OLEOMARGARINE. 125 



real character, free from coloration or ingredients that cause it to look 

 like butter.' This court held that a conviction under that statute for 

 having sold an article known as oleomargarine, not produced from 

 unadulterated milk or cream, but manufactured in imitation of yellow 

 butter produced from pure, unadulterated milk or cream, was valid." 



The judge said that that decision was not adverse to the decision in 

 the Schollenberger case. We know it did not appear in the case that 

 it was a semblance of butter, but it did in the other case, and therein 

 lies the distinction; and if those two decisions mean anything at all, 

 they mean that the Supreme Court has put its brand upon oleomarga- 

 rine, colored in imitation or semblance of butter, as an imitation and a 

 fraud and a counterfeit. They did so hold, and so did two of the State 

 courts of last resort, and if. they have virtually placed the brand of 

 counterfeit upon it, then we come to you and ask you to assist us, to 

 the end that the fraud in this business may be wiped out. 



We will take the question of competition for a moment. I do not 

 care to discuss the other cases discussed by my friend, for they are 

 discussed by the court in arriving at the conclusions in these last two 

 cases and disposed of. They are immaterial here. The shoddy mat- 

 ter, given by Judge Springer, would not come within the police power 

 of a State, as it involves simply a commercial question. A prophet 

 or a philosopher can be a prophet or a philosopher still with shoddy on 

 his back, but he can not be either without nourishment in his stomach 

 or with something in his stomach furnishing only half the nourishment 

 that he ought to have. You must feed nutritiously or you can not 

 produce good men and women. Somebody has said, u Show me what a 

 people eat and I will tell you what they are. " Another has said, 4 ' Think 

 of the chemical work whereby food is put in the human stomach and 

 produces the divine tragedy of Hamlet." You must look after the 

 nourishment and health of your people if you would have a strong 

 nation. 



Now, how about the question of competition? In the first place, 

 let us go back to the color of butter. The natural color of butter, 

 when the cow is living upon nature's food, is a rich yellow. Butter 

 has been that color so long that the memory of man runneth not to 

 the contrary. When these people back in the seventies started to 

 make oleomargarine, what did they do? They undertook to make it 

 look like our commodity. Is that all? No. In taste and smell they 

 attempted to make it like our commodity, so that every feature would 

 deceive every sense that man could possibly apply to the commodity. 

 Were they content with that? No, sir. They came into the market 

 and sold it for butter. 



Now, I am not guessing or talking at random, for in 1884 and 1885, 

 when we commenced to enforce these laws, you were selling, or those 

 who were in the same business that you are in to-day were selling, in the 

 State of New York 15,000,000 pounds, and they told the same story 

 then as glibly as you tell it now, that they wanted to sell it for what it 

 was. Our men went into the city of New York, and if they went into 

 a store where they were known and called for butter they got butter; 

 but just as soon as they put on the garments of longshoremen, which 

 they did in a great many instances, to see what the facts were, and 

 took a basket upon their arms and bought a quarter of a pound of tea 

 and a loaf of bread, they got oleomargarine. This is no fanciful dream. 

 It is a fact. 



