OLEOMARGARINE. 129 



Mr. MILLER. Why would any manufacturer use that? We have 

 been engaged in the manufacture of butterine from fifteen to sixteen 

 years. I can not understand why any manufacturer would use it. 



Mr. FLANDERS. I do not understand why men commit murder. I 

 understand that they do. I do not want to stop to discuss that point, 

 because I am limited for time. 



Mr. MATHEWSON. I suppose you have examined a great many samples 

 of butter? 



Mr. FLANDERS. Our chemists have. 



Mr. MATHEWSON. Did you ever in all your examinations find any- 

 thing in straight butter, stuff sold as straight butter or supposed to be 

 straight butter? 



Mr. FLANDERS. We have never found dairy butter adulterated. 



Mr. MATHEWSON. You never have? 



Mr. FLANDERS. No, sir. I should like to say that we pay attention 

 to every communication, anonymous or otherwise. It does not make 

 any difference who the man is who sends in the communication, we take 

 cognizance of it and hunt it down to the roots. 



I now turn to the report made by Dr. R. D. Clark upon the health- 

 fulness of oleomargarine. He is a chemist and medical man of twenty 

 years' standing, and I want to say here and now that our opinion in 

 the State of New York, after having given this subject a great deal of 

 study and thought and after having obtained the very best advice we 

 could get, is that a chemist is not, by virtue of his chemical knowledge, 

 a competent man to tell about the healthfulness of food products. A 

 chemist's province is to take a commodity, and take it apart, and tell what 

 is in it. It is no part of his work to tell what effect that article pro- 

 duces upon the human system. That is a physiological question. Dr. 

 Clark, a physician, says, relative to the healthfulness of oleomargarine: 



" We now come to the all-important aspect of the subject, Is arti- 

 ficial butter a wholesome article of food? We answer it in the 

 negative, on the following grounds: 



"First. On account of its indigestibility. 



" Second. On account of its insolubility when made from animal 

 fats. 



u Third. On account of its liability to carry germs of disease into 

 the human system. 



u Fourth. On account of the probability of its containing, when 

 made under certain patents, unhealthy ingredients." 



I should like to read the patents I have here 40 or 50 showing 

 not necessarily what goes into oleomargarine, but what they say goes 

 into it. What they do we do not know. Our chemist has been to 

 Chicago under the expressed promise that he might go into the works, 

 but he never got through. 



Mr. MILLER. Are these patents for the manufacture of oleomarga- 

 rine or butter ? 



Mr. FLANDERS. Oleomargarine, as filed here in Washington. 



Mr. MILLER. They are substitutes for butter in a great many cases. 



Mr. FLANDERS. They are not substitutes for butter, but patents for 

 oleomargarine. I am quite familiar with the subject, and I tell you 

 they are for oleomargarine. Dr. Clark says: 



"Before entering upon the argument we wish to state that we have 

 investigated the claim made by the k oleo ' makers that the ' weight of 

 the testimony of the medical profession was in favor of its being 



S. Rep. 2043 9 



