270 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



You are aware of the fact that for five months of the past year 

 we were absolutely helpless in preventing them from incorporat- 

 ing- a color in their product, which baffled the skill of the best 

 chemists the government could employ. They went undiscov- 

 ered for five months, during which time their product was sold 

 the same as before the law was enacted, until the revenue depart- 

 ment was finally able to demonstrate for a certainty that they 

 were using artificial coloration. Since then the government has 

 assessed the manufacturers who produced these colored goods, 

 and in one case $30,000 was sked for and has been paid by one 

 firm to the government. This factory has sued the government, 

 which is simply another way of arriving at the result they sought 

 to attain when they endeavored to have the law declared uncon- 

 stitutional. If they are successful in this suit, if they are able 

 to recover that money from the government, the work of this 

 organization for the past five years amounts to nothing. We 

 are simply where we started from. 



In addition to that, they have commenced a campaign in which, 

 if they do not succeed in incorporating a color into their product, 

 they are trying to bring butter upon the same plane as oleomar- 

 garine. If they can prevent the coloration of butter in certain 

 states of the Union, they will have arrived in another way at 

 the same point as where they colored their oleomargarine, — 

 they have simply got both white and can go ahead and sell their 

 product the same as before, without restrictions. Not only that, 

 but they are taking advantage of technicalities. This is some- 

 thing that only came up last week in the state of Pennsylvania in 

 relation to food products, which is an old law, and says that 

 nothing shall be incorporated into a food product unless it is a 

 part of that food product. They have gone so far as to have 

 the law looked up with the intention of taking advantage of 

 this, — that butter color is not a part of the product, and prevent 

 the coloring of butter in one of the largest states we have. I 

 simply give you this tO' show the desperate straits to which they 

 are driven, to demonstrate that they will not be downed in the 

 matter. We know this. 



We also know that they have a high-priced corps of chemists 

 at work trying to incorporate a color into their product and stiil 



