OLEOMARGARINE. 19 



produced that there has to be a regular formula; that there is a 

 chemist maintained at the expense of the Government, who examines 

 samples; that representatives of the Internal-Revenue Department 

 stand in the doorway of every oleo manufactory; that they know 

 exactly what comes into the building and what goes out of the build- 

 ing. But at the same time there is lingering to-day in the public mind 

 an impression that there is something unclean or unwholesome in 

 the product itself. 



The ACTING CHAIRMAN. That question is not raised here, I think, 

 Mr. Gardner. 



Mr. GARDNER. I do not think that it is raised here. It was, how- 

 ever, strongly urged by the advocates of the bill in the House, and it 

 is for that reason that I refer to it. There is testimony here also with 

 reference to its effect upon inmates of poorhouses and asylums in 

 England. Whether the question is raised before the committee, or 

 will be raised before the committee, I have no way of knowing. It 

 was raised by innuendo certainly before the House committee. 



Then the second reason that is alleged for the necessity of this act is 

 that oleomargarine is fraudulently sold as butter. To a certain extent 

 this is true. There is no doubt but that retailers, unscrupulous 

 retailers, do occasionally sell oleomargarine^ pretending that it is but- 

 ter, just as they sell the imitation of everything else which they carry 

 in stock, pretending that it is the article that it purports to be. 

 But we do claim here that there is less fraud in the sale of oleomarga- 

 rine as butter than there is in the sale of most imitations, and that that 

 elimination of fraud has been procured by the rigid Government super- 

 vision, and can be extended by an even more rigid Government super- 

 vision, which every honest manufacturer of oleomargarine is anxious 

 to submit to, and, so far as it lies in his power, to secure. 



But the statements which are made with reference to the amount of 

 the fraudulent sales of oleomargarine in imitation of butter are abso- 

 lutely groundless. The author of the bill, in advocating its passage 

 in the House, said that not one pound in a thousand of this substance 

 was sold as oleomargarine, but that nine hundred and ninety-nine 

 pounds out of every thousand were sold as butter. Another advocate 

 of the bill said that 90 per cent of the product was sold as butter. 

 Another advocate of the bill said that it was never put upon the market 

 except as butter. All those statements were made in the advocacy of the 

 bill in the House of Representatives, and all those statements doubt- 

 less had their effect upon those who had not investigated the testimony. 

 ' After looking* through the testimony which was taken before the 

 House committee very thoroughly, the only evidence which I find in 

 support of those assertions is that out of twenty-five hundred dealers in. 

 Illinois two were found who had made a fraudulent sale of this product 

 and the affidavits of a certain party, or perhaps parties, in Philadelphia 

 that on several occasions they had purchased in one market or at one 

 place oleomargarine for butter. 



I believe that that was absolutely the only evidence which was sub- 

 mitted in substantiation of these wild charges. What was the evidence 

 to the contrary? The late Commissioner of Internal Revenue has 

 stated that, in his judgment (and there is no man who had such oppor- 

 tunities to form any judgment, he being charged with the regulation 

 of this business), not 10 per cent of this product was sold anywhere 

 for anything else except what it actually is, oleomargarine. 



