OLEOMARGARINE AND OTHER IMITATION DAIRY PRODUCTS. V 



and professor of agricultural chemistry in Yale College, New Haven, says: "It is a 

 product that is entirely attractive and wholesome as food, and one that is for all ordi- 

 nary and culinary purposes the full equivalent of good butter made from cream. I 

 regard the manufacture of oleomargarine as a legitimate and beneficent industry." 



Prof. S. C. Caldwell, of Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y., says: "While not equal 

 to fine butter in respect to flavor, it nevertheless contains all the essential ingredients 

 of butter, and since it_ contains a smaller proportion of volatile fats than is found in 

 genuine butter, it is, in my opinion, less liable to become rancid. It can not enter 

 into competition with fine butter, but so far as it may serve to drive poor butter out 

 of the market, its manufacture will be a public benefit." 



Prof. C. A. Goessmann, of Amherst Agricultural College, says: "Oleomargarine 

 butter compares in general appearance and in taste very favorably with the average 

 quality of the better kinds of dairy butter in our markets. In its composition it 

 resembles that of ordinary dairy butter, and in its keeping quality, under corresponding 

 circumstances, I believe it will surpass the former, for it contains a smaller percent- 

 age of those constituents which, in the main, cause the well-known rancid taste and 

 odor of a stored butter." 



Prof. Charles P. Williams, professor in the Missouri State University, says: "It is 

 a pure and wholesome article of food, and in this respect, as well as in respect to its 

 chemical composition, fully the equivalent of the best quality of dairy butter." 



Prof. J. W. 8. Arnold, professor of physiology in the University of New York, says: 

 "I consider that each and every article employed in the manufacture of oleomargarine 

 butter is perfectly pure and wholesome; that oleomargarine butter differs in no essen- 

 tial manner from butter made from cream. In fact oleomargarine butter possesses 

 the advantage over natural butter of not decomposing so readily, as it contains fewer 

 volatile fats. In my opinion oleomargarine is to be considered a great discovery, a 

 blessing for the poor, and in every way a perfectly pure, wholesome, and palatable 

 article of food." 



Prof. W. 0. Atwater, director of the United States Government Agricultural Exper- 

 iment Station at Washington, says: " It contains essentially the same ingredients as 

 natural butter from cow's milk. It is perfectly wholesome and healthy and has a 

 high nutritious value." 



Prof. Henry E. Alvord, formerly of the Massachusetts Agricultural College, and 

 president of the Maryland College of Agriculture, and now chief of the Dairy Division 

 of the United States Department of Agriculture, and one of the best butter makers 

 in the country, says: "The great bulk of butterine and its kindred products is as 

 wholesome, cleaner, and in many respects better, than the low grades of butter of 

 which so much reaches the market." 



Prof. Paul Schweitzer, Ph. D., LL. D., professor of chemistry, Missouri State Uni- 

 versity, says: "As a result of my examination, made both with the microscope and 

 the delicate chemical tests applicable to such cases, I pronounce butterine to be 

 wholly and unequivocally free from any deleterious or in the least objectionable sub- 

 stances. Carefully made physiological experiments reveal no difference whatever in 

 the palatability and digestibility between butterine and butter." 



Professor Wiley, chief of the Division of Chemistry of the United States Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, also appeared before the committee and testified to the nutritive 

 and wholesome qualities of oleomargarine. 



The Committee on Manufactures of the United States Senate, in a report dated 

 February 28, 1900, finds, from the evidence before it, "that the product known com- 

 mercially as oleomargarine is healthful and nutritious." 



Judge Hughes, of the Federal court of Virginia, in a decision, says: 



"It is a fact of common knowledge that oleomargarine has been subjected to the 

 severest scientific scrutiny, and has been adopted by every leading government in 

 Europe as well as America for use by their armies and navies. Though not origi- 

 nally invented by us, it is a gift of American enterprise and progressive invention to 

 the world. It has become one of the conspicuous articles of interstate commerce 

 and furnishes a large income to the General Government annually." 



Believing that this testimony establishes beyond controversy that oleomargarine 

 is a nutritious and wholesome article of food, the main question to be considered is 

 the complaint that fraud is practiced in its sale. 



The only just complaint (indeed the only complaint) against the existing oleomar- 

 garine law consists in the facility with which the retail dealer, in selling from the 

 original or wholesale package and substituting a new and unmarked wrapper, may 

 violate the law. There is nothing in H. E. 3717 (known as the Grout bill) which 

 would decrease the temptation or increase the difficulty of such violations. On the 

 contrary, the increased taxation would either be fraudulently evaded or else would 

 force the honest manufacturer out of business. H. R. 3717 merely increases taxation 

 without providing any new or additional penalties or any new methods to prevent 

 the sale of oleomargarine as butter, either in its colored of uncolored state. In fact, 



