OLEOMARGARINE AND OTHER IMITATION DAIRY PRODUCTS. XV 



whom it has been doubtless truly said that they seek to follow the fashion and form 

 a trust, but are deterred by the existence of oleomargarine? 



# # # * * * # 



Now, Mr. Chairman, there are a good many of our people who make pretty good 

 wages, and of course they can buy butter; but the majority of them make small 

 wages now, especially since we got into this trust business. I know there are lots of 

 men who dp not like to buy this white oleomargarine, because it looks more like lard 

 than anything else. It does not look like butter at all. Why should they be made 

 to pay 10 cents a pound more because they get butter that resembles country butter 

 and looks a little better on the table? That is why I am here to oppose the passage 

 of this bill. It is for our people alone, for of course I do not know much about the 

 butter business myself. 



Mr. John F. McNamee, vice-president and chairman legislative com- 

 mittee Columbus Trades and Labor Assembly, Columbus, Ohio, said: 



I bear from the Central Labor Union of the city of Columbus, Ohio, officially known 

 as the Columbus Trades and Labor Assembly, credentials which, with your permis- 

 sion, I will read to you: 



COLUMBUS, OHIO, January 5, 1901. 

 To whom it may concern: 



This is to certify that the bearer, Mr. John F. McNamee, vice-president of the 

 Columbus Trades and Labor Assembly, is authorized and empowered by said body 

 to exert every effort and use all honorable means in accomplishing the defeat of a 

 measure now pending in the United States Senate, and known as the Grout bill, the 

 object of which is to destroy a legitimate industry in the interest of its competitors, 

 said Grout bill being regarded by said Trades and Labor Assembly and all it repre- 

 sents as a gross injustice, class legislation, an invasion of citizenship rights, and a 

 serious menace to the best interests of all citizens, particularly those in moderate 

 circumstances. 



Any courtesies extended to our representative, Mr. McNamee, w r ill be fully appre- 

 ciated and remembered by the Columbus Trades and Labor Assembly. 



[SEAL.] FRANK B. CAMERON, President. 



WILLIAM P. HAUCK, Secretary. 



This letter of introduction which I have presented represents but faintly the bitter 

 antagonism which prevails in the ranks of organized labor to said measure. 



* * # *### 



The members of organized labor are thoroughly familiar with all of the phases of 

 this bill. They speak about the chemical analyses which have been made of oleomar- 

 garine by official chemists, and they discuss all of the various components and ingre- 

 dients of the product with almost as much familiarity as the manufacturers themselves 

 are capable of doing. So I say that they are wide awake to the necessity, in the pro- 

 tection of their own interests, of having the bill defeated. Not only that; but as 

 patriotic American citizens they feel deeply the indignity to which our legislative 

 bodies have been subjected by this attempt to utilize them for the promotion of the 

 interests of certain individuals and corporations in violation of every sense of right 

 and justice and at the expense of the constitutional prerogatives of other citizens. 

 They feel that the legislative bodies of some of our States and the Congress of the 

 United States have been insulted by this attempt to utilize them as tools for the pro- 

 tection of certain interests which can not sustain themselves against competitors. 



##'*.* . * : -.*.,', r* 



Gentlemen, there are hundreds of thousands of our citizens in moderate circum- 

 stances who are now looking to the United States Senate for protection against the per- 

 petration of such a gross injustice. They are depending absolutely upon that sense of 

 justice, that sense of honor, fair play, and conservatism which has always character- 

 ized this body to protect them from this, one of the most culpable violations of their 

 rights which any individual or combination of individuals has ever attempted to 

 perpetrate upon the American public. They are looking to this body with the firm 

 nope that its traditional love of justice will prevail and predominate in this crisis. 

 Should this measure become a law, arising from the mists of the near future there 

 will come a monster into whose insatiable maw the contributions of our citizens shall 

 continually flow, and whose appetite shall be increased by all attempts at its gratifi- 

 cation. This monster we have all, in our apprehensive conviction of the certainty of 

 its existence, learned to regard as the creamery trust of the future the combination 

 of creamery interests into one great organization, which shall monopolize the nianu- 



