OLEOMARGARINE. 191 



ions from learned men of the Supreme Bench of the United States, it 

 might not be irrelevant herewith to quote an opinion from Chief Jus- 

 tice Fuller in the case of Plumley v. Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 

 in which, among other things, he says: 



' ' Upon this record oleomargarine is conceded to be a wholesome, 

 palatable, and nutritious article of food, in no way deleterious to the 

 public health or welfare. It is of the natural color of butter, and looks 

 like butter, and is often colored, as butter is, by harmless ingredients 

 a deeper yellow to render it more attractive to consumers. The 

 assumption that it is thus colored to make it appear a different article 

 generically than it is has no legal basis to rest on." 



It is noteworthy that in the first case appearing before the Supreme 

 Court of the United States the court was nearly a unit against butter- 

 ine, because this article at that time was not so well known as at 

 present, but quite as steadily as this product ingratiated itself com- 

 mercially the court in its opinions more equally divided itself, until 

 only recently it gave its opinion almost unanimously in favor of butter- 

 ine; and this further proves, through these learned men, that the 

 product is not such a menace to public health or commerce as the dairy 

 or creamery interests would have us believe. I desire to take up a 

 few of the charges by the creamerymen against this product, the most 

 prominent one being that when butterine is colored it is done so to 

 imitate "yellow butter." I do not believe that any one person in the 

 world to-day possesses the exact knowledge of the number of "yel- 

 low" colors that could be given to butter by any one coloring matter, 

 and therefore say, without fear of contradiction, that there is no one 

 capable of giving the number of shades of yellow colors that can be 

 produced in butter with the numerous makes of mineral and vegetable 

 colors on the markets to-day. 



We all know that there are very light yellows, canary yellows, straw 

 yellows, light yellows, medium yellows, light and dark golden yellows, 

 sunflower yellows, orange yellows, deep yellows and, in fact, yellows 

 indescribable from the almost indistinguishable faint yellow to the most 

 intense pumpkin yellow. They say we color our product to resemble 

 butter. I, for one, would like to have either the adherents of this 

 Grout bill or Congress to decide what yellow we are imitating. It 

 just occurs to me that if these dairy exhorters were really sincere in 

 their motives to have butter and butterine distinct in color, and in con- 

 nection therewith desire to extend the equity due their fellow man, they 

 would ask Congress to regulate and specify a deep, rich, golden yellow 

 for dairy and creamery butter, and specify for the butterine maker a 

 light straw yellow for his product, which, in my judgment, would 

 thoroughly inform the consumer of what he is purchasing. Or, in 

 order not to be a bit choice in the matter, let the regulation of colors 

 be reversed if it should please the butter makers. Other adherents of 

 this Grout bill have said that we make and color our butterine in 

 "semblance of butter," which in my opinion is still more indefinable, 

 because it not only takes in all of the ' ' yellow " colors of butter but 

 the white and various other hues of butter which I will not even begin 

 to define, but all of which illustrates how ridiculous these charges 

 appear to the most ordinary observer. 



To those who are interested in this controversy there can be but 

 one conclusion, that either the adherents of this bill do not know what 

 they want, or want a spread-eagle law that amounts to actual prohibition, 



