Report of Missouri Farmers' Week. 381 



or defrauded by this coloring. On the other hand, oleomargarine 

 is colored yellow in imitation of butter in order to deceive some- 

 one into the belief that he is getting butter. Oleomargarine is made 

 of tallow, lard and cottonseed oil, all of which they tell us are good, 

 wholesome foods. But if you color this oleomargarine in imitation 

 of butter, you allow the merchants, the boarding-house keepers and 

 the hotel men to sell this product as butter, and thus enable the 

 great packing trust to put upon the market a counterfeit article 

 which the average man will not detect. If oleomargarine is such 

 a fine food product, let it not masquerade as butter, but go upon 

 the market the natural color of the oils it contains. Oleomargarine, 

 they say, is wholesome, is cheap and is clean. Then why should 

 they want to make it in imitation of a food that costs much more to 

 produce? Simply in order to counterfeit that article and get a 

 higher price for their counterfeit product. They make the great 

 cry that they want to take the tax oif of oleomargarine in order 

 .to reduce the high cost of living. Oleomargarine in its natural 

 or uncolored state is bought by people who cannot afford butter, and 

 in this form it is not taxed except nominally. In its uncolored 

 form it can never be sold as butter. In its colored form the ma- 

 jority of people will be deceived and the packer or maker of oleo 

 will reap the benefit. It can be shown that oleomargarine can be 

 made for ten cents per pound ; butter cannot be made for less than 

 twenty-five cents. Now for the moment I grant the argument of 

 the packers, that oleo is wholesome, clean and tastes like butter. 

 Allow it to look like butter by being colored, and what will be the 

 inevitable result? Farmers will then quit making butter and the 

 packers will raise the price of oleomargarine. 



Let each of these food products — yea, let all food products — 

 be sold under their natural color without the right to imitate some- 

 thing they are not. 



The great farming interests of this country and the consuming 

 public have an equal grievance against this proposed iniquity, the 

 Lever bill, and should cry to Heaven against its passage. The 

 price not only of "liberty," but of success in our day is "eternal 

 vigilance." Let us make up our minds not to sit down this year in an 

 easy and satisfied content, too much immersed in our own personal 

 business to take time for a broader outlook, but let us catch the 

 spirit of the times and add to our "diligence in business," an alert 

 and intelligent interest in all things pertaining to the "good of the 

 whole," and a determination to "make good" the things that are 

 necessary for that end. 



