16 OLEOMARGARINE. 



under the guise of a revenue act, to pass an act the purpose of which 

 is to prevent a fraud than it has to pass an act the purpose of which is 

 to destroy an industry. It is in either case stepping outside of its 

 province. The author of the act has this morning stated its purpose. 

 An advocate of the act in the House stated its purpose in these words : 



' 'It proposes to require the oleomargarine manufacturer to pay a tax 

 on oleomargarine, colored as butter, large enough to raise the expense 

 to the producer equal to the expense of producing pure butter." 



That is to say, so far from the purpose of this act being the produc- 

 tion of revenue, although that is avowedly its purpose, the purpose of 

 the act as declared by its advocates is to regulate competition between 

 different businesses. The advocates of the act come before this com- 

 mittee to-day and say that colored oleomargarine enters into unfair 

 competition with colored butter ; therefore they propose through this 

 act to make the production of colored oleomargarine as expensive as the 

 production of colored butter, and to destroy the advantage which they 

 claim colored oleomargarine has to-day in the markets of the country. 



Now, that is a purpose which is absolutely contradictory of the claim 

 that must be made before Congress in asking them to take action upon 

 this bill. It is absolutely contradictory of the claim which must be 

 made before the courts if this bill ever comes before the courts. The 

 advocates of this measure frankly state that they are seeking by this 

 act to do something other than what the act purports to do. 



The advocates of the measure before the House argued that this act 

 was harmless because the legislatures of a large number of the States 

 had already adopted laws which prohibited the sale of colored oleo- 

 margarine within those States; that they had found themselves unable 

 to enforce those laws; that this law would simply operate to make the 

 laws of the different States in that respect effective; and that while it 

 was, as a matter of fact, the exercise by Congress of the police power 

 which is reserved to the States, yet it was a harmless exercise, because 

 in so many of the States similar laws had been adopted. It seems to 

 me that Congress has no more right to pass a law to enable States to 

 enforce their own laws governing the exercise of the police power, 

 under the guise of a revenue bill, than it has itself to try to exercise 

 that police power. 



I wish to call your attention to the fact that in many of the States 

 there are no laws which forbid the sale of colored oleomargarine as 

 such. In the State of Rhode Island, in which my client is doing busi- 

 ness, colored oleomargarine is allowed to be sold as colored oleomarga 

 rine. The regulation of that power of sale is something which every 

 member of this committee will admit belongs absolutely and solely to 

 the police power of the State. This proposed act of Congress comes 

 and says that colored oleomargarine shall not be sold within the State. 

 It imposes a condition upon the sale of colored oleomargarine which 

 absolutely prohibits that sale. Upon the theory of the advocates of 

 the bill that the passage of the bill is to enforce the police laws of the 

 States which have enacted prohibitory legislation, it must enact in effect 

 laws for those States which have not enacted any such prohibitory leg- 

 islation. 



To-day the State of Rhode Island, as a dozen other of the United 

 States which permit, in the wisdom of their legislatures, the sale of 

 this product, when this bill is passed will be disabled from having the 

 product sold within the State, and the Congress of the United States 



