226 OLEOMAEGAKINE. 



ment with the evidence; that is all. But it is the worst law we ever 

 could have enacted, according to my best judgment. 



Mr. KNIGHT. You mean the Wadsworth bill? 



Mr. DRENNAN. The Wadsworth bill. 



Mr. JELKE. Just one minute, Mr. Drennan. Do I understand you 

 to say that you have had no call for oleomargarine as oleomargarine ? 



Mr. DRENNAN. Why, while we were in the business we had a great 

 many calls for it. We were in exactly the same position, Mr. Jelke, 

 that you were. We could not sell it for butter if we had tried to sell 

 it for butter. We kept it stamped in our own house for sale. The 

 man who came there, if he wanted it at all, wanted it as oleo. He 

 would do the other work. 



Now, then, I do not want to forget anything. I came near forget- 

 ting a point that I wished to make. We formerly sold to one man 

 perhaps $50,000 worth of high-grade oleomargarine every year. That 

 man had a rule behind his stalls, where he had four cutters, that if 

 one of them ever gave away the fact that oleomargarine was being sold 

 in that stall he did it at the peril of his position, and he maintained 

 that rule for years. I can think of three gentlemen in Camden who 

 bought it and sold it, and they will tell you to-day that a pound never 

 went out of their possession except for genuine butter, and they would 

 not dare do it, and they would not do it. They sold it all for butter. 



Now, those are the facts. I would be glad to be permitted to sell 

 oleomargarine if there were any demand for it as such. But 99 per 

 cent of it is sold fraudulently. That is absolutely my candid convic- 

 tion, and it is what I gather from facts that have come under my own 

 knowledge. Every dealer to whom we sold oleomargarine would tell 

 you that he never could sell it, or would not sell it, except as butter, 

 for the reason that he would not want his trade to know he was han- 

 dling oleo. If he did, the customer would say, "Why don't you let 

 me have it at a reasonable price?" The dealer would sell it at a price 

 about a cent below that of fancy butter; hence the enormous profit. 



Now, that is the way the thing is run in our market. There are 

 wholesale dealers there who would contradict me, but I know that 

 those wholesale dealers and you may take the most respectable of 

 them have insisted that our trade, in coming to us and buying butter, 

 must take up the oleo. They have said, u lf you will only take it up 

 we will see that you are not at one cent expense for legal matters. 

 We will bear all the expense. We will stand behind you and protect 

 you as regards that part of it. Go in. You might as well go in and 

 sell it as somebody else. We will stand back of you." If one man 

 has said that thing to me in the last six months, in the endeavor to 

 urge us into handling oleo, fifty have done it, and everyone with 

 assurance (whether or not it would have been carried out I do not 

 know) that they would stand back of us and protect us. 



That is the way it is sold in Philadelphia, and there is not a man 

 here in the business but what knows it. 



Mr. JELKE. Mr. Drennan, just one question. You handle all kinds 

 of butter, do you not? 



Mr. DRENNAN. Yes, sir; pretty much. 



Mr. JELKE. Process butter? 



Mr. DRENNAN. No, sir; we do not. 



Mr. JELKE. Renovated butter? 



Mr. DRENNAN. No, sir. We do not handle it; not because we have 

 any scruple against it, but because we have no particular trade for it. 



