OLEOMARGARINE 27 



Senator HANSBROUGH. There is but v one Government chemist, how- 

 ever, who is authorized to inspect the ingredients ? 



Mr. JELKE. I understand there is one head chemist. 



Senator FOSTER. He has several deputies ? 



Mr. JELKE. He has several deputies. 



Senator HEITFELD. Are you compelled to submit this product to the 

 chemist? 



Mr. JELKE. Whenever he calls for it we submit to him anything. 



Senator HANSBROUGH. He has no personal supervision over the con- 

 stituent parts that go into oleomargarine? 



Mr. JELKE. If he desires it he can have. It is his privilege to 

 investigate every part of the manufacture, and our factory is as open 

 to him as it is to any employee of the establishment. 



The CHAIRMAN. You will resume, Mr. Gardner. . 



Mr. GARDNER. I had then taken up the claim of the advocates of the 

 bill that oleomargarine is to a great extent fraudulently sold, not as 

 oleomargarine, but as butter. I had endeavored to show that while 

 undoubtedly there is a certain element of fraud in the sale of this arti- 

 cle, as there is in the sale, it seems to me, of every food product, the 

 element of fraud is much less than has been claimed, and that it con- 

 sists entirely in the transactions between the retailer and the consumer. 

 I had considered at length, and I hope established to the satisfaction 

 of the members of the committee, that there is and can be no fraudu- 

 lent sale of this product by the manufacturer; that the manufacturer 

 sells nothing else at his establishment; that he is not allowed by law 

 to .keep for sale in his establishment anything e^e, and that anyone 

 who comes to purchase any substance there comes to purchase oleo 

 margarine and nothing else, and that there is no fraud on his part. 



That is the point at which I left my argument yesterday, namely, 

 the assertion that whatever fraud there is in the sale of this article for 

 something other than what it is is confined entirely to the transaction 

 between the retailer and the consumer. 



The manufacturer, gentlemen, is just as anxious to prevent fraud as 

 anyone possibly can be, and he must be so in the nature of things. He 

 is a manufacturer of olemargarine. He himself is obliged, as I have 

 shown you, and as Mr. Grout admitted yesterday, I think, to sell it as 

 oleomargarine, and nothing else. It is for his interest that oleomar- 

 garine should have a legal and a respectable standing as a food product, 

 and every fraud that is practiced with reference to it through +he 

 retailer, every prosecution that is instituted upon the ground of a 

 fraudulent sale, is an injury to the article which the manufacturer has 

 to sell. Anything which this committee can possibly devise, which 

 shall make it more difficult, if that may be possible, for the retailers 

 to practice fraud in this respect upon his customer will be welcomed 

 by the manufacturer. 



I make another assertion, gentlemen. I make the assertion, with- 

 out fear of successful contradiction, that all the fraud which exists in 

 the sale of this product is due to the passage in the different States of 

 laws forbidding the sale of the product for what it is for oleomargar- 

 ine. As was suggested here yesterday, in some 32 States laws have 

 been adopted which forbid the sale of colored oleomargarine. There- 

 fore, in those States oleomargarine can not be sold as oleomargarine; 

 and I make the statement here and now that in those States which per- 

 mit the sale of oleomargarine as oleomargarine it is practically never 

 sold for anything else but oleomargarine. 



