THIRD ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART IX. 533 



fats. We accepted this amendment because it was brought up at a late 

 hour and we say that it was the only way of getting the measure through. 

 The leaders of this movement, the dairy commissioners, and those expert 

 in dairy legislation were called in consultation and we asked them whether 

 we should accept it as it was, or whether we should go back to the senate 

 and fight it out and either get the whole bill turned down or passed as 

 it was. The result was that they decided to let it go through as it was and 

 find out whether it was possible for them to get any coloring which would 

 make oleomargarine yellow without artificially coloring it. The law was 

 passed with the amendment. Now our trouble commenced. When the first 

 of July came the oleomargarine manufacturers were just as much at sea 

 as we had been. They knew no more what they could do to get around 

 the law than we did. They put all their men out and endeavored to sell 

 the white oleomargarine, and they did sell it in the month of July. But no 

 sooner had this white oleomargarine got out than it began to come back. 

 The public would not have it. The next month their product fell off 

 sixty-six per cent. They only put out 17,000 packages. Then after seeing 

 that the public would not take their goods in the shape they were being 

 produced; after learning that the people when they knew the character 

 of the ingredients would not use it, they began to scheme to get around 

 the law. The first thing they used was palm oil, an oil produced from 

 the Olive Palm of Africa. It is what Frazer's Axle Grease is made from. 

 That oil is so red it is brown. It is one-third the strength of the best 

 analine butter colors. We made a test and found that one-half of one per 

 cent introduced into a pound of oleomargarine would make a pretty good 

 imitation of June butter, but also that the qualities in the oil were so pro- 

 nounced that even one-half per cent would spoil the quality of the oleo- 

 margarine. Then they began to neutralize the taste and smell of this oil 

 and put in much time at it. Then we made complaint that the use of this 

 oil in such quantities was an artificial coloring in imitation of butter. The 

 matter was argueed before the commissioner of internal revenue and he 

 decided that the use of palm oil was an artificial coloring, and that oleo- 

 margarine so colored would have to be taxed ten cents per pound. And 

 then we ran up against this kind of a proposition. There is great similarity 

 between all kinds of vegetable oils. Cotton seed oil has always been a 

 component part of oleomargarine. A manufacturer in the south bethought 

 himself of mixing a small quantity of de-odorous palm oil with cotton 

 seed oil, and selling it to be used as a coloring under the name of cotton 

 seed oil. A sample was sent to Washington to be examined, and while 

 they found that the cotton seed oil which this firm was turning out con- 

 tained palm oil, there was absolutely no test that would prove it. Now 

 while they found an ingredient which would impart a color that the 

 internal revenue department could not say was artificial coloring because 

 the government chemist could not detect it, yet they found that the use of 

 this oil depreciated the value of their product. They have been making 

 a low grade of goods and so greatly damaged their business. Up to the first 

 of January of this year the oleomragarine factories of Chicago turned out 

 140,000 fifty-pound tubs less of oleomargarine than in the previous year, a 



