FOURTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART V. 287 



The organization possessed by ttie manufacturers of oleo was superb, 

 notliing- lilve it in a business way has ever before existed in this coun- 

 try. The territory was divided and combines on prices were religiously 

 kept. Funds in plenty were forthcoming to protect violators, and this 

 fact of itself was an Incentive to men to violate the law, knowing full 

 well that their profits would be immense, and that every violation, even 

 if convicted, would cost them nothing personally. This was a condition 

 closely bordering on anarchy — it stimulated a contempt for the law and 

 paid a premium for its violation. 



We presume that the respectable gentlemen who were engaged in 

 that traffic would dispute this vigorously, but it is a fact and is well 

 known to everyone connected with the trade. 



The oleo traffic was also a source of what is popularly called "graft" 

 for some of the politicians who ranked high in party councils in the dif- 

 ferent States. While this probably would be difficult to prove as a fact, 

 yet it is true by implication and could be proven a hundred times over 

 from good, substantial evidence. ' 



The great stimulus for all of this was the enormous profits in the 

 traffic. Immediately following the enforcement of the law, these prac- 

 tices disappeared completely. Many of them had only been hinted at, 

 others were matters of general knowledge. It is perhaps not out of the 

 way to remark here that there were at the time the National Dairy 

 Union started its fight very few men in the country who had a good idea 

 of the traffic in its different phases. It was extremely fortunate, and a 

 fact of which we will speak more fully later, that the dairy people should 

 have secured as their champion a man whose knowledge was extremely 

 broad, greater perhaps than that possessed by any one else, and that he 

 brought to the work that spirit of aggressiveness, coupled with a safe 

 conservatism that assured an honest fight. 



To go back to the conditions immediately following the enforcement 

 of the law: The oleo trade was in a quandary; they realized that 

 through law enormous profits must disappear, but they were possessed 

 of their plants for the manufacture of the goods and it was necessary 

 that they should use them, else they would be an idle asset. Following 

 this very soon after the law went into force there appeared on the mar- 

 kets their so-called "uncolored" butterine. Their previous education, 

 their environment and their utter contempt for all law was shown by the 

 eager haste in which they sought to evade the law by incorporating in 

 their so-called "uncolored" goods, palm oil in such minute quantities that 

 it was almost impossible for it to be detected, but which gave a certain 

 yellowish tinge to their product. 



However, this was one time that they overreached themselves. In 

 their eagerness to get a reasonably yellow color, they used more of this 

 oil than was safe and the resulting product, after it had been kept for a 

 few days, was good for nothing but soapgrease . The oleo manufactur- 

 ers had enormous losses from this source. I speak of this understand- 

 ingly. At the time the new law went into effect it seemed that the hand- 

 ling of oleomargarine would be a legitimate business, that it would be 

 sold on its merits, that people Avould buy it for what it was. We, in 



