OLEOMARGARINE. 157 



the least ready to make definite and sweeping statements concerning it. 

 One of the most celebrated physiologists of the time, an investigator 

 in whose laboratory this particular subject has been studied more than 

 in almost any other, says in his lectures that, aside from the chemistry 

 of the process and the quantities of nutrients that may be digested from 

 different foods, he is unable to affirm much about it. The contrast 

 between this and the positiveness with which many persons discourse 

 about the digestibility of this or that kind of food is marked and has 

 its moral. 



" One source of confusion is the fact that what people commonly 

 call the digestibility of food includes several very different things, 

 some of which, as the ease with which a given food material is digested, 

 the time required for the process, the influence of different substances 

 and conditions upon digestion, and the effects upon comfort and health, 

 are so dependent upon individual peculiarities of different persons 

 and so difficult of measurement as to make the laying down of hard 

 and fast rules impossible. Why it is, for instance, that some persons 

 are made seriously ill by so wholesome a material as milk, and others 

 find that certain kinds of meat, of vegetables, or of sweetmeats ' do 

 not agree with them,' neither chemists nor physiologists can exactly 

 tell." 



Mr. ADAMS. May I ask you a question, Mr. Hamilton, before you 

 close ? 



Mr. HAMILTON. I am not closing yet. I want to make another 

 statement, if the gentlemen will permit me. I feel, gentlemen, that 

 this is an exceedingly important question. 



The CHAIRMAN. Go on, but be as brief as you can. 



Mr. HAMILTON. With regard, therefore, to the question whether 

 butter and oleomargarine are equally beneficial to health or noninju- 

 rious to health, the fact is that we do not know about it; and when 

 they say unequivocally that it is not injurious to health, or that it is 

 equally beneficial with butter, they are talking in a rather loose way 

 and are not supported by the best authorities in the country. 



Now, with regard to another matter, the question of public policy. Is 

 it a proper measure ? If you will permit me to use for my illustration 

 the State of Pennsylvania, with which I am familiar, and the condi- 

 tions there, I think it will illustrate what I desire to present, and the 

 application of it is wide enough to extend to, I think, almost all of the 

 States of the Union. I have here a little statement that I made in my 

 report. It is a discussion of this question, and I would like to read it: 



"Careful examination should be made into the effect which this will 

 have upon the dairy industry of the Commonwealth, which has now 

 become one of the leading and most profitable branches of our agri- 

 culture. If, upon examination, it is found that oleomargarine will to 

 any considerable degree drive out the dairy interests from the markets 

 of the Commonwealth, it would seem to be only wise public policy to 

 first make sure that the industry that is to replace this branch of our 

 agriculture shall do more for the Commonwealth in the way of sub- 

 stantial and permanent support than the important occupation that it 

 proposes to supplant. 



"The admitting of oleomargarine in competition with the dairy prod- 

 ucts of the Slate endangers a great industry that is now a part of our 

 system of agriculture more widely distributed than any other. We 

 have now about 1,100,000 cows in Pennsylvania. Their product is 



