OLEOMARGARINE. 69 



that enters into the manufacture of oleomaragarine is as much a prod- 

 uct of the American farm as is the milk from which cow butter is 

 made. If a precedent is set by the enactment of this bill into a law, 

 will not our friends from the South introduce a bill at the coming ses- 

 sion of Congress as followsi? 



".Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives, etc., That 

 all sugar known as beet sugar, or any substance in the semblance of 

 sugar not the usual product of the old, time-honored sugar cane, be 

 taxed 2 cents per pound unclarifiedand 10 cents per pound when clarified 

 a beautiful white in imitation of genuine cane sugar, as it is now 

 clarified to meet the tastes of the consumer. " 



Or will not the rubber manufacturers ask that the manufacturers of 

 celluloid goods be prohibited from making any article in imitation of 

 rubber? And so, gentlemen, where will such legislation end? These 

 gentlemen ask you to prohibit us from using three or four of the 

 pure, healthful, and nutritious products of our farms and ranges, blend- 

 ing them into a palatable article of diet to be used, when a man wants 

 to do so, in the place of cow butter. And yet the same gentlemen, or 

 rather the principal dairy States, will take the cotton and wool that 

 we raise and, by dipping in certain solutions, so change its texture that 

 it can be woven into most beautiful fabrics that they send to us unso- 

 phisticated people out West to be used in the place of silk. The gen- 

 tlemen object very strenuously to the use of the "word "butterine" as 

 tending to deceive, and yet they call this beautiful slick and shiny 

 goods '"silkaline." 



The advocates of this bill object to taking the same ingredients that 

 enter into the composition of cow butter (though in a different form) 

 and compounding them into an article of food in every way as good, 

 but the same gentlemen will take a small portion of the wool from our 

 Western sheep, mix it with a very large proportion of Southern cot- 

 ton, and send it back to us gullible Westerners as being all wool and a 

 yard wide. 



Much has been said on both sides of this question in regard to the 

 color in oleomargarine and in cow butter; and I believe it has been 

 conceded that both interests use the same material for that purpose, 

 and both use it to accomplish the same ends that of giving to the 

 consumer something that he wants, something that the Constitution 

 gives him as a free-born American citizen the right to use, so long as it 

 does not injure him nor trample upon the rights of others, and some- 

 thing that will make his bread go down with that pleasing sense of 

 satisfied taste so essential to good digestion and preservation of health 

 and life. To assert that food taken to nourish does not have to be 

 pleasing to the eye as well as to the taste seems ridiculous and reflect- 

 ing upon the common sense and intelligence of this committee. If it 

 were not so I will ask the gentlemen on the other side why they do 

 do not use the good old-fashioned brown sugar, usually a good, rich, 

 dark brown the color of mahogany that possesses strength and 

 flavor far be}^ond the clarified pure white sugars of the present day. 

 I will guarantee our friends here, the advocates of this bill, have used 

 none other than the pure white sugar for years. You all know why 

 they use it, and so do they. They prefer it of that color as being more 

 pleasing to their taste and better satisfying their pride. People want 

 oleomargarine and butter colored yellow for the same reason. 



