OLEOMARGARINE. 107 



a constitutional purpose? Has it any warrant or foundation in the 

 Constitution ? 



There is already pending in the Senate a House bill to reduce the 

 revenue, for the reason that the existing revenue laws are bringing into 

 the Treasury a large surplus a surplus of many millions of dollars. 

 Revenue is not the object. What, then, is the object? There can be 

 but one answer to this question, namely, the placing upon yellow oleo- 

 margarine a tax so burdensome that it can not be paid, and thereby the 

 loss of the revenue now being collected and the destruction of the 

 industry which is taxed. 



But it may be said that the Supreme Court has held similar legisla- 

 tion to be solely within the discretion of the lawmaking power. So 

 it has. It has held that the courts will not inquire into the motives of 

 legislators when exercising the discretion which the Constitution has 



fiven them. But, gentlemen of this committee, the courts have not 

 eld that the lawmakers are not bound to obey the Constitution. You 

 have each taken an oath to support it. That oath is a moral obligation 

 only, but it is binding upon the consciences of legislators, and they 

 can not violate the Constitution without moral turpitude. If you are 

 convinced and I trust you are that there is no warrant in the Con- 

 stitution for the passage of this legislation you can not give it your 

 sanction. I appeal to your judgments in the one case, and to your 

 consciences in the other. 



This concludes what I desire to state in regard to the legal aspects 

 of the case. There are, as you know, but two sections to the bill. 

 The first section has for its object the placing of oleomargarine within 

 the police powers of the States. Thirty-two States have already, under 

 the exercise of what they call their police powers, passed laws which 

 prohibit the sale of colored oleomagarine in those States. In my judg- 

 ment those laws are now, by reason of the decision of the Supreme 

 Court, virtually nullities and can not be enforced, when an importation 

 is made from one State into another in the original package, as pointed 

 out in the Schollenberger case, and sold in such package. But the 

 effort is made to take the article of oleomargarine from under the 

 opinion of the Schollenberger case, and to place it upon the plane of 

 intoxicating liquors articles which from time immemorial have been 

 regarded as proper subjects of the police powers of the several States. 

 Hence, it was competent for Congress simply to recognize the fact 

 that intoxicating liquors are subjects of State control. 



In my judgment Congress did not give any power to the States by 

 the passage of the Wilson Act. They had that power already, and 

 Congress could not take it away from them. Liquor is' a proper sub- 

 ject of the police power of the States, but all these opinions hold that 

 that which is a legitimate article of commerce, a nutritious article of 

 food, can not be interfered >vith in its importation into another State 

 or from a foreign country and in its sale in the original package to 

 any person in that State. That is the purport of these decisions. 



Under the first section of the bill, even if the article pays the tax 

 of lo cents a pound provided in the second section, not a pound of it 

 that has paid this burdensome tax can be put into these States and sold. 

 In other words, Congress will say to the manufacturers, " Pay a tax 

 of 10 cents a pound, and you can manufacture and sell it;" and at the 

 same time say, "But you must not take it into 32 States of this Union, 

 f you do, it will be confiscated under the police laws of the State. 

 You can not sell a pound of it in those States, after the Government 



