XIV OLEOMARGARINE AND OTHER IMITATION DAIRY PRODUCTS. 



Conflicting interests have appeared before the committee, one to 

 demand the exercise of the taxing power in order to crush a rival in 

 the business, and the other to ask that it be permitted to continue the 

 manufacture of a product, wholesome and nutritious, for the benefit of 

 the thousands who are unable, by their poverty, to buy butter. The 

 makers of oleomargarine, of dairy butter, of creamery butter, of the 

 process or renovated or resurrected butter, have all appeared, person- 

 ally or by representatives, to insist upon their interests being more or 

 less protected or not to be interfered with. The producers of cotton- 

 seed oil and the live-stock growers have also been represented, asking 

 that there be no further interference with the profits of their several 

 industries for the benefit of the dairy men. 



In the consideration of this subject the quarrels of the respective 

 manufacturers and parties at interest as to the profits to be lost or 

 made from this legislation are not so important as the rights of the 

 consumers of the several products. There are millions of working 

 people who are not producers of any articles of food, but who must con- 

 sume these various products. They can not all of them buy butter, and, 

 as the object of this bill is evidently from the expressions of the lead- 

 ing advocates of the bill to exterminate the oleomargarine industry, 

 these great numbers of people are interested that such nefarious legis- 

 lation should be defeated. They have rights as well as the manufac- 

 turers of butter and oleomargarine, as well as the cotton-seed-oil and the 

 live-stock men, and it is the cry of the consumer, the cry of the poor, 

 that should have the first attention of the Senate. 



Below is appended statements by accredited representatives of the 

 various labor organizations of the country, and it can not be doubted 

 that they speak not only for those who have formally accredited them 

 to us, but also for the vast number of unrepresented poor people whose 

 interests and whose wants are the same. 



Mr. Patrick Dolan, president of the United Mine Workers' Asso- 

 ciation, testified as follows: 



Our people, Mr. Chairman, are against the passage of the measure. I represent 

 over 40,000 miners and their families, and I know from the sentiment in other sec- 

 tions of the country to which I go, from talking to people who are interested in our 

 organization, that they do not want to be deprived of the ability to purchase this 

 wholesome article of food. If it is not made in a wholesome way, then they do not 

 want it; but if it is just as good to them to spread their bread with as 35-cent butter, 

 they do want it. And if this measure passes the chances are that butter will go up 

 to 50 cents, and poor people will not be able to purchase it at all. 



Mr. John Pierce, representing the Amalgamated Association of Iron 

 and Steel Workers, said: 



Colored oleomargarine is at present retailed at from 12 J to 20 cents per pound. On 

 investigation I am satisfied that most of our people are paj ing about 15 cents per 

 pound for it, and I can not admit that those who buy it can afford to pay more. I 

 therefore arrive at the conclusion that they must either find 1 cents per pound more 

 to pay this proposed robbery (for I can not dignify it by the name of tax) or buy and 

 eat white oleomargarine. And this to satisfy the'greed of the manufacturers of but- 

 ter, w r ho think that white oleomargarine is good enough for those who can not afford 

 to pay 10 cents additional for yellow, or the 20 cents or more additional for creamery 

 butter, or use the off grades of butter now unsalable as food. 



Shall those thus defrauded of what should be their inalienable constitutional right be 

 compelled either to wear in their homes, on their very tables, flaunting before the eyes 

 of their children and of those who may share their board, a badge of their poverty, 

 and an emblem of their inability to pay a legalized robbery; or, on the other hand, 

 to contribute from their meager board to the hellish greed^of the butter interests, of 



