36 OLEOM AEG AKIN E. 



creamery butter, competes with high-grade creamery butter. There- 

 fore it seems to me that that is out of the question. I will show in a 

 moment that, as it seems to me, there is no reason why it should not 

 compete with low-grade butter for what it is. 



Further than that, it appears from the testimony taken before this 

 committee that the total sales of oleomargarine during the period 

 covered by the last report of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue 

 amounted to 4 per cent of the total sales of butter of all kinds. If we 

 take the statement of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, who, as 

 I argued yesterday, is best fitted to judge, not more at any rate than 

 one-tenth, 10 per cent of the oleomargarine which was sold, was sold 

 as butter. Therefore not more than 10 per cent of the total sales of 

 oleomargarine came into competition with the sales of butter; and from 

 that it is mathematically evident that the total sales of oleomargarine 

 as butter amount to only four-tenths of 1 per cent of the total sales of 

 butter in the United States. 



Mr. KNIGHT. What do you call the total sale of butter, please? 



Mr. GARDNER. It is given in the report as 2,000,000,000 pounds. 



Mr. KNIGHT. Upon what authority '( 



Mr. GARDNER. Upon, I think, the estimate of the Commissioner. 



Senator WARREN. The estimate of the Agricultural Department is 

 1,500,000,000 pounds. 



Mr. KNIGHT. The estimate of the Agricultural Department is 

 1,500,000,000 pounds as the production, not the amount put on the 

 market. Only about 50 or 60 per cent of that goes on the market. 



Mr. GARDNER. By some possibility, taking the gentleman's own 

 figures, it might make the sales of oleomargarine at the outside 1 per 

 cent of the sales of butter. It could not bring it above that. 



Another fact, which I think is established by the evidence and which 

 I think I can truthfully assert without successful contradiction, is that 

 in spite of and in the face of the use and sale of oleomargarine the 

 price of butter is higher to-day than it has been in twelve years, and 

 that in spite of the use and sale of oleomargarine the percentage of 

 increase in the sale of butter to-day is greater than the percentage of 

 increase in the sale of oleomargarine. Therefore the assertion that 

 whatever unsatisfactory condition may exist in the butter industry is 

 or can be due in any large extent to the sale of oleomargarine is an 

 assertion which has no foundation in fact. 



Mr. KNIGHT. May I ask upon what you base your claim that the sale 

 of butter has increased over the sale of oleomargarine ? Where do 

 you get your statistics ? 



Mr. GARDNER. As I stated to the committee yesterday, I have taken 

 this matter up since last Monday and I have not read through this 

 report. I can not tell in what item of the report that is found, but 

 that statement is made to me, and if necessary (I hope my friend will 

 make some memorandum of these questions) it can be substantiated. 



Those are all the reasons which I have heard urged for the passage 

 of this bill. Not one of them is valid. It is said that oleomargarine 

 is unwholesome. There is no substance sold to the consumer in the 

 United States of America to-day which is so absolutely certain of being 

 wholesome or the healthfulness of which is certified to by such high 

 authority. 



Mr. HOARD. May I ask the gentleman one question ? I understood 

 you to say, sir, that an inspector is at the oleomargarine factory to see 

 that no unwholesome ingredient is introduced into oleomargarine ? 



