78 OLEOMARGAEINE. 



"MEMORIAL No. 1. OLEOMARGARINE LEGISLATION. 



" To the honorable the Senate and House of Representatives of the 

 United States: 



"Your orator, the National Live Stock Association, respectfully 

 represents unto your honorable body that it is an organization com- 

 posed of over one hundred and twenty-five of the principal stock 

 raisers, feeders, and breeders' organizations and those of allied inter- 

 ests located throughout the United States, and was organized, among 

 other things, for the purpose of promoting the best interests of the 

 live-stock industry as a whole. 



"Your orator, in behalf of its constituency, desires to enter its 

 emphatic protest against the enactment of House bill 6, introduced 

 in the House of Representatives December 4, 1899, by Mr. Tawney, 

 providing for an amendment to 4 an act defining butter, also impos- 

 ing a tax upon and regulating the manufacture, sale, importation, and 

 exportation of oleomargarine,' and in support of its protest desires 

 to record a few of the many reasons in support of its contention. 



' ' This measure is a species of class legislation of the most dangerous 

 kind, calculated to build up and restore one industry at the expense 

 of another, equally as important. It seeks to impose an unjust, 

 uncalled-for, and unwarranted burden upon one of the principal com- 

 mercial industries of the country for the purpose of prohibiting its 

 manufacture, thereby destroying competition, as the manufacturers 

 can not assume the additional burdens sought to be imposed by this 

 measure and sell their product in competition with butter. The 

 enactment of this measure would throttle competition, render useless 

 the immense establishments erected at great expense for the manu- 

 facture of oleomargarine, deprive thousands of employees of the oppor- 

 tunity to gain a livelihood, and deny the people, and especially the 

 workingmen and their dependencies, of a wno 1 esome article of diet. 



" In oleomargarine a very large proportion of the consumers of this 

 country, especially the working classes, have a wholesome, nutritious, 

 and satisfactory article of diet, which before its advent they were 

 obliged, owing to the high price of butter and their limited means, to 

 go without. 



"The 'butter fat' of an average beef animal, for the purpose of 

 making oleomargarine, is worth from $3 to $4 per head more than it 

 was before the advent of oleomargarine, when the same had to be used 

 for tallow; which increased value of the beef steer has been added to 

 the market value of the animal, and consequently to the profit of the 

 , producer. 



"To legislate this article of commerce out of existence, as the pas- 

 sage of this law would surely do, would compel slaughterers to use 

 this fat for tallow, and depreciate the market value of the beef cattle 

 of this country $3 to $4 per head, which would entail a loss on the 

 producers of this country of millions of dollars. 



"The use of this fat for the purpose set forth is an encouragement 

 to the producer to improve his herd and raise a class of grade or thor- 

 oughbred cattle capable of making and carrying this fat rather than 

 the common or scrub animal which is so hard and unprofitable to fat- 

 ten, and the cattle raiser or producer has come to know the value of 

 this product, and that the amount of the increase in the market value 



