32 OLEOMARGARINE. 



I possibly can, and in anything I may state which may require investi- 

 gation or answer the answer, perhaps, can be reserved. 



The point which I was trying to make was that absolutely the only 

 occasion for the fraud which the advocates of this bill complain of is 

 the passage in so many States of laws which make it impossible for a 

 dealer to be honest, however much he may desire to be so, if he is to 

 sell this product at all, which actually supplies a demand. I say that 

 if the advocates of the bill are consistent and desire that oleomargarine 

 should stand in the market solely upon its own merits and should not 

 come into competition with butter, they can accomplish this purpose 

 by procuring the repeal of those laws. They would do so if they knew 

 where their own interests lay. It is simply by making it illegal to 

 carry on this business as it ought to be carried on that there is a temp- 

 tation offered to carry on the business as it ought not to be carried on. 



But what does this bill do? The bill proposes that upon the States 

 which under the influence of wiser counsels have not enacted such laws 

 laws which have occasioned fraud there shall be imposed the same con- 

 ditions which exist in the States where those laws have been enacted, 

 and in those States where it is desired to do an honest business to make 

 it possible only to do a fraudulent business. 



Let me point out, further, that the bill does not seek to stop such 

 fraud. The bill only seeks to make the carrying on of that business 

 more expensive. The bill allows oleomargarine to be manufactured 

 and to be artificially colored so as to resemble butter. It simply pro- 

 vides that when it is so colored as to resemble butter it shall pay a tax 

 of 10 cents per pound instead of paying a tax of 2 cents per pound. 



Now, let us suppose it to be true I assert that it is not true, but it 

 is the basis of the whole argument of the advocates of the bill let us 

 suppose it to be true that this substance when artificially colored does 

 come into competition with the best, or with good creamery, butter. 

 That is what they assert. They say that it can be sold for 28 or 30, and 

 in some instances for 35 cents a pound. Let us suppose that to be true. 

 Then oleomargarine which sells to-day at 15 cents a pound at retail, 

 after the tax of 2 cents a pound has been paid, would sell, after the 

 passage of this bill, to secure the same profit to its manufacturer and 

 its retailer, at 8 cents a pound more, or at 23 cents a pound. If it 

 does come into competition with creamery butter at 25 and 30 and 35 

 cents a pound it will come into competition still, and if the dealer 

 wants to make his profit he will simply have to press the sale of it 

 harder. There is to be a profit of 7 or 12 cents a pound in the perpe- 

 tration of this fraud, even after the passage of the bill, if the statement 

 of the advocates of the bill is even approximately correct that it can 

 be sold as pure creamery butter of the highest type. Therefore it 

 appears that the advocates of the bill do not offer any remedy for the 

 fraud of which they complain, but that upon their own hypothesis 

 they are only making the fraud more expensive to the man who carries 

 it on; and the bill is utterly inadequate for the purpose for which it 

 purports to be drawn. 



Senator HANSBROUGH. How would it do to make the tax 20 cents a 

 pound 3 



Mr. GARDNER. That would be more effective. A tax of a dollar a 

 pound would be more effective still. Bat you come right back to the 

 proposition which I laid down at the start, that this is legislation which 

 seeks to prohibit the sale of oleomargarine, and if you want to prohibit 



