70 OLEOMARGARINE. 



There is one subject on which I may be able to give the committee 

 some information, and that pertains to the purity and healthfulness of 

 the two principal ingredients of oleomargarine that of the cone fat 

 and the leaf fat. Under the most excellent system of governmental 

 inspection inaugurated a few years ago by the Bureau of Animal 

 Industry, the liability of diseased cattle and hogs being used for food 

 has been reduced to a minimum. On our market, and the same is true 

 at all other large abattoirs (except in Chicago a little different but I 

 believe a more stringent method is used), Government inspectors who 

 are under a chief, who has to be a graduate of a veterinary college and 

 stand an examination, go through the stock yards and take from the 

 cattle received all such as show signs of any disease or as in any 

 manner unfit for human food. As cattle are sold and go to the scales 

 two of these inspectors examine them as they pass between them and 

 cut out and condemn all that in their judgment should be. After the 

 cattle go to the slaughtering establishment they are again given an 

 ante-mortem inspection. After they are killed they are again given 

 a post-mortem inspection, and if found healthy and free from any 

 disease that would be injurious or a menace to the public health, a cer- 

 tificate of inspection is placed on each carcass. The same is true of 

 hogs, except the certificate is not placed on the carcass. 



So I am here to-day, gentlemen, to assert with all the force that I 

 am able to command that when either our cow-butter friends or the 

 agrarian party in Germany, both of whom seem inclined to strike a 

 blow at the cattle products of this country, claim an inferiority or 

 unhealthfulness of those two principal ingredients of oleomargarine 

 or the meat products of this country, they perpetrate a base slander 

 and not warranted by the facts. Your own Department of Agricul- 

 ture in its Yearbook published January 1, 1899, said the health of 

 animals and of men is very largely dependent upon the use of sanitary 

 precautions and the enforcement of sanitary regulations. As a certain 

 disease (therein named) in animals is reduced, so will that disease in 

 man be proportionately decreased. Along that line we are ready to 

 meet our butter and creamery friends at any time. I understand that 

 the present tax of 2 cents per pound on oleomargarine brings in a 

 revenue to the Government of about $2,000,000 per annum. Oleomar- 

 garine destroyed, the factories closed, it having become so generally 

 known that the cool fat from every steer and the leaf fat from every 

 hog can be so used by any ordinaiy intelligent man, would not our 

 creamery operators, if not a large number of farmers, take advantage 

 of the situation, oleomargarine be still extensively made, and the Gov- 

 ernment be deprived of the revenue? What means will be taken to 

 see that it is not done ? 



The cattle growers of this country have never but once, so far as 1 

 know, had to appeal to the Congress for protection of their industry, 

 and that was a few years since when we appeared before the agri- 

 cultural committees of both Houses to ask for relief against foreign 

 embargoes on American meats. I am glad to say that I see here to-day 

 several members of this committee that were present at that hearing. 

 But I say, gentlemen, that the cattle-growing States of this country, 

 which are largely of the West and South, are watching with anxious 

 eyes the outcome of this measure. They would keenly feel the effect 

 of such legislation, and I do not believe our creamery friends, or, to 

 put it more plainly, the dairy States, are in a position to thus injure us. 



