78 ANNUAL. REI^ORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



OLEOMARGARINE. 



The sale of oleomargarine iu rennsylvania is uot prohibited 

 under certain conditions. The State does not prohibit its sale 

 when it is sold as oleomargarine, stamped as such, and is not colored 

 to resemble yellow butter, provided licenses are procured, as re- 

 quired by law. If every dealer could be persuaded to remember 

 and act upon this simple fact, there would be no dilliculty about the 

 sale of oleomargarine. Unfortunately such is not the case; never 

 has been the case since the manufacture of oleomargarine began. It 

 is a much cheaper product than the genuine butter, hence the tempta- 

 tion tO' color it so as to resemble genuine yellow butter and put it 

 on the market. It may be made to resemble butter so closely that 

 anybody save the experienced may be deceived, and as it is imt on 

 the market at a lower price than the article of which it is an 

 imitation, it usually finds ready customers among the poor as well 

 as others Avho are anxious to buy their butter in the cheapest 

 market. This not only deceives the consumer but subjects the 

 dairyman to an unfair competition, one which he cannot successfully 

 contend against. For his protection, both the Federal and State 

 governments have enacted legislation, not against oleomargarine 

 as such, but against its sale as butter. Even when sold under the 

 name of oleomargarine, it is not always what it pretends to be. 

 Thus, of 50 samples collected by our agents during the year and 

 subjected tO' the proper tests by the chemists, no less than 28 were 

 found to be adulterated while 22 were pure. This is not such a 

 showing as would commend oleomargarine to the patronage of the 

 careful consumer, even when put on the market under the name of 

 oleomargarine. That the unscrupulous manufacturers of bogus 

 butter are still hard at work trying t^o evade the law, w\as evidenced 

 by the revelations of the year, especially in the cities of Pittsburg 

 and Philadelphia, revelations which showed the existence among 

 the violators of law of an absolute contempt for the lives of their 

 innocent patrons. During the year 754 samples, which were bought 

 for butter, were analyzed and found to be colored oleomargarine, 

 while 40 other samples bought for butter were discovered to be 

 merely uncolored oleomargarine. These figures show that the trade 

 in counterfeit butter has not been entirely suppressed, although an 

 earnest effort has been made to bring violators of the laws to. jus- 

 tice. In many instances the Federal and State ofllcials have w'orked 

 in concert, since both the Federal and State laws have been vio- 

 lated. The agents of this Bureau have been uniformly instructed 

 to put all the information gathered by them at the service of the 

 Federal representatives in this State, and. so far as my knowledge 

 extends, they have uniformly done so. On the other hand the officers 

 of the United States have, in some instances, aided the State of 

 Pennsylvania in accumulating information necessary to the convic- 

 tion of violators of law. In several instances it was discovered 

 that the manufacturers of counterfeit butter carried on their opera- 

 tions in stables or cellars, filthy in the extreme. The product manu- 

 factured amid such unsanitary surroundings w^^s either disposed of 

 to grocers, to be sold as genuine butter, or ]>eddlcd around by 

 agents of the makers. They had a regular organization and the 

 work of detecting and breaking up their nefarious business was car- 

 ried on amid many difficulties. While we are not confid('nt that this 

 unlawful business has been wholly broken up, we do think that the 



