OLEOMARGARINE. 135 



are driven entirely out of the cereals market. We have been driven 

 out of the meat market, and there has not been one word of com- 

 plaint. It was done among men in open competition, but we do 

 complain when you take all that is left and seek to do it by fraud. I 

 can not conceive how any man who has had any experience anywhere 

 that gives him a knowledge of ethics can sustain the man who has 

 placed upon the market a commodity looking, smelling, and tasting 

 like another, as that other, and then say when we ask him to stop it 

 that we are trying to down a healthy competition. It is not com- 

 petition. It is downright robbery. 



We have with us the president of the State Dairymen's Association, 

 representing 250,000 persons. They want this measure. We have 

 the master of the New York State Grange, representing 60,000 

 grangers. They want this bill. He is authorized by the master 

 of the National Grange to say that the National Grange wants it. It 

 has passed a resolution favorable to it. The National Farmers' Con- 

 gress at Fort Worth passed a resolution in favor of it. So did the 

 congress at St. Paul. It passed a resolution favoring the first part of 

 the bill. At that time the 10-cent tax was not in. The national con- 

 gress at Boston favored the first section, and last summer, at Colorado 

 Springs, they passed a resolution favoring this bill. The National 

 Association of Dairy and Food Commissioners in Detroit passed a 

 resolution favoring it, at Harrisburg, at Chicago, and this year at Mil- 

 waukee. The National Dairy Union is for it. All these people are 

 favorable to it. I only quote them to offset the proposition relative 

 to the one organization which has been quoted as against the measure. 



Now, leaving out the question of how many people are for it or how 

 many people are against it, in my judgment if it is an unjust measure 

 it should not pass; but it seems to me that the only thing which it seeks 

 to do is to suppress a fraud that exists, and I tell you it does exist, 

 and every dairy and food commissioner here can bear testimony to it. 

 It is not given to you as hearsay. For sixteen years I have been watch- 

 ing this work, seeing it go on. There is a gentlemen here represent- 

 ing a large firm in Chicago. They came down into our State two or 

 three years ago and attempted to put in oleomargarine. I myself 

 went into the city of Cohoes with two other men. We watched for 

 two weeks. We finally found that it came in over the railroad in bar- 

 rels of 10-pound tubs, with canvas over the heads of the barrels. We 

 had it watched day and night. I went myself with men from house to 

 house inhabited by French families who could not speak a word of 

 English. I asked an old woman if she bought it for butter. She could 

 not speak any English. I got a little girl there to ask the old lady 

 what she bought it for, and she said, "For butter." "For pure but- 

 ter ? " I asked. She said, c < Yes. " I said, ' ' What did you pay ? " She 

 told me 22 cents, and that was the price of butter. It was sold to those 

 people for butter. It has been our experience for sixteen years in the 

 State of New York that that is what is done. This business thrives 

 down at the last end, when it reaches the consumer, upon fraud. And 

 when I say that I do not accuse any manufacturer when he puts out 

 oleomargarine of committing a fraud; I simply say that if he is guilty 

 at all he is particeps criminis. 



Now, all we want of you is to stop that. Is there anything unfair 

 about it? We do not ask an unjust thing. We will stand in fair 

 competition with anybody in this country or abroad if we can have 



