time and some members of the committee will be here all the time. Ithink probably we could have fuller meetings during the recess than afterwards. OLEOMARGARINE. 11 Senator Hansprouen. Mr. Chairman, I wish to ask if there has been any arrangement whereby a limit is placed on the hearing? The Cuarrman. There has not been any, and in the notice I sent out 'Isaid that we would hear gentlemen to-day, and to-morrow, and the next day. Mr. Grout. I simply want to say, gentlemen, that with this testi- mony the friends of the bill submit their case, and give the field to those who are opposed to the measure. The Actrnc CHAIRMAN (Senator Hansbrough). It is understood that Governor Hoard is present and desires to be heard. STATEMENT OF HON. W. D. HOARD. Mr. Hoarp. Mr. Chairman, I have nothing to submit at the present time. I think it only fair that the men who are opposed to this legis- lation should have the time. The proponents of the bill have had their say before the House. I am astonished to hear one gentleman say that he has had no chance to appear before any committee, because this bill occupied two months last winter before the House Committee on Agriculture. I will only add that the bill is for the purpose of preventing the counterfeiting of food, so far as the constitutional power of the Federal Government can go. The Federal Government is limited in its con- stitutional power. It has no right to enact prohibition. It has no police power. Those things you are as well aware of as Iam. But it has taken ground upon certain lines, like the taxation of State banks in the interest of a sound currency. We believe this is a taxation of a counterfeit and a fraud in the interest of fair dealing, in the interest of the consumer, and in the interest of the producer. Here is a great army, between five and six million men, in this nation who are engaged in one of the most impor- tant branches of agriculture. Here is another great army of consum- ers who are being defrauded and imposed upon. The one is being swindled out of his rightful market and the other out of his property, and they are both imposed upon by a fraud and a counterfeit. The question was raised whether it is not just as lawful to color oleomargarine as it is to color butter. No. In one case the question of color is a matter of taste. In the other it is a matter of fraud, a vehicle of deception. In no instance is the coloring of butter a vehicle of deception. I had a distinguished member of the other House ask me if butter was not colored in winter to make the consumer believe that it was made last June. That gentleman was a student of maxims, not of markets. The cheapest and poorest butter in winter is that made last June. The highest-priced butter is that which is not over ten days old and faultless in character and flavor. In the butter scores at all dairy fairs and conventions you will find in a scale of 100 that flavor takes 50, color, 5. It is a question of taste with the consumer. Senator Allen appears here with a woolen suit of clothes colored black. It is a question of taste with him. He would not wear that suit in its original color for any reason except that of taste. It was not colored black to make him believe it was silk, or that it was linen or cotton. It was simply colored to suit his taste; that is all. So it is with the 1 OLEOMARGARINE. coloring of butter. There is a market demand, a demand of the con- sumer, which compels the producer to adapt himself and cater in that particular, as the maker of fabrics has to do. So, as I said, in one case the matter of color is a question simply of taste, without any change whatever in the mind of the consumer or in the character of the product. Senator ALLEN. Governor, will you permit me to ask you a question ? Mr. Hoarp. Certainly. Senator ALLEN. Why does the prudent farmer, ordinarily in June, endeavor to put down enough butter to carry him through the winter for his own use? Mr. Hoarp. Senator, that is not done at the present time to any appreciable extent. Senator ALLEN. It has been done ever since I was a boy. Mr. Hoarp. It may have been done when you were a boy and when Iwasa boy. As to that, you are right, but at the present time the whole system of butter making is changed. Not one man puts down butter in June for the next winter, where 10,000 did it forty years ago. This wonderful change has come through the organization of creameries, where now a very large proportion of the best butter is made. That is the only thing I have to submit at the present time. Ido not think it is fair to take the time of these gentlemen who are desir- ous of being heard, and what I may have to say I hope to have an opportunity, if granted, to submit at a subsequent meeting of the committee. I thank you, gentlemen, for your kind attention. OPPONENTS OF THE BILL. The ActinG CHatrRMAN. I should like to ascertain, if possible, the number of gentlemen here who desire to be heard on the other side, and about the length of time they would want to consume. Mr. Scuetyt. Mr. Chairman, I represent the Ohio Butterine Fac- tory, of Cincinnati. The Acrinc CHarrmMAN. Are you the only one here in the interest of that institution ¢ Mr. Scuetu. I am the only one here in the interest of that institu- tion, and that institution came into existence the same day that the Grout bill passed the House. We certainly have not had any chance to be heard. But I do not want to take the time of this committee at all myself if some one representing identical interests can cover the ground better than I can. However, I want time to unite our forces, to get together and select one man to present our side of the question. The Actine CHarrMan. I do not believe that it is the desire of the committee to traverse the ground that has been covered by the hear- ings in the House. Mr. Scuetu. I understand that. The AcTING CHAIRMAN. If possible it is desired to avoid doing that, and I simply desire to ascertain how many gentlemen are here now who wish to be heard in opposition to the bill and how much time they desire to take. We have heard from one gentleman who wishes to be heard on the other side. Mr. GARDNER. | represent the Oakdale Manufacturing Company, of OLEOMARGARINE. aS Providence, R. I., which desires to be heard. I shall endeavor to be as brief as I possibly can, but owing to lack of time for preparation I can not be as brief to-day as I could be after the holidays. The Acting CHarrMAN. Are there any other gentlemen here who wish to be heard? Mr. Tinirneuast. I wish to be heard, representing the Vermont Manufacturing Company, of Providence, R. I., and I assure you if I do speak I will not go over the ground, or at least while I may go over the ground I will not present the same facts or perhaps the same argu- ments that were used in the House. I did not appear before the House committee. I did not have any opportunity to do so. The Actina CHatrMan. Are you ready to go on now? Mr. Tizuinenast. I am not ready to go on this morning, but Mr. Gardner is, I understand, ready to speak this morning if it is the desire that he shall proceed at this time, though he has not had that opportunity for preparation that he wished. The ActinG CHAIRMAN. We have heard from three gentlemen who are present and who desire to be heard. Are there others? Senator ALLEN. Does not the gentleman sitting by you, Mr. Gardner, desire to be heard ? Mr. Maruewson. No, sir; Mr. Gardner will represent me. Mr. Scuetu. I wish to add that I have not had a chance to go over what was presented to the House, and I do not know what is before - the committee. I will put in every minute of my time in preparation. Senator Barr. You are the only one representing your interest Mr. Scuetu. I am the only one representing it on this side. Senator Barr. We can probably hear you now. Mr. ScHEtu. If the same arguments that I would advance appear in the hearing in the House I would have nothing to say. All I want is time to prepare. Senator ALLEN. I think we ought to have the hearing and be pre- pared to report the bill promptly upon the meeting of Congress after the holidays. Senator Bats. I do not think we can do that. Telegrams are com- ing here from gentlemen who want to be heard after the holidays. The Acting CHAIRMAN. We shall have to decline to sit here and listen to arguments the balance of the session. Mr. Springer will be heard now. Mr. Sprincer. I yesterday received a telegram from the president of the National Live Stock Association of the United States, asking me to appear before this committee in behalf of the live-stock interests of the whole country to oppose the passage of the bill. I received this notice only yesterday afternoon and it was received by telegram, and I will receive a written communication probably by to-morrow morn- ing, giving some of the views and interests that that association desires to have presented to this committee. I will state that I am not aware that that association appeared in any capacity before the House committee. I have not had a chance to examine all its hearings yet, but I will do so at once and, if I find that they have presented their views there in any way I will not desire to go over that ground again. I do not think they have been heard. The Actine CHarrmMANn. You represent a live-stock association ? Mr. Sprincer. All the live-stock associations. Senator Fosrrr. The National Live Stock Association 4 14 OLEOMARGARINE. Mr. Sprincer. All the live-stock associations of the whole country. I represent every live-stock interest in the country. Senator Hrrrretp. Who is the president of the live-stock associa- tion ? Mr. Sprincer. John W. Springer, of Dallas, Tex. Mr. Hoarp. You say that you represent all the live-stock associa- tions? Mr. Sprincer. All who are embodied in the live-stock association. Mr. Hoarp. You do not represent the Holstein and Friesian Association ? Mr. Springer. No; I do not. However, the association that I represent embodies the large majority of the live-stock interests in the United States. Mr. Hoarp. I knew that the Holstein and Friesian Association were here in support of the bill. Mr. Sprincrer. Yes; they are dairymen. These are people who raise cattle for the purpose of supplying the markets of the country with live stock, and it is that association which I desire to appear for before this committee. The Actina CHAIRMAN. Are you ready to go on now? Mr. Sprincer. As I stated before, Mr. Chairman, I had this notice yesterday afternoon, and I have not had a chance yet to read all the testimony. I am going to go over it as rapidly as Ican. I do not desire to ask for more than a reasonable delay. I think an association representing such large interests as this ought to be permitted to pre- sent their views, and that there ought to be at least a reasonable time iven for that purpose. While I can do so some time during the holi- ays I could not promise to do it this week, because this is now Wednesday, and I understand Senators are very busy with matters, expecting to adjourn on Friday, but during the holday recess I hope to be able to present to the committee or a subcommittee that you may appoint the views of the association. The Acting CHarrRMAN. We have three-quarters of an hour this morning if some gentleman is ready to go on now. Senator Fosrer. Mr. Gardner is ready, I believe. STATEMENT OF RATHBONE GARDNER. Mr. Garpner. Mr. Chairman, I am as ready perhaps as a gentleman can be with forty-eight hours’ preparation, and possibly I am as ready as anyone else who desires to be heard. As I said, Il appear here representing the Oakdale Manufacturing Company, which is acorporation engaged in the city of Providence, R. I., in the manufacture of oleomargarine. I also represent a large number of wholesale and retail dealers in the city of Providence, who sell oleo- margarine, and who | think are, perhaps, a class which has not hereto- fore been represented in any hearing upon this bill. They are men who claim that they sell the product honestly and absolutely in accord- ance with the requirements of the laws of the United States and of the State of Rhode Island, where they do business. The Oakdale Manufacturing Company, as also my other clients, feel that an attack upon their existence compels them to protest as strongly as possible against the passage of this bill. They believe that the pas- sage of the bill would absolutely destroy their industry, and they OLEOMARGARINE. bd believe that the proposed law is an unwarrantable interference by the | Congress of the United States with their conduct of a legitimate business. | We protest against the bill, in the first place, upon the broad ground that we consider it a dishonest act—dishonest in purpose, pretending _ to be that which it is not. _ The Actine CHatrman. Of course you do not desire to reflect on the - gentlemen at the other end of the Capitol who have passed the bill? Mr. Garpner. Not at all, because one of the representatives of the gentlemen at the other end of the Capitol has this morning expressed exactly what we claim makes the bill dishonest. He has expressed his view and his opinion that it isa bill to prevent the competition of colored oleo with butter, and I think that that purpose in a bill avowedly a revenue bill stamps it as legally a dishonest bill. Ihave, of course, not the slightest intention to reflect upon the motives of any person who advocates the bill, but it is a bill which seeks toaccomplish by indirection that which Congress can not accomplish directly. It is avowedly a revenue measure, and in explanation of my meaning I say that it is only as a revenue measure that the second section of this act can be considered and passed upon by the Congress of the United States. Itis only upon the theory that it is a revenue measure that the constitutionality of the act can be upheld by the courts of the United States. I do not go into the question of the constitutionality of the proposed act. I have felt that the act would be pronounced constitutional on the same ground that other acts which imposed a tax the purpose of which was really not the collection of revenue have been pronounced by the courts of the United States to be constitutional. Upon the same ground upon which I think that the oleomargarine act of 1886 has been by the circuit court pronounced constitutional, upon the ground that the courts of the United States can not impugn the pur- poses, motives or intentions of the legislative body. Upon the face of this act it is a revenue measure. The courts will not say that, notwithstanding the fact that this is avowedly a revenue measure, they know from any source that the purpose of the act was not the collection of revenue; that it was not the intention of the legisla- tive branch of the Government in passing the act to collect revenue; that there is another motive lying underneath and behind it. The court does not feel that it is at liberty to do that; and so it seems to me that the court probably would hold to be constitutional any _measure which was avowedly a revenue measure. But, gentlemen, I say that this proposed act is not honest, in that sense. The promoters of the bill are not acting sincerely, because, while they claim the constitutionality of the act upon the ground that it is a revenue measure, and while every one of us understands that it can only be upheld upon that ground, they come here and tell you with perfect frankness that that is not the purpose of the act; that the act has another purpose. The author of the bill tells you this morning that the purpose is not to destroy this industry, but that the purpose is to prevent a fraud by enabling the States to exercise their police powers, or by exercising, as in effect the bill does exercise, as I think I can show in a moment, the police powers of the State for them; that the purpose and intention of the act is to prevent a fraud. I maintain that the Congress of the United States has no more right, 16 OLEOMARGARINE. under the guise of a revenue act, to pass an act the purpose of which is to prevent a fraud than it has to pass an act the purpose of whichis to destroy an industry. It is in either case stepping outside of its province. The author of the act has this morning stated its purpose. An advocate of the act in the House stated its purpose in these words: ‘It proposes to require the oleomargarine manufacturer to pay a tax on oleomargarine, colored as butter, large enough to raise the expense | to the producer equal to the expense of producing pure butter.” That is to say, so far from the purpose of thisact being the produc- tion of revenue, although that is avowedly its purpose, the purpose of the act as declared by its advocates is to regulate competition between different businesses. The advocates of the act come before this com- mittee to-day and say that colored oleomargarine enters into unfair competition with colored butter; therefore they prepose through this act to make the production of colored oleomargarine as expensive as the production of colored butter, and to destroy the advantage which they claim colored oleomargarine has to-day in the markets of the country. Now, that is a purpose which is absolutely contradictory of the claim that must be made before Congress in asking them to take action upon this bill. It is absolutely contradictory of the claim which must be made before the courts if this bill ever comes before the courts. The advocates of this measure frankly state that they are seeking by this act to do something other than what the act purports to do. The advocates of the measure before the House argued that this act was harmless because the legislatures of a large number of the States had already adopted laws which prohibited the sale of colored oleo- margarine within those States; that they had found themselves unable to enforce those laws; that this law would simply operate to make the laws of the different States in that respect effective; and that while it was, as a matter of fact, the exercise by Congress of the police power which is reserved to the States, yet it was a harmless exercise, because in so many of the States similar laws had been adopted. It seems to me that Congress has no more right to pass a law to enable States to enforce their own laws governing the exercise of the police power, under the guise of a revenue bill, than it has itself to try to exercise that police power. I wish to call your attention to the fact that in many of the States there are no laws which forbid the sale of colored oleomargarine as such. In the State of Rhode Island, in which my client is doing busi- ness, colored oleomargarine is allowed to be sold as colored oleomarga rine. The regulation of that power of sale is something which every member of this committee will admit belongs absolutely and solely to the police power of the State. This proposed act of Congress comes and says that colored oleomargarine shall not be sold within the State. It imposes a condition upon the sale of colored oleomargarine which absolutely prohibits that sale. Upon the theory of the advocates of the bill that the passage of the bill is to enforce the police laws of the States which have enacted prohibitory legislation, it must enact in effect eats for those States which have not enacted any such prohibitory leg- islation. To-day the State of Rhode Island, as a dozen other of the United States which permit, in the wisdom of their legislatures, the sale of this product, when this bill is passed will be disabled from having the product sold within the State, and the Congress of the United States OLEOMARGARINE. 17 is directly exercising the police power of the State. That is true if it is true that the effect of the bill is to prohibit the sale of artificially colored oleomargarine, and the advocates of the measure claim that that is its effect, because they claim that only by the passage of the bill can the State laws now existing which forbid the sale of colored oleomargarine be enforced. Therefore I say that this act is, it seems to me, properly character- ized as legally a dishonest act, a pretense, an act which seeks to do by indirection what Congress can not do directly; and while it is upon its face a revenue act, it is avowed by its friends and advocates to be an act not for the purpose of raising revenue, but for the purpose of regulating competition; an act which enables Congress to exercise the police power which is reserved to the State. Tf that is true, that, it seems to me, is sufficient to condemn the act. It is utterly in violation of principle, and if it is in violation of prin- ciple, then no considerations of expediency are strong enough to justify the passage of the act. That is the broad ground which we take. But we do claim much further than that—that even though this act were justified on principle, if it were not what we claim it to be, a sub- terfuge, it is not just or expedient in its provisions. As the author of. the bill has said this morning, the chief opposition to the proposed act has not come upon the first section of the bill, but the first section of the bill is nevertheless for certain reasons very objectionable, and for certain other reasons it may in the future be very dangerous. It may, I believe, accomplish what even the advocates of the measure do not desire should be accomplished. Of course every honest manufacturer of oleomargarine protests against the first section of the act because it places oleomargarine in the category of those dangerous articles of food the use of which the State by the exercise of its police power ought to regulate and does regu- late. We claim that we make an absolutely healthful food product, a food product which more than any other is certified to be healthful and wholesome—the one food product, perhaps, which the Government of the United States makes it its business to see that it is absolutely wholesome; and we object and protest against having that product of ours placed in the category of articles which justify the exercise of the police regulations of the different States. But I desire to call the attention of every member of the committee, if I may, to the wording of the last part of the first section of the act, which reads as follows: ** Provided, That nothing in this act shall be construed to permit any State to forbid the manufacture or sale of oleomargarine in a separate and distinct form, and in such manner as will advise the consumer of its real character, free from coloration or ingredient that causes it to look like butter.” Every ingredient of oleomargarine causes it to look like butter. Without the use of any artificial coloring matter whatever oleomarga- rine as it comes from the factory looks like butter. 1 is in its natural state nearly white, and ordinary butter produced at most seasons of the year is in its natural state almost white. It may be very well claimed under the language of this section that this section does permit any State to make a law forbidding the manu- facture and sale of oleomargarine which contains any ingredient which makes it look like butter; and upon the section as it stands we know S. Rep. 2048——2 18 OLEOMARGARINE not how we could meet a prosecution based upon a law which forbade the making of oleomargarine to resemble butter, even though it had no coloring matter whatever. Further than that, there are certain absolutely essential ingredients of oleomargarine which do give it color. Oleomargarine can not be manufactured without the use of oleo oil, but oleo oil gives to the product a certain tint which takes it off of white, as I understand. Therefore oleo oil is an ingredient which to some extent, at least, makes oleomargarine look like butter. If a State, under this authority of Congress, passes a law which forbids the manufacture of oleomargarine that contains any ingredient which makes it look like butter, I do not see why they can not institute prosecutions and convict us for manu- facturing oleomargarine which contains oleo oil, and such may be the result, if it is not the purpose, of the bill. Then there is cotton seed oil. There are other ingredients, as I am informed, all of which have some slight tendency to give a shade of color to the substance. So if this bill is acted upon it should be drawn in such a manner as simply to forbid, or to enable the States to forbid, the artificial coloring of oleomargarine, and these very dangerous pro- visions with reference to the ingredients of the substance should be omitted. It is to the second section of the bill, or to the bill as a whole, that we chiefly object, and we object upon different grounds. I do not desire to cover, and will not, so far as lam able, cover any of the ground which has been covered in the hearings before the House committee, although this matter has been brought to my attention within a time which has rendered it utterly impossible for me to know exactly what has been presented in the House. But we claim that there are abso- lutely no conditions existing to-day which render the passage of such legislation necessary or desirable, and that the reasons urged for the passage of this act are not valid. It then becomes necessary to consider what the reasons are that are urged for the passage of this act. The reason that has heretofore been urged for the passage of similar acts is that the product was unwhole- some. That argument is presented still. Ido not think there is any testimony, which is worthy of being considered as testimony, to that effect. As I have said, I believe it is the one substance which is, as no other substance possibly can be under existing laws, certified by the Government of the United States to be absolutely pure. We have, in addition to that, the testimony of chemists of the very highest stand- ing and repute who have examined the substance and who have certified over and over again to its absolute purity. But notwithstanding all that, the strongest opposition to-day to oleo- margarine, the strongest popular support brought to this act, is based upon the opprobrious epithets which are hurled at the product and which have been used by the advocates of this bill in the House. While in the face of the testimony which is introduced it is impossible to claim that there is anything deleterious in this product, it is nevertheless claimed by innuendo and indirection that there are in the product those things which render it harmful to certain persons or on certain occa- sions, and there is something which perhaps is called evidence with reference to its effect in almshouses somewhere in England. It seems unnecessary to argue this point. I presume the members of this committee know the conditions under which oleomargarine is OLEOMARGARINE. 19 produced—that there has to be a regular formula; that there is a chemist maintained at the expense of the Government, who examines samples; that representatives of the Internal-Revenue Department stand in the doorway of every oleo manufactory; that they know exactly what comes into the building and what goes out of the build- ing. But at the same time there is lingering to-day in the public mind an impression that there is something unclean or unwholesome in the product itself. The Acting CHarrMAN. That question is not raised here, I think, Mr. Gardner. Mr. Garpner. I do not think that it is raised here. It was, how- ever, strongly urged by the advocates of the bill in the House, and it is for that reason that I refer to it. There is testimony here also with reference to its effect upon inmates of poorhouses and asylums in England. Whether the question is raised before the committee, or will be raised before the committee, I have no way of knowing. It was raised by innuendo certainly before the House committee. Then the second reason that is alleged for the necessity of this act is that oleomargarine is fraudulently sold as butter. To a certain extent this is true. There is no doubt but that retailers, unscrupulous retailers, do occasionally sell oleomargarine, pretending that it is but- ter, just as they sell the imitation of everything else which they carry in stock, pretending that it is the article that it purports to be. But we do claim here that there is less fraud in the sale of oleomarga- rine as butter than there is in the sale of most imitations, and that that elimination of fraud has been procured by the rigid Government super- vision, and can be extended by an even more rigid Government super- vision, which every honest manufacturer of oleomargarine is anxious to submit to, and, so far as it lies in his power, to secure. But the statements which are made with reference to the amount of the fraudulent sales of oleomargarine in imitation of butter are abso- lutely groundless. The author of the bill, in advocating its passage in the House, said that not one pound in a thousand of this substance was sold as oleomargarine, but that nine hundred and ninety-nine pounds out of every thousand were sold as butter. Another advocate of the bill said that 90 per cent of the product was sold as butter. Another advocate of the bill said that it was never put upon the market exceptas butter. All those statements were made in the advocacy of the bill in the House of Representatives, and all those statements doubt- less had their effect upon those who had not investigated the testimony. After looking through the testimony which was taken before the House committee very thoroughly, the only evidence which I find in support of those assertions is that out of twenty-five hundred dealers in Illinois two were found who had made a fraudulent sale of this product and the affidavits of a certain party, or perhaps parties, in Philadelphia that on several occasions they had purchased in one market or at one place oleomargarine for butter. I believe that that was absolutely the only evidence which was sub- mitted in substantiation of these wild charges. What was the evidence to the contrary? The late Commissioner of Internal Revenue has stated that, in his judgment (and there is no man who had such oppor- tunities to form any judgment, he being charged with the regulation of this business), not 10 per cent of this product was sold anywhere for anything else except what it actually is, oleomargarine, 20 - OLEOMARGARINE. Who sells this oleomargarine as butter? I say, and I say without fear of contradiction, that no manufacturer of oleomargarine sells one pound of oleomargarine for anything else except oleomargarine. It is utterly impossible for him to do it. It is against his own interests to do it. Possibly members of the committee know the kind of super- vision which is exercised over the manufacture of this substance; that inspectors of the Internal-Revenue Department take account of every pound of material which goes into a factory and see that every pound of oleomargarine which can be produced from that material goes out of the factory. There is absolutely no opportunity for any manufac- turer, if he wished, to send out oleomargarine as butter. Then, nobody has any occasion to go to that factory for anything except oleomargarine, because nothing except oleomargarine can be sold at that factory or manufactured at that factory for sale. The inspec- tion is rigid. ‘The penalties, involving the forfeiture of the manufac- turer’s entire plant, are so extreme as to render absolutely untenable the supposition that any manufacturer, however dishonest he might desire to be, should sell this product for anything but oleomargarine. I do not know how it may be with the great packing houses with whom my clients have no connection, but we say that three-quarters of our entire product is sold by the manufacturer directly to the consumer. I think I am right. Mr. Maruewson. You are correct. Mr. GARDNER. Approximating three-quarters of the entire product is sold directly by the manufacturer to the consumer in the original package, usually a 10-pound package. Now, if the Congress of the United States are to legislate to prevent the keeper of a boarding house from giving his guests some imitatation food product they have under- taken a contract. What the head of a family does, whether a husband deceives his wife and his children, or a wife deceives her husband as to the nature of the product which he puts upon the table, we do not know. Whether the keeper of a boarding house deceives his guests as to what they are eating, we do not know. That is not a matter of purchase and sale. It is not anything which by this bill can be con- trolled. We make the assertion that by the manufacturer there is no violation of the law whatever; that every pound of oleomargarine pro- duced at the factory is sold as oleomargarine; that he desires that it should be soid as oleomargarine; that he is making a reputation for his factory, and that the necessities of his business and his own self- interest require that he should do it. And asa matter of fact, with the people whom I represent, the great proportion of the product is sold by them directy to the consumer. I shall have to take up this question regularly, and I will go over it as quickly as possible. I do not know whether the committee deem it essential that I should finish what I have to say absolutely this morn- ing. I have, I think, less than twenty minutes left. Senator Barr. It is about 10 minutes to 12. The Actine CHatrmMan. We shall have to adjourn at 12. Senator WARREN. I suggest that we fill in what time there is left, and then if Mr. Gardner wishes to present further facts to the com- mittee the opportunity will be given to him to do so. Mr. Garpner. I do not think I shall want to occupy a great deal more time, OLEOMARGARINE. OF The Actine CuarrMan. If agreeable to the committee, we will con- tinue the hearing to-morrow. Senator Foster. Certainly. Senator ALLEN. Let us meet at 9 o’clock in the morning. The Acting CHAIRMAN. You have only about ten minutes left, and I will ask you a question. Can you inform the committee as to the average price of the manufacture of oleomargarine—the cost of pro- duction / Mr. Garpner. I should say about 12 cents—from 12 to 13 cents— but my client can answer that question better than I. - Mr. Maruewson. The selling price of our goods runs from 123 to 135 packed in tub, and the average profit will average less than a cent a pound—barely half a cent a pound from the day we commenced manu- facturing up to the present time. To substantiate that statement our books are open for the inspection of any member of this committee, or the members of a subcommittee of this committee. Mr. Garpner. That is what I understood. Senator Fosrrr. Is there any residuum? Have you anything else except oleo left? Mr. MatHewson. The only residuum you can speak of are some by- products which come from the rerendering of the scrap of leaf lard and the refining of a certain amount of grease which goes out on the floor, which passes off into soap grease. Senator Bate. What ingredients are put into oleomargarine before you sell it? Mr. Maruewson. The ingredients that go to make up oleomargarine are oleo oil, neutral lard, lard made from the leaf, and nothing but the leaf. Mr. Garpner. You buy the leaf? Mr. Marnewson. We buy the leaf and make the lard ourselves. It is made from absolutely pure leaf. Senator Batr. What are the proportions? Mr. Matuewson. Cotton-seed oil, cream, milk, salt, and coloring. The Actinc CHAIRMAN. What is the proportion of cream and milk? Senator Foster. Is there a secret in your formula? Mr. Matuewson. Oh, no; there is no secret about it. There is absolutely no secret as far as the making of oleomargarine is concerned. The three ingredients of oleo—oil, lard, and cotton-seed oil—make from 75 to 80 per cent of the whole. Senator Barr. Of equal proportions ? Mr. Maruewson. The proportions vary according to the seasons of the year and according to the climate. Senator Barr. Of those three articles? Mr. Matuewson. Of those three articles. The other 20 per cent is made up of cream, milk, salt, coloring, and the natural gain which comes from the churning of the article, the same as in butter. The Acting CHatrRMAN. There is not enough milk and cream in it, however, to give it a butter color? Mr. Matuewson. Under this bill we should be absolutely unable to use any butter, because all butter is colored, and we would be indicted for using butter. The Acting CHArRMAN. I understood Mr. Gardner to say that but- ter was universally white when first manufactured. Senator Barr. In winter. 29 OLEOMARGARINE. Mr. Garpner. I stated that it was ordinarily so. I do not think I said that was universally the case; but in point of fact butter at most seasons of the year is practically white. It is slightly colored. The Actrne CuarrMAN. And you said there was some slight color to oleomargarine when first manufactured. Mr. Garpner. There is some slight color to it. It would be very difficult to distinguish the ordinary butter of commerce at this time of the year from uncolored oleomargarine. One bears as much resem- blance to the other as can possibly be. The ActinG CHATRMAN. The two articles would be on all fours until properly treated with coloring matter? Mr. Garpner. Absolutely on all fours; and, as I said, the danger of the first section is that the manufacturer would manufacture a product that would look like butter. Senator WaRREN. That is to say, if a creamery was getting milk from a dairy where the cows were fed through the winter on grain, the butter might take a high color, but if butter was made by a farmer who had three or four cows who were eating hay alone it would be nearly the color of your oleomargarine ? Mr. Garpner. That is what my clients have told me. Mr. Martuewson. That is the fact. Senator Barr. What kind of food is it that gives butter a yellow color? Mr. Matuewson. Grain, ensilage, grass, and carrots. The color depends on the food. The Actinc CHarrMan. Why do you color oleomargarine? Mr. GARDNER. I was going to speak of that, later, but Iam willing to answer the question. Wecolor it to meet the public taste—for exactly the same reason that the manufacturer colors butter. We can not sell it unless we color it. Senator Fosrrr. Butter is colored through the cow, and oleomarga- rine is colored after it is made. Mr. Garpner. Butter is colored after it is made. The ActinG CHAIRMAN. So when a gentleman sits down at a table with butter before him he does not know whether it is oleo or butter. Mr. Garpner. If he is living at a boarding house he trusts, perhaps, to the honesty of the person with whom he is living. er Foster. What is the difference in value between butter and oleo? Mr. GarpNER. Cheap butter, renovated butter, resurrection butter, as we call it, made up of old rancid butter which has been melted and made over and then colored, can be produced cheaper than oleomarga- rine can be produced. Then butter runs up to any cost which taste and luxury call for. Senator WARREN. For creamery butter they would charge a price twice as much ? Mr. Garpner. Yes; and oleomargarine never under any cireum- stances comes in competition with it. It has not the taste and has not the flavor. Senator Barr. You did not answer my question. I want to know what kind of food produces white and what kind yellow butter? Mr. Tinuinenast. As I am something of a farmer perhaps I can answer that question better. Senator Barr. What kind of food affects the color of butter? OLEOMARGARINE 3133 Mr. Matuewson. One of the members of your committee has already explained that. I am not a practical farmer, and I do not pre- tend to know so much about it probably as some of ‘the other gentle- men, but in a general way when a herd of cows is kept on an ordinary farm, ordinary country stock, not Jerseys, or Alderneys, or Guernseys, not high grade, but kept in an ordinary barn during the winter and fed on hay and fodder, the butter will come out very nearly white. Now, if you go from that toa herd of high-grade Jerseys, or Guern- seys, or ‘Alderneys, any of the high-grade cattle, and they are fed on grass or on grain, or carrots, or ensilage, or anything of that kind, they will produce a butter more highly colored, but it will not be even then of the shade of that which is ordinarily served on the tables. Every section of the country has a different color, and that color is obtained in butter the same as it is obtained in oleo, and it could not be gotten any other way. Senator Barr. Cows that are fed in winter upon hay, etc., produce white butter? Senator Herrretp. On dry food. Senator Barr. On dry food? Mr. MatHewson. Yes, sir. Senator Barr. Suppose those same cows are grazed in summer on grass, how does that affect the color of the butter? Mr. Marurwson. That would give it a different color—more of a yellow shade. Senator WarrEN. It generally makes a difference whether the cow is fresh or not. The butter is more highly colored soon after calving. Senator Foster. Mr. Mathewson, do you use oleomargarine on your table? Mr. Matnerwson. I use both. My family is not large. The Acting CHarRMAN. You know the difference when both are on the table? Mr. Maruewson. I think I do. I use the best creamery butter which I can buy, and we never have claimed that oleomargarine was in competition with that grade of butter; that is, on the table. For all other purposes in my family I use oleomargarine. Senator WARREN. For cooking. Mr. Matuewson. For cooking and for the dressing of meats, fish, pastry, and every other purpose. Many a time have I sent from my table butter that cost 35 and 38 cents a pound and asked them to bring oleo in place of it. The Actine CHATRMAN. It is not necessary that it should be colored for cooking purposes ? Mr. Matuewson. That is not necessary for cooking purposes. The Acrinc CHarrRMAN. I think it is the aim of Congress to under- take in some manner to inform the hundreds of thousands of people who are boarding at boarding houses and hotels as to exactly what they are eating, whether it is butter or oleomargarine. They have no way of ascertaining that fact. Mr. Marnewson. You can not inform them by this bill. On motion of Senator Bate (at 12 o’clock meridian), the committee adjourned to meet to-morrow at half past LO o’clock a. m. 94 OLEOMARGARINE. Tuurspay, December 20, 1900. The committee met at 10.30 a. m. Present: Senators Proctor (chairman), Hansbrough, Warren, Foster, Bate, Money, Heitfeld, and Allen. Also, Hon. William W. Grout, a Representative from the State of Vermont; Hon. W. D. Hoard, president of the National Dairy Union; }. Y. Knight, secretary of the National Dairy Union; Hon. William M. Springer, representing the National Live Stock Association; Frank M. Mathewson, president of the Oakdale Manufacturing Company; Rath- bone Gardner, representing the Oakdale Manufacturing Company; Frank W. Tillinghast, representing the Vermont Manufacturing Com- pany; Charles KE. Schell, representing the Ohio Butterine Company; John F. Jelke, representing the firm of Braun & Fitts, of Chicago, Ill., and others. | PERSONAL EXPLANATION. Senator ALLEN. Mr. Chairman, before the hearing progresses further I desire to make a brief statement, to be entered on the record asa part of the proceedings of the committee. During the last three days I have been in receipt of numerous tele- grams from different gentlemen in my State to the effect that it is reported in Nebraska that Iam opposed to this so-called Grout bill and strongly urging me to support it. I have never, either publicly or privately, given utterance to anything from which any man could infer that I was either for or against the bill; but yesterday I had occasion to ask General Grout some questions, from which it was inferred, I suppose, by the Jobbyists present in favor of the measure, that I was opposed to it; and during the night and this morning I have received numerous telegrams to that effect. There is but one conclusion to be drawnfrom the situation, and that is that telegrams were sent out yesterday to the State of Nebraska, after the conclusion of the hearing before the committee, to the effect that I was opposed to this bill and urging persons there to flood me with telegrams to support it. I want to enter my protest against this cheap-john peanut political method. It is an old and threadbare scheme to undertake indirectly to bring pressure upon a Senator to support a measure regardless of its merits by the implied threat of a withdrawal of support at home if he fails todo so. I have no words to express my utter contempt for this method and for those who would engage in it. The lobbyists who are supporting this bill are doing it more injury than its open and avowed opponents. This method can have no effect upon my action. If after the hearings are concluded I become con- vineed that the bill ought to be supported and become a law, I will support it, regardless of public sentiment in my State or elsewhere; and if, on the other hand, I become satisfied that it ought not become a law, I will oppose it and vote against it, regardless of any pressure that may be brought to bear in its support. 1 desire to add, in conclusion, that if any more reports are sent out to the effect that I am opposing the measure or supporting it, and if I am the recipient of any more letters or telegrams which I may have rea- son to believe emanate from the lobbyists in favor of or against this measure, I shall ask that these hearings be private and that no one but OLEOMARGARINE. 95 the particular individual who is giving testimony shall be present at any time. I want again to denounce, in the severest language I am capable of using, the sneaking and cowardly method that has been pursued in respect to this measure. The CHarrmMan. Mr. Gardner, you may proceed. STATEMENT OF RATHBONE GARDNER—Continued. Mr. Garpner. Mr. Chairman, at the time of the adjournment yester- day I had partly completed my argument, and with the permission of the members of the committee I will resume it. I was engaged at the time of the adjournment in the endeavor to support the “proposition that there were no existing conditions to-day which demanded the passage of legislation of this character in the interest of any legitimate industry. I was considering somewhat in detail the reasons which have been advanced by the advocates of this measure for its passage. I had referred to the claim heretofore made, and now I think practi- cally abandoned, that oleomargarine is an unwholesome substance which it is proper, in the interest of the public health, to legislate against. In this connection I desire to refer to one piece of evidence which I did not mention yesterday. The CHatrmMan. May I ask you a question right there? I do not know anything about this business, I will state in advance, and I want to learn about it what I can. Presuming what you say to be true, and I have no reason to question it, that oleomargarine is, as now made, wholesome, I want to ask if it is not possible, it being a combination of various materials, I suppose, to introduce ingredients that are in themselves unwholesome—whether, in other words, an unscrupulous dealer might not put in unwholesome ingredients and so conceal them that the final consumer would not be able to know it? Mr. Garpner. I will answer that question as well as I can, Mr. Chairman, not being thoroughly familiar personally with the methods of manufacturing oleomargarine. The CHatrMANn. You appear as counsel? Mr. Garpner. | appear as counsel. In answer to your question I would say that while I presume it is possible in the manufacture of any compound to introduce elements which are deleterious to the pub- lic health, I believe that there is no product in which it is so difficult, so well-nigh impossible to do itas here. The manufacture of this prod- uct is under the control of the Government. The Department of Internal Revenue have provided the most stringent regulations. They keep in every factory, I think, an inspector whose duty it is to know what comes into that factory and what goes out of the factory. Noth- ing can go out of that factory except oleomar garine, and everything that goes into that factory is to be used for the manufacture of oleo- margarine. If any substance of that kind is taken into the factory it must be known. Moreover, the Government of the United States maintains an expert chemist to whom the articles of this manufacture an be submitted without cost for analysis and for constant inspection as to their component parts. So I believe if it can be said of any com- modity that it is impossible to introduce deleterious substances into it that can be said of this commodity. The CuarrmMan. That answers my question. 26 OLEOMARGARINE. Mr. Garpner. And I think that to-day there is no question made by any person whose judgment is worth anything, there is no question by anyone else than those who hurl epithets, who call it grease prod- uct and that sort of thing, that the product is in any degree unwhole- some. In this connection I desire to ask the careful attention of the com- mittee to the report with reference to oleomargarine which is con- tained in the findings of the committee of the Senate which was appointed to consider the question of the adulteration of food prod- ucts. Such a consideration will show to the members of this com- mittee that that committee has certified, as every competent authority has certified, that oleomargarine is probably the one purest compound which is manufactured for human consumption. Senator HansproucH. Let me ask a question. Do I understand you to say that the Government keeps an inspector, or agent, or expert, in each of the oleomargarine factories in the country 4 Mr. Garpner. I think so. If not constantly in each of the oleomar- garine factories, certainly in each district where there is an oleomar- garine factory, whose duty it is to visit the factory. Senator HanssproueH. Can you tell us how many oleomargarine factories there are? Mr. Garpner. I am informed that the manufacturers make every month a sworn return of every item of material which goes into the manufacture of oleomargarine, and that there are in each district inspec- tors of the internal revenue department who investigate the facts from time to time to ascertain whether these returns are correct. Senator HansproucH. Can you inform the committee how many oleomargarine factories there are in the United States, approximately ? Senator Barr. And where located ? Mr. Garpner. J shall perhaps refer that question to some gentle- man engaged in the business. Mr. JevKeE. The Internal Revenue Department in the last report state that there were twenty-seven oleomargarine factories in the United States on the 1st of last July. Since then there have been some new establishments opened. Senator Hansproucu. So there are several of them in an internal- revenue district? Mr. JELKE. In several of the internal-revenue districts there are a number. Senator Hansproucu. Do I understand that the inspector in each district depends upon the man at the factory for the report to his Department, and that he has no personal supervision 4 Mr. JELKE. Our factory is visited almost daily by some internal- revenue deputy, and I have personally taken the new deputies who have come to visit us over the factories and let them see every nook and corner. The CuarrmMan. What is your factory ? Mr. Jevxe. | represent Braun & Fitts, of Chicago. Senator Barr. Can you tell us where the factories are located, or will you submit it in writing, so that we may know in what States they are located? Mr. JeLKeE. I can do so. Senator Barr. I do not ask you to stop to do it now. Mr. Jevkr. The Internal-Revenue Commissioner’s report gives each one in detail. I will furnish that if it is desired. OLEOMARGARINE o7 Senator Hanssproucu. There is but one Government chemist, how- ever, who is authorized to inspect the ingredients? Mr. JeLKe. I understand there is one head chemist. Senator Foster. He has several deputies ? Mr. JELKE. He has several deputies. : Senator Hrtrretp. Are you compelled to submit this product to the chemist 4 Mr. JeLtKe. Whenever he calls for it we submit to him anything: Senator Hansproucu. He has no personal supervision over the con- stituent parts that go into oleomargarine ? Mr. JELKE. If he desires it he can have. It is his privilege to investigate every part of the manufacture, and our factory is as open to him as it is to any employee of the establishment. The CuHarRMAN. You will resume, Mr. Gardner. Mr. Garpner. I had then taken up the claim of the advocates of the bill that oleomargarine is to a great extent fraudulently sold, not as oleomargarine, but as butter. I had endeavored to show that while undoubtedly there is a certain element of fraud in the sale of this arti- cle, as there is in the sale, it seems to me, of every food product, the element of fraud is much less than has been claimed, and that it con- sists entirely in the transactions between the retailer and the consumer. I had considered at length, and I hope established to the satisfaction of the members of the committee, that there is and can be no fraudu- lent sale of this product by the manufacturer; that the manufacturer sells nothing else at his establishment; that he is not allowed by law to keep for sale in his establishment anything e!se, and that anyone who comes to purchase any substance there comes to purchase oleo margarine and nothing else, and that there is no fraud on his part. That is the point at which I left my argument yesterday, namely, the assertion that whatever fraud there is in the sale of this article for something other than what it is is confined entirely to the transaction between the retailer and the consumer. The manufacturer, gentlemen, is just as anxious to prevent fraud as anyone possibly can be, and he must be so in the nature of things. He is a manufacturer of olemargarine. He himself is obliged, as I have shown you, and as Mr. Grout admitted yesterday, I think, to sell it as oleomargarine, and nothing else. It is for his interest that oleomar- garine should have a legal and a respectable standing as a food product, and every fraud that is practiced with reference to it through the retailer, every prosecution that is instituted upon the ground of a fraudulent sale, is an injury to the article which the manufacturer has to sell. Anything which this committee can possibly devise, which shall make it more difficult, if that may be possible, for the retailers to practice fraud in this respect upon his customer will be welcomed by the manufacturer. I make another assertion, gentlemen. I make the assertion, with- out fear of successful contradiction, that all the fraud which exists in the sale of this product is due to the passage in the different States of laws forbidding the sale of the product for what it is—for oleomargar- ine. As was suggested here yesterday, in some 32 States laws have been adopted which forbid the sale of colored oleomargarine. There- fore, in those States oleomargarine can not be sold as oleomargarine; and I make the statement here and now that in those States which per- mit the sale of oleomargarine as oleomargarine it is practically never sold for anything else but oleomargarine. 28 OLEOMARGARINE. As I have said, 1 appear here simply as an attorney, simply as an advocate, without a special knowledge of this business. Upon this point, however, I can appear as a witness, for I know the condition of affairs which exists in my own city of Providence. The State of Rhode Island has a law which provides that oleomargarine when it is sold shall be branded as such. That is all the law upon the subject in the State of Rhode Island. The result is that in the State of Rhode Island the sale of oleomargarine is a legitimate business. It is sold as oleomargarine, and it is sold as nothing else. Our wholesale and our retail dealers advertise in the papers that they have this, that, or the other brand of oleomargarine for sale, and as you walk up and down our streets you will see upon the placards in front of our grocery stores this or that brand of oleomargarine at such a price. The busi- ness is advertised as widely as it can be advertised. When you enter the stores you will see the same signs. You will see the Oakdale oleo- margarine or the Vermont oleomargarine or Swift’s oleomargarine for sale side by side with process butter, and side by side with creamery butter, and it is sold for what it is. It is undoubtedly the fact that at the inception of this industry unscrupulous dealers saw an opportunity for large profits, and that they sold this substance for butter. As district attorney of the United States for the district of Rhode Island, I had occasion, twelve years ago or so, to prosecute many such persons, and prosecutions were insti- tuted and most vigorously carried on by the Internal-Revenue Depart- ment of the United States. Under the stimulus of the possibility of a legitimate business with a fair profit into which high-minded business men can enter, that condi- tion of affairs has absolutely disappeared. I state, gentlemen, that to-day in the one city with which I am familiar, as a result of the fair treatment of this business, the business is conducted fairly and honestly. This article is sold simply for what it is, as honestly as any other article of food is sold for what it is. I assert as a corollary to this proposition that almost every item of fraud of which the advocates of this bill complain is due to the enact- ment in very many States of unjust and unwholesome laws forbidding its sale for what it is—laws which have no backing in public opin- ion, and which interfere with what otherwise would be a legitimate business. Let me refer to what is the condition of things in Massachusetts, a neighboring State which does forbid absolutely the sale of colored oleomargarine even as oleomargarine. The condition there follows perfectly naturally, it seems to me, from what we must all understand to be the circumstances. We all know that there is no more universal demand than the demand for butter or something to take the place of butter. Butter is nota luxury. Butter is a necessity of life to-day, and there is a demand on the part of all classes in the community for a pure butter at a reasonable price, or a pure butter substitute at a reasonable price. Creamery butter is undoubtedly the best which can be used or which can be purchased, but, as we all know, the great mass of the community can not pay the price which is charged for creamery butter. They go to the person from whom they buy their butter in Massachusetts, where the sale of oleomargarine colored is forbidden, and they tell him that they want a pure butter, a good but- ter, at a reasonable price. OLEOMARGARINE. 29 This dealer has upon his shelves the process butter, or the renovated butter, to which I shall refer ina few moments. That he is allowed to sell by the laws of Massachusetts without let or hindrance. He offers it to his customer, and perhaps his customer buys it. He goes home and tastes it and finds that when he uses it it takes the skin off the roof of his mouth. He comes back the next time he requires but- ter, and he says to the dealer, ‘‘ We can not use that stuff you sold me.” There is a demand which this dealer is tempted in some way to supply. He has oleomargarine. He knows that if he sells oleomar- garine to this man at the same price or a little higher price than he paid for his process butter this man will be a satisfied customer. He does sell it to him. He sells it to him as butter; and why does he sell it to him as butter? Not because the man is not perfectly willing to take it as oleomargarine, but because if he sells it as oleomargarine he violates the law of the State of Massachusetts. He does not dare to trust the customer, who may appear as a witness against him, and for that simple reason, instead of selling this substance for what it is, oleo- margarine, he sells it for butter, which it is not, and to that extent he perpetrates a fraud upon his customer. It is the most innocent of all frauds so far as the customer is concerned, for the customer gets what he wants, a pure article of good flavor, which satisfies his needs. But he does buy it upon the statement, perhaps under the impression, that it is something else than what he asks for, and that is a fraud. Senator ALLEN. What do you call process butter ? Mr. Garpner. Process butter, as I understand it, is a butter which is produced in this way: Butter which has become unmarketable—ran- cid butter, butter which is old and left over, which for any reason can not be used in the trade—is purchased, and it is melted over. It is treated; it is rechurned; it is colored, and it is put upon the market as butter. Senator ALLEN. What ingredients enter into process butter? Mr. Garpner. I do not think that any ingredients enter into it. It is the original butter spoiled and made over again. Senator Foster. Flavored over? Mr. GARDNER. Flavored over and washed with acids, as my clients inform me. Senator ALLEN. How do you remove the tainted taste? Mr. Garpner. I will ask some of my friends here to answer the question. Senator Fosrrr. It is sterilized? Mr. JeLKeE. It is removed by aeration and washing in acid. Senator ALLEN. What acid? Mr. Jevxe. Sulphuric acid. Senator ALLEN. Something injurious to the digestion ? Mr. Hoarp. I should like to ask a question. Do you know that renovated butter is washed with sulphuric acid? Mr. Jevke. I have known it. Mr. Hoarp. How do you know it? Mr. JeLKE. Because I have been in the butter business years ago. Mr. Hoarp. When was the renovated butter process instituted ? Mr. Jecxe. The recent improvements in process butter have been adopted within the last five or six years. Mr. Hoarp. Do you know of any establishment making renovated butter that uses sulphuric acid ? 30 OLEOMARGARINE. Mr. JELKE. In water; yes, sir. Mr. Hoarp. Where? Mr. JeLKE. They have used it in Chicago. Mr. Hoarp. In what establishment? Mr. Jevrxe. I do not think it would be proper for me to say. Mr. Hoarp. All right. The CHarrman. I did not understand your question, Governor Hoard. Mr. Hoarp. I was speaking of the manufacture of process butter, so called. The gentleman says that it is treated with sulphuric acid. There is no occasion whatever to treat it with sulphuric acid or any acid. Senator ALLEN. How can you remove the taint? Mr. Hoarp. The taint is in the casein content of butter, not in the butter fat. The whole process of albuminous fermentation is in the casein content, and the acid does not take out the casein. The simple method of making process butter is that it is melted, boiled, clarified, skimmed, and the elements taken out of it. It is then reincorporated into milk and separated by centrifugal separation, the same as butter fat is separated from ordinary milk. It is then taken and put into creamery vats and subjected to the same process of ripening that the process of creamery butter is subjected to. I know of no introduction of acids in its treatment, and I was asking the gentleman what he knew, that is all. The Cuarrman. I did not quite catch the question that the gentle- man declined to answer. Mr. Hoarp. I asked him what establishments he knew were treat- ing it with sulphuric acid. So far as that is concerned, the testimony before this body in 1886 was abundant as to the use of sulphuric acid in oleomargarine. Senator ALLEN. I do not think the question is yet answered as to how you eliminate the rancid taste or the decayed taste of the butter fat from process butter. ) Mr. Hoarp. By boiling and clarifying, and in that manner taking the casein content out of it. Senator Auten. But the fat itself is decayed, is it not$ Mr. Hoarp. No, sir; not at all. Senator ALLEN. It is in process of decay 4 Mr. Hoarp. You can not decay butter fat chemically. The only process by which it can be decayed is through what is known as albu- minous fermentation, and albuminous fermentation is imparted to it by the casein content, which is almost pure albumen or protein. Any person who is a student of these things will readily know that this process butter is not a fraud or counterfeit in any sense. It is an imposition if sold for other than it is. Therein constitutes the wrong- doing. Senator ALLEN. You say that the butter fat itself is not affected or tainted by the process? Mr. Hoarp. No, sir. The whole process of rancidity and distaste which you have in rancid butter is not the butter fat itself but is in the casein content which may be left in the butter. Senator ALLEN. Is that the case with any other decaying animal substance 4 Mr. Hoarp. I do not know, OLEOMARGARINE. 31 Mr. Marurwson. May I have the privilege of asking the gentleman a question 4 The CHAIRMAN. Yes, sir. Mr. Matuewson. He says the only fraud in the question of process | butter on the market is that it is not marked or branded. Mr. Hoarp. No; I did not say so. Mr. Maruewson. That it is sold for what it is not. Mr. Hoarp. I say in case it is sold for what it is not is a fraud. Mr. Maruewson. Is it ever sold for anything else? Can you tell the committee of a case where it is sold for renovated or process butter ? Mr. Hoarp. I do not know anything about the sale of process but- ter at all, because I have had nothing to do with it. I am simply rea- soning abstractly on the proposition as to wherein the process lies to the extent that the butter fat in process butter is original butter fat and not another kind of animal fat. Mr. Maruewson. I understand you to state to the committee that the butter fat from which process butter is made is not tainted and is perfectly sweet. Mr. Hoarp. I did not say that the butter was sweet. Mr. Maruewson. The butter fat? Mr. Hoarp. The butter fat, when boiled and clarified. Mr. Maruewson. How is it clarified Mr. Hoarp. By boiling. It is steamed. Mr. Maruewson. Are you familiar with the process? Mr. Hoarp. I am, somewhat. Mr. Marnewson. And you know that this boiling and steaming absolutely clarifies that fat? Mr. Hoarp. Certainly; | know that. Mr. Matuewson. I shall have to differ with you, because I have seen the process time and time again, and I know that that is not the case. Mr. Hoarp. Very well; Lask for information. What do you know, please ¢ Mr. Maruewson. I know that the fat extracted from old butter butter that has become putrid, or strong, or rancid—is thoroughly scented with that same odor. No amount of boiling—you can boil it from now until doomsday—will ever remove that rancid smell. Mr. Hoarp. What is done to remove it? Mr. Maruewson. It has to be treated in other ways. Mr. Hoarp. In what way ? Mr. Matuewson. There are several ways. Iam not a manufacturer of process butter myself, so I do not know, and in such factories as [ have been in they have tried, I think, not to let me see the whole process. Mr. Knieut. If you want information, I am thoroughly familiar with the matter. JI have been through the largest factories in the United States, and I know the manufacture of process butter very thoroughly. If the committee want the information, I can give it at any time. Senator ALLEN. I would like to have it. The CHarrman. I presume that Mr. Gardner may be in some haste to conclude. I suggest that we allow him to proceed. Senator Hrrrretp. We will be glad to hear Mr. Knight later on. Mr. GarpneEr. | will endeavor to close my argument as quickly as oe OLEOMARGARINE. I possibly can, and in anything I may state which may require investi- gation or answer the answer, perhaps, can be reserved. The point which I was trying to make was that absolutely the only oceasion for the fraud which the advocates of this bill complain of is the passage in so many States of laws which make it impossible for a dealer to be honest, however much he may desire to be so, if he is to sell this product at all, which actually supplies a demand. I say that if the advocates of the bill are consistent and desire that oleomargarine should stand in the market solely upon its own merits and should not come into competition with butter, they can accomplish this purpose by procuring the repeal of those laws. They would do so if they knew where their own interests lay. It is simply by making it illegal to carry on this business as it ought to be carried on that there is a temp- tation offered to carry on the business as it ought not to be carried on. But what does this bill do? The bill proposes that upon the States which under the influence of wiser counsels have not enacted such laws— laws which have occasioned fraud—there shall be imposed the same con- ditions which exist in the States where those laws have been enacted, and in those States where it is desired to do an honest business to make it possible only to do a fraudulent business. Let me point out, further, that the bill does not seek to stop such’ fraud. The bill only seeks ‘to make the carr ying on of that business more expensive. The bill allows oleomargarine to be manufactured and to be artificially colored so as to resemble butter. It simply pro- vides that when it 1s so colored as to resemble butter it shall pay a tax of 10 cents per pound instead of paying a tax of 2 cents per pound. Now, let us suppose it to be true—I assert that it is not true, but it is the basis of the whole argument of the advocates of the billet us suppose it to be true that this substance when ar tificially colored does come into competition with the best, or with good creamery, butter. That is what they assert. They say that it can be sold for 28 or 30, and in some instances for 35 centsa pound. Let us suppose that to be true. Then hres ane which sells to-day at 15 cents a pound at retail, after the tax of 2 cents a pound has been paid, would sell, after the passage of this bill, to secure the same profit to its manufacturer and its retailer, at 8 cents a pound more, or at 23 cents a pound. If it does come into competition with creamery butter at 25 and 30 and 35 cents a pound it will come into competition still, and if the dealer wants to make his profit he will simply have to press the sale of it harder. There is to be a profit of 7 or 12 cents a pound in the perpe- tration of this fraud, even after the passage of the bill, if the statement of the advocates of the bill is even approximately correct that it can be sold as pure creamery butter of the highest type. Therefore it appears that the advocates of the bili do not offer any remedy for the fraud of which they complain, but that upon their own hypothesis they are only making the traud more expensiv e to the man who earries it on; and the bill is utterly inadequate for the purpose for which it pur por ts to be drawn. Senator HanssproucH. How would it do to make the tax 20 cents a pound 4 Mr. Garpner. That would be more effective. A tax ofa dollar a pound would be more effective still. But you come right back to the proposition which I laid down at the start, that this is lee islation which seeks to prohibit the sale of oleomargarine, and if you want to prohibit ws +2 OLEOMARGARINE. oo it, you should adopt the suggestion which has been made and put the tax so high that it can not be sold at all to anybody. Senator Hansproucu. If there were no State or national law on the subject, would the manufacturers of oleomargarine seek to color their product? Mr. Garpner. If there were no State law? Senator HansproueH. Yes. You complain of the existence of State aws. Mr. Garpner. I do complain of the existence of State laws, not of the existence of national laws. Senator HansprouGH. You say that is the way to get rid of the fraud ? Mr. Garpner. Yes; to repeal the State laws which say that colored oleomargarine shall not be sold as oleomargarine. Senator Hansprouacu. And to have no laws whatever ? Mr. Garpner. I beg your pardon; I do not wish to have no laws whatever. Isay, have the most stringent possible laws to provide that it shall be sold simply as oleomargarine and as nothing else. Have the most stringent laws possible, but no laws forbidding the sale of colored oleomargarine. The United States law to-day is strin- gent. Every manufacturer is glad that it is stringent. Every manu- facturer would like to have it made more stringent in the direction of securing the sale of this article simply for what it is. Senator Hansprouen. If denied the privilege of coloring the product, would the volume of the product diminish 4 Mr. Garpner. It would diminish, absolutely. There would not be any sold at all, in my judgment. Senator HansproucH. Would that be the case with butter, if there should be a law enacted that butter must not be colored 4 Mr. Garpner. If people could not get any yellow substance to eat on their bread they would take white, undoubtedly; but as long as there is a yellow substance on the market, as I will argue to the committee in a few minutes, people will not take white. Now, the next reason advanced why this legislation ought to be enacted is that yellow is what is called the butter trade-mark. That phrase was used by the advocates of this bill in the House. It was said that butter has some sort of a trade-mark or copyright upon the color yellow. That matter has been hashed out at great length, and it is not necessary for me to go into it in detail very much; but I do want to call the attention of the committee to these considerations. It has already, I think, sufficiently appeared by the admissions of the author of the bill made here yesterday that there is no such thing asauniform butter color. The color of natural butter, the color of butter before coloring matter is artificially applied to it, varies with every change of circumstance. It varies at different seasons of the year. It varies in different places. It varies at different times. It varies in accordance with the way in which the animal from which the base of the product comes is fed and cared for. There is no such thing; no tint can be pointed at or referred to as the tint of butter. Ordinary butter—butter the year round, butter under the usual cir- cumstances of its manufacture—is nearly white. It is slightly off the color of white, with a slight yellow tinge. Even before the invention of the great creameries, and before the use of the substance which has now been adopted for coloring it, butter has always been artificially S. Rep. 2043——3 34 OLEOMARGARINE. colored. It has been colored for the reason which has been referred to, happily, I think, in this argument by the advocates of the bill, in the phrase that ‘tthe eye might aid the palate.” It is colored to meet the demand—the taste of those who use it. It is colored in different tints for the different localities in which it is to be sold. It has always been colored. The housewife has colored it in her churn with carrots, and the manufacturer has colored it as he deemed proper to meet the demands of those to whom he was to offer it. 1 call the attention of the committee to the fact that there was no one substance used for the coloring of butter—there was no standard coloring matter—until after the manufacture of oleomargarine had been commenced. The manufacturers of oleomargarine colored their substance also. The manufacturers of oleomargarine were inventors. The manufacturers of oleomargarine, or those who advised them, were scientists looking for the best substances which could be used for each and every purpose which they desired to accomplish; and they discoy- ered, or found, or invented—I do not know which—a substance which is called annotto, and they used it for the coloring of their product as the article best adapted to that purpose. Senator ALLEN. Do the creameries use the same coloring matter ? Mr. Garpner. That is what I am informed; absolutely the same substance. Mr. Hoarp. May I ask the gentlemana question? Is he certain that he is historically correct when he states that the oleomargarine men invented annotto? Mr. Garpner. I do not say that they invented it. I do not know whether they invented it or not. They discovered and adopted it as the article best fitted for the purpose, it not having been used before for that purpose. Mr. Hoarp. I beg your pardon. I was acheese manufacturer forty- five years ago in New York, and I used annotto. Has oleomargarine been in use that long? Mr. Garpner. I am arguing from the evidence before this commit- tee. I understand the evidence taken by the House committee is here, and I am arguing upon that evidence. The truthfulness or the untruth- fulness of the persons who gave the evidence I can not vouch for, but as an attorney I take the evidence as here and argue from it. There certainly is evidence, and the strongest evidence, to the effect that after the manufacturers of oleomargarine had shown the desirability of this substance for this purpose the manufacturers of butter adopted it, and that the manufacturer of butter to-day, who previous to 1886 used all sorts of different substances in attempting to color his butter as he desired to have it colored, is using annotto and nothing else. Yet, it appearing by the evidence that the manufacturer of oleomargarine first called this possibility to the attention of the manufacturer of butter, the manufacturer of butter to-day claims the tints which are produced by this coloring matter as his trade-mark. That is a fair argument, at least from the evidence, and the truth or falsity of the evidence Senator AttEeN. Do you claim to have used this coloring matter before the creameries used it? Mr. Garpner. That claim is made, as I understand. That is in evidence. Senator WarREN. I think it will develop that the substance called annotto was used many years ago in a crude way for coloring butter. OLEOMARGARINE. 35 I think it will also develop that by an admixture of ingredients a new and better coloring has been adopted by the oleomargarine manu- facturers and that that coloring has been purchased and used in creameries. Mr. Garpner. That is probably the case; but annotto is too broad a term, perhaps. Senator WARREN. As Governor Hoard has said, annotto, or a sub- stance under that name, was used many years ago in coloring both butter and cheese. Mr. Garpner. My statement is that the substance which is used now by the manufacturers both of oleomargarine and of butter to color their products was first used by the manufacturers of oleomargarine and afterwards adopted by the manufacturers of butter. Now, how is it with reference to the coloring of oleomargarine? The natural color of oleomargarine is nearly white, very near the nat- ural color of ordinary butter. For precisely the same reason that the manufacturer of butter colors his product, in order that the eye may aid the palate, in order that it may be attractive to his customers, for the very same reason that he colors it sometimes a very light yellow, sometimes a very deep yellow, because in order to carry on his busi- ness successfully he finds it necessary to meet the demand—for pre- cisely those reasons the manufacturer of oleomargarine colors his product, and he colors it all sorts of shades to meet all sorts of demands. For a certain trade he gives it but a slight tint; for other trade he gives it a deeper tint. For some of his trade, his export trade, he colors it a deep rich red or brown, because the people of the country where that oleo is sent demand that the article which they put upon their food shall be of that color. He colors it a color which would make it absolutely impossible to sell one ounce of it in any part of the United States of America, and from which you or I would turn away with loathing, simply because there is somewhere a demand for a butter substance of that color. It is for simply that reason that he colors it for sale in the United States the same color that the manufacturer of butter colors his product; and, as I have previously said, the color which in the vast majority of instances is used is a color the desirability of which was first found out and was first applied by the manufacturer of oleomar- garine. The next reason given for the passage of this proposed act is that the sale of oleomargarine will destroy the dairy industry of the United States. I say that that is absurd. I say, in the first place, that oleo- margarine, no matter how it may be colored, can never compete with high-grade, high-priced creamery butter. We need something besides color to enable us to do that. The author of this bill here yesterday dropped a statement which it seems to me is of the very greatest value. He said that in judging of the grade, or quality, or value of butter color pointed for 5, while taste pointed for 50. Now, coloring may make oleomargarine look like butter, coloring may make people think that oleomargarine is butter, but neither coloring nor anything else can make oleomargarine taste like the high-grade creamery butter. A man may be deceived once into purchasing it; he is not deceived twice into purchasing it, and the man who deceives him does not receive his custom. It is absurd to say that this substance, which can not under any conditions have the flavor which is the item of value in high-grade 36 OLEOMARGARINE. creamery butter, competes with high-grade creamery butter. There- fore it seems to me that that is out of the question. I will show ina moment that, as it seems to me, there is no reason why it should not compete with low-grade butter for what it is. Further than that, it appears from the testimony taken before this committee that the total sales of oleomargarine during the period covered by the last report of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue amounted to 4 per cent of the total sales of butter of all kinds. If we take the statement of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, who, as IT argued yesterday, is best fitted to judge, not more at any rate than one-tenth, 10 per cent of the oleomargarine which was sold, was sold as butter. Therefore not more than 10 per cent of the total sales of oleomargarine came into competition with the sales of butter; and from that it is mathematically evident that the total sales of oleomargarine as butter amount to only four-tenths of 1 per cent of the total sales of butter in the United States. Mr. Knieur. What do you call the total sale of butter, please? Mr. Garpner. It is given in the report as 2,000,000,000 pounds. Mr. Knieutr. Upon what authority 4 Mr. Garpner. Upon, I think, the estimate of the Commissioner. Senator WarrREN. The estimate of the Agricultural Department is 1,500,000,000 pounds. Mr. Knicur. The estimate of the Agricultural Department is 1,500,000,000 pounds as the production, not the amount put on the market. Only about 50 or 60 per cent of that goes on the market. Mr. GarpnEr. By some possibility, taking the gentleman’s own figures, it might make the sales of oleomar garine at the outside 1 per cent of the sales of butter. It could not bri ing it above that. Another fact, which I think is established by the evidence and which I think I can truthfully assert without successful contradiction, is that in spite of and in the face of the use and sale of oleomargarine the price of butter is higher to-day than it has been in twelve years, and that in spite of the use and sale of oleomargarine the percentage of increase in the sale of butter to-day is ereater than the percentage of increase in the sale of oleomargarine. Therefore the assertion that whatever unsatisfactory condition may exist in the butter industry is or can be due in any large extent to the sale of oleomargarine is an assertion which has no foundation in fact. Mr. Kyieutr. May I ask upon what you base your claim that the sale ef butter has increased over the sale of oleomargarine? Where do you get your statistics 4 Mr. Garpner. As I stated to the committee yesterday, I have taken this matter up since last Monday and I have not read through this report. Ican not tell in what item of the report that is found, but that statement is made to me, and if necessary (I hope my friend will make some memorandum of these questions) it can be substantiated. Those are all the reasons which I have heard urged for the passage of this bill. Not one of them is valid. It is said that oleomargarine is unwholesome. ‘There is no substance sold to the consumer in the United States of America to-day which is so absolutely certain of being wholesome or the healthfulness of which is certified to by such high authority. Mr. Hoarp. May I ask the gentleman one question? I ‘understood you to say, sir, that an inspector is at the oleomargarine factory to see that no unwholesome ingredient is introduced into oleomargarine / OLEOMARGARINE. BT Mr. Garpner. To see what ingredients go into oleomargarine. The manufacturer is required to make a monthly statement, under oath, of every pound of ingredient he uses in the manufacture. It is the duty of the inspector or the deputy inspector, as I understand it, to verify that report and under oath to say that the manufacturer’s statement is correct or incorrect. Mr. Hoarp. Do you believe that the manufacturer always states the truth concerning the ingredients of oleomargarine ? Mr. Garpner. Yes, sir; the manufacturers of which I know any- thing. That is my belief; it is not worth much one way or the other. Mr. Hoarp. The department of agriculture of New York has found by chemical analysis 11 per cent of paraffin in oleomargarine. That is a substance which no known acids have any effect upon. Do you believe that the manufacturer made a return to the Government that his product contained paraffin 4 Mr. Garpner. What I believe in that particular is of very little importance. The CHarrMan. I suggest that Mr. Gardner be allowed to conclude, and then we will hear from some of the men who are actually engaged in the business. Mr. Hoarp. All right. Mr. Garpner. As I said, that, it seems to me, is not a valid reason. The other reasons which I referred to are no more valid, the reason of the small amount of fraud, which can be prevented if the manufacturers of butter see fit to prevent it, the reason which is claimed, that yellow is the trade-mark of butter, the reason that the sale of oleomargarine will destroy the butter industry. That is negative. I have met, so far as I was able, all the claims of the advocates of this bill. Now, affirmatively, I do claim these as reasons why the bill should not be passed. I assert, in the first place, that the passage of the bill would absolutely destroy the oleo industry, which during the past six- teen years under the sanction of the Government of the United States has been built up at a vast expenditure of money. T assert that the advocates of this bill intend that that shall be the result of this legislation; that it is not intended by this legislation merely to prohibit the sale of colored oleo and to make that impossible, but it is intended by this legislation to make the sale of any oleomar- garine impossible. And I submit that if the members of this com- mittee will read carefully the argument of my friend on my left and the argument of the gentleman on my right and the argument of the author of this bill, they will see that determination stamped upon every sentiment which those gentlemen have uttered. My friend upon the left was obliged, I believe, to present a letter or an affidavit, which was read during the discussion of this matter in the House, saying that he had not expressed the sentiments which were attributed to him by the report. Mr. Hoarp. No, sir. Mr. Garpner. Then some one. Mr. Hoarp. I never made any affidavit that I know of. a GarRDNER. Then I think a letter from Governor Hoard was read. Mr. Hoarp. No, sir; no communication of the kind was ever made by me. Mr. GARDNER. Then I withdraw that. oo OLEOMARGARINE. Mr. Kniant. Somebody forged my name toa letter, and I denounced it. Mr. Garpner. I do not know, but, according to the report in the Congressional Record, a letter was read, I thought, from Governor Hoard. Of course I accept his statement. The letter stated that he was incorrectly reported in what he said before the committee. Mr. Hoarp. I submitted my argument in writing, so that whatever I said was correctly printed. Mr. Garpner. Besides the allegations made by the advocates of this bill, what they have done in the States where they had the power to carry their theories into effect shows that they intend to destroy this industry. In the State of Vermont there is a law which requires that no oleomargarine shall be sold unless it is colored pink. Mr. Hoarp. No; that was the law in the State of New Hampshire. Mr. GarpDNer. That is said to be the law in the State of Vermont and in the State of West Virginia. Mr. Knicutr. The New Hampshire law has been repealed. Mr. Garpner. The New Hampshire law has been repealed, and it is the law of the State of Vermont to-day. Senator Hanssrovuen. It is in the report here. Mr. Garpner. It is in the report. Mr. Knicur. I guess that is true. Two States have that law. Mr. Garpner. Occasionally I do make a statement which is accepted to be true by my friends on the other side. Mr. Hoarp. It is news to me. Mr. GarpnErR. There is a good deal that is news to you, no doubt, but it is true, notwithstanding, that in the State of Vermont, the State which is represented in Congress by the author of this bill, there is a law which requires that all of this substance which is sold shall be colored pink. Now, this substance can not be colored pink without introducing an element into it which makes it a menace to human health, which makes it a deleterious substance. The State of Vermont has, therefore, legislated not to regulate this industry, but to destroy it. It is absolutely certain that no man would spread upon his bread any pink substance. _ Senator Warren. Those laws have been repealed in some of the States. Mr. Garpner. I do not care whether the law is in force or not; Ido not care whether the law is operative or inoperative; it shows the pur- pose which is entertained by the people who are here advocating this bill; a purpose not to regulate this industry, but to destroy it; a pur- pose not to have oleomargarine sold as butter, but not to have oleo- margarine sold at all. That is the purpose which is evidenced by the words; it is the purpose that is evidenced by the action which, is louder na words, and whether it is the purpose or not it is the inevitable result. It is the inevitable result for this reason: Oleomargarine can not be colored and pay a tax of 10 cents a pound and be sold in competition with cheap butter. I have previously argued to you, and I will not repeat myself, the reasons why it seems to me that it can not be sold in competition with high-grade butter. It can not be sold in competi- tion with butter which costs over 22 or 23 cents a pound. It can not be sold in competition with cheap butter. Oleomargarine, which to-day pays a tax of 2 cents a pound, retails at from 13 to 15 cents, with a profit, I assert, of much less than 1 cent OLEOMARGARINE. 39 per pound to the manufacturer, and with a profit to the retailer at the lowest rate at which he is willing to handle it, because where he sells his oleomargarine it sells in the strictest competition with other oleo- margarine. Remade butter, renovated butter, process butter, resur- rection butter, as it has been called, the method of manufacture of which I understand the committee is to inquire into, it is shown, I I think, by the evidence, can be produced for 13 or 14 cents a pound. It pays no tax, and oleomargarine, which can only be retailed, as it evidently can be retailed, after the payment of a 10-cent tax, at not less than 21 or 22 cents a pound, has got to come into competition, if it is sold colored, with this made-over, acid-treated butter, which can be sold at a profit at 15 cents per pound. Therefore, colored oleomarga- rine is absolutely driven out of the market. Mr. Kyicur. I beg your pardon, but where do you get the figures which show the price of renovated butter? Mr. Garpner. I get those from statements which will be made here, if they have not already been made. My clients say that reno- vated butter is sold to-day in the city of Providence for 15, 16, and 18 cents per pound, and colored oleomargarine can not possibly be sold at less than 21 or 23 cents a pound if taxed ten cents a pound. But gentlemen will say to me that oleomargarine can still be sold uncolored. Gentlemen, it can not. We come back to the old ques- tion of the eye aiding the palate. The attempt to sell oleomargarine uncolored runs counter to a law which is more universal in its opera- tion and stronger in its action than any law of Congress—a law of human nature—the law of conformity to custom. The people of the United States have been accustomed to spreading upon their bread a yellow compound. The manufacturers of butter realize it. The author of this bill said here yesterday that he considered it was silly and foolish and unwise for people to demand an artificially colored butter; but he admitted that people did demand an artificially colored butter, and that a butter which is not artificially colored, no matter how excellent it may be in any other respect, can not be sold in market to-day in competition with a butter which is artificially colored. It is exactly the same with oleomargarine. No matter though the purchaser may be convinced that oleomargarine is absolutely pure, no matter though his taste may inform him that it is palatable, if an attempt is made to make him use it when it bears a color absolutely distinct and different from that which belonged to the article which he and his fathers have used for the same purpose he refuses to use it. The illustration was used here yesterday with reference to the coat of a gentleman. When the author of this bill was asked why the manu- facturers of butter colored their product, he said they did it to meet the demand; that they did it to comply with a law of conformity to custom, and he illustrated it by saying that a member of this committee was wearing to-day a black coat. He did it because black suited his taste. If it were proposed to-day to a member of this committee that he should purchase either a black coat of poor quality and high price or a bright pink coat of the very best quality at a low price, the poor black coat at a high price would be purchased and the excellent pink coat at a low price thrown aside. It is silly; yes, it is silly; but it isa law of custom which exists more vividly and with greater effect in that which we eat than it exists anywhere else. We may violate it in the 40 OLEOMARGARINE. matter of dress; we can not violate it, our eye will not allow us to vio- late it, our education will not allow us to violate it, in regard to what we eat. It is absolutely impossible to force upon the market at any price a white substance to be used as butter, and therefore if it is pro- posed to insist that this substance shall be sold in its natural condition and without any coloring matter you force it absolutely out of sale entirely. Now, gentlemen, the manufacturer of oleomargarine does not color his product in order that it may resemble butter. He wants to sell it as oleomargarine. He can not sell it as anything else. When a sale for it as oleomargarine is established his business increases and his business becomes reputable, but it is absolutely impossible for him to carry on that business if he is compelled to put up his product in a form in which the public will not take it. We color our oleomargarine for exactly the same reason that the manufacturer of butter colors his but- ter. As the author of the bill said yesterday, the manufacturer of butter must color his butter in order that the people who are accus- tomed to spread that yellow substance upon their bread may spread it. When we send oleomargarine to South America we color it, as I have said, a deep blood red or dark brown, because the people of that coun- try like to spread that kind of substance upon their bread. Senator Hansproucu. Is that the color of their butter down there? Mr. Garpner. I do not know whether it is the color of their butter or not; it is what they demand. It is the color of taste. It is a sub- stitute for something else that they use as butter. Senator Barr. The color and not the taste governs the sale alto- gether, then? Mr. Garpner. No, sir; I think not. The color is a necessary ele- ment, but the taste is even more important. We can not sell yellow butter which is rancid because it is yellow, neither can we sell good butter which is white because it is good. Both elements must coneur if we are to make a sale of the product. Now, I want to say to you, gentlemen, on behalf certainly of one manufacturer whom I represent, and I believe on behalf of every other manufacturer, that the manufacturers of oleomargarine, welcome any legislation which will render it more difficult and which will make it absolutely impossible to sell this substance for anything except what itis. We welcome the suggestion that oleomargarine shall be placed within the provisions of the pure-food bill which it is proposed to adopt. But we do protest against the destruction of our industry. There is, I think, now before this committee a bill (it was here at the last session) entitled ‘‘A bill to define renovated butter, also imposing a tax upon and regulating the manufacture, sale, importation, and exportation thereof.” That bill is upon the files of this committee. If that bill is left to slumber upon the files of the committee, if this substance is not included within the provisions of the bill which is now before this committee, then the result of the legislation is to drive absolutely away and out of commerce an article which is acknowledged to be pure and wholesome and for which there is acknowledged to be a demand, and to force upon the whole community as a substitute for it an article which is acknowledged, I think, to be deleterious. The manufacturers of oleomargarine can manufacture process butter if they are driven to do it; but process butter is an article which should not under any regulations be permitted to be used as food. OLEOMARGARINE. 4] Mr. Knientr. If you will give me just a second, let me ask a ques- tion. You represent the Oakdale Manufacturing Company ? Mr. GARDNER. I do. Mr. Knient. Are they satisfied with the present law on oleomar- garine 4 Mr. GARDNER. Yes; they are satisfied with it. Mr. Kyicur. Do they comply with the provisions of it? Mr. Garpner. They do. Mr. Knicur. That is all. Mr. Garpner. In concluding, gentlemen, it seems to me that I ought to apologize for all the time that I have taken up this morning. I have argued this morning largely upon the question of expediency. I have not endeavored to meet, as perhaps I ought, and as perhaps I must meet, the matter which has been referred to this morning by a member of the committee—a matter which is so familiar to us all— that this legislation is urged upon this committee and urged upon Con- gress because it is stated that 5,000,000 people engaged in agriculture in the United States desire it. It ought not to be a balancing of the numbers who desire it or who do not desire it. It ought to be a matter of principle. But it is perhaps necessary to meet arguments of that character, and if it is necessary to meet them I ought perhaps to take the time to show that not only the interests of a few manufacturers and dealers in oleomargarine are here concerned, but that the interests of very many other producers in this country are indirectly concerned. Oleomargarine is not produced by magic. Into oleomargarine have to enter various substances which are the product of the agricultural industries and interests of this country. The raiser of hogs, the raiser of cattle, and the producer of cotton-seed oil are all interested in the growth of the oleomargarine business. The neutral lard which is used in the manufacture of oleomargarine, and which comes from the hog, is a product which sells at 24 cents per pound higher than the only other alternative product which could be made—lard itself—and 8 pounds of this substance are produced from the hog. That shows that for all the hogs that can be utilized for this purpose there is an added value of 20 cents toeach hog. The report of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue for the year ending June 30, 1899, when the pro- duction of oleomargarine was considerably less than it is to-day, shows that 31,297,251 pounds of neutral lard were used in the manufacture of this product. Senator Monty. What is neutral lard? Senator Herrrenp. Leaf lard. Senator Foster. How many pounds do you state were used? Mr. Garpner. Thirty-one million two hundred and ninety-seven thousand two hundred and fifty-one pounds in that year. So there isa vital interest on the part of the farmers who are engaged in the raising of hogs that this industry shall not be wiped out of existence. Senator Foster. What part of beef enters into it? Mr. GarpneEr. Vleo oil is a product of the beef, and it sells ata much larger price than any other product. Senator ALLEN. What would become of these elements if they were not used in the manufacture of oleomargarine? Mr. GarpDNER. They would have to be sold at lower prices for other purposes—tallow in the case of beef. 49 OLEOMARGARINE. Senator Monry. Will you allow me to ask you a question ? Mr. GARDNER. Certainly. Senator Monry. As I came in I heard you speaking about the rights of the producers of butter, oleomargarine, renovated butter, and soon. Haveyou saidanything to the committee about the rights of the people who use these things—the consumers ? Mr. Garpner. I did at considerable length yesterday. Senator Monry. Excuse me, I will get it in your printed remarks. Senator Barr. The hearing will be printed. Mr. Garpner. There were also during that same year about four and a half million pounds of cotton-seed oil used, forming a very large outlet for that industry. I wish to call once more the attention of the committee Senator Foster. How much oleomargarine was made that year? Mr. Garpner. Ninety-one million pounds. Mr. Knicur. Eighty-three million pounds, I guess it was. Mr. Garpner. It is given as 91,000,000 pounds. I do not know. If you dispute the report of the Commissioner I can not help it. Mr. Kyicur. You have not got the right report. Mr. Garpner. [| have the report for the year ending June 30, 1899, and I have read the figures correctly. Mr. Knicut. You have read the ingredients and not the product. Mr. Garpner. In this connection I wish to call the attention of the committee once more to the precise wording of the proposed act which is before the committee. It authorizes any State to forbid by law not merely the manufacture of any oleomargarine containing coloring matter, but any oleomargarine containing an ingredient which makes it resemble butter, or look like butter, in the language of the act. I am informed that there is a slight tinge to cotton-seed oil which makes oleomargarine manufactured from cotton-seed oil a little off the white, and which to that extent makes it look like butter. Therefore, if this act is left as it is, it is going to have the effect, or it may have the effect, if States see fit to comply with the terms given them in the act, to forbid the manufacture of any oleomargarine containing cotton- seed oil. I do not know whether any substitute for cotton-seed oil which is absolutely colorless can be found or not. The bill would make it perfectly possible for the legislature of the State of Vermont, or the legislature of any State of this Union, to say, ‘‘ Manufacture your oleomargarine if you can, but do not put any cotten-seed oil into it.” Mr. Grout. Do you refer to the proviso to the first section ?, Mr. GARDNER. Yes, sir. Mr. Grout. That, allow me to state, is the language of the Supreme Court in deciding the Plumley case, and it was incorporated into this bill. That first section went through the House four years ago. It was incorporated in the bill on the motion of Mr. Williams, of Missis- sippi, who then said it made that section of the bill satisfactory to him, and that language was taken from the decision of the Supreme Court. _ It is Mr. Justice Harlan’s language. Mr. Garpner. I ask the lawyers on the committee to read that section and tell me if the inference which I have drawn from it is not correct. Senator WarREN. I understood you yesterday to say that butter and milk also tend to color oleomargarine. OLEOMARGARINE. 438 | Mr. Garpner. Butter and milk do tinge oleomargarine. Cotton- | seed oil does tinge oleomargarine. Therefore, if cotton-seed oil is ‘allowed to enter into it the State can pass a law which forbids the | manufacture and sale of oleomargarine at all. Gentlemen, I ought to have concluded long ago. I should have done so if it had not been for these interruptions, which I have been very | glad to answer as farasI can. In concluding, I should like to ask | you to forget all these questions of expediency. I should like to ask _you to forget that there are 5,000,000 people who are mistakenly call- jing for the passage of this legislation, 5,000,000 people who, during _the pendency of these different bills, have been told for the last six | years that everything that is unsatisfactory in their condition is due ‘to oleomargarine, people whose condition can not be benefited at all _by the passage of this act, but people who believe that it can. | Ishould like to ask you to forget that those people are demanding \it. 1 should like to ask you to forget also that the people whose _ circumstances are to be injuriously affected by the passage of the act | are protesting against it, and I should like to ask you to go back and simply and absolutely consider nothing else but the principle upon which this act is based, which we considered yesterday, that it is an ‘act which pretends to be a revenue act; that as a revenue act under _ the Constitution of the United States you have a right to pass it; that _as a revenue act, unless the real purpose of it appears too grossly upon the face of the act itself, the Supreme Court of the United States would | perhaps uphold it; but that it is not a revenue act; that every gen- tleman who appears here in advocacy of it says that the revenue which it is calculated to produce is not entitled to any consideration, but that it is an act simply and solely to affect competition between two legiti- mate articles of manufacture and trade. That is avowed by everyone. As such an act, as an act with that purpose, it is an act which those who regard the Constitution of the United States as sacred would not be induced to pass by any considerations of expediency or by any demands of selfish private interests. The Supreme Court may say, as they have said before, that they can not impugn the motives, purposes, or intentions of the legislative branch of the Government. But no less than the members of the Supreme Court have the members of Congress taken an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States, and the members of Congress to-day who are authorized by the Constitution of the United States to levy taxes for the purpose of paying the debts of the United States and providing for the maintenance of the General Government know in their own consciences that they have no right to levy a tax for the purpose of regulating competition between different industries. Gen- tlemen, it does seem to me (I can not throw it away or get it out of my mind) that the Congress of the United States is asked absolutely to disregard the highest obligation which they have assumed. I appear here to-day as an advocate. J appear as an attorney. I ask no more belief in my statements, no more consideration for my argument, than is due to the statements and the argument of a paid attorney. But to-day, as I contemplate the possible results of this act, as I see the possibility of any class of our citizens or persons engaged in any kind of trade who believe that their interests in that trade may be injuriously affected by some new rival coming time and time again to the Congress of the United States and asking that that 44 OLEOMARGARINE. new industry may be taxed out of existence, as I see what legislation of this kind is likely to lead to, it seems to me that I must throw off | for the time being the character of advocate and appear before this committee merely as a citizen, and that I must ask them not to make a precedent by which the Congress of the United States, under the guise of internal-revenue taxation, is legislating in order to destroy — one industry for the benefit of another, or to affect competition between | two iadustries which have both legitimate rights. } I thank you, gentlemen, very kindly and heartily for your attention. , The CuarrmMan. I may say that the committee join me in thanking | you for the very clear and lawyer-like statement of your views. I | wish to ask you one question. As I understood you, you made the | claim, or admitted, that if this article were to be sold in its natural color it could not possibly be sold; that as to the ingredients, it might | be known what they are; that they are all healthful and good, but that | if left in its natural color it could not be used; that such a restriction would destroy the manufacture. Is that the ground? Mr. Garpner. That is my belief. Senator Monry. You said something about the necessity of coloring | butter in order that it may be sold. , Mr. GArpNER. I say that as long as there is in the market something. which people want and which they have been accustomed to use you can | not sell them something which they do not want and which they are | not accustomed to use. Do not misunderstand me, please. If all butter | was left uncolored and if all oleomargarine was left uncolored, of | course both oleomargarine and butter would sell, and they would sell ; upon the same plane. People would still have something to put on their bread, although they could not get what they wanted. But butter is. not left uncolored. Butter is artificially colored yellow. The author | of this bill insisted yesterday that that was absolutely necessary | in order to meet the demand. I say as long as there is in the market, | even at a higher price, or as long as there is in the market even a lower grade of the kind which the consumer wants, that will sell as against | what he does not want. The CuarrMan. Your clients take the ground that not the material, | but the color, sells the product ? | Mr. Garpner. No, sir. I beg your pardon; my clients take the | ground that both material and color sell it. They can not sell it | without good material; they can not sell it withoutcolor. Neither one || will sell it; it must be both. i Senator Monny. You take the same position as to white butter, too? | Mr. Garpner. Precisely. I do not mean to say that people would | go absolutely without white butter if the butter manufacturer would , not give them what they wanted. But the butter manufacturer will give them what they want. I simply say that when the manufacturer | of any article attempts to run counter to demand, to taste, to custom, | ae gets left. I think there is a small demand for very light colored utter. : The Cuarrman. In some countries I have seen very light butter. Mr. Garpner. Precisely. The Cuarrman. It was the fashion, and it was good. Mr. GarpneEr. In some countries perhaps uncolored oleo could be | sold. We know that in some countries practically black oleo can be | sold and the people want it; but where the demand is for yellow, neither white nor black can be sold. ) | OLEOMARGARINE. 45 ORDER OF PROCEDURE. — Senator Atten. Mr. Chairman, I move that the sessions of the committee be continuous during the holidays, to the end that the com- mittee may be fully prepared to report promptly on the bill upon the reconvening of Congress after the holiday recess. The Cuarrman. I will state that [ have told parties who wish to be heard, and I have told those representing some of the Southern inter- ests, that they might be heard as late as the 3d of January. Senator ALLEN. I make the motion because if the report runs over to the middle or the latter part of January there is no possibility of the bill being considered at the present session of Congress. Senator Monry. In the first place, there will be no one here during the holidays to hear these gentlemen except the chairman. The CuatrMan. I was going to say that I thought there would be a subcommittee here, and any members of the committee who will be here I will name as a subcommittee. Senator Monry. There will not be any members of the committee here but yourself. Senator Barr. I hold in my hand some telegrams in regard to the matter, and other Senators I know have received similar telegrams, and the parties ask that they may be heard here at some time by the committee as late as the 15th of January. These parties are from Texas, Tennessee, and other States. They did not expect any hearing during the holidays. Then let us fix the very latest date. They want to come here as a committee or a delegation on this question. I may differ with them, but, notwithstanding, I think they are entitled to be heard. The CHAIRMAN. Quite a number of dispatches have been received, and, curiously, they all seem to name the same time, as though there was a little concert. They name the 15th of January. But that is no matter. I have replied to them that it would be impossible to postpone the hearing as long as that date. Several Senators spoke to me yesterday on the subject, and I told them that I could not make any promise to extend the hearing after the 3d of January. Senator ALLEN. I will modify my motion and move that the hearing be concluded by the 10th of January. The CHarrMan. That gives almost three weeks’ notice, and it strikes me that it is reasonable. Senator Barr. But the holidays intervene. The Cuatrman. But the parties can be preparing their statements. We have had a very good one this morning. After that time we shall have the appropriation bills, the army bill, and all the other measures pressing upon us. We do not know exactly what will be the state of the public business. Of course we want to treat everybody fairly, but it seems to me that that is the latest time. When the time comes, if there is good reason for it, the committee can change their view, but I think it would be unwise now to name a later time. _ Senator Money. In the first place, I think it is unwise to fix a day tall. There ought not to be a termination to information. Ido not think the committee is likely to be too well informed upon this sub- ject. It is very much more important than merely the regulation of ‘acompetitive struggle between the manufacturers of butter and oleo- tmargarine. There are some millions of people in the United States 46 OLEOMARGARINE. who can not buy butter and who can buy oleomargarine. I think we ought to hear all who want to be heard, if they have anything to state. f course we are not to be expected to protract needlessly the ses-) sions of the committee, but I do not think we ought to fix a time for} reporting the bill or to terminate the hearing. The session goes off) on the 4th of March. If the Senate considers this measure to be of} the importance it is supposed to have by some members of the com-, mittee, it will give us a hearing, and it is very much better that it | should be argued out right here than on the floor of the Senate, as far| as the speedy passage of the bill is concerned. i Therefore I would prefer, if the Senator from Nebraska will be patient, that he withdraw his proposition and let us determine about a} day later on when we have heard further and can see what else there} is to be heard. It is not necessary that we should agree thus far in| advance to stop the hearing on the 3d or on the 10th of January. : Senator ALLEN. If we should undertake to hear all who wish to be’ heard on this question we would not get through in three months. | Why not have four or five or half a dozen men selected on either side! to address the committee ¢ j | Senator Monrny. When we have heard them we can then judge} whether we want to hear any more. We ought not to shut ourselves} out from the opportunity of being enlightened on the subject. Senator ALLEN. If we extend the hearings beyond the 10th day of} January there is not the shadow of a possibility of acting upon the! bill at this Congress. | Senator Monry. As far as that argument goes, it is not worth any- thing to me, for I would kill it to-day if I could. I am only talking} for fair play for both sides. Senator ALLEN. I am talking for fair play, too. Senator Warren. I presume we will be able to get through entirely) by the 10th of January. I would say, however, if we should gef| along to the 9th of January, and there should be a considerable num} ber of the committee who wanted further light or information, we could extend the time. J do not want to tie my hands in the matter. Senator Fostrr. I second Senator Allen’s motion. r The CuarrmMan. The question is upon the motion of Senator Aller, that the hearings be concluded by the 10th day of January. | The motion was not agreed to; there being on a division—ayes 4 noes 4. ; ; Senator ALLEN. Let us have a yea-and-nay vote. Senator HansproueH. I move that we close the hearings on the 3¢ of January. Senator ALLEN. I wish it to appear of record that I made a motior| to close the hearings on the 10th. The CuarrMan. Shall I put the motion again ¢ Senator WarrEN. I move that the committee adjourn. r Senator HansprouGu. I am not inclined to be factious. | The CHatrMan. Will you change your vote? | Senator Hansproucu. I am opposed to extending the hearings; beyond a reasonable length of time, because we can get all the infor, mation we may require out of the hearings before the House committee! The CuarrMan. It is moved that the committee adjourn until hal! past 10 o’clock to-morrow. : Mr. Tintrwanast. Do I understand that after to-morrow the hear| ings will adjourn until the 3d of January? ! OLEOMARGARINE. AT The CHarrMan. No; that is not decided. | The motion was agreed to; and (at 12 o’clock and 5 minutes p. m.) - the committee adjourned until to-morrow, Friday, December 21, 1900, at 10.30 a. m. f Fripay, December 21, 1900. , The committee met at 10.30 a. m. | Present: Senators Proctor (chairman), Hansbrough, Warren, Bate, Money, and Heitfeld. Also Hon. William M. Springer, of Spring- { field, IIl., representing the National Live Stock Association; Frank W. ; Tiliinghast, representing the Vermont Manufacturing Company, of , Providence, R. I.; Charles E. Schell, representing the Ohio Butter- {ine Company, of Cincinnati, Ohio; W. E. Miller, representing the “Armour Packing Company, of Kansas City, Mo.; John C. McCoy, of | Kansas City, Mo.; G. M. Walden, President of the Kansas City Live ‘Stock Exchange; Philip E. Mullen, of Kansas City, Mo., representing ‘the Armour Packing Company; R. H. Armstrong, of Washington, \D. C., representing the Armour Packing Company, and others. ; ‘Ihe Cuarrman. Who wants to be heard this morning? , Mr. Mitier. Mr. Chairman, I represent the Armour Packing Com jpany, of Kansas City. _ -Senator Hansproueu. As a manufacturer ? Mr. Mitier. Yes, sir. The CuarrmMan. You may proceed, Mr. Miller. ee ts ES ed STATEMENT OF W. E. MILLER. | Mr. Mituer. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee: Our object in asking for a hearing before this honorable committee to-day lis to make a final appeal to you and members of the Senate not to kill ‘the butterine industry by passing the Grout bill. We shall endeavor ‘not to reiterate anything given in our testimony before the Agricul- \tural Committee of the House, which we ask you to consider seriously, {together with what we present to-day. | Phe burterine business is one of the valuable branches of our pack- ‘ing house, in which we have thousands of dollars invested, and have ‘spent years of valuable time in placing it where it is to-day. We desire to impress upon this committee that manufacturers can not Past under the Grout bill. In the first place, uncolored butterine is ‘practically unsalable. It is unsightly and does not appeal to the eye jof even the poor man. _ This product has a creamy appearance, and although the laws in many States legalize its sale, yet when we endeavored to sell it in two States, viz, Iowa and California, we had to defend our dealers in suits ‘brought by the dairy commissioner and prove that it was not artifi- cially colored, the slight color coming from the materials. After hav- ‘ng won these cases in the lower courts, we were assured that such persecution would continue as long as we offered uncolored butterine. Therefore we gave up these States altogether. In our opinion, a large number of States under the Grout bill would take similaraction. The intention of the dairyman is not to regulate the sale of this product, but to kill the industry, both on colored and uncolored butterine. ' It is unreasonable to suppose that we could pay 8 cents additional tax and sell this product. The main object which prompts a man to 48 OLEOMARGARINE. buy butterine is because it is just as good and a great deal cheaper than butter. One grade of butterine we make in our factory costs 14 cents a pound; add to this 8 cents additional tax, and you bring it to within 3 cents of the cost of Elgin creamery. Butterine is used — | almost exclusively by the poorer class of people. It retails all over | the West at from 124 to 15 cents a pound for low grade, and 18 to 20 cents a pound for high grade. We speak of the West because we are_ more familiar with that section. | The CHarrman. What makes the difference in the grades? Mr. Mitrer. There is a difference in the materials used. In some grades we put more creamery butter than we do in others. The CuHatrmMan. That is the main difference, is it—the quantity of butter that is put in? | Mr. Muer. Yes, sir. Instead of killing our industry, we are perfectly willing that you’ should enact any law whatsoever which will prevent fraud, providing the tax is not increased or the privilege denied us of making it attractive | in appearance. We favor the Wadsworth or the substitute bill, which” we considered in the House, or any other bill regulating the marking or branding of our product, so that it can not be sold for butter, and | we will assist the Internal-Revenue Department in enforcing same to the letter. At this juncture we would like to introduce as evidence an article: from Experiment Station Record, United States Department of Agri- culture, on the nutritive value of oleomargarine: | ‘‘THE NUTRITIVE VALUE OF MARGARIN COMPARED WITH BUTTER.) E. Bertarelli (27. Ig. e San. Pubb., 9 (1898), Nos. 14, pp. 538-545 57 15, pp. &70-579).—Three experiments with healthy men are reported — in which the value of margarin and butter was tested when consumed as part of a simple mixed diet. In one experiment the value of a mix-— ture of olive oil and colza oil, which is commonly used in Italy in the neighborhood of Turin, wasalsotested. Theauthor himself was the sub-_ ject of one of the tests. He was 24 years old. The subjects of the” other tests were 2 laboratory servants, one 27 years old, the other 32 | years old. The coefticients of digestibility and the balance of income and outgo of nitrogen in the different experiments were as follows: Digestion experiments with margarin, butter, and oil. | Coefficients of digestibility. Nitrogen. ; Time. | ! | | | | os ; | Carbo- | In In In _ Protein. | Fat. hydrates. food. | urine.| feces. | G2 | , | | | Days. | Per cent.| Per cent. | Per cent. | Gms. | Gms. | Gms. | Gms. ' Laboratory servant, P. G.: Soo gm. | _ white bread, 270 gm. veal, 70 gm. | , butter, 250-300 ec. wine.........- 5 81.75 92. 67 976525) |) Albe7, 9.6 2.6 3.50 Laboratory servant, P. G.: 500gm. d white bread, 250 gm. veal, 70 | i gm. margarin, 250-300 ce. wine. 5 79. 50 93. 90 97.07 | 15.7] 10.3 3.2 2.2 Author: 450 gm. white bread, 250 / gm meant, 70\gm:) butter. .--. 2. 6 81. 85 94.25 O736i | PASO LOSE 2.5 a) Author: 450 gm. white bread, 250 ., gm. meat, 70 gm. margarin ..--. 6 77. 80 93.78 | 96.70 | 13.5 9.6 3.1 8 1 Laboratory servant, F. D.: 824 gm. | | white bread, 250 gm. meat, 61.6 | MEO UNL ener seh Os 4 4 eeboeeee 5 85. 32 95. 80 97.38 | 16.5). 13852 2.9 ; Laboratory servant, F. D.: 859 ¢m. ) white bread, 250 gm. meat, 61.6 SUNS BIN sercce alse isiateise icin 5 82. 92 95. 33 97.24] 16.9| 12.5 3.4 15 Laboratory servant, F. D.: 910 gm. 2 white bread, 250 gm. meat, 61.6 | q gm. olive and colza oils......... 5 83. 27 95, 82 97.56 | 17.5) 18.4 3.5 ; OLEOMARGARINE. 49 ** The principal conclusions follow: When properly prepared, mar- garin differs but little from natural butter in chemical and physical properties. On an average 93.5 to 96 per cent of fat was assimilated when margarin was consumed and 94 to 96 per cent when butter formed part of the diet. The moderate use of margarin did not cause any dis- turbance of the digestive tract.” Lalso submit the report of the Illinois live-stock commission inves- tigation regarding tuberculosis. It is as follows: **We have before us the fourteenth annual report of the State board of live-stock commissioners for the year ending October 31, 1899, and in addition there is a bulletin devoted to the question of tuberculosis and the tuberculin test, containing a full statement of every tuberculin test conducted by the board during the year. In connection therewith also excerpts from the writings of scientific investigators with rela- tion to the nature of tuberculosis, its contagion and methods of trans- mission. It also contains the report of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Chicago upon the milk taken from 41 cows that had reacted under the tuberculin test, with a view of ascertaining what percentage of the milks under investigation contained or transmitted tubercule bacilli. The report shows that tuberculo bacillio were found to exist in the milk of 16 different animals out of the 41, or over 39 per cent. The conclusions of the scientific investigators in charge of this experi- ment were as follows: ‘* First. Prolonged searching of the concentrated milk from cows showing tuberculosis, but with sound udders, will reveal bacilli in about 35 per cent of the cases. ‘*Second. Bacilli are found with about equal frequency in the sediment and in the cream. “Third. This milk, when concentrated, will produce tuberculosis in the guinea pig in about 25 per cent of the cases. ‘* Fourth. Not much dependence can be put on the physical appearance of the milk in cases where the udder is not demonstrably involved. ** Fifth. While the large number of cases in which pus cells were found in the milk would indicate that there was beginning involvement of the udder, there is no question but what the search for lesions in these udders was far more careful than will ever be possible on the living cow, and therefore the udder appearances can not be accepted as a safe guide. ** The report also shows that during the period from May 17 to Novem- ber 1, 1899, the board tested with tuberculin 3,651 dairy and breeding cattle of all ages, of which number 500, or 15.32 per cent, were con- demned or destroyed and 41 were isolated or held for retest. **In several cases which the board investigated there was positive proof of the transmission of the disease through the milk to the calves. The board also gives an account of the official investigation and test of the herd of Mr. H. B. Gurler, of De Kalb, Ill. **He began testing for tuberculosis in 1895, and all the cattle that reacted were destroyed and the premises were thoroughly disinfected. Since that date the dairy has been conducted on strictly sanitary regu- lations; and, also, animals for the dairy are tested by the tuberculin test and all that successfully passed the test were admitted to his herd. Tests were also carried on during the years 1896, 1897, 1898, and 1899. None of them were found to be affected, excepting during the 1899 test some calves were found to be affected. As there were no other ani- S. Rep. 2043——4 50 OLEOMARGARINE. mals that responded to the test the question was how those calves had been affected, and it was found that they had been fed on milk pro- cured from a near-by creamery, and the inference was that the creamery milk was the cause of the indication. ‘*The same cause apparently was found in the case of calves at the Kane County almshouse farm, where none of them responded to the test, neither of the older cows or the young, excepting six yearlings and one yearling bull, and upon the post-mortem examination after the test they were found to be diseased. It was proved by a letter from the superintendent, Mr. Keyes, that these calves had been fed on milk that had been bought at a butter factory.” I also submit resolutions against further legislation on butterine, which are not in the records of the proceedings before the House. NEW YORK BUTTER MARKET. Receipts of butter and cheese for six days ending December 11, 1900. Butter. Cheese. Packages. Boxes. Wednesday ...... sibais amas ers wate wile eievatelaes aveteslete late oarelme alsa sien cee saenecte sear 4, 120 3, 066 MATING BAe jue cabs coos ase Mos sei gsc2e5 Sees eid aceee ease ae sees seeIne tee See eee eee | 3, 206 7,015 Friday . Se 5, 397 5, 112 Saturda £28 3, 463 5, 258 MOM GBI ia Sees ofS Sis esis nisiesteiaed oeicis so leis jainra slot nine eioiceicion cee eeises cee aa ome 7,297 8, 005 ERILOS Gy Seas cnrocisete tees ea ceaciore Neca oe ce Bee Cee Some e eicema cine eh eee Ree eee 10, 083 12, 483 MO TAIRSURAO VY Site ra ac stomcie wo cree ece Bem aneis ace sinner nea aecen eens Siac cisisie 33, 526 30, 939 WEAN t We Ker GURU ANS oe erase Soi tein. cio airs aes aes see re 266 5cR EIS. ED 29, 363 30, 173 Samesweekilast ears o~-te6-5 Scots eons taiosae cone to -asl-e\sg- sarees eee 25, 949 18, 853 IRECEIPIS SiN COMMIS Valet See secre soseet ice oo eicaicleoe einen eta sete nae eee ete aee 1, 376, 189 1,148,985 » Receipts'sameime Last year 2926 cp cac< cece oecicjsi gene trees sneer. ose eeeees 1, 307, 365 968, 566 Senator Barr. How many pounds are there in a package / Mr. Mixture. It is supposed to be 60 pounds. The creameries always estimate that a package is a tub of 60 pounds. We contend that the manufacturers of butter do not need protection. We regret that it is impossible to get the complete figures on the amount of butter produced in the United States. From reports which are made public the business is prosperous and increasing. Reports from both Missouri and Kansas show a good increase over last year. The following, from the New York Produce Review and American Cream- ery of December 12, show the healthy condition of that market: ‘*Conditions affecting the general market have not changed materi- ally since our last review, except that we have had an increase of fully 4,000 packages in the week’s receipts. The good prices ruling here have attracted a larger part of current productions, and several car- loads of storage butter have come forward from Western refrigerators. On the whole, trade has been quieter. Consumption has been lessened by the full prices asked by retailers, and the distribution to out-of-town buyers has been quite moderate. This has brought the supply and demand closer together and convinced operators that the safety of the market lies in very conservative action until after the holidays. Of course much depends on the available supply. We have probably reached the lowest point of production, and in some sections of the country the make is on the increase. Beside this, the home demand is lighter, farmers’ rolls being more plenty and of better quality, and these are going toa good deal of the trade in the local towns and to the OLEOMARGARINE. 51 patrons of the creameries; this results in larger shipments of the fresh product. Then, too, there is still a large stock of refrigerator butter not only here but at other storage centers, and holders feel that the time has come for disposing of as many of these goods as possible. Naturally, the freezer butter fills a large place because of the difference in price, and this is urged as a reason why no further advance should be attempted. In view of the conditions prevailing, we regard our market as quite high enough for safety.” I will also read the following from the Elgin Dairy Report, D. W. Willson, editor, under date of November 15, 1900, indicating increased business in Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, which are the four largest butter markets in the United States. The Elgin Dairy Report is supposed to be the organ of the creamery people in Illinois. This is an article on the increased consumption of butter. It says: ** Inquiry in Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and Boston indicates an increased consumption of butter by the people who depend upon those sources of supply. The reason given for this increased con- sumption varies according to the opinion of parties giving the same. ‘*The New York people claim that the increase in population and the better class of goods arriving on the market and the better condi- tions prevailing among mechanics and working people has increased the consumption of butter in their city. ‘* Boston people say about the same thing. However, whatever the cause may be, it isa gratifying result to all interested in the developing and upbuilding of the dairy industry. We have contended for many years that improvement in the quality of butter placed upon the mar- ket will induce greater consumption. We all know that if on our own tables or on the tables of hotels or boarding houses the butter is good we will use more than if the butter is poor. ‘**We call attention to the readers of the Report to this increased consumption as reported by parties who are handling the goods, that it may be an inducement to the makers to put more skill and more care into the manufacture of their goods. While the proportion of good butter has increased during the past ten years, it is not yet what it should be. The reason of this large proportion of medium to poor butter placed upon the market is a problem that the education and enlightenment that has been promulgated through the dairy press and the dairy associations has not solved.” Mr. Chairman, good butter needs no legislation to give it a price. Good oleomargarine asks no legislation against chemically mixed and chemically purified butter. The makers of butter and the makers of oleomargarine ought to be equal before the law. Each industry should thrive or decay because of its own merit or demerit. Those who wish to buy oleomargarine because it is as wholesome and cheaper than butter should be free to do so. The dairymen have obtained protec- tion against oleomargarine interests because they are more numerous. They are protected at the expense of the people, not because they are more deserving, but because they are stronger. It is a system of might against right, which, if extended, will soon deprive honest American citizens of their liberty or hope for constitutional redress. The prejudice of the masses comes from the jealousy of the farmer. Because of the fear that he might be injured by the production of oleo- margarine, the press of this country have given columns to the conten- tions of the agricultural interests wheneyer its representatives went to 52 OLEOMARGARINE. State capitals for the purpose of wiping out the oleo side and fostering its own, and on few occasions has it said a friendly word for oleomar- garine. Public opinion, biased by this ex-parte work of the press, falls into line, and casting upon it eyes of scorn, pins its faith upon butter. No unprejudiced person can view our establishment and fail to notice one absolute characteristic, cleanliness—such cleanliness that the far-famed Holland housewife is put to shame. No one can visit the so-called dairies that dot the rural districts and fail to note that cleanliness is not a characteristic. Were the oleomargarine manufac- turers, the packers, the cattlemen, and the cotton-seed oil producers animated by the same strong feeling of self-interest which seems to permeate the very being of our farmer friends, and did we use our Influence with the press of the country, the masses would gain an entirely different view. Warner Miller, of New York, who was the champion of the butter interests when the tax of 2 cents a pound was put on butterine, some time afterwards visited Chicago and was incidentally taken through our butterine factory, which was then in operation. He had never seen butterine made, but the New York dairymen had told him what filthy, vile stuff it was. We took special pains to show him every detail of its manufacture, and when he had comprehended it all, espe- cially its purity and cleanliness of manufacture, he was introduced to Mr. P. D. Armour. Senator Miller understood the general conspiracy of which he was the deluded victim, and he confessed to Mr. Armour that if he had known as much about butterine the year before he would have fought such a measure instead of being its champion. Our product has been so maliciously misr represented that many who are opposed to it now might also change their views upon close investi- gation, as did Senator “Miller. Butterine is pure, wholesome, and economical: therefore we appeal to you in the name of justice, equity, and right that you allow us to exist under the present law or under one similar to the Wadsworth or substitute measure discussed in the House. Just here I would like to call the attention of the committee to the methods pursued by the so-called National Dairy Association. They found it impossible to win by fair, honest competition. Therefore they formed a political or eanization with Boss Knight, who dictated the policy, and also dictated who should come to Congress. Anyone who would not agree to vote for the Grout bill was boy cotted, maligned, and abused. All sorts of vile literature was sent out from Chicago by Boss Knight into the district in which the candidate was located. Ask Congressman Wadsworth, of New York, or Long, of Kansas, or Cowherd, of Kansas City, something about this. I will say just here that Congressman Cowherd, from our district, was the nominee on the Democratic side, and Brown on the Republican side. About two weeks before the election a committee from the Produce Exchange visited Mr. Cowherd and asked him how he stood on the Grout bill. Hesaid he was against it and would vote against it. They also visited Mr. Brown, and Mr. Brown tacitly gave them to understand that he would vote for the bill. Of course the friends of Mr. Cowherd in Kansas City did not think it would be policy for him to favor this bill, as there are six or eight packing houses located there, several of - them manufacturi ing butterine. Therefore he did not think it was in OLEOMARGARINE. 53 his interest to support the bill. These dairy people sent out commit- tees in all the precincts and all this territory, and did all sorts of things to try to defeat him. The same thing is true of Congressman Long. Any one not believ- ing my statement can consult these three men and find that this was the truth. Ail sorts of vile literature was sent out through the district, and I am told that it all emanated from Boss Knight, of Chicago. In fact, most of the literature which Congressmen and Senators have been flooded with emanated from one source. They are printed and the language of each is the same. I understand that some postal cards have been sent here which were originally sent out by Knight asking for the sig- natures of four or five men in the neighborhood. That one party would sign for four or five men, and these cards would be sent here to Con- gressmen and Senators. We feel just this way: Whenever we have got to organize a political association to defend our product, the Armour Packing Company, for one, will go out of business. We can use our factory for some other part of our business. I should like to read these resolutions The CHAIRMAN. Before doing so let me ask you a question: Can this difference in the two grades of butterine be detected by the taste? Mr. Minter. Yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. Readily ? Mr. Miuurr. Yes, sir. The better grades have, of course, more but- ter flavor than the cheaper grades. Senator Bats. Because you put in more butter 4 Mr. Minter. Yes, sir; butter and cream. The CuHatrMan. I thought it was claimed that it could not be detected from the best dairy butter anyway. Mr. Mitter. The best grades you can not tell from the best grades of butter. The Cuarrman. You could? Mr. Miuuer. I could. But it would be very hard for anyone to detect the difference between the lower grades and the good grades of dairy butter. Senator HansproucH. It requires a cultivated taste, does it not? Mr. Miuter. Yes, sir; for an inexperienced person it would be very hard to distinguish the difference. Senator HansproucH. So a low grade could be palmed off on an inexperienced or tasteless person as a high grade? Mr. Miter. Yes; it is very hard to distinguish between the two. The Cuarrman. What do you say is the difference in price between these two grades of butterine? Mr. Miter. I simply mentioned one grade. I said we manufac- tured one grade that costs us about 14 cents. The Cuarrman. That is the wholesale price? Mr. Mituer. Yes, sir. Senator Barr. That is the lowest grade? The Cuatrman. It is a higher grade. Mr. Mrtter. That is one of the highest grades we make. We have a lower grade that costs a little less than that. The CoatrMan. How much less? Mr, Mitter. Well, a cent and a half to two cents. oy a OLEOMARGARINE. Senator Barr. But to increase the tax on it to 8 cents would take it practically out of the market? Mr. Mitrer. It would make it practically unsalable. Mr. Sprincer. What percentage of pure butter do you put in oleo- margarine ¢ Mr. Miiier. That varies—25 to 30 per cent. Mr. Sprincer. What are the other ingredients? Mr. Mrtuer. Oleo oil, neutral lard, coloring. Senator Barr. What coloring do you use? Mr. Minter. We use coloring that is manufactured by the Wells- Richardson Company, of Burlington, Vt. That is coloring that is sold quite universally over the United States. Senator Bats. What is the technical name of it? Mr. Mitier. I do not know the composition of it. We simply buy it as improved butter coloring. Their process, I think, is secret. I do not think they give to the public the formula for making it. Senator Hansproucn. That is purchased also by dairymen ? Mr. Miuturr. Yes, sir. Senator HansprouGH. It is the same coloring matter that is used by dairymen ? Mr. Miturr. Yes, sir. I would say just here that the Creamery Package Company have offices in all the large cities in the United States, and Senator Barr. Where is the head of that establishment? Mr. Mitier. In Chicago. They have offices all over the United States, and of course they supply the creamery men as well as the butterine manufacturers. I asked their manager in Kansas City one day what coloring he handled, and he said that he handled several rades, but he had no call for any but the Wells-Richardson improved Biittet coloring, and that was used exclusively by the butter makers as well as by the butterine manufacturers. Mr. Sprincer. Let me ask a question. Do you know whether the manufacturers of creamery butter use oleo or neutral lard in their manufacture of butter? Mr. Miturr. I could not say as to that. I know that we would refuse to sell a creamery any materials that they would try to mix with creamery butter. We would not care to be a party to a fraud of that kind. The CuatrmMan. What grade of butter would be used in the best quality of butterine ? Mr. Mitier. The very best creamery butter that we can buy. The CuatrMAN. Because a less quantity of it will answer? Mr. Minter. Of course it is to give it a fine flavor. I would say just here that it has been a fact that the manufacturers for years have endeavored to put the very best materials in their butterine; not the cheapest, but the very best they could get. We can not use any of | the baser fats of the steer in the manufacture of oleo oil, because it would give it a rank, tallowy taste. We use the very choicest fats of the beef. Senator Procror. Can not the cheaper lower grades of fats be puri- fied so as to conceal the grade? Mr. Miuuer. They are perfectly pure, but of course they have a very tallowy taste. The CuarrMan. And that taste can not be corrected? OLEOMARGARINE. 55 Mr. Minter. No; not without injuring the quality of the oil. Mr. Triuinenast. Do you know anything about the use of paraffin in the making of oleo? Mr. Mititer. As I stated before the House, that is unreasonable. I can not see how any sane man could believe that for a minute if he ever investigated the question. I investigated this fact iast winter. Good parafiin costs 14 cents a pound, and I can not see any object in putting it in butterine. It would not give it any flavor; it would not add to the texture; and we can get materials that do not cost us 14 cents a pound to put in the product. Therefore I can not see any object whatever in using it. I have never heard but one test made, and that was made in New York—the one that the dairy people have made so much stock of—and I expect that that sample was prepared by some dairyman. If there was any object to be accomplished, if we could decrease the cost of our butterine, if we could improve the flavor in any way by using paraftin, some unscrupulous manufacturer might do it, but there is no reason for it. There is nothing that would be gained by using it. Mr. TruuineHast. Then, as a matter of fact, in your establishment at least you know positively that it is not used? Mr. Miter. We have never hada pound of paraffin in our factory. Senator WarREN. Are there any other factories that you either know or suspect of using it? Mr. Minter. None whatever. Last winter, when that question came up, I got a sample of butterine from every manufacturer in the United States, and I had our chemist examine the samples for paraftin, and he said he found no trace of it. Senator Hansproucu. You do not know of any creameries which use butterine or oleomargarine in connection with their product? Mr. Mirrier. Well, it has been currently reported that they did, but I do not know of any instance. Senator HansproucH. Current report, of course, is not very good testimony. Mr. MirieEr. No. Senator Barr. Tell us what are the proportions of the elements, the ingredients with which you make your material, butterine. Mr. Mituer. Of course those are trade secrets, more or less. Senator Barr. I do not want you to state the secrets, but I wish to know how much butter and how much cream you use in manufacturing your product. The CuarrMan. Are you not required under the internal-revenue laws to state the ingredients? Mr. Mixxer. Of course, but it is given collectively. Senator WarREN. It is given in the report of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, and is in the evidence taken before the House as it came from the Internal-Revenue Department. Senator Hansproucu. The specific ingredients? Mr. Miter. Yes, sir. Senator Barr. Then what objection is there to giving them? Senator WarrEN. He may not be authorized to give it, but it is important that some one should file it. Mr. Mitier. Such a paper was filed, giving all the materials used in all the factories. That would be the average for all the factories. Senator Bars. You speak of that which was given in the House? 56 OLEOMARGARINE. Mr. Miter. Yes, sir. Senator Barr. Do you know in whose testimony it will be found? Senator WARREN. You will find it more quickly by looking for the table. It is tabulated matter. Mr. Mitier. There was a resolution passed by the House calling .on the Secretary of the Treasury to give the materials used for the past year in butterine. You will find that given by the Secretary of the Treasury. It was not in the testimony given by the manufacturers. Senator Barr. But when you are silent upon the subject, it may create the impression that you have a different formula from what is given there. Mr. Mruter. None whatever. .1 will say that it ranges about this way: We use about 35 per cent, or say 30 per cent, of oleo oil and 30 per cent of neutral. The balance would be cream, butter, and salt. Mr. Tituincuast. Cotton-seed oil? Mr. Mituer. Cotton-seed oil in the cheaper grades. Senator Batre. What about beef fat? Mr. Miuuer. That is oleo oil. Oleo oil comes from beef. Senator Barr. Do you mix the fat from lard and the fat from beef? Mr. Mituer. Those are all churned together. The CHarrmMan. Those are the later products of the lard and tallow? Mr. Miturk. Yes, sir. Senator Barr. Do you use steam in pressing them, or how do you press them? Mr. Mituer. The materials? Senator Barr. Yes, sir. Mr. Mitier. They are all heated to a temperature of about 155 to 160 degrees. Senator Barr. Fahrenheit? Mr. Mruuer. Yes, sir. Professor Wiley, the Chief Chemist of the Agricultural Department, made a statement before the House com- mittee to the effect that this temperature is sufticient to kill any germs whatever that might be in these materials. ae CHAIRMAN. What do you use to harden them, to maké them solid 2 Mr. Mitier. The oil is heated to a temperature of about 155 or 160 degrees. Then it is placed in presses, and we get two products from it, oleo oil and stearin. Stearin is used in the manufacture of candles We do not use stearin at all in the manufacture of butterine. The Cuarrman. The latter oils are tallow and lard? I would not suppose that they would have the consistency, that is, they would not be solid enough to stand for hard butter, and I understand that oleo keeps well ina hot climate. Is there not something used to harden it? Mr. Miter. All these materials are churned together, and when taken from the churn they are ina liquid form. It is run into vats filled with either ice-cold water or cracked ice, and after it has been stirred for some time it congeals. The Cuarrman. And remains solid? Mr. Mitirr. Yes, sir. Senator Barr. And then it is put in a mold? Mr. Mier. Yes, sir; it is then placed in tubs and made in prints and rolls. This is a petition from the South St. Paul Live Stock Exchange: ‘To the honorable the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States: OLEOMARGARINE. 57 ‘Your petitioner, the South St. Paul Live Stock Exchange, respect- fully represents to your honorable body that it is an association of live- stock dealers engaged in buying and selling, feeding and shipping, and slaughtering live stock, and was organized, among other things, for the purpose of promoting the best interests of the live-stock industry of the Northwest, jealously guarding the interests of the producer and consumer alike. ** Your petitioner, in behalf of its constituency, desires to enter its emphatic protest against the enactment of House bill No. 6, introduced by Mr. Tawney, providing for a tax on the manufacture and sale of oleomargarine. In support of this protest, a few of the many reasons that might be mentioned are hereinafter set forth.” I will say just here that this petition was drawn when the former bill, the Tawney bill, was before the House more prominently than the Grout bill. That bill was practically the same as the Grout bill, and the petition would of course apply to any further legislation on butterine. The CuarrmMan. That we will print with the rest. Mr. Minier. Yes, sir. The CHarrMAn. There is no need to read it unless you care to do so. Mr. Minter. Very well, if the committee would not like to hear it. Senator Batr. I think that you had better read it. Mr. Mitier. All right. The petition proceeds: ‘The measure is a species of class legislation of the most dangerous kind, calculated to build up one industry at the expense of another equally as important. It seeks to impose an unjust, uncalled-for, and unwarranted burden upon one of the principal commercial industries of the country. Manufacturers can not assume this added burden and continue to sell their product in competition with butter. The passage of this measure would throttle competition, render useless the immense establishments erected at a great expense for the manufacture of oleo- margarine, deprive thousands of employees of the opportunity to gain a livelihood, and deny the people, and especially the working people, a wholesome article of diet. ‘The butter fat of an average beef animal for the purpose of man- ufacturing oleomargarine is worth from $3 to $4 per head more than before the advent of oleomargarine. This has increased the value of the beef steer and consequently to the profit of the producer. **To legislate this article of commerce out of existence, as the pas- sage of this law would surely do, would compel slaughterers to use this fat for tallow, and depreciate the market value of beef cattle of this country $3 to $4 per head, which would entail a loss on the producer of this country of millions and millions of dollars. **The use of this fat for the purpose set forth is an encouragement to the producer to improve his herd and raisea class of thoroughbred cat- tle capable of carrying the fat, and thus resulting in a benefit to all. ** The rights and privileges of the producers of beef cattle should be as well respected as those of others, and as they are the beneficiaries in the manufacture of this wholesome article of food they should not be burdened with unnecessary special taxes levied avowedly for the purpose of prohibiting its production. ‘*The product of the beef steer should receive at the hands of Con- gress no greater exactions than are imposed on competing food prod- ucts. The manufacture and sale of oleomargarine is diconis surrounded 58 OLEOMARGARINE. with numerous safeguards which Congress in its wisdom has seen fit to provide. ‘* Experience has taught us that it is just what a large majority of the people in this country want, and in behalf of the producers and con- sumers of the great Northwest we do solemnly protest against the enactment of legislation calculated to ruin a great industry. ‘*CHARLES L. Haas, ** President South St. Paul Live Stock Hachange. ‘HH. BS CARROLE, ‘* Secretary South St. Paul Live Stock Exchange.” These are resolutions passed by the Texas Cotton-Seed Crushers’ Association: ‘‘Drar Srr: At ameeting of the Cotton-Seed Crushers’ Association, held in Dallas on Tuesday, November 14, 1899, T. P. Sullivan, of Jef- ferson; R. K. Erwin, of Waxahachie; W. R. Moore, of Ardmore, Ind. T., and Robert Gibson, secretary, of Dallas, were appointed a committee to draft resolutions expressive of the sense of the meeting on the matters discussed. The resolutions as submitted were unanimously adopted, and are as follows: ‘*Marton Sansom, Chairman: ‘*The undersigned committee appointed by you beg leave to submit the following preamble and resolutions: ‘* Whereas the line of industrial business represented by this asso- ciation is coextensive with the entire area of the cotton cultivated zone of our Southern States, and in conjunction with cotton in its various uses, represents the wealth of the South; and ‘* Whereas Texas represents over 30 per cent of the cotton and cot- ton seed annually produced in the United States, any embargo placed by legislation on the growth and development of our industry is detri- mental to the vast interests committed to our care. It is therefore of most vital necessity that all avenues leading to the sale and con- sumption of our cotton-oil products should be free and unrestricted, and inasmuch as cotton oil is used to a large extent in the manufac- ture of butterine, which is a most wholesome and healthful substitute for butter; and Whereas a tax at present exists of 2 cents per pound on the manu- facture of this most healthful article of food, and that it is contem- plated to introduce at the next session of Congress an increased tax of 10 cents per pound on same: It is, therefore, ** Resolved, That this association enter its protest against the existing tax of 2 cents per pound on butterine and ask for its abrogation and repeal, and against the introduction or adoption of any future tax on same as an article of food, as it directly affects our great industry both at home and on the continent of Europe, where a cheap and wholesome article of food, such as butterine, is appreciated. ‘* Resolved, That we believe the imposition of a special tax of this nature is class legislation and should be combated by all the means at our command, and that our Senators and Representatives in Congress are hereby requested to give us all the necessary aid in this behalf; and it is further ‘* Resolved, That the secretary of this association transmit a copy of these resolutions to each cotton-oil mill in the South, with the request OLEOMARGARINE. 59 that they interest their Senators and Representatives therein, and also to our Senators and Representatives in Congress from Texas. “TT, P. Sunttivan, Chairman, Jefferson, Tex. “R. K. Erwin, Waarahachie, Tex. ‘““W. R. Moorst, Ardmore, Ind. T. ‘‘Ropert Grpson, Secretary, Dallas, Tex.” Senator WARREN. May I ask a question at that point? You are exporting oleomargarine to some extent? Mr. Mruuer. Yes, sir. Senator WARREN. Can you give us some idea of the percentage of the total amount manufactured that is exported Mr. Minter. About 3,000,000 pounds were exported last year. Senator Procror. Out of what quantity? Mr. Mrtter. Out of 107,000,000 pounds. Senator Barr. Where does it go? Mr. Mituer. Most of it to southern tropical climates. It is sold in countries where the climate is too warm to permit butter to keep. We can pack butterine in hermetically sealed tins, and it will keep for two or three years perfectly sweet. Senator WarREN. Have you been exporting it right along? Mr. Mriter. We have been doing some export business for the last few years. Senator WarrREN. Is that business growing or is it not growing / Mr. Mitter. It is not growing very rapidly. The territory, of course, is limited. Mr. Sprrncer. Do you get a rebate of the tax when you export it? Mr. Mitier. Yes, sir. Senator WarrREN. I wish to ask another question which is not in connection with that point. Mr. Mitier. All right. Senator WarrEN. Have you ever given the matter any attention as to the sensibility of the product which you manufacture and that of butter in taking in the odors of impurities that are surrounding it; for instance, in some close mining camp or outpost. Butter, as we all know, takes on any odor that may be existing and becomes rancid very quickly from exposure. Do you claim that oleomargarine is more hardy or less so? Mr. Miter. It is much more so. It will, perhaps, take up for- eign odors. For instance, if you ship a tub of butterine in a car of oranges, of course, by the time the butterine reaches its destination it will taste like oranges instead of butterine; but it will keep much longer than butter. You can puta package of butterine in a room and let it stay there for three or four months, and it will be perfectly sweet. It never gets rancid. It may have lost the butter flavor, but it is still sweet. The CHatrMan. How about kerosene? Does not that taint it? Mr. Mitier. Oh, yes, sir. The Cuarrman. And very quickly, I suppose. It will taint either butter or butterine. Senator Barz. What do you mean by the rebate you were asked about? Mr. Mitier. We pay 2 cents a pound tax, you understand, on domes- tic goods. Of course, in case we ship out of the country we get the 2 cents a pound back. 60 OLEOMARGARINE. Senator Bats. On what principle—the reciprocity treaty ? Mr. Trnuryenast. It isa provision in the original oleomargarine act. Mr. Mruxer. It is in the original oleomargaine act of 1886. Senator Barr. You get a rebate under that act? Mr. Miniter. Yes, sir; it is simply a drawback of 2 cents a pound. Senator Barr. Then, in point of fact, you pay no tax on it? You get the tax back? Mr. Mirier. No, sir; we pay no tax on the export. Senator Barr. And you pay a tax of 2 cents a pound on what you sell here Mr. Mituer. On all that is sold for domestic use. — Senator Barr. But you do not have to do that on exports? Mr. Miter. No, sir. Senator WarREN. It is the reverse of the ordinary tariff. Mr. Minier. As a matter of fact, it is a fine of 2 cents imposed by the dairy interests on the article sold here, while when exported it does not interfere with the dairy interests and we get a rebate. Senator Barr. The law is more lenient to the man who lives abroad than at home. Mr. SprinGeEr. It is the same as the internal-revenue tax on whisky. That tax is taken off of whisky when it is exported. Mr. Minter. This is a resolution passed by the Sioux City Live Stock Exchange: ‘‘ Whereas a bill has been introduced in the House of Representa- tives known as House bill 6, providing for an amendment of ‘An act defining butter, also imposing a tax upon and regulating the manufac- ture, sale, importation, and exportation of oleomargarine;’ and ‘‘ Whereas such a bill, if enacted, is calculated to build up and restore one industry at the expense of another by means of uncalled- for and unjust taxation; and ‘‘Whereas the destruction of the oleomargarine industry would ereatly impair the market value of beef cattle, and would thereby deprive the producer of a large amount of revenue: Therefore, be it ** Resolved, That the Sioux City Live Stock Exchange of Sioux City, Jowa, emphatically protests against the enactment of the law proposed in House bill No. 6. : ‘‘Witness the signatures of the president and secretary of said exchange and the official seal thereof affixed at Sioux City, Iowa, December 28, 1899. ‘¢ J. H. Nason, President. ‘“ Wan. Macrvny, Secretary.” The CHatrman. If you have other resolutions, will it not answer your purpose to have them inserted in the record and printed without reading them? Mr. Miter. That will be satisfactory. These are resolutions passed by the superintendents of the oil mills of North and South Carolina: SUPERINTENDENTS OF OIL MILLS IN NORTH AND SOUTH CAROLINA. Resolutions against oleomargarine tax offered at meeting of cotton- oil mill superintendents. ‘*CHARLESTON, S. C., July 6. ‘* Cotton oil superintendents from South Carolina and North Carolina met yesterday at the Calhoun Hotel for the purpose of organizing the cotton-oil mill superintendents’ association. OLEOMARGARINE. 61 ‘After the constitution and by-laws were read and adopted, the fol- lowing resolutions were offered by A. A. Haynes: ‘** Resolved, That this association, representing millions of dollars of invested capital in the South, strongly protest against national class legislation which aims directly at the destruction of competition in the manufacture and sale of wholesome and healthful articles of food. ‘** Resolved, That we protest strenuously against the passage by Con- eress of the Grout oleomargarine bill, which proposes to tax oleomar- garine 10 cents per pound, and thus to drive it from the market. ‘** Resolved, That this association implores Congress not to destroy an industry which now uses nearly 10,000,000 pounds of the best grade of cotton-seed oil annually, and thus kill that quantity of our most profitable output. ‘** Resolved, That we urge the legislatures of South Carolina and of other Southern States to remove from their statute books the anti- oleomargarine legislation thereon, because such acts are only in the interest of the renovated and process butter factories of the North and Northwest, and against the hog fats, beef fats, and cotton-seed-oil products grown on our Southern farms. ‘** Pesolved, That a copy of these reselutions be sent to the National Provisioner, of New York and Chicago, the indomitable champion of the cotton-oil interests, for publication, and that the members of this association proceed to secure, if possible, the repeal of the obnoxious State laws above referred to. *** Resolved, That this association will do what it can to cause the defeat of the Grout antioleomargarine bill in Congress during the coming session.’” This is a resolution passed by the Mercantile Club of Kansas City, Mo. Senator Bars. They are all to the same purport? Mr. Minuer. Yes, sir. KANSAS CITY, KANS., MERCANTILE CLUB. THe MERCANTILE CLUB, Kansas City, Kans., March 14, 1900. At a recent meeting of the Mercantile Club the following resolution was adopted: ‘‘Whereas bills have been introduced in the Senate and House of Representatives as follows: H. R. No. 6, by Mr. Tawney, of Minne- sota; H. R. No. 48, by Mr. Davidson, of Wisconsin; H. R. No. 3717, by Mr. Grout, of Vermont; H. R. No. 6445, by Mr. Glynn, of New York; H. R. No. 2049, by Mr. Allen, of Nebraska, increasing the present tax of 2 cents a pound on butterine to 10 cents per pound; and ‘* Whereas such legislation, if enacted, is calculated to build up one industry at the expense of tearing down and ruining another, and will in effect amount to the giving of a monopoly to the industry sought to be benefited by such legislation at the expense of another by means of uncalled-for taxation; and ‘* Whereas the destruction of the oleomargarine or butterine indus- try would greatly impair the market value of beef cattle, doing great injustice to cattlemen of Kansas, and would be a severe blow to the manufacturing interests of Kansas City, United States of America: Therefore, be it 62 OLEOMARGARINE. ‘* Resolved, That the Mercantile Club of Kansas City, Kans., protest against the enactment of the law proposed in said bills, to the end that just competition in the manufacture and sale of food products be maintained.” We ask your careful consideration of the same, believing, as we do, that the subject is one of great importance. The sale of butterine is already regulated by the act of 1886, and an increase in the tax would simply kill a great industry, in which millions of dollars are invested and many thousands of men employed. Therefore, we feel confident that on examination you will find many more people benefited by the furnishing to them of a wholesome and attractive substitute for butter than could possibly be benefited by the giving of a monopoly to the dairy interests. Yours, very truly, W. E. Grirrirn, Secretary. Here are resolutions passed by the Commercial Club of Kansas City: KANSAS CITY, MO., COMMERCIAL CLUB. “¢7% the honorable the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States: ‘“The Commercial Club of Kansas City respectfully represents that it is an organization composed of over 700 business men of Kansas City, Mo.; that the business interests represented by its members comprehend the principal jobbing and manufacturing plants of Kansas City. The population of Kansas City and its adjacent territory, com- prising one commercial city, is nearly or quite 300,000, and within a radius of 100 miles there is a population of 3,000,000. Kansas City occu- pies the tenth place in the amount of bank clearings in this country. We have nine States and Territories that regard Kansas City as their banking center. The commercial organization is constantly watchful in advancing the commercial interests of Kansas City, and seeks to protect these interests when threatened by adverse legislation. As an associa- tion it desires to enter its emphatic protest against the enactment of H. R. bill No. 6, which was introduced in the House of Representatives December 4, 1899, by Mr. Tawney, of Minnesota, providing for an enactment of ‘An act defining butter, also imposing a tax upon and reg- ulating the manufacture, sale, importation, and exportation of oleo- margarine;’ that this measure, if passed, will build up one industry at the expense of tearing down and ruining another industry, and will in effect amount to the giving of a monopoly to the industry sought to be benefited by such legislation; that the bill above referred to, if it becomes a law, will reduce the value to the farmers and raisers of cattle an average of $2 per head and a corresponding decrease in the value of hogs. ‘*The use of the fat of beef, as well as the use of thousands of gallons of milk daily, and the other fats used in making oleomargarine, not only increases the value of every beef animal, but every milch cow and every hog, and acts as an encouragement to the owner and raiser of cattle and hogs to improve his herd and raise the grade of his live stock so that they will carry more of this animal fat and will in the end raise the standard and the grade of cattle and hogs throughout the entire United States. The farmers and cattle raisers of the United States are directly interested in such legislation as depreciates the value OLEOMARGARINE. 63 of every animal that they now own and every animal that should be raised hereafter. ‘**It is but just that the rights and privileges of the producers of cat- tle and hogs should be duly considered and respected as well as should the desire of a certain class whose only object and purpose in legisla- tion of this kind is to decrease the supply of butter substitutes, ther eby increasing the demand for butter and the price thereof. a Oleomargarine, as now manufactured, is just as wholesome as but- ter, and many chemists have declared it to be even more so. It is sur- rounded by the numerous safeguards which Congress has seen fit to provide, and it is a cheap, pure, and wholesome substitute for butter. Its cheapness in price allows it to become a substitute for expensive butter, and it is used by millions of poor people in the United States who are unable to pay the price demanded for creamery product. ‘‘Oleomargarine has by experience proven to be just what a great majority of the peoplein this country want, and in the name of the pro- ducers of cattle and of hogs we do solemnly protest against the enact- ment of legislation calculated to cheapen the price of “cattle and hogs, ruin the manufacture of oleomargarine, and deprive countless thousands of poor people from the use of a cheap but wholesome, nutritious, and acceptable article of food. “KH. M. CLENDENING, Secretary. **Marcu 8, 1900.” Are there any further questions that any Senator would like to ask me 4 Mr. ScHEetyi. You spoke a moment ago of a resolution in favor of the dairy interests emanating from the same source. Mr. Mituer. Yes, sir. Mr. Scuetu. Is that true of these resolutions which you are offering ? Mr. Mitter. No, sir; they were spontaneous. Senator HansBroucH. Nonpolitical ? Senator Barr. How is that? I did not get your question. Mr. Scuriu. I asked whether the same rule applied to these resolu- tions that Mr. Miller had said applied to the resolutions emanating in favor of dairy interests, all from one source. He said no, that they are from different sources and are voluntary. Senator HansprouGH. Congressman Tawney, in a speech in the House, said very positively that the most strenuous efforts were made in his district to defeat him on account of the fact that he was a friend of the Grout bill. Mr. Mitter. I will say that I am thoroughly familiar with all that has gone on among butterine manufacturers, and there never was an effort of any description exerted in Mr. Tawney’s s district to defeat him. Senator Hansprouen. It is simply a question of veracity between Mr. Tawney and yourself. Mr. Mitier. I do not think we have a friend located in Mr. Tawney’s district. There never was a letter written that I know of, or any influence brought to bear upon a man in opposing him. Senator Barr. There was in other districts, I suppose? Mr. Mitier. None whatever. We have no political organization to try to elect members to Congress who are in favor of our interests— none whatever. 64 OLEOMARGARINE. Senator HansproucH. What would have happened to Mr. Cowherd in Kansas City had he proclaimed himself in favor of the Grout bill? Mr. Mitier. I do not know what would have happened. I know if the packers had not come to his rescue he would have been hopelessly snowed under. He was the only Democrat elected in the county. We were taking no part in electing any candidate on either side, but as Mr. Cowherd had expressed himself as favoring our interests we felt it our duty to come to his rescue. The CuartrmMan. You voted, I hope, for some one, did you not? Mr. Miuuer. Yes, sir; I did; but we made no attempt whatever in the last year to elect any one to Congress who favored our interest. Senator Bars. Then you voted for your interest, not on principle, in that case? Mr. Miuuer. Yes, sir; in that particular case we did. STATEMENT OF JOHN C. M’COY. Mr. McCoy. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee Senator Hansproucu. Do you represent a manufacturing industry; or do you appear as attorney for a manufacturing industry 4 Mr. McCoy. No, sir; Iam not an attorney. I am simply an indi- vidual—a private citizen—and I am here, as I will state to you directly, in two capacities. I will say that I have been handicapped all my life by the misfortune of not being able to express my feelings in public the way I should like todo. I am nota public speaker, and I therefore ask the privilege of reading what I have prepared on this subject. The CHarrMAN. Certainly. Mr. McCoy. I will say also that I have been very badly handi- capped since I left Kansas City a few days ago, as I have been quite sick ever since, and I have had very little time to make any prepara- tion whatever. I wish to say, gentlemen, that I appreciate the honor of being per- mitted to appear before your committee, and regret my inexperience and lack of ability will prevent me from presenting my views on this important subject as I feel them. I am here before you in a dual capacity—as an individual, a Western farmer, stock raiser, a commis- sion merchant for the sale of cattle, hogs, and sheep, and as a repre- sentative of the Kansas City Live Stock Exchange, the members of which handled during this year of 1900 over 6,000,000 head of live stock, valued at over $125,000,000. I feel that the importance of the industry with which I am connected and the most important bearing the bill under discussion will have on it should be sufficient apology for my trespassing upon your time. Tam at a loss, however, gentlemen, to know what to say to you. Since the first introduction of the Grout bill in the House up to the present time the matter has been so thoroughly discussed in the public press, before committees, by a flood of literature of all kinds, that it does not seem possible that a new argument could be presented, though I know there are many, like myself, desirous of doing all possible to prevent what seems to us so unjust a measure. Because I have taken such a deep interest in the matter the field seems to have been thoroughly covered. A large number of the most celebrated chemists of this country, including Prof. H. W. Wiley, Chief Chemist of the United States Department of Agriculture, have OLEOMARGARINE. 65 testified that the ingredients of oleomargarine are healthful and nutri- tious and that the product contains nothing deleterious to health. The same gentlemen have also testified that the coloring matter used in its manufacture is the same that is used by the makers of butter all over this country, and it is used by both for the same purpose. The manufacturers of the article have testified under oath time and again as to what ingredients go to make up the product until it has become known to almost every intelligent man in this country. Its purity and cleanliness are, I believe, unquestioned, even by its opponents, the creamery butter manufacturers, and a committee of your own body, the United States Senate Committee on Manufactures, of which the Hon. W. E. Mason was chairman, after a most thorough investigation of the subject, reported ‘*‘ that the product known as oleomargarine is healthful and nutritious, and no further legislation is necessary,” and the great mass of testimony taken by that committee is available to this committee. All of this being well known to your honorable body, or at least mat- ters of public record, what can [add to theargument why this billshouid not become a law? Possibly nothing but to add my vigorous protest in the name of the stock raisers of the great West against the passage of such selfish, unjust, and ultra class legislation. Ladmit that we of the West are hardly up with the times and are slow to take hold of and adopt all the new-fangled notions that are so rapidly brought forth in this age of progress, but having been taught from our infancy to love our country and honor the Constitution, God for- bid that we should ever cast aside the clause that ‘‘ gives equal rights to all and special privileges to none” and take up with the spirit of class legislation such as is attempted and exemplified in this bill. I do not think there is any sane man who has given this bill any serious consideration whatever but believes that this bill is aimed at the life of the oleomargarine industry, to legislate it out of existence, soas to give the butter makers (and by the butter makers I do not mean to say the great mass of farmers and farmers’ wives who make butter, for they cut little figure in this matter) exclusive right to produce an article of diet to be spread upon bread to make it more palatable, to gain a monopoly on one of the most valued necessities of life. It has been asserted by those that have investigated the subject that in the average household butter comes second in the expense list for provisions. It is larger than the outlay for bread or coffee or sugar, and isexceeded only by the meat bills. One of the most serious problems before the American people to-day is the one of trusts and monopolies. However much political economists and intelligent men may differ on that great subject, most serious consideration should be given before a way is prepared whereby such an important article, one that comes into the daily life of the rich and poor alike, whether it be upon the dainty rolls of the millionaire or the coarse but wholesome corn bread of the laborer, can be made the subject of absolute control in the hands of mercenary men. Legislate out of existence practically their only competitor, oleo- margarine, and would not the creamery interests be able to control the supply of butter in this country as it is now claimed they are able to control the price of creamery butter? A more thorough organization nor a more extensive one does not S. Rep. 204835 66 OLEOMARGARINE, exist to-day than that of the creamery associations, as we have dis- covered by their work in favor of this bill out West. The gentleman who just preceded me has told you of the methods that have been used by the creamery interests in furthering their own interests by mixing into politics. 1 know it to be a fact that almost every little creamery on the prairies of Kansas and Nebraska has been flooded for a year with all sorts of literature and postal cards urging them to write to their Congressmen and Senators to support this Grout bill, and if the members of this committee are flooded with requests of that character from their constituents they may know exactly where they have emanated. Senator Hansprouen. Where have they emanated? Mr. McCoy. From the National Dairy Association headquarters at Chicago. Conscious of their power and organization I think the gentlemen deserve credit for not framing their bill as follows: ‘Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That all articles known as oleomargarine, gravy, goose grease, or any substance to be spread upon bread to make it palatable, as good as butter or cheese, not the usual product of the dairy and not made exclusively of pure and unadulterated milk and cream shall be absolutely prohibited,” ete. Although this bill is aimed at the life of the oleomargarine industry, we believe that it will if enacted into a law seriously cripple one, with which by comparison both oleomargarine and its opponent butter pale into insignificance, that of the live-stock industry. Neither myself or the people I represent are directly interested in the manufacture of oleomagarine or of butter, and interested only so far as our interests are affected and our inherent love of personal liberty and freedom, but we ask you gentlemen not to allow one great industry to be ground between the warring factions of these two opposing industries. It has become a matter of general information, and is also in evidence before thiscommittee, that the two principal ingredients of oleomargarine are the caul fat of the beef steer and the leaf fat from the hog. Senator Barr. What do you mean by caul fat? Senator WARREN. It is kidney fat, the best quality. Mr. McCoy. It is kidney fat, and,as Mr. Miller, who just preceded me, explained, itis purer fat, a higher grade of fat. Senator Barr. That is what he said, but he did not give it the name of caul fat. Mr. McCoy. The average beef steer contains about 50 pounds of caul fat, and the average hog about 8 pounds of leaf fat. The market price to-day for caul fat for oleomargarine purposes is about 10 cents per pound, while tallow is worth about 6 cents; and the leaf fat for oleomargarine purposes 8% cents per pound, and for lard only 6 cents. Those are very close approximate values. There has been slaughtered in Kansas City since January 1, 1900, to date over 1,000,000 cattle, producing, approximately, 50,000,000 pounds of oleo oil, worth to-day for oleomargarine purposes 10 cents per pound, or $5,000,000. Were it not for the demand the manufacture of oleomargarine has created for oleo oil, this product would have been sold for tallow at 6 cents per pound, netting $3,000,000, a difference of $2,000,000, or $2 per head for each animal slaughtered. During the period just mentioned there were slaughtered at Kansas OLEOMARGARINE. 67 City approximately 3,000,000 hogs, producing about 24,000,000 pounds of leaf fat, worth for oleomargarine purposes, at 8$ cents per pound, 2,040,000. The demand for this product as an oleomargarine ingre- dient removed, it would have been sold for lard at 6 cents per pound, or $1,440,000, a difference of $600,000, or 20 cents per head for each hog slaughtered. Had it not been possible to use these two products for oleomarga- rine purposes instead of tallow and lard, it would have cost the farm- ers marketing their stock at Kansas City this year $2,600,000. The same is true at all the principal live-stock markets in proportion to their receipts. The five large Western markets—Chicago, Kansas City, St. Louis, Omaha, and St. Joseph—have handled since January 1, 1900, to date, 6,500,000 cattle and 16,300,000 hogs. Of that number at least 75 per cent of the cattle, or 4,875,000, were slaughtered, and practically all of the hogs. PAD EAS eam ae | toe a eS oe Ses Duc Seek Shae Seateces 122, 931 59, 620 24, 644 District of Columbia 278, 718 POO Mee taeeene en SESE = 5. his c ee ee eee 154, 001 SOLOGO TE Seis wie ale sine Indian Territory 391, 960 180, 182 56, 033 New Mexicots-<....2.- 195, 310 1538, 593 2, 937 Oklahoma se seeesse sock. 398, 245 61, 834 5, 927 Total for 7 Territories 1, 604, 606 807, 663 89, 541 Persons in the service of the United States stationed abroad. 189) 670 |.-......-.---|------------- Indians, ete., on Indian reservations, except Indian Territory.}...-...------ 145) 282 |). oo Qs ~ KAN NK, RAG S. WSS \ WR SS SAX \ GN WN . SS WSN \ Ws NAS WQHy = NSN G <= ENN J ALAHOMA TERRI ~ eae ‘ i] Lxhibit 6. nd sale of oleomargarine ¢ in the above map now have laws forbidding the manufacture a The shaded States 557 558 Fie. 15.—Diagram showing monthly average prices of butter and total monthly production of oleo- OLEOMARGARINE. MONTHLY PRODUCTION MONTHLY AVERAGE PRICES OLEOMARGARINE BUTTER IN THE UNITED STATES. IN NEW YORK. MILLION POUNDS. ailee BPRPOANONWADOr RST RE SAVANE = S| — === | praia \SSSS —_| ea SSS Qe —— —= z= i ] SSS Qs SSSR S&S WSN SVAN SSS | ESSANN NV SSS SQQUGGIEANIAINNNE SSE SSSA NT CN HET NTT 8 SS RSS I SIs SSS S SSSASyy S NASA AA ANN SS SSS ASANO AOA Be SSS SSE ANANSI AN! RSS NSE ANIA RSE RSS — pone bf i] = SSS SSE —t—4 SS = RSS SSS SS SN Ss SS TTT PTT NTT naa sit Vie al iil WEA SU RSS fuser t+—J SS SQUSNAES SSE SSE x SSS SE y RSQ AANA a ac¢ PCCSpE Geee JANUARY FEBRUARY > 2 0 I <2 2 DOCS PE mc >STSOZOUNCCE>E NCHzZ OU SSVONASISSTANS SSE RSESESSSESESSIARS SS E [I RSS SESS SSS SSS RSS ST ‘i SSE RSS ST RSSSSESSSSESSSSEN SSUES SSS SSUES SSHUSS SONS SEN S Bu NwoAUOGDN® GS = a SONNOd _NOITTIN margarine for the years 1890 to 1899. oe OLEOMARGARINE. 559 Now, there is another matter that has been in question here. Mr. Miller made the statement to you that some 40 or 50 pounds of oleo oil came from the caul fat of a steer. I have here lowa Agricultural Bulletin No. 20, showing the weight of 18 fatted steers fed at that station, and the amount of caul fat therein, as taken out by Swift & Co., of Chicago, and reported to Director James Wilson, now Secretary of Agriculture. That bulletin shows that the average amount of eaul fat in steers weighing on an average 1,508 pounds was 37.66 pounds. The statement made before the Agricultural Committee of the Senate Senator ALLEN. That is a pretty good steer. Mr. Knicut. The statement made before the Senate Committee on Agriculture in 1886 by Elmer E. Washburn, a live-stock dealer in Chi- cago, showed that from 148,893 head of cattle slaughtered in that city by one of the largest packing concerns, there was an average of 61.5 pounds of fat in those animals used in oleo oil; and that those 61.5 pounds made 28.1 pounds of oleo oil, which goes to prove that there is less than 1 pound of oleo oil to 2 pounds of fat. The oleomargarine people, in all of their claims betore this committee and in other places, have stated that the fat used from the steer or cattle was only the fattest and choicest caul fat; and Mr. Miller made the statement to you that if they used any other it would be tallowy. According to this report of Secretary Wilson, there are on an aver- age but 37.66 pounds of caul fat to the steer of 1,508 pounds, and it is well known that cattle that are marketed will not average over 1,200 pounds. That would be a heavy average, would it not? Senator ALLEN. I should think it would bea full average, at least. Mr. Knigut. Under those circumstances, | think you can go to the bottom of the thing, and find that they can not make more than 15 pounds of oleo oil from the caul fat of the average animal. Counting 15 pounds to the average animal, and counting 5,000,000 cattle slaugh- tered last year, they have recourse to caul fat for the making of but 75,000,000 pounds of oleo oil. There were 142,000,000 pounds of oleo oil exported, and 24,400,000 pounds used in oleomargarine, a total, I think, of over 166,000,000 pounds, with a capacity of but 75,000,000 pounds of oleo oil from caul fat. Senator DoLLIVER. I supposed they used all the fat. Mr. KNIGHT. They must do it in order to get out everything, I should say. Now, those are simply statistics, gentlemen. Senator DoLLIVER. Would that lift them out entirely? Mr. Knicut. Not at 28 pounds to the head; no, sir. Senator ALLEN. Many of these animals, as I understand, are calves and other animals that have not much fat in them. Mr. KniGHT. On an average, according to Mr. Washburn’s state- ment, they get an average of 28.1 pounds of oleo oil from each animal. Mr. MILLER. That was one special lot. Mr. Knieu?. Oh,no. One hundred and forty-seven thousand head. Senator MonEY. Whose report is that? Mr. KniGutT. That is the report of Elmer E. Washburn, a live-stock dealer of Chicago, who appeared on behalf of the oleomargarine makers. It is in that record. Senator Money. I suppose you want to discredit that report by those figures, do you? Mr. Knieut. No; I am not discrediting it at all. Senator Monry. Oh, yes; you make it 15 pounds, and he says it is 28. 560 OLEOMARGARINE. Mr. KntGur. No; I say caul fat. He does not say caul fat. He has some figures there giving the amount of oleo oil made from those ani- mals at 28.1 pounds. Now,if you can get 28.1 pounds of oleo oil direct from the animal, from 5,000,000 animals you are getting 140,000,000 pounds. But we have records of 166,000,000 pounds which are used. Now, where does it come from? Mr. SCHELL. Well, we are willing to have the matter investigated. Mr. KniGHT. Oh, rather than have it investigated, I will cut out the whole thing, on account of time. I do not propose to put in anything here that is going to continue these hearings. Senator MONEY. You are entirely willing to conclude the hearings, provided you have the last word ? Mr. KniGHT. Oh, no. Senator MonEY. Whenever anybody has made a speech on the other side you have come in here with a whole lot of fresh matter. That is what you have been doing all the time. After it has been announced that your side has closed, and the majority of the committee has voted to close the hearings, and every time anybody else said anything, you came out here with a lot of new matter; and then you want the pro- ceedings closed. Mr. Kniuer. Oh, no. ; Senator MonEY. That is a fact; that is the record of the committee. Now, I have not the slightest objection to hearing everything you have to say. You have brought out some very interesting matter there. But, still, it is a fact that you happen to be here, and you take the floor and bring out a lot of new things and then propose to shut down on the investigation. Mr. Kniagur. No; I made the statement before the committee that if what I said was to prolong the hearings, I would shut off right away. Senator MonEY. You never shut off as long as anybody says any- thing on the other side; I have noticed that. Now, you can give us all the information you have. Iam willing to stay here and listen to you for a week; but ur. KNIGHT. Well, Senator, will you put to the committee the sug- gestion that I made regarding the condensation or the briefing of this testimony ? Senator ALLEN. I think the committee will take up this matter and edit it. I have no doubt the chairman will attend to that. Senator MoNnEY. As Senator Allen very truthfully said, an immense amount of what has been said here is merely cumulative evidence. The same things have been stated over and over again by the people on both sides. Mr. KnicutT. I suggested, Senator Proctor, that we should take up on our side the testimony which has been submitted, and point out our strong points. My suggestion was that we should make it in the shape of an index rather than a brief, and not make an argument at all, but simply call attention to the facts which we claimed to have proven. It was my idea to state the different points we made, and under those heads to group the statements of the people who have appeared. here and addressed your committee. The CHAIRMAN. That would facilitate matters very much indeed, I think. {After informal discussion it was agreed, and so announced by the chairman, that after the printing of the testimony both sides would be expected, within a reasonable time, to brief the case according to their OLEOMARGARINE. 561 respective views, calling attention to those particular parts of the tes- timony deemed important. | Mr. Knight agreed to present, in due time, the views of his side in favor of the bill. - Mr. Schell agreed, for his clients, to furnish a brief résumé of the proceedings before the committee, and to furnish a brief on the constitutional questions involved, as he had theretofore promised members of the committee. It was thereupon announced by the chairman that after the honora- ble Secretary of the Treasury and Hon. James W. Wadsworth, a member of the House of Representatives, should have been heard, the hearings on the pending bill would be closed. The committee thereupon, at 11.40 o’clock, took a recess until 12.15 o'clock p. m. At the expiration of the recess the committee resumed its session. Present: Senators Hansbrough (acting chairman), Warren, Foster, Bate, Money, Heitfeld, Allen, and Dolliver. Also, Charles Y. Knight, secretary of the National Dairy Union; Hon. William M.Springer. of Springfield, Il., representing the National Live Stock Association; Frank W. Tillinghast, representing the Ver- mont Manufacturing Company, of Providence, R. I.; Charles E. Schell, representing the Ohio Butterine Company, of Cincinnati, Ohio; John F. Jelke, representing Braun & Fitts, Chicago, Ill.; W.E. Miller, repre- senting Armour & Co., Kansas City, Mo., and others. STATEMENT OF HON. LYMAN J. GAGE, SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY. The ACTING CHAIRMAN (Senator HANSBROUGH). Gentlemen of the committee, Secretary Gage was invited to appear before the committee to answer some questions that were to be put by Senator Money, I understand. Senator MonEy. No; I donot care to trouble the Secretary. I merely asked that he be invited here, as the Secretary of the ‘Treasury, to express (if he saw fit) his views on the pending bill, which is a revenue measure. At all events, it purports to be a revenue measure. Senator BATE. Of course you have seen the bill, Mr. Secretary. Secretary GAGE. Yes, sir. I always respond to the invitations of the committees, whether it is agreeable or not. 1 would prefer to answer questions, if any gentleman wishes to ask them. If, however, you wish me to state my views of the bill, I can do so very briefly. Senator ALLEN. I should think that would be better, Mr. Secretary. We should be very glad to hear your views of the bill. Secretary GAGE. Of course I only feel at liberty to state my views as the Secretary of the Treasury, and only upon that part of the bill which involves the question of revenue. I might have personal views which go far beyond those; but you would probably not care much about them. There is, in my opinion, an objection to the bill on either theory. If it is a revenue producer, it is superfluous; we do not need it. If it is not a revenue producer, then the title of the bill is a misnomer, and it is inoperative in the name of revenue. It seems to me that on either theory there are serious objections to it. I think that covers all I care to say directly on the subject. Senator MonEY. That is pretty good. Senator FosTER. It is right to the point, Mr. Secretary. S. Rep. 2048 36 562 OLEOMARGARINE. Senator ALLEN. Have you some statistical matter there, Mr. Secre- tary, which you desire to submit? Secretary GAGE. No, sir. _ The ActinG CHAIRMAN. Do any members of the committee desire to ask the Secretary any questions? Senator FosTER. I suppose the points you have made bear directly on the question of revenue, and not at all on the merits of the bill otherwise? Secretary GAGE. So far, I have not expressed any views on the merits of the bill. Senator MONEY. You only speak of it as a revenue measure? Secretary GAGE. Only as a revenue measure. The ACTING CHAIRMAN. Mr. Secretary, can you tell us what has been the experience, in a general way, of your Department in the col- lection of the revenue on oleomargarine? You know, of course, that there is now a 2-cent tax on it. Secretary GAGE. Yes, sir; I think the revenue is well collected. There has been considerable discussion of that subject between the Commissioner of Internal Revenue (especially Commissioner Wilson) and myself, at different times; and we think we are cheated to some extent, aS we are in all revenue matters. The ACTING CHAIRMAN. There is bound to be a certain percentage of loss, of course. Secretary GAGE. There is bound to be a certain percentage of loss. That is evidenced by the fact that we receive “conscience money” from people who say they have defrauded the revenue department, and it has come to be a matter of conscience with them. Senator FosrER. Then you think there is “moonshine butterine” made? Secretary GAGE. Undoubtedly. Judging by the best means of infor- mation we have (and we have to guess at it to some extent, for, of course, the unknown is not known) we estimate that we are cheated out of per- haps 7 or 8 per cent of the revenue. Senator ALLEN. I suppose there is no surplus in the conscience fund, is there? Secretary GAGE. No; and there never will be. |Laughter.|] That is the only fund which will never be troubled with a surplus. Senator Money. In collecting other revenue taxes, like that on whisky, for instance, is the loss as great as on oleomargarine? Secretary GAGE. Yes; I should suppose it is about the same percent- age. That loss occurs mostly in the “‘moonshining” business. In the large establishments it is probable that the tax is absoiutely and fully collected. Senator BATE. Then I suppose the losses in oleomargarine internal- revenue collections are about on a par with the losses in all other reve- nue collections? Secretary GAGE. Well, they are on a par with the losses in most of the revenue collections. There is not any great disparity. The ACTING CHAIRMAN. Mr. Secretary, what about the percentage of prosecutions, as compared with the prosecutions in other lines? Secretary GAGE. Offenses against the oleomargarine internal revenue law are as vigorously prosecuted as any of the other offenses against the revenue laws, when they come to our knowledge. It is the duty of the collector of internal revenue in each district to use his agents and inspect as thoroughly and carefully as he can the manufacturers of oleomargarine and dealers in it, and to see that they are paying the OLEOMARGARINE. 563 revenue. Complaints frequently come to us that they are passing it offas butter. Wealways inquire intosuch matters. While the internal revenue department does not consider itself clothed with police duties, exactly (its duty being to collect the revenue), we pursue all cases of persons violating the regulations in regard to stamping and marking the product when they are brought to our attention; and there have been a great many prosecutions. I have here a letter which I picked up this morning, dated November 24, 1900, which illustrates something. It is a letter from one of our agents in Cleveland, Ohio, addressed to Commissioner Wilson. This agent was directed to inquire into the dealings of a certain gentleman in a small Ohio town, because the report of one of the manufacturers of butterine set forth sales to this gentleman, whom we will call Mr. Brown for the purposes of the illustration. You know, gentlemen, that all of the manufacturers have to report their entire sales to the Depart- ment; and the report of this particular manufacturer came along, show- ing the sale of 228 pounds of butterine, in three different lots, to this Mr. Brown, in this town in Ohio. Mr. Brown had no license to sell butterine, and we made an investigation. We found that he was not selling butterine, but was simply ordering it for sundry persons, in their behalf, and ordering it to be sent to them direct for consumption. Now, it is a somewhat singular fact that these parties for whom Mr. Brown acted were all dealers in milk, and were selling all their milk to Mr. Brown, who was in the cheese business. Senator ALLEN. Mr. Secretary, was that a mere cover, or was it a bona fide transaction upon Mr. Brown’s part? Secretary GAGE. Oh,it was entirely in good faith. Mr. Brown lived in this village, and these milk dealers brought him all their milk, and they wanted butterine. Senator ALLEN. Of course you will recognize the fact that if Mr. Brown, in collusion with these other parties, was simply resorting to that device as a method of avoiding the tax law, he would be guilty of violating the tax law and should be prosecuted ? Secretary GAGE. Oh, yes. He did not retail the butterine; he made no profit ou it. He simply acted in their behalf. The ACTING CHAIRMAN. Were the parties for whom he acted in the retail business, or simply consumers? Secretary GAGE. They were simply consumers—farmers. Senator ALLEN. Is your inspecting force in these districts adequate to investigate and prosecute these cases? Secretary GAGE. Well, fairly so. We have a good many of what are called revenue agents under the collectors of internal revenue. They pay attention to all the departments of revenue. Wedo not have special agents to inquire into the butterine business who are separate and distinct from the agents who look after violations of other branches of revenue. The ACTING CHAIRMAN. No; I understand that. Secretary GAGE. They watch the tobacco dealer; they watch the whisky dealer; they watch the brewer; and they watch the oleomar- garine man. They plan to cover them all, and to drop in and inspect, and catch them if they can. Senator ALLEN. They depend largely on outside sources for their information, do they not? Secretary GAGE. A good deal. They get a good many “tips” from the outside. 564 OLEOMARGARINE. The ACTING CHAIRMAN. Your revenue agents, Mr. Secretary, are expected to visit these factories and to take observations with respect to the quality of the ingredients constituting oleomargarine, are they not? Secretary GAGE. Yes, sir. The ACTING CHAIRMAN. What are their opportunities for observa- tion in that direction? Secretary GAGE. Oh, they are ample in these large establishments. They are all open to our agents. Senator BATE. Have you scientific inspectors to investigate what the component parts of this product are? Secretary GAGE. No; I do not think we have. We put it to the test frequently, however. We get samples and have analyses made of the product. That is to say, we have done so in the past; I do not know what we are doing just at this moment. Senator ALLEN. Your agents, however, are not all experts in the examination of oleomargarine, are they? Secretary GAGE. Oh, no—no. Senator ALLEN, So that they might be imposed upon, as well as the ordinary intelligent citizen? Secretary GAGE. Very easily. Senator ALLEN. They might walk into a place and call for butter, and oleomargarine might be handed to them as butter; and unless they took it to some person competent to make an analysis of it, they might not know the difference? Secretary GAGE. That is quite true. Senator BATE. Do you keep agents at any of these large establish- ments? Secretary GAGE. I do not think we do keep any regular watch on them. Senator ALLEN. You take the same precautions respecting this article that you do regarding liquors? Secretary GAGE. Except that we do keep gaugers—men who gauge the quantities of liquor—or storekeepers, in the bonded warehouses. We go a little further with the liquors, because the temptation to evade the law is immensely greater. Senator ALLEN. Then you do not keep such agents in these large establishments which manufacture oleomargarine? Secretary GAGE. No. Senator Monny. These storekeepers take note of the quantity of liquor made, do they? Secretary GAGE. They take simply the proof and the quantity. Senator ALLEN. Of course the liquor can not go out without the consent of the Gover nment? Secretary GAGE. No, sir; but the tax on liquor is $1.10 a gallon, while that on butterine is 2 2 cents per pound, so that the temptation is very much greater in the one case than in the other. Senator ALLEN. The only thing with which you are concerned is the tax? Secretary GAGE. That is the main thing, of course. Senator Monry. The remark you have just made, Mr. Secretary, suggests this question: You say the greater the tax the greater the incentive to fraud. The same rule would apply here, would it not? Secretary GAGE. Undoubtedly. The ACTING CHAIRMAN. Do the instructions of your Department, Mr. Secretary, require the agents who visit these manufactories to report to you with respect to the purity of the ingredients used? OLEOMARGARINE. 565 Secretary GAGE. No; I do not think so. The ACTING CHAIRMAN. So that you have no means of knowing exactly what constitutes oleomargarine? Secretary GAGE. Except by inspecting the processes and methods of the manufacturers. The ACTING CHAIRMAN. And the product itself, | presume? Secretary GAGE. And they make a general exa:iination of the product itself. Senator ALLEN. I suppose the processes of manufacture are as dif- ferent as the shades of color, are they not? Secretary GAGE. I do not exactly know how many methods of com- pounding the manufacturers have. I think, however, that they follow pretty closely the same general line. Senator DOLLIVER. Mr. Secretary, have you a sufficient revenue force to look after the observance of that portion of the oleomargarine law which relates to the putting up of the packages and the quantities in which it may be sold under these licenses? Secretary GAGE. Well, I think, perhaps, we have not. No; I do not think we have. Senator DOLLIVER. We had here the other day packages of oleomar- garine said to have been bought in retail stores in Chicago, in which the mark, the name required by law to be affixed, was turned under in such a way as not to be noticeable. Secretary GAGE. Yes. Senator DOLLIVER. Then there were other packages on which the mark was placed in such an obscure way that it would require a person of good eyesight, in some instances, to notice it. The packages were very faintly marked. We also had statements in regard to quantities being bought above the amount permitted by the law to be sold by the retailer, and the general impression was left on the minds of the com- mittee that your revenue collectors were somewhat indifferent, at least in some cities, after they had collected their tax The impression was also left that they were without adequate force to give attention to all these details. Secretary GAGE. There is no doubt that the Department has its main eye to the revenue, for that is really its business. It is not clothed, except indirectly, with what you may call police power. Besides, there are places where the force would be entirely inadequate. Take the city of Chicago, for instance. I think there are 4,000 retail dealers there, aud it is impossible with a dozen men to keep a close watch over 4,000 dealers scattered over 20 square miles. But when we do find them infringing the law, we make it troublesome for them. Mr. SPRINGER. Mr. Chairiian, may I submit a question to the Sec- retary ? The ACTING CHAIRMAN. Yes, sir; if it is agreeable to him. Secretary GAGE. Certainly. Mr. Sprincer. The difficulties which have been called to the atten- tion of the committee in regard to the selling of oleomargarine or but- terine seem to relate to the tact that the retail dealer may break the original package and deal it out in smaller quantities to suit the desires of the purchaser; and in so doing he can sell oleomargarine or butter- ine to a consumer who presumes that he is buying butter. Now, I desire to ask you whether it would be possible to make such rules and regulations (if the law so authorized) requiring the selling of oleomargarine to the consumer by the agent of the manufacturer or the retail dealer in the original package, without breaking even the stamp itself around the original package, that the selling of oleomargarine for 566 OLEOMARGARINE, butter would be prevented, and it would have to be sold for what it really is? Secretary GAGE. I think so. I have read the amendment or substi- tute bill recommended by the minority report of the House committee. The ACTING CHAIRMAN. Thatis what is known asthe Wadsworth bill? Secretary GAGE. It provides a method of putting up oleomargarine in packages of 1 pound or not morethan 2 pounds, I believe. Am Iright? Mr. SPRINGER. Yes, sir; that is right. Secretary GAGE. They are, as I understand, required to be separate and distinct from each other, with the revenue stamp wound around them and sealed as effectively as a box of cigars is with its stamp. I can not imagine any reason why that would not be a very effective means of preventing the dealer from opening packages and selling the product as butter. The abuse in that respect would be reduced to an infinitesimal amount. Of course the dealer could cut a package in two, obliterate the stamp, and sell half a pound at a time as butter. Senator MONEY. That is possible with cigars and everything else, is it not? Secretary GAGE. It is possible in every department; but the temp- tation would be so small and the penalties so great that my opinion is that such deception would scarcely be practiced at all. Mr. SPRINGER. That is to say, if the dealer is required to sell it to the consumer in the original packages and is not allowed to break them? Secretary GAGE. That is what I mean. Mr. SPRINGER. It would almost do away with the possibility of fraud on the consumer? Secretary GAGE. Yes, sir. Mr. Knieut. Mr. Chairman, may I ask a question, please? The ACTING CHAIRMAN. Do you consent to answer a question by Mr. Knight, who is the secretary of the Dairymen’s Association? Secretary GAGE. Yes, sir. Mr. KnicutT. There is a penalty, is there not, Mr. Secretary, for fail- ing to stamp the retailers’ packages now? Secretary GAGE. You mean for failing to stamp the word ‘Cleo- margarine” on the wrapper? Mr. KNIGHT. Yes, sir. Secretary GAGE. There is. Mr. Knigutr. And that penalty is quite severe, is it not? Secretary GAGE. Yes, sir; it is. Mr. Knient. And it is a fact, is it not, that the Commissioner of Internal Kevenue has also made aruling to the effect that it is an evasion of the law to conceal the marks or to place them on paper of the same color as the ink? Secretary GAGE. Yes, sir. Mr. KNIGHT. Now, what is the difference between the two classes of evasions—one of removing the stamp and the other of failing to affix the stamp? Secretary GAGE. I think there is a great deal of difference. Under the proposition which we have just been discussing the package of oleomargarine itself will have deeply imprinted into it the word ‘ Oleo- margarine.” It would make very little difference, indeed, whether the wrapper had a stamp on it or not. The stampon the product itself would have to be clear and distinct, aud it would have to be imprinted by the manufacturer. Once fairly impriuted, it could only be obliter- ated by the dealer taking it and mixing it up, packing it in a tub, call- ing it butter, and then retailing it as butter. He could do that if he did not get caught at it. He could evade in that way the proposition OLEOMARGARINE. 567 we have just been talking about, as he can evade the present law by having his wrappers printed just on the border line between reada- bility and obscurity. And many do undoubtedly try to keep just on that border line, where they can say to the revenue agents, ‘It is printed,” and to the man who buys it, “‘It is not printed.” Mr. KNIGHT. I see. Secretary GAGE. There is a border line that is hazardous for us and hazardous for them, too; but it exists in every other branch of the business. Senator ALLEN. Is not that a practical evasion of the law as it now stands? Secretary GAGE. They do evade it in that way; yes, sir. Senator ALLEN. Should not they be prosecuted ? Secretary GaGE. We do prosecute them where it is a fair, clear violation. Mr. TILLINGHAST. Mr. Secretary, if the manufacturers were directed to put up their original 1 and 2 pound packages in such manner as the Department prescribed, could they not be put up in such a way that it would be almost impossible to have any fraud perpetrated until the package itself was broken? Secretary GAGE. The package would have to be broken first. Mr. TILLINGHAST. Then, if the manufacturer himself put up the product in original packages in the way prescribed, would there be very much danger of anyone’s attempting to break those original packages? Secretary GAGE. I think very little. That is my judgment. Mr. TILLINGHAST. Now, Mr. Secretary, as to the 7 per cent of fraud which you estimated might possibly exist at the present time, is any part of that attributed to the present manufacturers known to the Department, and who are paying the 2-cent tax? You have no diffi- culty with fraud in that line, have you? Secretary GAGE. None at all. The ACTING CHAIRMAN. That is, so far as the manufacturers are concerned ? Secretary GAGE. Yes, sir. Mr. SCHELL. And if the sale of packages were limited to those inclosed by adhesive revenue stamps it would compel the collector to properly enforce the law to protect his revenue, would it not? Secretary GAGE. Yes; it would. The ACTING CHAIRMAN. Unless members of the committee have farther questions to ask the Secretary, we will conclude the hearing— or unless you have some further statement to make, Mr. Secretary. Secretary GAGE. No, sir. The ACTING CHAIRMAN. The committee is very much obliged to you, Mr. Secretary. Secretary GAGE. I thank you for your courtesy, gentlemen. (Thereupon, at 12.45 o’clock p. m., the committee adjourned until Tuesday, January 15, 1901, at 10.30 o’clock a. m. WASHINGTON, LD. C., January 15, 1901. The committee met at 11 a. m. Present: Senators Proctor (chairman), Foster, Heitfeld, Money, War- ren, and Bate. Also, Hon. William W. Grout, Representative from Vermont; Hon. J. W. Wadsworth, Representative from New York; Mr. Tillinghast, Mr. Schell, Mr. Jelke, Mr. Miller, and others. 568 OLEOMARGARINE. Mr. SCHELL. If the committee please, I want to read two telegrams which I received last night. The first one is: CINCINNATI, OHIO, January 14, 1901. CHARLES E. SCHELL (try Shoreham), Washington, D.C.: Sentiment of labor unions on Grout bill questioned in papers. Get hearing for Cincinnati representative. *MICHAEL KENNEDY, Secretary of Building Trades Union. With the permission of the committee, I want to wire back to him saying that the hearings are closed, and if he wants to send on a paper it will be printed, but he can not be heard personally. Senator FosTER. I think that had better be done. Mr. SCHELL. I have also a telegram from Freidman & Co., of Chicago, the largest handlers of neutral, I suppose, in the country. They are also manufacturers of oleomargarine. Their telegram is as follows: UNION STOCK YARDS, ILLINOIS, January 14, 1901. C. E. SCHELL (Care Senate Committee on Agriculture), Senate Chamber, Washington, D. C.: We have exerted every effort to sell uncolored butteriue in the States where color- ing is prohibited, and find it absolutely impossible. : FRIEDMAN & Co. I can say, further, for Friedman & Co. that [am attorney for them in Ohio, and that they do not protect their customers in selling oleomar- garine for butter. STATEMENT OF HON. J. W. WADSWORTH, OF NEW YORK. Mr. WADsWorTH. Mr. Chairman, I am simply here, in the absence of Mr. Lorimer and at the request of others, to give you what may be called an ocular demonstration of the practical working of the substitute bill offered by the minority of the Committee on Agriculture of the House. That is all; Ido not care to go into any other points unless the com- mittee wish me to. I think we all admit, Mr. Chairman, that the present law, allowing oleomargarine to be sold in large bulk, is perhaps an incentive to fraud. The fraud is not committed by the manufacturers at all. Itis committed by the retail butter dealers. The retail oleomargarine dealer can not commit fraud, because he sells it with his sign up, open and above board. It is committed by the retail butter dealer, and he is tempted to do it on account of the wholesale price of oleomargarine and the retail price of butter. The minority of the Committee on Agriculture of the House are just as mucli in earnest in their desire to reduce this fraud to a minimum as are the majority of that committee. There is simply au honest difference of opinion as to the best means of accomplishing the best results. After we had examined the thing carefully and found that the proof was that oleomargarine is a wholesome and nutritious product, and is therefore entitled to a place among the food products of the country, we considered one or two measures. We thought the Grout bill was altogether too radical and too drastic, and we did not approve of it. Finally, after consultation with some people in the West, Mr. Wilson, of the Elgin Dairy Reporter, I think it is called, and other people, we made up our minds that this was the best way of reducing the fraud to OLEOMARGARINE. 569 a minimum. We went to the Internal Revenue Commissioner and requested him to have his law officer amend the law which is now in existence, the law of 1886, so as to cover the points which we made— that is, to tell the manufacturer to manufacture and sell only in 1-pound or 2-pound prints. Now, I have here before you these samples, because I think these will show you in a better way than language just the practical working of it. That [indicating] is a 2-pound print. We first compel the manu- facturer to imprint on the brick or roll, or whatever you call it, the word ®Oleomargarine.” That should be in one word. The factory has no stamp fitted on that, but the depth of those letters and the size of those letters, if you will read the substitute bill, are to be determined by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue. The word ‘Oleomargarine” is first stamped on that brick; then we compel the manufacturer to wrap it up in thin paper like that, on which is to be printed the word “ Oleomarga- rine” and the name and address of the manufacturer. There is the first wrapping. He is then to put around that wrapping this second wrap- ping of paper, or, | believe, they have some wrappings of thin wood pulp on which the word “ Oleomargarine” is again printed, and around which the revenue stamp—that green band represents the revenue stamp—is to go. Itis to go completely around, just like a hogshead of tobacco. When he sends that out to the retail dealer or the wholesale dealer the law provides that he shall pack it in boxes or crates, and on the crate is to be printed the word “ Oleomargarine,” the number of his factory, and soon. The size of the print and all that is left under the Commissioner of Internal Revenne, with the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury. Now, he ships itout that way. It has to go that way to the dealer. We put in a proviso in the bill whieh I think will at least convince you gentlemen of the sincerity of our pupose to stop this fraud. We say: Retail dealers in oleomargarine shall sell only the original package to which the tax-paid stamp is affixed, and shall sell only from the original package or boxes in which they receive the pound or 2-pound prints, bricks, rolls, or lumps. In other words, when you go in and ask fora pound of oleomargarine, he has that box in evidence. He has got to take his butter right out of that, with this stamp on the outside, with the stamp around it, with the printed word “Oleomargarine” there, and printed on the inside wrapper, and stamped on the article itself. Senator WARREN. If the dealer is dishonest and he takes this and melts it up or pounds it up into another mass, and then does it up into packages and sells it for butter, you provide for that, I suppose? Senator FostER. That is a fraud on the revenue, of course. Mr. WADSWoRTH. Yes; we have not altered the license fee of $600 a year to the manufacturer, $480 to the wholsesale dealer, $48 to the retail dealer, or the tax of 2 cents a pound. That all remains. All the penalties provided by the act of 158) remain. Senator WARREN. Do you increase the penalties at all? Mr. WADSworRTH. I think they are not increased over those fixed in the original act. Of course, it is possible for a dishonest ian to take that and do as you say. Murder is committed in this country. Lar- ceny is committed in this country. There is a law against it, but the peculiar part of it is that the fraud is not committed by the oleomar- garine dealer. It is committed by the butter dealer. Senator Money, you introduced a bill which you call the Wadsworth bill. We aban- doned that as not going far enough. I want to say that very frankly to 570 OLEOMARGARINE, you, because it was open to the same objections exactly as the original bill that allowed this thing to be sold in too large quantities. Senator MonrEy. Looking at it from another point of view, we impose upon an honest, legitimate industry an additional tax in that wrapper. Ido not know how much that will cost to put the product up in a changed form. Can any of you gentlemen tell me that? Mr. JELKE. About half a cent a pound. Mr. WADSWORTH. Therefore the tax is 24 vents a pound. Senator FosTER. I do not suppose those wrappers cost a fifth of a cent. : Mr. JELKE. It is not merely the expense of the paper. You must include also the printing and handling of the paper. Mr. WADSWorTH. It is the handling and packing, Senator. As the law is now, they pack it into a big tub. They shove it in or scoop it in, and there is very little work attached to it; but in this case all this wrapping has to be done. I should think it would be worth half a cent a pound. Mr. JELKE. I should hardly think half a cent a pound would cover it, for this reason: We now pack 50 pounds into a solid-packed tub. In printing it in the 1 or 2 pound blocks there is a certain amount of moisture eliminated from it. You can not make out of 50 pounds of solid-packed oleomargarine 25 2 pound prints or 50 1-pound prints. The pressing of the oleomargarine into that form eliminates a certain amount of moisture, Senator FosTER. It would be more attractive in the 1 or 2-pound prints than it would the other way? Mr. JELKE. Yes; very much more attractive. Mr. TILLINGHAST. It is generally understood in the factories that prints cost half a cent a pound more than the tubs. Senator FosTER. I suppose it would sell for perhaps that much more in that shape than it would when it is scooped out of a tub. Mr. JELKE. That is undoubtedly so. Senator Foster. Is that all, Mr. Wadsworth? Mr. WADSwWoRTH. That is all, unless the committee want to ask something. Isimply wanted to show the practical operation of the law. ADDITIONAL STATEMENT OF HON. W. W. GROUT. Mr. Grout. I would like to submit just a word,if the committee will hear me, illustrating the workings of this substitute bill. Senator PRocToR. We will hear you. Senator MonrEy. Let me ask a question before you begin. Mr. Wads- worth, did the minority of the House committee consider the expediency of making a provision in regard to renovated butter? Mr. WADSWORTH. No, sir; that was not brought up before us at all. Mr. Grout. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, Mr. Wadsworth says he regrets theabsence of Mr. Lorimer, whose scheme I understand this to be, but he has made the plan quite plain, I think, as to the purpose it would serve. I am not going to say but that so far as the retail dealer is con- cerned this might somewhat limit his ability to work this off as butter, but only a little, a very little, as I will show you later. I presume you have been told in this investigation that a large part of oleomargarine is disposed of to purchasers who know just whatitis. Ihave not been present all the time during these hearings, but I saw a letter to that effect written by an oleomargarine manufacturer from Rhode Island to the chairman of this committee, to the effect that over forty-odd per OLEOMARGARINE. 571 cent of the oleomargarine sold the person receiving it knew precisely what it was. The writer referred in that letter, as I understood it, to the hotel keeper, the restaurant keeper, the boarding-house keeper, the mine owner, the lumberman, and that class of men, who buy in bulk large quantities of oleomargarine from the manutacturer direct, some- times through the intervention of a wholesale dealer, possibly, and that this was over 40 per cent of the entire product. Now, this proposed substitute would not affect at all that class of trade. It does not reach it at all, because while they are obliged to carry it into their camp—into their hotel, if you please—in this pack- age, and have its stamp put upon it, yet it is not sold, and so the pro- vision which the gentleman read in closing would not apply. That provision relates to the retailer alone. Mr. WAaDSworTH. That is what I said. Mr. Grout. Exactly; that is the provision in your substitute. It relates alone to the retailer. It does not touch this large class which handle probably two thirds ef all the oleomargarine that is put out. It is through the hotel man, | repeat again, and the restaurant keeper and boarding house keeper that it is worked off upon an unsuspecting public more than in any other way. Senator WARREN. May I ask you a question? Mr. GRovut. Certainly. Senator WARREN. You do not propose to prevent the use of oleo- margarine in the boarding house and in the hotel in cooking and in every other form except where it is placed before the boarder to be put upon his bread? Mr. Grout. We do not propose to prevent its use at all if sold in a form to apprise the person using it what it is. Senator WARREN. You assume they will go on using it for that purpose? Mr. Grout. All the bill before you aims at is to have this stuff go on the market and be consumed for just what it is. That is all the bill we ask. We do not prohibit the use of it for cooking or anything else. Senator WARREN. As far as the consumption of it is concerned, the individual sale at the hotels, if a hotel desires to use oleomargarine, no matter whether it is colored or not, the guests will each one be a tank for oleomargarine to some extent, through the cooking and otherwise. Mr. Grour. Yes, unquestionably; but the color of butter will not show as in the chicken hash which a gentleman ordered in my presence in an eating house in this city not long since while we were lunching together. I am just as morally certain that it was cooked in oleomar- garine as I could be of anything, and he became satisfied of it, too. It will, I say, not carry the color of butter if you will pass this bill. Mr. WADSWORTH. How did you satisfy him? Mr. Grout. By comparing it with a specimen on the table which we knew was oleomargariue, in color, as contradistinguished from a lump of butter on the table much less bighly colored. Mr. WADSWORTH. In color only? Mr. Grout. Yes, sir; because the color of the article in the hash corresponded exactly with the oleo before us. Mr. WapswortH. That comparison was only by color? Mr. Grout. That is all. I will not say that it was absolutely con- clusive in that case, but we were entirely satisfied. Now, not to be diverted from the point 1 was making, what is there to prevent the hotel man from cutting this up in little stringlets as wide and half as long as your finger, putting it upon your butter plate, 572 OLEOMARGARINE. and selling it to you at 85 a day or $4 a day, or whatever you may chance to pay for board, for butter? Mr. WADsworTH. He can not get it from the retail dealer except as oleomargarine. Mr. Grout. Ah, but he does not take it from the retail dealer. He gets it straight from the manufactory or through the wholesaler. Mr. WADSWORTH. Very well; he can not get it from the manufac- tory, he can not get it from the wholesale dealer, he can not get it from the retail dealer, except in that form. Mr. Grout. Precisely so. Mr. WADSwortH. Let him take that to a hotel, and he immediately puts himself in the hands of his help. He quarrels with a waiter or a cook and dismisses him, and the man turns on him and says, ‘+ You have been selling oleomargarine to your customers for butter.” That is the objection. : Mr. Grout. You will not find a first-class hotel, I believe, in the city of Washington but you will know, when you talk this matter over with them, that they feed oleomargarine to the help, and that will account for its entrance into the house; and once in the house its uses can not be so easily traced. Senator WARREN. If it is your idea to protect the hotel guests and the restaurant guests from oleomargarine, has it suggested itself to you in what way you will protect them from the use of oleomargarine that is uncolored ? Mr. Grout. Why, the color tells the whole story. If they bring an uncolored article on the table the guest knows it is not butter. He knows it is hog tat or cattle fat. Senator WARREN. A great many men do not eat butter at all on bread; others eat little. No one eats much in that way, but everyone eats a great deal that is used in cooking. Mr. Grout. Very well. Senator WARREN, So that it seems to me if you take the matter of color only, and only prohibit as to color, you are not reaching the con- sumer, and he is the one we are trying to reach. You are not reaching the inatter of the consumer getting oleomargarine instead of fresh but- ter, except as it may come before him, put upon his plate. The great mass of butter that is used for cooking, it seems to me, is not reached by this bill. Mr. Grout. It would not reach the butter that goes into pie crust or into shortening cake, but fat is frequently, almost always, used for that instead of butter, and the hotel man uses fat almost exclusively for that purpose. I am not saying that it would absolutely exclude the use of it for cooking purposes. There is no pretense that it would, and yet there are many kinds of cooking in which it betrays its color, as it did in the chicken hash the other day, that I referred to. If it were seasoned or made suitable for some people to eat with the shortening, and that were an uncolored article, it would falsely pretend to be but- ter; and the same with whatever may be put on your toast in the name of butter. Senator MonEY. Is not the butter and oleomargarine color the same thing? Mr. Grout. How is that, sir? Senator Money. Is it not true that the butter and the oleomargarine that is offered are colored the same? Mr. Grout. Yes, sir; sometimes butter is colored. There is no debate about that. OLEOMARGARINE. Niko Senator MonEY. How can we distinguish them? Mr. Grout. | did not intend to go into that, and I do not care to now. If the committee want me to do so, however, I am willing to stand here and have a conversation, and a long one, on that subject of coloring butter. I expressed myself fully in my opening statement on that subject and I do not think [ need repeat it, but still if you desire I will gladly discuss it with you. Senator MongEY. I have no desire to hear anything further about it, except you made the statement, and it was in answer to that statement, that you detected oleomargarine by its color in the lash, that I asked you the question. Mr. GRovutT. Precisely. Senator MonkEy. Then I wanted to ask you if the same color did not enter into the butter that enters into the oleomargarine? . Mr. Grout. Yes, sir; it does. It belongs to butter. Yellow is the natural color of butter and always has been, and if you allow them to color oleo just like butter, that enables them to make you believe it is butter whether you spread it on your bread or see it in chicken hash. Senator MonrEY. It has been testified here that the natural color of butter is white. Mr. Grout. Can that be possible? Excuse me, but I should not suppose anyone would make that claim. I had always understood that butter is always yellow. The cow makes it yellow. Mr. WapswortH. What is the color of the butter that Delmonico uses in New York? Mr. Grout. I do not think Delmonico uses white butter. Mr WADSWoRTH. And it is unsalted? Mr. Grout. Yes, but not white butter. He uses butter, very likely, without any coloring matter, and my own taste approves that. Tastes vary as to degrees of the yellowness for butter, or which should belong to butter, and of course it is colored to meet those varying tastes; but it is all the time a butter color. It is only a little more colored or a little less. It is always in some degree yellow. Nobody ever saw but- ter but what it was in some degree yellow. Senator WARREN. You speak of a case of chicken hash. You would naturally be an expert, and especially so at this time when your mind is turned toward this. Do you think the presence of oleomargarine in that chicken hash you speak of would easily be detected by an ordinary boarder? Mr. Grout. Not without the clue which we had in the difference of color between the butter and the oleo, which we had before us, both of which were in the house. Of course chicken hash would be more palatable to the man who ordered it if it disclosed the use of butter in serving it up than it would if it disclosed a white grease simply like lard or oleo without color. And so, as in this case, oleomargarine is put into cooking where it will show to give the guest the impression that they have made a free use of butter in serving chicken hash or whatever, and it goes off at the rate of $5 a day, or whatever price may be paid. Senator WARREN. It seems to me that the oleomargarine in the chicken hash would be less discoverable if it was white than if it was colored. I do not want to take from your argument, but what I am getting at is the purpose of this bill. I want to get at whether the purpose is to protect the buttermen, whether it is to protect the board- ing-house men, and the percentage of protection; whether it is one-half of the consumers and one-half of the buttermen, or two-thirds one 574 OLEOMARGARINE. way aud one-third the other way. That is why I am asking these questions. Mr. Grout. I can not divide the protection arithmetically. » It would be impossible to do so; but {| may say in brief— Senator FostER. To protect the public. Mr. Grout. Precisely so, Mr. Senator. It is for the protection of the public. It is for the protection, also, of an honest industry against a fraudulent product. It is for the protection of everybody who uses butter in any form, and for the protection of the hard-working men and women who produce it at small profit. Mr. WADSWorRtH. Who says oleomargarine is a fraudulent product? Mr. Grout. I do; it is sold as butter. Senator WARREN. You have given ita great deal of attention. The bill does not go far enough, it seems to me, if this is to protect the public. If this is a fraudulent product, and if three-fourths, perhaps, of the oleomargarine that is used is used in cooking, and a man must take it anyway, whether he will or not, it does not seem to me we are protecting the public in this matter. That is what I want to get at. Mr. Grout. I am glad you have asked how it protects. It protects the public in this way, by stripping from o'eomargarine the dress of butter, so that it can not longer impose itself on the public as butter. Put this 10-cent tax on the colored article and it will become unprofit- able to color it. Do this and it will no longer be sold as butter, but will go upon the market uncolored, so that it shall deceive nobody. Senator WARREN. But it will be used all the more for cooking pur- poses. Mr. Grout. Perhaps so, where it can be concealed; but where it can not be concealed they will have to use butter instead of oleomargarine. If you call for buttered toast, they will not bring you toast with hogs’ fat upon it. They will bring toast with genuine butter upon it, and the color tells you what it is. This will be accomplished by reducing the total profits on the oleomargarine business from $13,000,000 to $3,000,000 annually. Yes, gentlemen, you may laugh, but between the consumer of oleomargarine and the cost of the product there was last year from $12,000,000 to $15,000,000 profit, and there is no escape from the fact. I think it perfectly safe to call it $13,000,000. Mr. TILLINGHAST. There 1s no foundation for the statement. Mr. Grout. I will make it clear right here in just a moment. This article costs 7 cents a pound to manufacture. Mr. TILLINGHAST. How do you know that ? Mr. Grout. On the statement of a prospectus issued by the builders of a new oleo factory in this city; on the statement also of not Philip D. Armour himself, but a man representing his concern, some six or eight years ago, that it did not exceed 5 cents a pound—materials are more expensive now—in a local investigation up in the State of New York by the New York State Dairy Union. In New York they enforce their color law more thoroughly and completely than in any other State, but still there are infractions of the law there. On the strength of those statements, the last of which was made under oath, I say that it does not cost over 7 cents a pound now to manufacture it, and it is worked oft on the public, through the hotel men, the restaurant keep- ers, the boarding-house keepers, and retailers for the price of butter, anywhere from 18 to 30 cents a pound. We may call it on an average 22 cents a pound, and that is perfectly within bounds. When I pay $5 a day or $4 a day at a hotel where oleo is used, they are selling the stuff to me at the price of butter, and the great bulk of it is worked off OLEOMARGARINE. 575 in that intangible, untraceable way. Take the difference between 7 cents and 22 cents and you have 15 cents. There were 104,000,000 pounds of oleomargarine manufactured and stamped last year. Mr. WADSWorTH. Where is your tax license fee and all that? Mr. Grout. I thank the gentleman for the reminder. Add the tax to the cost of the product and it makes it 9 cents. That will leave a margin of 13 cents profit on every pound with the selling price at 22 cents, which is a low figure. There were 104,000,000 pounds manufac- tured and stamped last year and two or three million pounds more not stamped. Now, there is your $13,520,000 profit on the product of last year between the cost of production and the price paid by the nan who consumes it. There is no escape from this conclusion, my friends. Now, if you take what they claim to be true, that, as one manufac- turer puts it, the great middle class wants oleomargarine, preter it to butter, and take what the oleo folks say about the dirt and filth and all that sort of thing in butter, which they talk about to help make oleomargarine palatable—lI say if it be true that anyone wants oleo- margariue at butter prices they can manufacture oleomargarine and pay the 10 cents tax and still not have it cost more than it is costing to-day. But I do not believe it tobetrue. I believe it is not true that people want oleomargarine in preference to butter at the price of butter, and that when you will institute measures which will insure the article going upon the market for exactly what it is, al) will prefer butter, excepting those, perhaps, who want a very cheap article. And under the last clause in the last section of the bill, which proposes to reduce the tax on uncolored oleomargarine to one-fourth of 1 cent per pound, they can have it at less than one-half what it costs them now. I am not going to claim here now that oleomargarine is unwholesome or unnutritious. There is no question, however, that it is more difficult of digestion than butter, because butter melts at 92° and oleomargarine does not melt short of from 101° to 107°. That is the fact about it, correctly expressed. I refer you to the testimony which was taken before the House Committee on Agriculture, in which that fact is dis- tinctly stated by Governor Hoard; and it is not only chemically but absolutely true it is because of the stearin or paraffin that it carries. Paraffin, however, has become so expensive that they do not use it now. Stearin has been used within the last few years in oleomargarine. Mr. TILLINGHAST. Not to any extent. Mr. Grout. The New York agriculture department found 10 per cent of paraffin in 6 60-pound tubs; but leaving that out, it is not used now because of its great cost. Stearin is used, and that is what you make tallow candles out of. Mr. TILLINGHAS?. Paraffin was never used by any manufacturers in this country since oleomargarine was made, and if it was found in oleomaragine it was put there by an enemy to the oleomargarine industry. Mr. Grout. It was found in the course of some experiments made by the assistant secretary of agriculture, whatever his name may be— Cracke, I think. The report of the secretary of agriculture for New York of that year tells you all about it. It was some oleomargarine they captured that was being sold for butter, and on inspection they found this paraffin. Mr. WADSwortH. It seems to me you ought not brand a trade on account of the black sheepinit. Will you condemn the butter business on account of the black sheep in it? I suppose there are some who will palm off process butter for creamery butter. 576 OLEOMARGARINE. Mr. Grout. I expect the gentleman knows better about black sheep than Ido. All I know is that in the oleo business they are all black sheep. I did not care, however, to be drawn into a general discussion. of this whole oleo question. I only sought to reply to the particular points raised by the geutleman from New York in connection with this substitute bill. But if I were to say what I thought about it, I would not exculpate, as the gentleman seems swift to do, the oleomargarine manufacturers from complicity in this fraud. They are as deeply - steeped in it as the retailer is. You take up the testimony which was taken before the Committee on Agriculture in the House and you will find that they say to the retail trade in their printed circulars, ‘Sell our goods and we will stand between you and all expenses, fines, costs, and the like.” More than one concern issued such a circular in Chicago. Now, if that does not mean that they are ready to back the retailer in practicing this fraud, I would like to know what it does mean. But, as I say, I did not intend to go into that, gentlemen; I have been drawn into it, as you will witness. What I wanted to refer to was this system of stamping this article will not prevent disposition of oleo- margarine through the mediumship which the bulk of it is now worked off upon an unsuspecting public, namely, the hotels, restaurants, and boarding houses, from cutting this up into strips and serving it on the table, and in cooking also, naking the guest believe that he is eating a well-seasoned dish, or a dish well seasoned with butter instead of with ordinary grease. That is the only point I wished to answer in the gentleman’s statement, and to show that while it may touch, perhaps, the retail trade and contravene in some slight degree the fraud prac- ticed by them. lt would not be effectual with them, for what is there to prevent the retailer from packing these 2-pound lumps into a butter firkin and selling it for butter? Senator MonrEy. You said the only way to discover whether it was oleomargarine or butter was by the color. Do you mean to say to the committee, Mr. Grout, that a consumer of oleomargarine or butter at a table can not discover it in any other way than by the color? Mr. Grout. The color would not ordinarily help. It helped us in the last case I cited, because its color corresponded with the oleo before us and did not correspond with the butter. The oleo was highly colored, and the butter not so highly. Oleomargarine can be detected only by very careful tasting. If one takes it with his food he will not discover whether it is oleomargarine or butter. Senator Monry. I mean if he takes butter on his plate. You do not think the ordinary consumer can distinguish ? Mr. Grout. No, sir; it would pass as butter unless you taste very carefully and wait for the after effect in the mouth. There is only a very slight flavor of butter in oleo, and sometimes in the poorer grades none at all, and that is what betrays its character. Senator Monky. If it is wholesome and nutritious and nobody can tell it from butter, what is the difference? Mr. Grout. The difference is that it is not butter; the difference is that it is foisted upon the people for that which it is not, at an enor- mous profit, and as a counterfeit. The same difference that there is between good money and counterfeit money—butter is the genuine article, oleomargarine is the counterfeit. Senator MonEY. We have had circulars of the retail dealers in which they offer three grades of oleomargarine, for 11, 12, and 13 cents a pound, and butter trom 22 cents up. OLEOMARGARINE. award Mr. Grout. Yes. Senator Money. Now about tbe digestibility. I know nothing about oleomargarine, because I may have eaten it and I may not; but I have a member of my family who can not digest butter at all, and conse- quently when he is at home he does not eat butter. We can not get oleomargarine in my State. I do not suppose there is a pound of it sold in the State; but when he comes to Washington he hunts up oleomargarine because he can eat it and can digest it. It may be an idiosyncrasy of his stomach, but there must be some digestibility about it. Mr. Grout. Under this bill he could get it for one-half what he gets it for now, lacking the color which the article now has, and color only feeds the eye, anyway. Senator WARREN. You were speaking about protecting the consumer. You have, no doubt, given this so-called substitute bill attention. Is there anything in that which makes the hotel keeper liable for serving it as butter? Mr. Grout. That would be a matter of local regulation. We do not attempt to enter into that here; we hardly could do so for want of juris- diction. That is a matter for police regulation in the States. The first section of the bill gives those laws supreme control, whatever they may be, when once enacted. Senator WARREN. If I understand you, and I am seeking light, your criticism of this proposed substitute bill is that, while it would cover the family purchaser who goes to a grocer and buys a pound or two pounds, it would not cover the great mass of the people, growing greater all the time, who eat at restaurants and hotels. It would still be in the power of the restaurant keeper and hotel keeper to deceive his guests. Mr. Grout. Yes. Senator WARREN. And there is no way to reach him oi imposing upon his customers. Mr. Grout. Excepting the law which we prescribe in ais bill. We make it unprofitable for him to buy oleomargarine instead of butter. He now pays for it, say, 12 cents per pound. ‘This 10-cent tax instead of 2 would make it cost him at least 20 cents per pound, and he would buy butter. The bill deals with the subject fundamentally. Senator WARREN. If I understand you in doing the best you can in this matter, you seek to protect the consumer at the hotel and the res- taurant so far as the butter that is brought to him and placed in front of him is concerned. All others you allow could be protected with other legislation. Youdonot attempt to reach the use of oleoinargarine for cooking, etc. ? Mr. Grout. That would be beyond our jurisdiction. That is a mat- ter of State regulation. The first section of this bill gives the States supreme authority. The States may go on and institute just such methods in the exercise of their police power as they see fit to rectify all those things, and undoubtedly they will do so. Senator WARREN. But your direct purpose is to feel sure that you can reach that much of it? Mr. Grout. We reach the whole of it, sir. We claim we reach the whole business, because this bill will take away all temptation to sell it for butter when we take away the profits by putting such a tax upon it as makes it unprofitable to manufacture colored oleomargarine and sell it for butter. Then we take away the dress of butter and correct es evil. It may fall short of it, but we believe it will work the result esired. S. Rep. 2043-37 578 OLEOMARGARINE. Senator WARREN. It makes no difference with the cooking part, of course? Mr. Grout. No; we can not in this legislation enter into the minu- tie, as I say, of local regulations. It would be beyond our jurisdiction. Senator Money. Then the raising of the tax is of no particular importance in protecting the consumer if it is the color that is the most important? Mr. Grout. It makes unprofitable the sale of colored oleomargarine, and when it is not colored it will have to go for what itis. It matters but little whether they do their shortening or cooking with oleomarga- rine or hogs’ fat or beef tallow. There is mighty little difference between them. It is all the same; but when they undertake to make the public think they have shortened up with butter, the color is want- ing, and they can not carry the deceit to that extent. To that extent it will prevent its use in cooking. ~ Senator WARREN. Could they not add a little of the coloring matter in the cooking and thereby deceive the guests? Mr. Grout. Possibly they could color it so that they could spread your toast with it and make you think it was butter. Possibly they might recook and color it in quantities, but no one has suggested that that is practicable. But everyone can see that the provisions of this substitute bill can be evaded by the retailer, to a certain extent, as well as the hotel, restaurant, and boarding-house keeper. All the retailer would have to do would be buy, say, 200 pounds of oleo, stamped like these specimens and delivered to him in a box like this, take off the wrappers, and then, with an ordinary butter cutter, mold, or mallet, pound these 2-pound lumps into butter firkins and then sell it out of the firkins for butter. How easy; and after he had used the box and wrappers to kindle the fire, no vestige of oleo would be left on his prem- ises. All this is very easy to do under Mr. Wadsworth’s substitute. But if you take away the color, as this 10-cent tax will do, the game is up. Mr. JELKE. The object of your bill, I understand, is to prevent the retail dealer Mr. Grout. It is to prevent fraud along the whole line. Mr. JELKE. Will you permit me to ask a question? Mr. Grovt. Certainly. | Mr. JELKE. It is to prevent a fraud in the sale by the retail dealer and to protect the consumer against this fraudulent sale? Mr. GRovutT. Yes. Mr. JELKE. Is there any provision in the bill preventing the purchase, by the retailer, of uncolored oleomargarine on which there is but a quar- ter of a cent per pound tax—— a: Mr. Grout. Oh, no. Mr. JELKE. And then coloring the oleomargarine himself and making 9? cents per pound additional profit? Mr. Grout. But he would have to work it all over and melt it in order to work in his color. If he colors the uncolored article, which I am told is highly impracticable, he would have to have a caldron, kettle, or something of that kind to make that transformation, and it cer- tainly could be traced; but see how easily he could take that stuff and pound it into a 50-pound butter tub and sell it for butter. Who can trace him? Who can follow him? He burns up this wooden box and wrapper in which it came and there is no way to trace it. Mr. JELKE. For your own information, Mr. Grout, I would like to say that if this roll of oleomargarine were absolutely white, without spoil- OLEOMARGARINE. 579 ing the brick, I could, without melting it, put a few drops of color in it right here in this room and produce just that same thing there. Mr. Grout. Diffusing the color throughout the whole mass? Mr. JELKE. Yes; by taking a ladle and working it. Mr. Grout. Well, the ways of this craft, gentlemen, are past find- ing out. Mr. MILLER. Speaking of the use of butterine by hotels, is it not a fact that the contention of your side has been right along that there was fraud by the retail dealers? Mr. Grout. Yes, sir. Mr. MILLER. And is it not a fact that you claim all the fraud has been practiced by the retail dealers? You say two-thirds of the but- terine sold goes to hotels. Mr. Grout. I say that I am not sure it is two-thirds, but it is a very large proportion. I did not say it went into the hotels, but the claim was that a large portion of it went to purchasers who knew just what it was. The hotel man knows just what it is. The restaurant man knows just what itis. The lumberman and the mine man know just what it is, and so on. Mr. TILLINGHAST. Mr. Chairman, just one suggestion on the police regulations of the States. Most all of these States which have oleo- margarine legislation and the anticolor law have also the police regu- lation that boarding-house keepers, hotel keepers, and restaurant keepers shall give notice to the guests of those places that they are using oleomargarine, if they are using it, under severe penalties if they do not do that. That is one of the easiest regulations to maintain in the States, as the dairy bureaus have often told me, because any of their men may go to any of those places where it is suspected that oleomargarine is used and call for a dinner, and after his oleomargarine is served to him, he takes a sample out and analyzes it, and he has the man caught, unless he has been personally notified to that effect. So that any fraud that exists, or might exist, on the part of the hotel pro- prietor or restaurant keeper or boarding-house keeper can be, and is, provided for, and this bill would be of no assistance to the States in enforcing that legislation. They have ample protection in that line. Now, gentlemen, just one word in reply to Mr. Grout’s statement. He says the larger part of this oleomaryarine is worked off in hotels, etc. His statement with reference to that has no better foundation than the statement with reference to some other things. His means of information are not any better than mine, and I do not believe they are as good, because he has not given as much attention to it as I have. The greater part of the oleomargarine that is sold in this country is sold to men who use it in their families, and who buy it for what it is; and fraud does not exist to the extent he claims it exists with reference to the hotel keepers, restaurant keepers, and boarding-house keepers, and if it did, then the police regulations of the States concerning such places are amply sufficient to protect that matter. Senator FostER. You say they buy it because they want it? Mr. TILLINGHAST. Yes, sir. Senator FostER. What effect would it have if it was uncolored? Mr. TILLINGHAST. They would not have it at all. Senator FosTER. That is the same old question. ae” TILLINGHAST. The same old question that has been discussed so often. Mr. SCHELL. Just one question. I presented here a list of 1,083 con- sumers who buy direct from one of my factories. We also—all of us— 580 OLEOMARGARINE. have an export trade. In 32 different States, including Ohio, where two of my factories are located, there is a law absolutely prohibiting the manufacture or sale of colored oleomargarine. I would like to know how, under this bill, my people can manufacture, either on the order of these consumers or for the export trade, colored oleomargarine at all, since every time they do it they are pleading guilty to a viola- tion of the State statute. Mr. Grou. That is a question that enters into the secrets of the oleo business, and I do not think anybody could answer it. I must con- fess I do not see myself how there is any plea of guilty to a charge in such a case as stated by him. The committee (at 11 o’clock and 45 minutes) adjourned, subject to call, HEARINGS COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 581 re cel) pakhaands BEV IT ARAMA TE AO tere OLEOMARGARINE. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, Washington, D. C., March 7, 1900. ARGUMENT OF W. D. HOARD. Whom do we represent? The united dairy sentiment of the nation. That means over 5,000,000 farmers, and an annual cash value in their product of over $600,000,000. A vast army of consumers of dairy prod- ucts, who are constantly duped and swindled by a counterfeit substitute for butter. The consumer is defrauded of his money and the dairy farmer of his rightful market, the first being compelled to pay a butter price for that which is not butter. The consumers and producers of butter ask Congress to enact into law House bill 3717, which provides by the first section that all coun- terfeit substitutes for butter, when taken into any State or Territory, shall be subject to the laws of that State or Territory concerning such counterfeit, the same as the Wilson law in regard to liquors, enacted, I think, in 1891. It was deemed for the public welfare to enact that law. We claim it is for the public welfare to place oleomargarine under the operation of a similar law. Already thirty-two States have laws on their statute books forbid- ding the manufacture and sale of fat mixtures when colored and made in the semblance of butter. The Oleomargarine combine consists of less than twenty manufactur- ers, who have entered into a conspiracy to break down these State laws, and, by bribing merchants, by deception of all kinds, by subsidizing city newspapers, by employing leading politicians, to so neutralize the etfect and administration of those laws that they may force their counterfeit upon the public. These manufacturers are assuming to override all law. They stand behind all infractions of State and national laws, and fur- nish money for the defense of their agents when arrested. On one side stands one of the greatest of our agricultural interests, together with the millions of consumers who are tired of being swindled. On the other side stands the oleomargarine trust, engaged in manu- facturing a counterfeit, depending on lawbreaking, falsehood, and deception for its success, backed up with millions of capital. The situation is significant, whether viewed from a political, eco- nomic, or patriotic standpoint. The second section of this bill provides, first, that on all oleomar- garine which stands in its own color and not in the semblance of butter, on this mixture the present Federal tax shall be reduced to a fourth of one cent a pound. The dairy sentiment of the country would be willing that the uncolored compound should be relieved of all taxa- 583 584 OLEOMARGARINE. tion. The tax as provided in the bill, however, is trifling and nominal. This is done in the spirit of fairness. If there are any persons who wish to eat this mixture in preference to butter, who ask it because they are poor, they would then be enabled to buy it for what it is worth. They could not be cheated into paying a butter price for some- thing that in no honest sense is butter, or like butter. The oleo combine and their apologists and defenders have a great deal to say about oleomargarine being a cheap food for the “ poor.” There is consummate hypocrisy in this plea. You will notice that the poor people are not making this plea. It is made for the purpose of overreaching the poor. . The friends of this measure are the true friends of the poor, for they ask that the force of law and the burden of onerous taxation be turned against the counterfeit, while the article which is not colored to deceive can have free course. What does oleomargarine cost? Armour & Oo., of Chicago, testified before a Federal district court in New York that, with the 2-cent Federal tax added, the cost was less than 7 cents a pound. If it was uncolored, the poor could buy it for 10 cents, or at most 12 cents a pound. Yet I saw the colored article selling in Ashland, Wis., to the poor, for 28 cents a pound. This plea for the poor, by these exploiters of poverty, finds conspic- uous parallel in the history of Judas Iscariot. When the women annointed the feet of Christ with alabaster ointment, Judas had a great deal to say why the ointment was not sold and the money given to the poor. Yet I imagine it is not necessary to inform this commit- tee that Judas was a traitor to both Christ and the poor. To give added force to the first section of this bill it is also provided in the second section that a tax of 10 cents a pound shall be imposed on all oleomargarine in the color or semblance of butter. In plain words, this is repressive taxation. In 1886 Congress, in response to the demand of the people, placed a tax of 2 cents a pound on this counterfeit, and exacted heavy license fees for its manufacture and sale. This was done in the interest of the public welfare. Congress has the undoubted right to exercise this power. It has exercised it in the tax on State bank circulation, on filled cheese, and adulterated flour. This is a part only of the duty and policy of internal protection. It has been found, through the inefficient administration of State laws and the powerful influence of this oleomargarine combination, that this protection is insufficient. The manufacture of the counterfeit has grown from 34,000,000 pounds in 1888 to 83,000,000 in 1899, and, be it remembered, 90 per cent of it consumed under the supposition that it is butter. This product of 1899 would make 1,383,684 60-pound tubs. If placed side by side they would reach 3,400 miles; if loaded into farm wagons, a full load in each, they would reach 400 miles in length. The output equaled the output of 415,650 cows, worth $12,469,500. The hoped-for effect of the legislation asked of Congress is not to destroy the oleomargarine industry, but to force it over onto its own ground; to compel it to be made in its own guise and color. Is there anything unjust or unreasonable about this? With a tax of 10 cents a pound on the counterfeit substitute, we believe the temptation for unjust profits, deceptive sale, dishonorable and dangerous conspiring against law, and fraudulent competition with an honest industry will be greatly modified. OLEOMARGARINE. 58) A great many people ask why it is not as permissible to color oleo- margarine as it is to color butter. I would answer because they are not colored for the same purpose. Butter in winter is too light to suit the taste of most consumers. The highest value is in fresh butter not more than ten days old. The consumer asks that it bear the yellow summer color of butter. That is a matter of taste, not deception, for it is not colored to resemble something it is not. But oleomargarine is colored to make it resemble butter, which it is not. It is colored, not for the benefit or taste of its consumer, but to deceive the consumer. Said President Cleveland, in his message approving the oleomarga- rine legislation of 1886: Not the least important incident related to this legislation is the defense afforded to the consumer against the fraudulent substitution and sale of an imitation for a genuine article of “food of a very general household use. * * * I venture to say that hardly a pound ever entered a poor man’s house under its real name and in its true character. The argument still holds good. Congress was then asked to place a tax of 10 cents a pound on the counterfeit. Had it done so, the relief would, in my opinion, have been ample and sufficient. But it has been _ proved inadequate, and we ask for the passage of this measure in its entirety. Weare met by certain abstractionists with the question, ‘‘ Would you tax one legitimate industry out of existence for the benefit of another?” To this | would answer, No. But the oleomargarine business is not con- ducted legitimately. It is based, from manufacture to sale, on wrong and illegitimate methods. We believe Congress has the right, for the sake of public welfare, for the sake of suppressing fraud and deception in any industry, to tax its illegitimate outcome burdensomely, and for this reason are the farmers and consumers of the country making their wishes known to this Congress on this bill. Is oleomargarine a healthful food? There is no way to determine this question except by actual trial; not fora day, a week, or a month, but for several successive months, and not with strong, robust men with plenty of outdoor exercise. Chemistry can not answer. For example, the chemist will tell you that he finds the same elements in swamp peat that are found in the grasses and hays that are fed to our cows, and in approximately the same proportion. And the chemist is at a loss to determine from the standpoint of his science why cattle should not feed on swamp peat. Chemistry can not determine whether any particular substance is poisonous or not. It must take a stomach to do that. There is no credible evidence to show that oleomargarine is innocu- ous; no evidence to show that when eaten continuously in place of butter it is not harmful. But there are reports in great abundance to the effect that oleomargarine is harmful. Mr. Edmund Hill, a member of the Somerset County council, Eng- land, reports that the great bulk of oleomargarine, or “margarine” as it is called there, is eaten in public institutions, convents, schools, ete. At the Wells Asylum, with which he is connected, the inmates receive oleomargarine. In the asylums of Dorset, Wells, and Hants—the adjoining counties—butter is furnished, and the death rate at Wells is 30 per cent higher. At the Taunton Hospital there were 11 deaths in thirteen months. Oleomargarine was substituted, and in nine months the deaths rose to 22. This accords with the experience in France, where its use in hospi- 586 OLEOMARGARINE. tals is forbidden. In the United States, in institutions for the blind and for girls, it has been noticed that the use of oleomargarine lowered the vitality of the inmates very perceptibly. There is abundant reason for this. The normal heat of the human stomach is 98°. Butter melts at 92°, 6° below the heat of the stomach, passes into pancreatic emulsion, and digestion. Nature designed this fat in its raw state for food. Oleomargarine melts at the varying temperature of 102° to 108°, a temperature no healthful stomach ever attains. As a consequence, this unnatural foreign fat must be expelled by sheer gastric action and force. Butter fat is found in the milk of all mammals. It is chemically and physically unlike any other fat in existence. It was designed by nature for the food and sustenance of infant offspring, having the most deli- cate of all digestion. Because of this most evident purpose and provi- sion of nature, butter forms a healthful and important article of food in milk, cream, and in its separated state. No matter what paid chemists may say, no counterfeit, even in its purest state, is wholesome or healthful. But there is another phase of this question. There is absolutely no protection for the public against most dangerous introduction of posi- tively unhealthful compounds into oleomargarine. The Journal of the American Chemical Society and the department of agriculture of New York abound in proof of the adulteration of oleo- margarine with paraffin, a substance which the strongest acids even are unable to affect. There is no reason on earth why the foulest of germ-laden fats should not be used in the making of this compound, when once they are deodorized by the aid of chemistry. But with butter it is different. Any contamination or hurtful manip- ulation is instantly shown ina lossof flavor. Butter always advertises its condition. It should be considered that the distinction proposed in taxation against colored oleomargarine will bring no hardship to the consumer who may want this article as a cheap, fat substitute for butter. The — coloring of it adds nothing to its digestibility or food value, if it have a food value. The whole proposition is in a nutshell. Force out the © color or semblance to butter and you put a stop to its being imposed on the consumer for butter. In addition you protect this great army of producers, the dairymen of the United States, from competition with a fraud and counterfeit. It is high time that Congress entered upon this work of protection © of all honest and legitimate industries against the dishonest greed of the counterfeiter and adulterator. The Dominion of Canada has taken from us nearly all of our once magnificient export trade in dairy products. Canada absolutely pro- hibits the making of counterfeit butter or cheese. Consequently the Dominion stands high among all foreign consumers as to the purity and honesty of its foods. Our National Government can proceed repressively only in the way of taxation. We believe we are right, fair, and just, and in accordance with a wise public policy, in asking of the members of this committee an earnest support of House bill 3717. One of the most preposterous arguments advanced in support of the oleomargarine business is that which is unwittingly put in the mouths of the beef and hog raisers by the oleo combine. The Nebraska Farmer OLEOMARGARINE. 587 ot February 15 exposes the fallacy of this argument in an able edi- torial, from which we quote the following extract: The National Live Stock Association, at its recent meeting at Fort Worth, Tex., passed a lengthy and stringent resolution condemning. proposed oleomargarine leg- islation. This resolution, as it appears in the circular letter sent out over the name of President Springer, is a remarkable document—remarkable alike for its arraign- ment of one class of agriculturists by another and in its disregard for facts in its general narration. Some of the false ‘“‘statements of fact” in the general narration are as follows: “The ‘butter fat’ of an average beef animal, for the purpose of making oleomar- garine, is worth from $3 to $4 per head more than it was before the advent of oleo- margarine, when the same had to be used for tallow; which increased value of the beef steer has been added to the market value of the animal, and consequently to the profit of the producer. To legislate this article of commerce out of existence, as the passage of this law would surely do, would compel slaughterers to use this fat for tallow, and depreciate the market value of the beef cattle of this country $3 to $4 per head, which would entail a loss on the producers of this country of millions of dollars. “The use of this fat for the purpose set forth is an encouragement to the producer to improve his herd and raise a class of grade or thoroughbred cattle capable of mak- ing and carrying this fat, rather than the common or scrub animal, which is so hard and unprofitable to fatten; and the cattle raiser or producer has come to know the yalue of this product, and that the amount of the increase in the market value of his matured animal depends somewhat on the value of the ‘butter fat’ carried by the animal.” To show the absurdity of the above statements it is only necessary to call atten- tion to the fact thatevery steer or cow butchered by manufacturers of oleomargarine, if good enough to sell for ‘‘ dressed beef,” is sold with the kidney tallow in the quarters. This being true, nothing but the ‘‘ gut fat” remains in the packing house. Therefore every oleo manufacturer that ever lived and all his agents are chronic liars, if gut fat of beeves and ‘‘ butter fat” of oleomargarine are one and the same thing. More than this, the gut fat of beeves averaged as many pounds per animal in 1890 to 1896 as it does in 1900, and there were ‘‘ workingmen and their dependen- cies” (we quote from the resolutions) then as now, and oleo sold as a counterfeit and substitute for butter then as now, without appearing to add materially to the ‘market value of the animal, and consequently to tbe proiit ofthe producer.” (Cattle- men will please take note that swine men claim that they are the people who suffer- from legislation which hampers the sale of bogus butter. Now, what is your ‘‘ but- ter fat” for oleomargarine? Is it gut fat of cattle or hogs’ fat?) The next fact of importance in connection with the resolutions is the ignorance of cattle breeding shown in the text, therefore the fair presumption that not live- stock breeders, but a packing-house attorney, wrote the resolution. We call atten- tion to the statement, ‘‘The use of this fat for the purpose set forth (making a counterfeit of butter) is an encouragement to the producer to improve his herd and raise a class of grade or thoroughbred cattle capable of making and carrying this fat, rather than the common or scrub animal,” etc. Every breeder of cattle understands that the value of improved breeds depends on the capacity of the improved animal to give a larger proportion of cuts of good meat to the rough fat (gut fat or ‘‘butter fat,” just as you choose), and that the chief objection to the scrub steer or dairy-bred steer is the excess of fat, as com- pared with meat cuts, due largely to a failure of the scrub animal to carry the sur- plus fat among the meat tissue. Hence the falsehood of the assertion that increase of rough fat in beeves encourages improved breeding. This resolution seems to have been introduced to the stockmen’s convention by one C. W. Baker, of Illinois, and it seems to be one of those cases where the stock men have been trapped into pulling the packing-house chestnuts out of the fire. STATEMENT OF CHARLES Y. KNIGHT. My business is that of editor of the Chicago Dairy Produce, a pub- lication devoted to the dairy and butter business. I have for the past three years been secretary of the National Dairy Union, an organ- ization of farmers who keep cows, and others engaged in pursuits allied therewith. This organization at present comprises about 30,000 members who are farmers, and they are scattered all over the United States. The organization has for its aim the protection of producers 588 OLEOMARGARINE. and consumers of dairy products against fraud, and its officers serve absolutely without further compensation than their actual and neces- sary expenses incurred in the discharge of their duty. No officer has ever received one cent salary, but upon the other hand they have spent hundreds of dollars in expenses while working in the interest of the cause, for which no account has ever been rendered the organization. I have had charge of the work of organization and the collection of facts regarding the oleomargarine traffic of this country, and it is the enormous illegal and fraudulent growth of the business during the past two years, in face of the best restrictive laws the States have been able to devise, that has brought us to Congress as a last resort to ask for relief. THE ORIGINAL OLEOMARGARINE LAW. For the information of the committee, all of the members of which may not be familiar with the history of national legislation along this line, I will state that fourteen years ago, finding the powers of the State helpless to cope against the peculiar character of this fraud, the dairymen of this country arose en masse and came to Congress for relief, feeling that nothing but Congressional action would save their business from absolute ruin. They convinced Congress that national legislation was necessary, and the result was that numerous measures were introduced for their relief. The matter of legislating against a counterfeit article, however, was found to be a complex proposition for Congress because of the constitutional restrictions which prevent the Congress of the United States exercising police powers except for the protection of its revenue receipts, interstate commerce, and other mat- ters absolutely within the limits of the Constitution, and after months of tedious investigation and effort, what is known as the Hatch bill was finally originated by the Committee on Agriculture, and brought into the House. PROVISIONS OF THE HATCH BILL. At that time it was thought, as many have become to believe since, that the manufacture and sale of oleomargarine could not be permitted and at the same time protect the public against fraud. Acting upon this theory the government of Canada did and has ever since abso- lutely prohibited the traffic in any character or condition and oleomar- garine is not permitted to be sold in that country in any way, shape, or manner. France, where oleomargarine originated as a necessity during the Franco-Prussian war, found it impossible to protect its people against fraud, and even its present law forbidding the sale of that article in any store or shop where butter is sold is not considered ade- quate—a law which would not stand under our Constitution a week because of the great scope of liberty afforded under our form of gov- ernment. Germany has also adopted the same plan, which has not proven satisfactory, and various other measures are being suggested in that country. In fact, Denmark, Australia, Russia, Italy, Spain, and every other European, antipodean, and Asiatic country has found the same trouble in endeavoring to control this deceitful substitute for butter. It will therefore be seen that the Agricultural Committee had before it a perplexing problem, and one which it seemed to finally despair of solving and at the same time permit the article to survive in commerce, the result of which was the recommendation of a measure which would OLEOMARGARINE. 589 have been pretty close to entire prohibition of the entire traffic had it been passed as recommended. I simply cite these facts and conditions to give the committee something of an idea of the great provocations which existed at that time, as reflected by these recommendations, it having been found almost impossible then to secure butter whose purity could be guaranteed, unless it came direct from the farm to the consumer. RECOMMENDED A TEN-CENT TAX. The recommendations of that committee were many, and the outcome of their investigations a complete scheme for the taxation and regula- tion of oleomargarine through the Internal-Revenue Department, which taxation would put the article within the constitutional control of the Government and thereby permit the branding requirements which were desired at that time to be enforced by the National Government. A tax of 10 cents per pound was recommended, regardless of color, by that committee. EXPECTED LAW TO BE ENFORCED. The Agricultural Committee, however, did not then know as much as the public knows to-day about the Internal-Revenue Department. It was the impression of Congress that when the revenue law required every retailer to brand his package sold the consumer, that this, as well as all other provisions of the measure would be enforced. It was because of the impression that this branding clause alone would give the public protection that the 10-cent tax was finally cut down to 5 cents in the House and 2 cents in the Senate, the argument being that the 2-cent tax would give about revenue enough to permit the revenue depart- ment to pay the expenses of enforcing the branding clause. WHAT HAS BEEN THE RESULT? We have now had about fourteen years of that 2-cent tax. And what has been the result? Has the fraudulent sale of oleomargarine ceased ? Not at all! It only required two or three years to develop the fact that the Internal Revenue Department was not in sympathy with any measure that required the exercise of a police surveillance where rev- enue was not absolutely at stake. For instance, the payment of this 2-cent tax is enforced of the manufacturer when the oleomargarine is produced. No package is permitted to go out of the factory until the tax has been paid. So far as the article itself is concerned all its lia- bilities to the Government are discharged when that 2-cent tax is paid and the proper brands and stamps are placed upon the original import- ers’ packages. It then goes to the retailer to sell to consumers, and it loses the Government no money if the retailer does not comply with the police regulations requiring each package to be marked. There- fore there is no incentive for the Government to follow up the matter and see to it that the branding clause is complied with. The following communication from the dairy commissioner of Wis- consin as to the attitude of the Internal Revenue Department toward this feature of the law of 1886 exactly describes the experience of the people of Illinois and many other States in this respect. This letter has just been received, and is therefore late evidence: Cuas. Y. Kniaut, National Hotel, Washington, D. C. DEAR Stir: Some time ago you asked me concerning the enforcement of the Fed- eral oleomargarine law by the internal-revenue department in Michigan. I can only 590 OLEOMARGARINE. say that my experience covering the last three years as dairy commissioner fortifies me in saying that, outside of the collection of the revenue tax, the Federal authori- ties in Michigan do absolutely nothing to enforce the national law. I have person- ally offered to furnish the proof for violations of the Federal law, but no steps were ever taken to change existing conditions or to punish such violators. It is a fact that scarcely a retailer in Michigan conforms to the requirements of the Federal law—a condition which has existed, to my certain knowledge, for the past three years. Very respectfully, ELLIOTT O. GROSVENOR, Commissioner. And I will further quote from a recent interview with Collector Coyne, of the city of Chicago, who was visited by a reporter of the Chi- cago Record with packages of oleomargarine which he had purchased for butter, not stamped according to law. The Record said: Internal Revenue Collector Coyne’s attention was called to these violations of the law yesterday and the wrappers exhibited. He said: “‘T am always willing to prosecute violators of the revenue laws, and I am glad to have these cases called to my attention. It is unfortunate that I have to depend on the public for my information, however. I have 19 counties, including Cook, to look after, and the 15 deputies I am allowed have about 2,000 special taxpayers in their respective districts. These include breweries, saloons, cigar dealers and manufacturers, oleomargarine makers and dealers, and many others. The force is not large enough for me to watch every retailer—2,000 men would be required to do that. Nor can the deputies make cases by purchasing butter or its substitute, for they have no fund for that. “Whenever a citizen comes to me and tells me of a case of this kind I am always willing to do my duty as the law sets it forth. I have been accused by both sides of leaning toward the other, but neither party is right in making these charges. If I am called before the agricultural commission I shall be glad to tell what I know— and that is more than I can tell the public in my present position. The books of this department are not open to the people, but I can assure you that many violators of the oleomargarine laws have suffered.” This is not intended as a criticism of the department, but is intro- duced to show the utter weakness of the law of 1886, and to prove that we have grounds for coming again to Congress for relief. WHY THE 10-CENT TAX ON COLORED OLEOMARGARINE? We expect to show to the satisfaction of Congress that national legislation of the character embraced in H. RK. 3717, known as the Grout bill, with its 10-cent tax provision, is absolutely essential to prevent the almost absolute destruction of an industry bringing to the agriculturists of this country fully $500,000,000 per year. Virst. Because oleomargarine, when made in exact imitation in pack- age and color of butter, is an ideal counterfeit, furnishing a commodity which can be readily, and in nine cases out of ten, with safety, palmed off upon the known but unskilled consumer as butter at butter prices, as only a chemical analysis will, with a degree of certainty necessary in evidence, establish the identity of the substitute. Second. Because the large profit resulting from the sale of oleomar- garine as butter in itself furnishes incentive to practice fraud and means of protection in case of detection, and to-day, with the traffic aggregating close to 100,000,000 pounds per year, the sum collected through the assessment of even a fraction of a cent per pound asa fund for defense is sufficiently large, when judiciously expended through organized channels, to render prosecutions so expensive that in many of the States the courts have scarcely the capacity to handle offenders, so numerous have they become under the persistent and aggressive solicitation of the wealthy manufacturers. Third. Twenty years of experience has demonstrated the fact that oleomargarine, colored in semblance of butter, placed in the hands OLEOMARGARINE. 591 of a dealer, can be sold at his discretion as either oleomargarine or butter. He need not be susceptible to detection in fraud so long as he confines his dealings to known customers, whom he knows will not spend days of time upon the witness stand to convict him of a fraud small in detail, but enormous in aggregate; therefore, the only sate method for preventing these frauds, so enormous in the aggregate, is to prevent the article being placed in the hands of the trade in such form that it can be used with profit for deceptive purposes. Fourth. This policy has been adopted by 32 States, containing, accord- ing to the census of 1890, over 50,000,000 of the 62,000,000 people of this country, each of which has passed a law absolutely forbidding the sale of oleomargarine colored in semblance of yellow butter. These laws have been in force in some States for twelve years, and no State has ever repealed one. Fifth. The laws of all these 32 States are continually and system- atically violated, clandestinely in some and in open defiance in others. Oleomargarine manufacturers make no pretense of observing State laws where the legal machinery for their enforcement is not absolutely invincible, and do not hesitate to come before Congress in protest against an act which at best would simply give the States the assist- ance of the National Government in protecting their people as they desire to be protected. Sixth.—The oleomargarine manufacturers, while openly professing a desire to have their product sold for what it is, secretly sometimes and openly at others, urge dealers to sell it for butter, and circumstances connect a number of these manufacturers with some of the most gigan- tic and widespread swindles ever perpetrated in business affairs. Seventh. The only persons who really profit from the sale of yellow oleomargarine are those who practice deception in its sale or are the beneficiaries of such deception; the color in the article, conflicting with State laws, causes the dealer to hesitate to sell it unless the profit is sufficiently large to compensate him for the injury likely to accrue to his business in case of prosecution. Manufacturers openly assure dealers that there is double the profit in the sale of oleomargarine that can be had from the sale of butter—which in itself is evidence that there must be something peculiar about the trade, and they do not hesitate to openly guarantee protection against the efforts of the State to enforce the laws. Highth. The present internal-revenue law, enacted in 1886, has entirely failed in its purpose. In this act Congress placed a tax of 2 cents per pound upon oleomargarine, not as a revenue measure for the General Government, but to raise sufficient funds with which to enable the Government to enforce the clause requiring the branding of every package, even to the sale by the retailer to the consumer. This reve- nue has been faithfully collected by the Government. But throughout the entire country but one exclusive inspector has ever been furnished to see to its enforcement by the internal revenue department. Notonly does the internal revenue department make no effort to carry out the intent of the framers of the law, but those who have endeavored to Secure the enforcement of such clauses requiring branding by the retailer have been led to believe that for the purpose of increasing revenue the various collectors wink at such violations. The law of 1886 now does little else than furnish violators of the State laws the defense that their business is ‘under the supervision of the Government, which provides a complete system of regulation.” Ninth. A system of regulation, to be effective, must be one which 592 OLEOMARGARINE. can be applied to the responsible manutacturer in whatever part of the country he may be found. Any tax imposed will be collected. No regulation prescribed will be enforced by the internal-revenue depart- ment unless its violation is likely to impair the revenue. The more the branding clause of the 1886 law is violated the greater the revenue, because the oleomargarine pays the tax whether sold for what it is or as butter, and more is sold for butter than oleomargarine. A tax of 10 cents per pound, if levied, would be collected upon all oleomarga- rine, colored to resemble butter. The collection of this tax alone would accomplish the result of taking out of the counterfeit article the large profit now held up before the eyes of the retailers as an incentive to commit fraud and violate State laws, and, profits on oleomargarine and butter being equalized, each would have a fair chance of sale. Tenth. The use of the taxing power of the Government to accomplish this result would not be the usurpation of the rights of the States to regulate their own affairs. It would simply be the cooperation of the General Government with the States upon petition of their people to do a thing they had failed to accomplish individually, and enough people, through their legislatures, have already adopted the policy of exclud- ing yellow oleomargarine to have the moral force of a constitutional amendment, Eleventh. The claims of damage to the beef-raising, cotton-growing, or hog industries is an impudent and easily exploded argument to secure the antagonism of the cattle raisers of the North and cotton growers of the South to this measure and induce them to rush to the defense of a class of manufacturers who, with their records as law- breakers, can hardly have standing before a body of law-makers representing States whose statutes they are openly ignoring, boldly defying, or secretly evading. Twelfth. The policy of prohibiting the coloring of oleomargarine in imitation of butter has the approval of the highest authority in the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Plumley v. Massachu- setts (155th W.S.) in which such a law as is now in force in thirty-two States was strongly upheld upon the grounds that it was plainly a reg- ulation in the interests of honest dealings, and again in Schollenberger v. Pennsylvania(171st Federal Report). Such laws have been before the supreme courts of many States and never in a single instant has such policy been declared contrary to their constitutions. Thirteenth. While the questions of healthfulness might be an inter- esting one in this connection, we do not feel called upon to permit our- selves to be drawn into a controversy which at best would resolve itself into the expensive and time-consuming confusion of a war of paid experts, which was thoroughly investigated in 1886 by the Agriculture Committee, with a result of recommending a 10-cent tax on all oleomar- garine, and is now a matter of record easily accessible to all who desire to consult it in the files of the Congressional Record. All we ask is that the people be protected in the right to choose between the two articles. If the makers of oleomargarine can convince the public that their product is all they claim for it, we are willing that the people thus convinced should be enabled to purchase that article 12 cents per pound cheaper than can be done under the present law. Our charge is fraud in selling to the people an article they do not intend to buy at the price of what they desire to purchase. Because an article may be proven to be healthful is no reason why it should be permitted to be fraudulently substituted for another. Can the adulter- ation of pepper with corn meal be excused and defended upon the OLEOMARGARINE, 593 ground that corn meal is a healthful article of food? What would be said of the defense of a butcher who sold horse meat as beefsteak to his customer and set up the plea that the horse flesh was as * nutritious and healthful as beefsteak ?” CONGRESS OUR LAST RESORT. We have not appealed to Congress for aid along the line of discour- aging the sale of oleomargarine made in semblance of butter until the matter of accomplishing the same result through State legislation has been thoroughly tested and proven a failure. And this fact we believe to be our strongest argument in favor of Congressional action. The various States have tried all kinds of legislation. The attempt to control the actions of the retailer with a counterfeit article in his hands has been abandoned by practically every one of the leading States. To-day thirty-two States, with four-fifths (50,117,440) of the population, according to the census of 1890, have passed laws absolutely prohibiting the sale of oleomargarine made in imitation of butter. This issue has been fought out in the legislatures of these various States, and these measures have received the stamp of approval of their law-making bodies and the indorsement of their governors. The following compilation of the substance of the dairy laws of the United States was published by the Agricultural Department under the seal of Secretary Wilson a year ago, and copies of the laws in full may be had from the Secretary of Agriculture: ALABAMA—ANTICOLOR LAW, (Approved February 18, 1895.) No article which is in imitation of pure yellow butter, and is not made wholly from pure milk and cream, shall be manufactured, sold, or used in any public eating place, hospital, or penal institution, etc.; but oleomargarine, free from color or other ingredient to cause it to look like butter, and made in such manner as will advise the consumer of its real character, is permitted. It must be stamped with its name. ARIZONA. No dairy laws. ARKANSAS—MUST BE LABELED. (Approved April 2, 1885.) Substitutes for butter, whether in wholesale or retail packages, shall be plainly labeled ‘‘Adulterated butter,” ‘‘Oleomargarine,” or such other names as shall prop- erly describe them. In hotels, etc., dishes containing said articles must be plainly marked in same manner. CALIFORNIA—ANTICOLOR LAW. (Approved March 4, 1897.) Imitation butter and cheese is defined as any article not produced from pure milk or cream, salt, rennet, and harmless coloring matter, which is in semblance of butter or cheese and designed as a substitute for such. Shall not be colored to imitate butter or cheese, and must be in such form as will advise consumer of its real char- acter. Every package must be plainly marked ‘‘Substitute for butter” or ‘“‘Sub- stitute for cheese” and accompanied by a statement giving name of manufacturer, ingredients, etc., a copy of which must be given to each purchaser, with verbal notice, at the time of sale, in connection with which words like ‘‘creamery,” ‘‘ dairy,” etc., are prohibited. Patrons of eating places shall be notified if substitutes of butter or cheese are used. Prohibited in State charitable institutions. S. Rep. 2043——38 594 OLEOMARGARINE. COLORADO—ANTICOLOR LAW. (Approved April 1, 1895.) All articles not produced from pure milk or cream, in imitation of pure cheese or yellow butter, are prohibited; but oleomargarine and filled cheese are permitted if free from color or other ingredient to cause them to look like butter or cheese; they must be made in such form and sold in such manner as will advise the consumer of their real character. Cheese containing any foreign fats, oleaginous substances, rancid butter, etc., shall be branded ‘‘ Imitation cheese.” CONNECTICUT—ANTI-COLOR LAW. (Public Acts, 1895.) Imitation butter, defined as any article resembling butter in appearance and not made wholly, salt and coloring matter excepted, from cow’s milk, is prohibited; but oleomargarine or imitation butter, free from color or otker ingredient to cause it to look like butter, and made in such form and sold in such manner as will advise consumer of its real character, is permitted. Words like ‘‘ butter,” “dairy,” etc., shall not form a part of its name or appear on its package. Imitation butter shall be sold only in labeled packages, or registered places which display signs, and pur- chasers shall be informed orally of the character of the article at the time of sale. Use of imitation butter in public eating places, bakeries, etc., must be made known by signs. DELAWARE—ANTICOLOR LAW. (Passed May 8, 1895.) The manufacture or sale of any article not produced from unadulterated milk or cream, which is in imitation of pure yellow butter or designed to take the place of pure cheese, is prohibited; but oleomargarine is permitted if in a distinct form, free from butter color and sold in such manner as to show its real character; it shall be plainly marked ‘‘ Oleomargarine.” DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA—BRANDING LAW. (Approved March 2, 1895,) Substances in semblance of butter or cheese, not made exclusively of milk or cream, but with the addition of melted butter or any oil, shall be plainly branded on each package ‘‘Oleomargarine,” and a label, similarly printed, must accompany each retail sale. FLORIDA—MUST NOTIFY GUESTS, (Approved February 17, 1881.) The sale of any spurious preparation, purporting to be butter, is prohibited. Guests at hotels, etc., must be notified if oleomargarine or other spurious butter is used. GEORGIA—ANTICOLOR LAW. (Approved December 16, 1895.) Imitation butter and cheese are defined as any article not produced from pure milk or cream—salt, rennet, and coloring matter excepted—in semblance of butter or cheese and designed to be used as a substitute for either. Shall not be colored to resemble butter or cheese. Every package must be plainly marked “Substitute for butter” or ‘“‘Substitute for cheese,” and each sale shall be accompanied by verbal notice and by a printed statement that the article is an imitation, the statement giving also the name of the producer. The use of these imitations in eating places, bakeries, etc., must be made known by signs. IDAHO— BRANDING REQUIRED. (Approved January 27, 1885.) Brand required for sale of oleomargarine or butterine, imitation butter, or mixture imitating butter. These shall not be sold as butter. OLEOMARGARINE. 595 ILLINOIS—ANTICOLOR LAW, (Approved June 14, 1897.) Imitation butter is defined as any article not produced from pure milk or cream— salt, rennet, and coloring matter excepted—in semblance of butter and designed to be used as asubstitute forit. Shall not be colored to resemble butter. All packages must be plainly branded ‘‘Oleomargarine,” ‘‘ Butterine,” ‘Substitute for butter,” or “Tmitation butter.” Each sale shall be accompanied by notice to the purchaser that the substitute is imitation butter. INDIANA—LABEL LAW. Butter other than that made from pure milk, when sold or used in hotels, ete., must be plainly labeled ‘‘Oleomargarine.” IOWA—ANTICOLOR LAW. (Passed in 1893.) Imitation butter or cheese is defined as an article not produced from pure milk or cream—salt, rennet, and coloring matter excepted—in semblance of butter or cheese and designed to be sold as a substitute for either of them. Shall not be colored to resemble butter or cheese. Every package shall be plainly marked “ Substitute for butter” or ‘‘Substitute for cheese,” and each sale shall be accompanied by a verbal notice and a printed statement that the article is an imitation, the statement giving also the address of the maker. The use of these imitations in hotels, bakeries, etc., must be made known by signs. KANSAS. No law. KENTUCKY—ANTICOLOR LAW. (Act of 1898.) Oleomargarine, butterine, or kindred compound, made in such form and sold in such manner as will advise the customer of its real character, and free from color or other ingredient to cause it to look like butter, is permitted. LOUISIANA—LABEL LAW. (Approved July 6, 1888.) Such substances as oleomargarine, butterine, bogus butter, etc., shall be plainly labeled to indicate their composition. They shall not be sold as butter. MAINE—ANTICOLOR LAW. (Approved March 27, 1895.) Any article in imitation of yellow butter or cheese and not made exclusively of milk or cream is prohibited. MARYLAND—ANTICOLOR LAW. (Passed in 1888.) The manufacture, sale, or use in public eating places of any article in imitation of and designed to take the place of pure butter or cheese, and not made wholly from milk or cream, is prohibited. Mixtures of any animal fats or animal or vegetable oils with milk, cream, or butter shall be uncolored, and marked with names and percentages of adulterants, and this information shall be given to purchasers. MASSACHUSETTS—ANTICOLOR LAW. (Approved June11, 1891.) An article made wholly or partly out of any fat or oil, ete., not from pure cream, and which is in imitation of yellow butter, is prohibited; but oleomargarine, free from color or other ingredient to cause it to look like butter, and made in such form and sold in such manner as will advise the consumer of its real character, is 596 OLEOMARGARINE. permitted. Itshall not be sold as butter, nor shall words like “dairy,” ‘‘creamery,” etc., or the name of any breed of dairy cattle, be used in connection with it. All packages exposed for sale must be plainly marked ‘‘ Oleomargarine,” and labels similarly marked must accompany retail sales. Stores where it is sold and wagons used for delivery must display signs, and hotels, etc., using it must notify guests. Persons selling oleomargarine must be registered and conveyors licensed. MICHIGAN—ANTICOLOR LAW. (Approved April 15, 1897.) Any article not made wholly from milk or cream, and containing melted butter, fats, or oils not produced from milk, and which is in imitation of pure butter, is prohibited; but oleomargarine, free from color or any ingredient to cause it to look like butter, and made in such form and sold in such manner as will advise the con- sumer of its real character is permitted; its sale as butter is prohibited; signs must be displayed where it is sold or used, and its original packages must be plainly marked ‘‘ Oleomargarine” if the article contains suet or tallow, or ‘‘Butterine” if it contains lard; retail sales shall be made from a package so marked, and a label similarly printed and bearing the name of the manufacturer shall be delivered with each sale; shall not be used in any public institution. (N. B.—The above law was invalidated in 1897 by the supreme court because of the fact that the enacting clause was omitted when it passed the senate. ) MINNESOTA—ANTICOLOR LAW. (Approved 1899.) This law prohibits the sale of oleomargarine made in imitation of butter, and took the place of the pink law of 1891. MISSISSIPPI—LABEL LAW. (Approved March 9, 1882.) Packages of oleomargarine or similarly manufactured butters shall be plainly labeled with the correct name of their contents, and the product shall be sold by that name. A privilege tax of $5 is imposed upon persons selling the articles named. MISSOURI—ANTICOLOR LAW, (Approved April 19, 1895.) Imitation butter is defined as every article not produced wholly from pure milk or cream, made in semblance of and designed to be used as a substitute for pure butter; it shall not be sold as butter; shall not be colored to resemble butter unless it is to be sold outside the State; original packages shall be plainly stamped ‘‘Sub- stitute for butter;’* in hotels, etc., vessels in which it is served must be marked “‘Oleomargarine ” or ‘‘ Impure butter.” MONTANA—TAXED 10 CENTS A POUND. (Penal code of 1895.) Any article insemblance of butter or cheese, and not made wholly from milk or cream must be plainly labeled ‘‘ Oleomargarine” or ‘‘ Imitation cheese,” and a printed label bearing the same word or words must be delivered to the purchaser with retail sales. Places where these articles are sold or used must display signs, and informa- tion as to their character be given if requested. Dealers must pay a license of 10 cents a pound on each pound sold. NEVADA—BRANDING LAW. (Approved Feb. 14, 1881.) Any article in semblance of butter but not made exclusively of milk or cream, or containing melted butter, shal) be in packages plainly marked ‘‘Oleomargarine.” NEBRASKA—ANTICOLOR LAW. (Approved March 16, 1895. ) Imitation butter and cheese are defined as any article made in semblance of and designed to be used asa substitute for pure butter or cheese and not produced OLEOMARGARINE. 597 wholly from pure milk or cream, salt, rennet, and harmless coloring matter. These articles, including any having melted butter added to them, shall not be eolored to resemble butter or cheese; shall be plainly marked “Imitation butter,” or ‘‘ Imita- tion cheese;” verbal and printed information of the character of the articles, and address of the maker, shall be given at time of sale; signs shall be displayed in public eating places where used. NEW HAMPSHIRE—ANTICOLOR LAW. (Approved March 29, 1895.) Any article not made wholly from unadulterated milk or cream, which is in imita- tion of pure yellow butter or cheese, is prohibited, unless in packages plainly marked “Adulterated butter,” ‘‘Oleomargarine,” or ‘‘Imitation cheese.” A label printed with the words on the original package shall be delivered with each retail sale. Oleomargarine, free from color or ingredient to cause it to look like butter, and made in such form and sold in such manner as will advise the consumer of its real charac- ter,is permitted. Notice of the use of substitutes for butter in hotels, etc., shall be given to patrons. NEW JERSEY—ANTICOLOR LAW. (Approved March 22, 1886.) Any article made wholly or partly out of any fat, oil, etc., not from pure milk or cream, artificially colored in imitation of pure yellow butter, is prohibited; but oleomargarine and imitation cheese are permitted, if free from artificial color and in original package, encircled by a wide black band bearing the name of the maker and having the name of the contents plainly branded on them with a hot iron. Retail sales shall be accompanied by a printed card on which the name of the sub- stance and the address of the maker are plainly printed, and the customer shall be orally informed of the character of the article at the time of sale. NEW MEXICO. No law. NEW YORK—ANTICOLOR LAW. (Approved April 10, 1893.) The terms oleomargarine, butterine, imitation butter, or imitation cheese mean any article in the semblance of butter or cheese not the usual product of the dairy and not made exclusively from unadulterated milk, or having any oil, lard, melted butter, etc.,asacomponent part. Imitation butter.—The manufacture of oleomarga- rine or any article in imitation of butter wholly or partly from fats or oils not pro- duced from milk, or the sale or the use in hotels, ete., of such articles, is prohibited. No article intended as an imitation of butter and containing oils, fats, etc., not from milk, or melted butter in any condition, shall be colored yellow. NORTH CAROLINA—LABOR LAW. (Ratified February 28, 1895.) Oleomargarine and butterine are defined as articles manufactured in imitation of butter, and which are composed of no ingredient oringredients in combination with butter. Original packages shall be labeled with chemical ingredients and their proportions. NORTH DAKOTA—ANTICOLOR LAW. (Laws of 1899.) : Law prohibits manufacture and sale of oleomargarine colored in semblance ot utter. OHIO—ANTICOLOR LAW. (Approved May 16, 1894.) Oleomargarine is defined as any substance not pure butter of not less than 80 per cent butter fat and made for use as butter. It is permitted if free from coloring mat- ter or other ingredient to cause it to look like butter, and made in such form and sold in such manner as will advise the consumer of its real character. 598 OLEOMARGARINE, OKLAHOMA. No laws. OREGON—ANTICOLOR LAW. (Filed February 21, 1899.) Forbids the manufacture and sale of oleomargarine colored in semblance of butter. PENNSYLVANIA—ANTICOLOR LAW. (Passed in 1899.) Prohibits manufacture and sale of oleomargarine made in semblance of butter. RHODE ISLAND—BRANDING LAW. (Laws of 1882.) Any article not made wholly from milk or cream, but containing any melted butter or animal oil or fat not the product of milk, shall be plainly marked ‘Oleomarga- rine,” and a label similarly printed shall be delivered with all retail sales. SOUTH CAROLINA—-ANTICOLOR LAW. (Approved March 9, 1896.) Imitation butter and cheese are defined as every article not produced from pure milk or cream, with or without salt, rennet, and harmless coloring matter, which is in semblance of, and designed to be used, as a substitute for butter or cheese; they shall not be colored to resemble butter or cheese; original packages shall be marked “Substitute for butter,” or “Substitute for cheese;” shall not be sold as genuine butter or cheese, nor used in hotels, etc., unless signs are displayed. SOUTH DAKOTA—ANTICOLOR LAW. (Laws of 1897.) Any article not made wholly from pure milk or cream, and in imitation of pure butter, is prohibited; but oleomargarine, colored pink and made in such form and sold in such manner as will advise the consumer of its real character, is permitted ; notice of its use in public eating places must be given. TENNESSEE—ANTICOLOR LAW. 2(Act of 1895.) Any article which is in imitation of yellow butter and not made exclusively from pure milk or cream is prohibited; but oleomargarine, free from color or other ingredient to cause it to look like butter, and made in such form and sold in such manner as will advise the consumer of its true character, and other imitations if uncolored and labeled with their correct names are permitted; wholesale packages shall be plainly labeled and a label shall accompany retail sales. TEXAS. No law. UTAH—ANTICOLOR LAW. (Approved March 8, 1894.) Any article in semblance of butter or cheese, and not made wholly from milk or cream, shall be plainly marked ‘‘ Oleomargarine butter,” or ‘‘ Imitation cheese,” and retail sales shall be made from packages so marked. Such articles shall not be col- ored to resemble butter or cheese. VERMONT—PINK LAW. (Laws of 1884.) The manufacture of any article in imitation of butter or cheese which contains any animal fat, or animal or vegetable oils or acids not produced from pure milk or cream, is prohibited. Imitation butter.—Imitation butter for use in public eating places, or for sale, shall be colored pink. OLEOMARGARINE. 599 VIRGINIA—ANTICOLOR LAW. (Approved January 29, 1898.) The manufacture or sale of any article made wholly or partly from any fat or oil not produced from unadulterated milk or cream, which is in imitation of pure yellow butter, is prohibited; but oleomargarine, butterine, or kindred compound, made in such form and sold in such manner as will advise the consumer of its real character, and free from color or other ingredient to cause it to look like butter, is permitted. Signs, with the words ‘‘Imitation butter used here,” shall be displayed in eating places, bakeries, etc., where the articles above named are used. WASHINGTON—ANTICOLOR LAW. (Approved March 11, 1895.) No article which is in imitation of pure yellow butter and is not made wholly from pure milk or cream, with or without harmless coloring matter, shall be manu- factured, sold, or used in any public eating house or eleemosynary or penal institu- tion, etc., but oleomargarine, free from color or other ingredient to make it look like butter, and made in such form and sold in such manner as will advise the consumer of its real character, is permitted. WEST VIRGINIA—PINK LAW. (Approved February 16, 1891.) Any substance in semblance of butter or cheese, and not made wholly from impure milk or cream, and packages containing such substances, shall be plainly marked; printed statements explaining the character of the substance must be given to ‘onsumers. Oleomargarine.—Oleomargarine and artificial and adulterated butter shall be colored pink. WISCONSIN—ANTICOLOR LAW. (Laws of 1895.) Any article made partly or wholly out of any fat or oil, etc., not from pure milk or cream, and in imitation of yellow butter, is prohibited; but oleomargarine, free from color or other ingredient to make it look like butter, and made in such form and sold in such manner as will advise the consumer of its real character, is permit- ted. It shall not be sold as butter. All packages exposed for sale must be plainly marked “‘Oleomargarine.” Signs must be displayed in selling places and on wagons, Hotels, etc., using it must notify guests. Use not permitted in charitable or penal institutions. WYOMING. No dairy laws. STATES WITH ANTICOLOR LAWS. The population of the States which have passed laws forbidding the sale of oleomargarine colored in semblance of butter, as shown by the census of 1890, is as follows: Population. Population. Nowe VOrkKt-.2t -Seacdoeeciee 5, $97, 853 | South Carolina.............. 1, 151, 149 Bennsylvania, «65%. <36)-scc 57228014) Nebraskan conc Soe eee alee eee 3, 672, 316 | West Virginia ...........--. 762, 794 MISSOURI shee eee 2,619, 184)| Connecticut .5..53.2-.- 225. 746, 253 Massachusetts ..-.-......... Zon OtS) | a MaMEI. 4s sese es oceese Lace 661, 086 MCHA AM. jot ek pase iene 3 25093; 689s) Colorad Os s2-5> a1 ards <\< 12 412, 198 WOW os cool asin ts asin seen 1,911,896 | New Hampshire..........-.. 376, 530 HEnone yam ere et ces sees 1,858, Goo | Washington -....--.......-. 349, 390 MEMENe ess cepa: cee Seek ML Soiode" | Oreron lao. t ek SUS. Soo ee. 2 313, 767 enniessees 125. f= crs 24g: sie ee L6G 151 Se) Vermont 233 A922 52 2.22225 35 332, 442 DNS COHSIM o8cte se Ho ccersc mica 1, 686, 880 | South Dakota. ...........--- 328, 808 “YONG Ton eee ae eee eee es (Satay Bho 0) || UTI eS ee oe 207, 905 GNI DDI ashes ede Seppe agi Polonia North Dakotae.-.-.:-.--:-:- 182, 711 NewRdGESGysne lo 2224). 20 L AA SSD GlaWALO seca. 222s. OSS Eee 168, 493 Minmesotal is -o(- 2-5 |---|: 2)5- 1, 301, 826 | —— MEERA oro) on 3/5 -5 2 a - 2 1, 208, 130 MOU foes coca ce cata 50, 117, 440 600 OLEOMARGARINE. The States and Territories which have not passed laws forbidding the sale of oleomargarine colored in semblance of butter are: Population. Population. MMOXAS ne tae cicieniswwaicaaseciatecic 2,235,523 | New Mexico. ...-...---.. ---6 153, 593 1h ay Wey ae ee ag enero a eben 27192) 404") Montana se onc anaes sesso 132, 156 Worth Carolina. essaseee cess 1617, G47 Gah fase ce eee seers 84, 385 IKGMSaS oe = core cess oe Stee 1.427.096) (Oklahoma. - en cee =e eee 61, 834 IMISSIBSID Pleats. seal eees 1 289) NhOO? || WW VOMITING) es eee a eee 60, 705 ATkansastarconsnccececisceses L238; 9) | CAvIZOna sass ascot eee 59, 620 oOuisianarsessecaoe eescio sees LIS OS NOV AC Biva 5s suse a eee eee 45, 761 Bilorid apace c.ccuie sean ceca seer 321, 422 ee Rhodevislandes sss. ese. s.ce 345, 506 otal |=... aiceccisseseeeee 12, 604, 790 District of Columbia --.-...-- 230, 392 MAKE NO PRETENSE OF OBEYING STATE LAWS. “Why.” you will ask, “if you have State laws in these States do you need national legislation ?” As far back as 1886, when this matter first came before Congress, the States had learned of the impossibility of controlling this traffic through State laws. The article oleomargarine when made in semblance of but- ter is an absolute counterfeit. The dealer himself could not distinguish one from the other should they lose their labels. The retailer carries the butter and oleomargarine in the same refrigerator. When butter is called for by a customer whom he knows is not likely to be an inspec- tor, he can with little fear of detection take the order from the oleo- margarine tub instead of the butter tub. Maybe the strange or uncertain customer will receive pure butter, if he desires to take no chances, but upon those of whom he feels certain are not detectives he can practice deception day in and day out with little chance of detec- tion, and in case of detection it is a very easy matter to plead uninten- tional mistake, and thus at least allay the wrath of the customer, who has no desire to appear from time to time in court in order to punish the dealer for an offense which alone seems insignificant. Then, aside from this condition, the former laws gave no protection to the guest of the hotel, restaurant, or boarding house, who asks and pays for pure butter and is given a counterfeit. It was such a condition which provoked the States to an absolute prohibition of the traffic in colored oleomargarine. This was not done until every effort had been made to enforce the branding Jaws, and until it was demonstrated that the Internal Revenue Department was giving no attention to that clause in the national law requiring the retailer to brand every package of oleomargarine plainly. For a few years these laws forbidding the coloring of oleomargarine in semblance of butter were effective. However, they demonstrated to to the oleomargarine makers one fact, which the majority probably knew before: The success of the oleomargarine business had rested wholly upon the ability of the seller to sell at least a portion of the goods he handled as butter at butter prices, and upon the success of the hotel and restaurant keepers to make their patrons believe they were consuming butter. If they were not allowed to color their grease in such imitation, and its identity was made known through such lack of color, the opportunity for deception and large profits were entirely wiped out. The man who really desired oleomargarine insisted upon buying it upon the basis of values of tallow, lard, and cotton-seed oil instead of paying butter prices. This would result in a business with OLEOMARGARINE. 601 only moderate profits, with an opportunity for broad competition, which seemed small compared with former profits and prices. The outcome has been a new policy upon the part of the makers of oleomargarine. No place in the country, so far as we are able to ascer- tain, are they making an effort to create a market for their goods under its own true color and in accordance with State laws. In Illinois two years ago, when the anticolor law was first passed and some retail dealers made an effort to sell the uncolored article in compliance with the law, they were discouraged by an extra charge of 2 cents per pound for oleomargarine without coloring in it. It was at this time that the firm of Armour & Co., of Chicago, through the decision of Philip D. Armour, retired from this business entirely and has not since handled a pound of oleomargarine, Mr. Armour giving it out that he was a law-abiding citizen and would not countenance the violation of the laws of his own State. The remaining manufacturers, however, throughout the country, entirely abandoned any pretense of obeying State laws. They adopted the policy of going to the retail dealers and urging them to violate the laws of their State. They provide for a defense fund, and whenever prosecutions are made those prosecuted are defended by the best of legal talent, attorneys who have made a study of the question of harassing the State and securing continuances or dismissals through legal technicalities. The ordinary State’s attorney can not cope with these experienced practitioners upon this subject, as a rule, and never is money spared to make the prosecution as expensive to the State and as disagreeable to those connected therewith as possible. Therefore, in attempting to enforce its laws the State is not dealing with the retailer, who, if unsupported, would remain a law-abiding citizen. Upon the other hand, every time an arrest is made the fight is taken up by the entire oleomargarine industry, with its millions of money and enormous influence among a certain class of politicians who at times manage to reach the sacred ear of the judge who presides in the case. The prosecution of such offenders requires the very highest grade of talent, and their conviction experience and a statute which will stand the onslaught of the most resourceful lawyers. A law may have answered for years in regulating other evils, but when contested by such ability as is employed by the oleomargarine millions, might be picked to pieces and rendered absolutely worthless through the manip- ulations and researches of the experienced tricksters. No technical- ity is too small for them to take advantage of and make the prosecu- tion the expense of a test case in the Supreme Court. However, the actual condition of the oleomargarine traffic as it exists to-day is probably the best indication of the inability of the States to enforce their Jaws against this subject. The oleomargarine makers contend that the people will not eat their product unless it has the color of butter. They will not admit that it is possible to sell any quantity uncolored. Therefore it is entirely safe to assume that the oleomargarine made during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1899, was made in semblance of butter almost to a pound. The statement of Secretary Gage in response to Congressman Tawney’s resolution showed where the product of this year had been consumed. The table below exhibits the number of pounds sold in each State as shown by Secretary Gage’s report, the compiler hereof having divided the list into two classes; first, showing the amount sold in States EY? OLEOMARGARINE. where the sale of oleomargarine made in semblance of butter is abso- lutely prohibited, and, second, the States in which it was legal to sell such oleomargarine: Yellow oleomargarine sold contrary to law in 1899. Number | Quantity Number | Quantity of dealers. sold. of dealers. sold. Pounds. Pounds. Aap ania. sae 4a <\Sece cise ccicis 21 226, 053 ||| NIG Wa MOLKs o.cmaete= seme 14 222, 788 @aliforniaeisas ce as cue. cose|=saerenes ce 74,923 || North Dakota............ 18 7, 710 Colorado sar sssasaceen ts aie) a PRRs Alls On Gy 3B Ss cesec Oneaace cee: 1, 005 8, 830, 969 Connecheute. =<. s-seees= 6 5 1345255) || (Oregon: -oasccesactepe cscs 3 : Delaware sk. so. sos cass 48 40,475 || Pennsylvania .......-.-.- 717 | 11,433,341 Georsiantscssecen ce: eee 61 495, 004 || South Carolina........... 24 258, 159 1 ODNTS TR Ae SaaS Sbasoevees 2,020 | 18, 638, 921 || South Dakota............ 4 55, 432 TOW ars PtEL OS ecko eco 3 79,922 || Tennessee...........----- 83 714, 640 Keontuckyjccceseceeee se sace 217°) 1,490,577 | Utah. cco c cece natin --mc-|aancectoeeee 8, 450 IMBbING cs. Sans cieceseesceneee 17 102,274 5!) Vermont)...2.coecces< looe 109 | 2,092,521 TOtal cceccsen- sees aes | 1,501 | 16,8060, 142 Thus it will be seen that 62,825,582 of the total of 79,685,724 pounds reported shipped into the various States were sold in violation of the laws of the various States. There were but 16,860,142 pounds sold legally, and a very large percentage of that was unquestionably sold as butter. We feel, therefore, that in setting forth the above facts and condi- tions we are basing our appeal upon evidence which is unimpeachable. The record of the existence of these anticolor laws for years in the various States without a single repeal or demand for repeal by the actual consumer is evidence that the people are not anxious for oleo- margarine colored in semblance of butter. The expansion of the traffic the past two years has not been the result of the demand of the people for oleomargarine, but is the result of the greed for profit which has induced retailers by the thousands to risk prosecution, with a guar- anty of protection, in order to secure the large profits in the sale of oleomargarine for butter. Is it right, therefore, that the will of four-fifths of our people, as reflected by their legislatures, should be defied by a few manufac- turers of an outlawed article? When an expression of four-fifths of our people favors this policy of discouraging the manufacture of colored OLEOMARGARINE. 603 oleomargarine, and no protests come from the actual consumers among the remaining one-fifth, should Congress hesitate to accept it as prae- tically the unanimous wish of the people that everything possible be done to discourage this fraud by whatever means in its power? Possibly the most comprehensive way in which to get at the merits of our case is to answer the objections to the imposition of a ten-cent internal-revenue tax upon oleomargarine colored to resemble butter, as urged by Swift & Co., of Chicago, one of the leading manufac- turers of that article, who are now doing business in the State of Illinois in contravention and defiance of a State law passed with a two- thirds majority by the Illinois legislature in 1897. Swift & Co. say, in a letter mailed every member of Congress under date of January 27, 1900: THE MAGNITUDE OF THE INDUSTRY. “Virst. Oleomargarine has been manufactured in this country for about twenty-five years, and in its manufacture there is now invested more than $15,000,000, furnishing employment to many thousand men. The wholesale and retail sale and delivery of oleomargarine furnish employment to 25,000 men. There is probably $15,000,000 to $20,000,000 invested in the wholesale and retail trade, separate and apart from the manufacture of the article.” Here, as well as in every other effort to influence Congress by hold- ing up to public gaze the “‘enormous proportions” of the oleomarga- rine industry, Swift & Co. have evidently included in what they term the ‘‘manufacture of oleomargarine” the neutral lard and oleo-oil industry, which will be treated thoroughly under the department devoted to the effect of the Grout bill upon the live-stock interests. It is a well-known fact that Messrs. Braun & Fitts and William J. Moxley, of Chicago, produce almost if not quite one-third of all the oleomargarine manufactured in the United States. The combined extreme rating of these firms by Dun is $400,000. While we do not doubt that their resources, from profits earned during the past few years, is greatly in excess of this amount, anybody who is acquainted with their establishments can readily realize that the rating, so far as money actually invested is concerned,is amply liberal. If it took aninvestment of $400,000 to produce one-third of the oleomargarine made in this country—not the oleo oil and neutral lard—then their estimate of $15,000,000 as the amount invested in the oleomargarine manufacturing business is more than twelve times too high. SOME ABSURD FIGURES. Just contemplate, if you please, the statement of Swift & Co. that “there is now more than $15,000,000” invested in the manufacture of oleomargarine, “employing many thousand people.” And “the wholesale and retail sale and delivery of oleomargarine furnish employment to 20,000 men.” Also that ‘there is probably $15,000,000 to $20,000,000 invested in the wholesale and retail trade separate and apart from the manufacture of the article.” If this is true, let us sum up the total cost of handling this product of 83,000 pounds made in 1898-99, according to the statement of Swift & Co. as to the number of people employed outside of those in the 604 OLEOMARGARINE. factories, and the interest upon the capital which they claim to be in- vested: Six per cent on $20,000,000 claimed to be invested by wholesale and retail e@alerg) si sw 2.622012 he see aes eS y etcetera dc) See $1, 200, 000 Six per cent upon the $15,000,000 capital employed in manufacturing, as claimed: by.S wilt 8&1CO. 2.6 .6cssnh sence eeeees eee ee ee ee 900, 000 Wages of 25,000 persons engaged in the handling of oleomargarine, at $io0\per year each Oo. sso ose. Saccciicscelne pecteb eo maee teh cee emeeee 18, 750, 000 Total cost of one year’s business of handling oleomargarine, out- side of wages of factory employees and cost of materials....... 20, 850, 000 Add to this claimed expense the actual expense of manufacture of probably 2 cents per pound, $1,660,000; the present 2-cent tax, aggre- gating $1,660,000 more, and the average cost of materials, probably 8 cents per pound, and we have a total cost of 83,000,000 pounds of oleo- margarine, according to Swift & Co., as follows: Interest on capital, cost of handling, as shown in foregoing table...... $20, 850, 000 Costrok nranufacturing . 23-2 t/o2j\o- 2) ste ce. Jeaces cess ~skleccece seseceeeeee 1, 660, 000 Cost iot 22cent taxy 2. teeisae eo dajectie secms> Sita const oeye > seca sos oeeenenee 1, 660, 600 Costioi raw, material, at 8 cents per pound 22-2. se2 eee eee 508 ECAR Eee tee aoe sae wee oo te See aoe (oe ots 2 165, 263 Wihhttecused ar elmoniGO7s 20 2 oes, - ac epeuecreeeiayeen saci ee 573 Oy reals OL ea rape nis erm re Sie ee ae te ge 540 1PIHVOSe Qi Sa ae eae soe tae see ase 68, 80, Gace 177, 215, 252, 331, 481, 548 fapaeutOn | CleaMCry «=~ a5 a <= aes nm = os VE GS Oleo’s competition with higher grades OS eR cys reais Se eee 38 Quality compared with twelve years!ago.. 2...) ---- 22 SS ee 167 aules) wat they Comprise 2 Wa. es ok eee AE ae hg Cet ee 165 TAO UIGL DULCE LOM aa rs oe eee ain cn See ame ne DAR eis hee oe eee Ae ee 551 Accustomed tioveating, yellow: ape. 62 eee e ae eee Ash domes AES 309 IRECEND ISA NG WaNlO Gk ee ey ee pee esse Se ae hee ete ee a a te 50, 339, 481 CosigtoumNespPeo merc sc. ees sarees See ae 2G bein en Lae 2 65 id ETAGS A eI NG LUCAS Sere eo Sea See ees eke aes ene APE er. ee la 51 (SUSE ESTO LVDS 0 UR a le Se en ene ODES Sn ERE CIAe el ger SE Liar eed 513 Demoralizedsmanrkest tor yamdu Case. ss eee ee Se See es eee 550 Wincolonedsnotisalablevan yom OLes.-e ic: c.-.h cece Coe ee Se eee 457 Sale, how damaged by oleomargarine ......-.......----..---.- Mi pl whoa 538 Gieiauigretin@ Cnr eee cece ats UO a, TS a) seta vhs eens 36 ne MEAT PLICe Os ACtICle NIMC @ - <5 ~=.c sceme cone Sie en ee Se 235 DOGO ITC S SSE en ae ee ee oS Seana enter ite 514, 524, 538 Process by which made not questioned by workingmen -........---.---- 319 Siandard oreniladelphiamarket......--oss0sesene -- = PL ee 528 Rig SRrE An S Will MCOMCOWE aan oS nc = de eines eeerinn coche aoe Ses 515 Pitect of sale Ob Oleomarcarine ON. ...--..-2 0222244 --- 555+ 4 ee Se 522 Bo woiade and smipped On Tari... 22 oan cieicie iss roe I Se 165 Hoaeiinesan connbry for making -2- =.-\-.ccso- oo oases no ees AE secarsee 379 Witttepar omortrcenis fOr. .o.2..2.22 1.5908 Se Nee Se eee 507 AS GRERET BL eee he os! SS ot cls a AS Soe Ee ee: Ve ee 174 @aneeatacvance ta. 1890 <2 52 ocak sana dens and ots Ae See 482 J ETT ATM se ae eee fee een ele NRA bs cba Ree ey ERE ae bepsrsia 8 Sine ae 186 PERE ueehy STLCEWUS Voorn 179 PU sai ce Fa ts LM yee ye opera rece eat av er cate onc tee ty ear ee ee ee 216, 269 Prices of colored and uncolored pect PAS UES BG Rh es ees. Se 192 Besta vidi arcing. Sut oe eae eH G) eee Bets ae ee eee 270 Prices ANG SUD DL Ole .oacc. ono wa doses poten cSt ae Se oe See 307 Winat milk brings for manufacturing )./.2. 222.2 Leo. ee es. ae 229 EI WESRI IAA O 2 oe 8 hers to ha a Aas 3 es Ca ee 265 PRUE ENGR oe siiey oon. oI cs DE 2 ee eee ern 228 LSSDiNS, die. Jo pa eee reeset teers yaa rear cna nee ee 176 SURE aS CaE PR CHUN eo ohne oe ecictere wat Ld SO ye he ee 175 site IER woh we AE ay vps Sm eee OAS oe A Rs a 269 TVG ECU Ge Aa ae en ee Ee En MRRP y E11 168 Butter—color in: MPM Tere sy en oo oe a Cee cee a = == SUS, Aa 263 emireMmelin Or VATIOUS markets... ~.5-.05—. 8200S 2s es S2etk or LS 263 Pye eRe TAO UO USC 2. Sn ate ee a eo tah Bes 379 By Pecemper DAter 3-55 ~-.- ees ee eeeeee 2 ck ebiee 2 > SOE 188 PSE RAIN 30 i bee Seopa Soi Se sakes etl eee 228 IB TneEMe Vel aWiInite Rice eee sas eee cen eeeee conc oo sae eecee se oee - Aen Butter naturally two-thirds normal color --......-..--------------- . 825 NEE MISIEDLER 38: COLOR GMs se acine ae eee eo oi ano ont asasaceuaseatelis 525 884 INDEX. Butter—color in—Continued. Page. Where deceptionin 2s. ws ibececu. docawee Dee eee 524 Atidifferent SeasOns: A 22 emcees See Se ee ee 527 Wihite-butter in England and Brance2252255- 42.0 2.- ees 529 Littlean thaticonsumed! onl fam se sass ee ee 530 Deeelves nobody. 2522/5 5.- 2.2828 2S ac ok a ee ee 419 Colorofibutter2 2250. 22.02 2s ae coe oe ee eee eee eee eee 335 Why color butter... 2: J: 520.250. 2222 se ys toe ek 127 Foodvetfectsion: butter 2e9. 4-4 62 tt. ae sees mca Neh eee ee eee 22 Always was colored] os! o025%2. Mees eee tetas Cee ee eee 34 Butter’s trade-mark, >< 225 255.e he se sede oo ee eee ee a 33 Winter buttermas sa. fs asac sce cores conlen ouen oe oot eee eee 11 Wihy notselliwhiten. 2.35 1. kekiots 2: bess odes eee ee 248 Seventy-five per.cent natural......2---2-- /-2---cee-sbes- eos 480 Amount ime l/000%000 pounds lbutter=22s2e= sess 52 224s = eee 479 Different in it | Mi Tonner e ito... 540 Butter, renovated: Hromiwhat made) .-c2..-5520cccesece cc bees ore eee ee 489 Quantity. compared-with total product ...... 22... .22-222222-52 5 eee 536 Chemists can not distinguish....-.......--.--- 2 sedeile So 538 Why anticolor laws. will not apply... ......-.--.----.-- = 222 eee 537 Where madden... 2c:22c5 oss Se ee ee 537 Patents: on process) -< <2... 2o050- MESA SE Se a Ee See 534 Conditionvot raw materials.<2) 22.4252 2522-22 e- See eee eee eee 534 Wee ofaci@ tine 2 22 ese oo se Sash ees eee eel eee er 267 No acids used. byimakers -\.......2:....2.2=--< 22 24s Aaa ee 534 Process of manutactute's .- 52.cs.cseccecee- ooh es-- ce eo eee eee 534 Internal Revenue Department should investigate .........---.---------- 390 ProcessesifOts cc ccescese Sosee aoe Ue oeeeteee ee eee ee 387 House bill called attention to ......--- poate dues Sows cee. ee 40 COStOE <2 oh iene eee? See lke ca we Re a a 39 General: discussion Of 1.2.3..2.j220 288 ae ee ote. SE a eee 22, 29 Secretary : Wilson) 0n..2.2... 2+ -njon enn Sod be tee Meese EL Dee eee 422 Charge makers of, are back of Grout bill .........-..-.----------------- Wihatiisiitmes.cc.s okies 2 sheik aemet i oe aac ee ee 109 Wihtatimade oft 2222. ee2e hence cietcce nhs tee eee eee 226 Major Alvord’s letter oms../2ses¢ 4iL ieelterss) Le eee 338 Put in,oval packages ..5..5.222 32-222 onsen Sh ee 486 Reference t0\. 2-22 - 2222-2522 -5:- +222. -5 eee 407 Reprisals:threatened 22.552 -2 i. os .'s2o%- 5-252 26 = 055 a5 eee ee 505 Oleomargarine question discussed by -~-:---:--c=:2:.< #20" --e eee 351 arene to perpetuate employment of men making oleomargarine-.-.--.-.- 351 ands: Appreciation invwalue Of 2.2.2. - 025222526 sean ese eee ee Soe eee 228 Letters—from— Holland Butterine Company; Pittsburg;.Pa..<. 2.2 < s2:. sss23s0s5esen eee 199 Grosvenor, E. O., food commissioner, Michigan ..............----------- 447 Blackburn. JicBhy i a25 225 at SR os oss aatins ee oa eee ee ee ee 354 Cincinnati, telling of sale of oleomargarine as butter ..-....-.--------- 174-476 Braun & Fitts, guaranteeing protection against State laws ...-....------- 466 Wm. J. Moxley, guaranteeing protection in case of prosecution -.-.-..-.-.-- 465 Forgerysclarmedis sae = 5255 See Soe see ares arses ae i 82 Hugh V. Murray, warning dealers not to sell oleomargarine as butter... 465 Cotton Growers Protective Association of Georgida. 22202285 bteceasneee 487 Oleomargarine— Price Of Se Se a ee ee ats eco cul oye etc Sie epee rs Nea Bene 21, 184, 311 If'sold in icomplianceswith State laws...) 22. - «ps4 eee 415 Consumption in /Pnplandys2eee so. <6 acc ee ee eee 383 Can’ t pay, 10-centfaxse eee ee a = oan) ee a 38, 47 No objection to legislation for identification of......-..----------------- 382 Branding of22 3 sc Seen bnixo =e 2 aa eee See ee OG Don’t. rob-it.of one ofitegirst qualities J.2: 2052 See oe eee 391 Dealers; in Chicago distri¢ts 2.2 fo. » aa ¢ecccnee eer Bee epee a ae INDEX. Oleomargarine—Continued. DUICEMISApOUNd #2 et eaase eee a Be eee ys a eae Retailkdealersin! United States a2: 5 abe eee ee ee i ELOPORROD OL UNCOlOTEG =e 22-25 2u)~. 5 loc yo re Ss SR ee ee ieipels usedon;. in New Jemey 222. 2.25.28 2. 26 Fee su: 4s eee BpEpOnin Glee occ ce san. Soe eas. Cee 5 Beh eee PSHE MnO MALIN CL: << cian ek ssco = sake reese cg ack ai +a le enmet ogee ee ee Natural color of .-----.------------------+-----------+ seee2 eee reece ee 888 INDEX, Oleomargarine—Continued. Page Ttas: buttersisoccdeGsosors asses sssde soe Mnaes Se eee eee 261 Ashamed to buy it under its own name... 2 i622. See 446 Protitsin:manufacture of 28 sos See oa as ee Oe eee 442 Proof: that.it. can. besold uncolored ...2...2/.22 3 ee 433 Government’s'stamp ‘of approvall'..2222. 2s. ose eee 346 Notiin imitation of butters2..22 2222 os Se eee 401 Can't stop: traffic im colored 2.22.2.-2- 3s Ee 407 Is white oleo good enough for the workingman?................-------- 307 Why. disreputable to buy it s..2.2c.ssse os rn ots J eee 309 Pride of the poorss-220 2.000 eee eee 309 Average buyer of butier doesn’t want oleo ....-..--------------+-22---2- 225 People know what they are buying. .........U2/ 22. 2 ee 308 Howisold JiaeJ23s2. od too eee ee eo eee eee 292 Are hotel and restaurant patrons notified?...........2:222:1-2/7 2 28 297 Retail.dealers.in Ohio o..coseusceccesn ee ee eee 297 The combine of makers 0.52.s-ceees eee ee ee ee ee 82 Amount.consumed in each State.....c-.225-24.. Re aS eee 90 Where colored:article is:prohbibited . 5: 9.22.24 Dee eee 89 Whom it benefits 022.0. Sse ose se ee eS 183 Per capita consumption in United States ....-....--.-- Liltit eee 91 Production Of 2. /sssccccdeescsccescsesese se DR ee eee 87 Ingredients Of 2 s2c0e22 see oe ete oe ee ee 88, 115 Wihyenot occupy whole butter field... 25-2225 2S. 2) eee 522 Every ineredientiof tromptarms soso. se eee aoe oe ee 202 How: sold. in Rhode Island.) so Sese ss es eee 201 Three-fourths sold in Massachusetts sold in original package ---.....---- 202 Ditlerencé in grades: Jo.cesokesee eee eee eS eee S25 5206 Antimitation of butter ...232.+. 22sec ot eee 204 Try to put goods on market honestly ....2-...2 -.coss-7- LS ee 210 Consumption in-Rhode-Island...:.... -222-. 2.22. - 32 ee 207 Senator Mason’s reportion:. <<... <=-22252+--22a424s00 24 ee 213 Keepsdown' butter prices. 2. 2.235.205. 2. 2 Se eee eee 382 Patentsfor making 22 32.22. 25.225 32-076: 1. UA De eee 129 Advertising Of 5. 2.23222 2A, 2 ee eee 384 Why all butter men‘do not dell 1b. Sse ee Se eee 497 Butter men not interfering with ...222225-2220 222-3522) SSS 240 Where sold sivscesosetesteescasiiieee sn IIE eee 246 Purity Of 22 2jods.sss08. ooeweun cere SU. DE Se ee ee 26 Oleomargarine, color in— Right ‘of people for 2: -2:c222 222 a5s4s2522s52422 eee 316 Why one-if not the other... 2.2 .0e220-e01 522055 eee 183 Legalityiok s2).5224s3 see Phen cee ees oleae ee eee eee 85 Why reprehensible in-oleomargarine.-2.- =: 222-:1/ 2 eee 374 Artificial coloring invented by oleomargarine makers ----..-.-.--.----- 35, 406 Made. by cotton-seed oils sone fs 2s ee eee eee 402 Testimony of chemist in regard tos... 22227 = 32) 3s24252 22 eee 403 Hor'same reasons:asin butters. 22 2222-225 - 2522222 422645525 eee 405 Rightito Uses oss. assnese dees eee oa Ne ee 346 Unfair that oleomargarine makers should not use...-------------------- 323 Denmark eats withouticoloryss42s.2 -32 3 oee oe oe ee eee 431 Legaliview of right toriseetts.< os 2 ee eS -e e 436 Both butter and oleomargarine are colored.-....-...-.-----------+------ 262 Lisietfectrrponithe palate ta2 6s 2a Pe ee es aes ee 5 ee Lud; 272, 382 Poorman’ s\ pride: as © S55 See eee es Se ee ee 273, 311 Why not select another-._--..-.----- wee dade oe Le Se eee 284 Numberiofshadess2s 2.2 522252525 355 Se ee eee 191 Forbidden in oleomargarine.------------ JS 5 ae Se ee dey Pink law decision 5258s 232-2232 02 Ee ee ee 190 Justice -Peckhany sOpmions+=22. .225 e922 OS eee 190 Agreeupondistinet Mess sae s . i. Sa Pa ea ee eee 339 Naturalicoloryot oleomarcarine: ss. 150 e2 a5 see ee eee 22, 47 Not to make ‘resembletbutter_-.. -.2.5 23550 Ree SS eee 40 And butters: >. ss: SoBe ees oe co ee eee eee 8, 11 Advertisement ot Wiellswmichardson & (Cossis oa ee Cees 388 Makesitemptationstorselltag butter: 2255252 ae ee eee 243 Not 30,000 pounds uncolored oleomargarine soid in United States -..-.-- 178 INDEX. 889 Oleomargarine, color in—Continued. Page. Amount in 1,000,000 pounds oleomargarine ........-..-...-2...-../-..- 479 INovoblectlonrtio reds 85. 2 sees ey. |. UN at pea Sane ah on ese ene A90 Can be made by mixture of fate... 122.22 _- (ee ee i ae Denial that mixture of fats will color oleomargarine _............-.-.--- 340 Creme ne hCOIeM ts -2 58 ites Sees Ss te as, eye ey ae aig pane ee 18 Lato UbUeN. os - che eet None oo. ts Aa Sea ne ae 125 Matec tt MOE. COlOTER A 220: oe so tees) Neel es reete. Spee oleae 204 POV GENO One MATLOR WILD) pate Mec. Jae eee De el pete ee By gee 317 Wiiyenot eat oleomarparine white, 22 <9 2)ase tie vets jie See see Re 308 SCOloEIMor USedt So sos saa ans. weet Ae we 4 te ate tel ae 54 Oleomargarine, fraud in sale of— UP CtVONOr TAU ete oe a ee 55 eee eS ah ios Lp ee ae ei 238 Every dealer in Philadelphia sold, as butter.................-......-- A238 Refusal of manutacturers to show books...-.-.-----....-..-.+-+-------- 493 nNarots Produce Company SwinQle-. = sons. sccs cis seb ast i eeee ee ee 491 BOoverMewMasUedLens: se. saan. Joe loss 2 fade RR Sus eee ee 491 Fraud shown to collector by Chicago Record -.................-.-..--.- 495 scheme to sell as butterand evyadeslawe oo. j.se- oS... W). ve eed eee 498 PAG ene Dal MOTO sms cea). se hate M ot ee ee tes bond oad nee ech e 440 Chicago Butter and Egg Board’s estimate of fraud in Chicago -._....___- 595 Documentary evidence connecting manufacturers with fraud __..._...__- 553 One thousand convictions for selling as butter ._................2--.-. PB) os (Drieks Torevade law 2.) 4s) Samat) aaa See TS ele Ee 247 rau ence Orseller mers id lee = so ne ee Raengeel oe 1 od 21 ce hea aleg ile 246 rOUne On OL SWAnGliEo ston: <0) a 2 > hak ON Mo ON i ren Wee yet A me 2461 Sold as butter in eehtoutiot temyplaces 4 i2252 745.22 dsc aed Le ee 461 Grocerclerkes statementtaay = seemers popes ares es oe ets FS tN pa ae ee 461 Photograpuvor store fromt exhibited: -.<.5524......2..4¢e2ceseee eae 462 Manufacturers’ defense of fraud shown ......--.--------------+-e----0- 462 Colored wrappine-paper SGWemMes. 255 5-55. 28 ots. .25 Jee GG Ss Sees GMS 464 rage ny COncedlom@unarin: = .2 3227 <2. Jao atte . eee ee eee 464 LINED OG RIED] Cnc 0 he BNC eile ee ee, Neenah ee ERE EL 463 Gy eo uebys PedGLerniaml NCW! MODK 52. 2 agar 2 2 Ue sss Je odiowe 365 Will require national legislation to stamp out fraud.............-...---- 163 Bevenhy-iye per cent soldias: butter: 2.22. a.22 08 ke wc 2 oo ee 163 How enables competitors to beat honest dealers -_......--.------------- 220 ISCO MaTINGIS ay. Sau oo ee: A} SRS ees hoe. on) set en. ore es 373 Rragdiadmutted at boarding houses. = 22252525222"... stews. eae 377 For seven years endeavored to enforce honest sale ....-----...---------- 376 Object 1s to sell as’ butter at butter prices... ...-.5...2.29ssss8se0.U see 377 rartidhin Paterson, Ne seamen Sos BS eh iqeee der oe tcwi« wos ls eee 377 Not largely sold as oleomargarine --....-- Seo no CERES Se .. 224 RUC ES SOMA NOE POR es ete oS Se Lae gee be ae iol en: Sel eee 224 Pravgeincuced by lairre protits 226525052 osc... 2... Sask eee ee 450 Hiageeiby imesponsuneniealerss. 2007 5f2. 2 35 seuigeniseseo sh: Jae 225 Wonwnoolesaler wantsit sold-tor what ttiisyes>-654 92-5252 pee eee 224 $50,000 worth as butter per year by one retailer.............----....--. 226 waaingosed Ghee e .6 os oAe Ae Ss oo ee oe. ee 223 Dealers admrb must sell for butter 2: <2 koe ee Se 222 DOlGtasUGteD meer ee eer cere fae oe oS ek eae Ap Seas Se ae 121, 312 iriver pou Mand See st eos eee ool nee ene Nees aoe eee 121 Hina Geonvaslarce: scale a5 sens fee ss 2 es PAs ss ee tee See IPP Have they really proven any amount of fraud?......-....---.---------- 291 Claimmamnanntaciirers do mot detend fraud) = 2282.2 S325 eeeeee- a eee 302 pharpless brandot butter counterieited . ..25. 05.2 -225_ Bi. bok Sees 220 Papenience witwiranaat Pittsburg <- 22200... 54 Sata 229 Report of Senate Committee on Manufactures.........-...------------- 85 DON Aa OM Guat eae ee 2 SS ee ks eee: ee ahat 19, 20, 27, 28, 135, 516 Denial Or teste WaMeeeMNA Gl. 22.6 ee Senn ce eee 520 Ninety ‘per’cent sold aa butter in'Chicagaa..— 2... .!2-2-2uasehauaiet Sie 532 More fraud. where antrcolor laws): .--/2e2ase. sos. essence. 33 G4 ig eee 201 Could be stopped by original-package law........---------------------- 2038 iiventy-lve per ceit soletagsnobten 2 sees. 2... ste cae oe cos Seneee 202 Wissthy: CONSUTNER Ss ingtet een eet EL ae 415 Most oleomargarine sold as butter *2 scares. to 2s): 6... arab ols See done 417 Braudtdlenthsalel Oinang Ne wa OT Kenai 2s a eee te ee 125 590 INDEX, Oleomargarine, fraud in sale of— Page. Would) 10-centitax: stop traud?s..4220 se enecceen- ieee eee eee ee Wi Commissioner of Internal Revenue quoted .......-.............-...---- 19 Condition ini Massachusetts .25 74 Sia i a Rk ee ee 28 Manufacturers andifraud ce 225 eaen seo oe A ee che 5 Why notsbonestly sold). 2.255428 23. nonsense ee See 219 Business isifraud all through). 35524224.isssnc0522 22.c oe eee 218 Few people buy oleomargarine knowingly ......-......---..-------...- DAY Charge of fraud corroborated by every food commissioner.....-..--- 2) 760 Doubt if dealers will sell oleomargarine as such..._...................-.- 232 Wholesale dealers asked to enter fictitious names.................--..-.- 234 No law can stop fraud while oleomargarine is colored_..............---- 235 Retailers principal violators'of law... /5...22-..42 22. eto eee 383 Amount trandulently. sold s.02 7G Ee le See a 387 Fraud in,Philadelphia'.\..26.20525¢ 22h eee - CPSs Le 237 Concealing marks‘on original packages...2...'.22! 2). 22781 eee 239 Fraud inanarking package 2 soos ool dled noon oe Pe ee 463 Chicago oleomargarine makers, defense ‘of2o2.45. 22.222 82227) ee 467 Moxley’s defense of illicitly made oleomargarine -.........-......------ 468 Seven thousand five hundred dollars offered in settlement -........-.... 471 Indictments for fraud against Washington man___.................--.-- 471 Fraud:im Cincinnati's. 20094 S22 GSS Ue I a eee 473 Sympathy.of makers with fraud’! o.26 2 ps2 sh ss Se 491 Seventy-five per cent sold as butter in Chicago -.......-.......--.------ 469 Large percentase:sold-as. butter. 22.2. .c55 55 eee 473 Senator. Allen’sexperience......'. 222-2. coe ee ee eee 509 All was:sold.as butters2o..\-ouecces seabed. eye eae ee 440 “Push its sale and build up a reputation for good butter”? -.........---- 477 Scheme. for defrauding =... 2.2... s-cepeees oS en eee eee ee eee 367 Documentary evidence of defense of fraudulent dealers by manufacturers 1D CHICAGO a. ieee eme cet acs cece eid et ene ee 562 Oleomargarine, Government inspection of: Factoriesanust be.ready- for . 225.022.2416 e A eee 262 IMspPechlOmiOise ces Sacceescccis Smee LER eee eee ee 111 Inspection. bysGovernment ('65 [so PONS oo ee a ee eee 18, 25, 499 Governimentidoes. inspeet.-=- fete. eee ee ee ee 194 No revenue:agents in factoriess (2201 fe ee Oe 564 Visits of inspectors to factories 35... 0. Se ee ee 564 Inspectorsinot experts... 5 25).22. 3 435 PerovectionacaimsL, puaranteed =: == 2-22 co 2-2 ee - Soi 162, 226, 439, 474 nmrevadedin Wy 1ccCONSIN: 252. et eee... oa ee ee 443 BR MORE CEH OLCCO i aac ge eee eR le - a on ckna na eee a 281 Mite ypinike ess. aon See a Ae ers. ou ia Rt ae ee 189 Erammpramed iy Gealerss sca: csc neon ees aie om oo we eminem ee 343 History of Pennsylvania prosecutions under. -.--.----------------------- 542 Pobre iingae aMINenes as. see Ae acisetene cas + hae = see ee eee 544 Aiveming toemorce mings © o)2:.22 40 s6seb ds). 2'.n 02a, Bee ee 465 Port OMetOr tO CNlOree: = 2eno0 25 so) sna ee ost eae eee eee 468 Mecimonlon NeW J CrseyacOurit.<--—. sca. fo stes ct sn Joe ee tes teem aeee 336 Should they be violated when disputed ?............-------..--------.- 244 Aulvelaimed. to, be micenstitntionally: 2222-25222... 206s lee Bee ae. 245 Costoneniorcing InvNew Yorkie 2556): dys Se. Ct eC Peat Sees 370 How Illinois food department was beaten ........-----------.---------- 468 Charter of oleomargarine concern revoked for violations of ...-.....----- 469 How is yellow oleomargarine sold in New Jersey?.--...---------.------ 334 eral smachinery.ot New Jersey. =-- =. --2:5-<-.<.-.-----2so sean ee ee 331 itt nonsensical were tepesiled sescss. 25-2 scoe 22 es hes See: Seek 547 Anit-color Oly. can. protect comsumMers 2 .< .-nce wes en Meese 453 SRCHIRINeWEPe eens Sos ee a. tee oR eee en eee 33 RIPE app oes Spare a eee eee ae ee te 280 Oleomargarine national law: Pieb OE seoLhGn AbeUMANE e522 SooS 5 slap = oats cece cb eate cee ne ase 414 ibpree Inadequate 10m CmoOrcement...3. 254.203 ..-2----ecleak toe] Aen coe 565 HRODAte ll CxaeoteCr ee eee eke hal ate ino oe ae ew A 417 Etta pis to get ENLOreement. .$ 2 .---pesens2--- +--+ -25-es eee oeee eee No interest in enforcement of branding clause..........-.-.------.----- 532 BHEGNSEH ARAINING, sce oa nS oS 2 nl on neous mo eee 562 Where information of violations come from .....-..--------------.----- 533 Why increase of penalty would be unwise.........-.--.--------------%- 532 892 INDEX, Oleomargarine national law—Continued. Page iyvidence ol dodeing™ _.. > 20 a3... ese ok oe Se 1 A 529 Resulations ot (22.22. .., soe seee eeeten ee ee a hee ee ee oe a 293 AS UNS re a ee ne eer eee ok oR oee J Jb.S SSS eS BREE AS ee 308 Maller, ‘Senator Warner, remarks-. 22252225 9759.02 Sees ee 52 Analyses made under last yexr............-----2---0- del 2000 ae 499 Collection of tax under... 22.2. .s2ce 2-5. Jo 2. Se ee 408 Hiatel bill discnesed: - ooo. ea eles ec Se 111 Paraffin: Wie of amoleomangarine oo. 2. ns ccm cen ene ep a tte 39, 128 WV herescomestrom —...o. oo a ec kena ede een tans 510 WSeloindemicdee ce ke mc. mcmee ae Cee Sere ee ee Ne ee ee ee 55 Petitions: Why none from the South 32 22... 2.5. -~- seke eee ceceses-= 5-5 eee 317 Resolutions: Chicago Federation of Labor condemns Grout bill -....-...-...-.-.... 360,505 Chicago Federation of Labor condemns colored oleomargarine.__..-..-..- 472 South st. baulbive StockiRixchange:— 92) 252) eee s2 cco ao eae eee 57 Commission Merchants’ League of the United States...._-_.............- 447 National Livestock Association 2) 022-2 open. ee eee 77 GLOOM oe Sere re fea een eae Wee cee ee. Saeed A re 80 NatronalMbiive Stock xchancves <2 see]. oe. oreo eee coe. eae eee ee 185 Condemning Grout bill defeated)... 222.2... sets ae © see ee 518 From @mecinnat explained: .-o- 25.03 25--2 3.2.22 le eae ee 554 Brom CimemMatt ott «os occa webct eae ee eee os oS 520 From labor orzanizations—source of: .-.--/2.--1.. sfeesiey aie 471 Kansas/City Liye, Stock Exchanpe..2-..2.---22.-...... S090 sae cp! Decorators of Cleveland Ohio... .2. 2224225. -232_ 1. 2. Lee eee 362 Homeshoers’ UMIGH ses ec Sce eae cec eee +. tebe ssc asks 5 Le 361 Building Trades’ Couneil of Cleveland... ..--.2292i/22c8) ee 508 Sioux City ive Stock xchange... =< eccce byen ae eee 60 Cotton-seedscrushersn25. 5 oo oes ei eho cde cle << SE ee 58 Kansas City, Mercantile (Club. 22-2. =.2------.-. 29st oh, 1 DASBLODE aaa 61 Stearin: ineROisceoe. aoa a eae one eu eS! See Ser eee Bees (2110) Tawney, Hon. J. A.: Attempt wodeleab 3. <2 5. fo. lane cesedoe 3 DES STAN ee 63 Tax, internal-revenue: Oninmeeds foun, = ees: ee ees eee eee ee ee ee ee ee 516 Percentage of loss in collecting, on oleomargarine ---....-.-...--------- 562 Wilhcouecies Sees! Stetson to See tee peer e meee ) ES eres 534 Wees Orie ss el 2 esos cee 2 Berne Bn ee eee Sees 448 Wadsworth substitute: The worst thing Congress could pass... 2220-2. Satu) al desolie Ae 226 Difference between,and present law ..-.-.-.------..-220. 2243-00 2 18. 305 Able work of oleomarzarine. makers: _2.-.-_-.Sis 0. Jase l wee eee 376 Oculardemonsiration.of..- 22-22-2232 Selaguibusiive leis Sey See ee 568 How it will: prevent iraud: 2: 8. cane OLE eye ee 568 Why not remove stamp as easily as to fail to put on ._..........-...---- 532 Difference between offenses under, and present lawechicel: Date eerie 566 Secretary Gage’s opinion teloiy: 2s: Peet sit eer: aie eens ee 566 Does not protect restaurant or hotel patroni;bawm ore ke Sola see eee 571 Passage advocatedic..22 2228 wee See catia te ce cet SEE ee ee 390 Vastly more damaging than any other legislation Congress could enact... 240 Fis viciousness 3252/3520 So eee se ed er es Se 245 Wool growers: Wikty NO UpTOUCR orn At pecs inn Loe erie ae een enseee cen te eer 110 O noel Tos ead a a | ol ny saad dint in : WG y i ss a mY ve Pier er ees Hi - iy ran ne ae od : ty 1 La ME fi ' pny Ae, ie Yee sa uo ty cy h f® : i Aah G y ps f ; ; i f hy ak Mt Tie Ae 7 Al ; a A ; i Ths: ot 7 ' ’ me Gi I, MY as = aT ; ; 1 r 4 &' : vine i‘) 4 Z ans r. / ai De ay y : NPE A f yu ' y ‘ 4 ati tii * Yong rnd ; Re ie A o 1 yea Pes ¥ AGT, ; He a . 6 iy ; iv alee ' iH ji Whi 4 cme ee Bay me Wi Lingle pAE i ARE 8 rr , 7 * 7 DoBB: : al 'S BROS. ae LIBRARY BINDING » Yn eg ~ Mi ye ST. 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