232 OLEOMARGARINE. 



that there was no appropriation made by the State to enforce it. I think 

 the trade, as a rule, has spent its own money to have that law enforced. 

 During that period, I think, we have also had a revenue law, which 

 requires oleomargarine to be marked plainly, so that all consumers 

 would know what they were buying; and we found both the State and 

 the national laws absolutely void. They were not enforced, except 

 through the efforts of the trade. We have our own business to attend 

 to. We are not the police power of the State. We have been forced, 

 notwithstanding that fact, to that attitude. Fortunately, a few years 

 ago the State appropriated a sum amounting to about $25,000, which, 

 I think, had been obtained indirectly by license, but the dairy and pure 

 food commissioner of the State has stated here that he has found it 

 exceedingly difficult to have that law enforced. 



We ask for additional legislation because we find that the goods can 

 not be controlled except at the factory. The minute they leave the 

 factory the deception begins. As reputable merchants, merchants of 

 standing, with capital behind us, and with prominent locations in the 

 center of a large city, we can not violate these laws. We are the first 

 men to be arrested if we do violate them. But we have customers 

 who sell these goods at retail. After they get possession of those 

 goods, they remove all marks absolutely. They remove the revenue 

 stamp; they scrape the word "oleomargarine" off the boxes. They 

 receive the oleomargarine itself without any marks whatever on it. 

 Then, they proceed to sell it as butter. And of all the retail dealers in 

 oleomargarine who have a Government license in the city of Philadel- 

 phia how many are there, Mr. Kauffman ? 



Mr. KAUFFMAN. Only 32, now. 



Mr. JAMISON. I doubt very much whether any individual can go to 

 any one of those retail dealers who has a Government license to sell 

 oleomargarine and succeed in obtaining oleomargarine if he asks for it. 

 I have repeatedly asked retail dealers who had a Government license 

 (generally under some assumed name; instead of taking their own 

 name, they call themselves some creamery company or other) for oleo- 

 margarine. I have said to these men, "Are you handling oleomar- 

 garine?" " No; I do not sell it." Still, we know that they pay for a 

 Government license. We know that they receive- the goods. We 

 know that they sell to their regular trade, every day, oleomargarine 

 for butter. A stranger who comes to one of their places of business 

 and asks for butter will probably receive butter, because he is an 

 unknown buyer; but to their regular trade we find that they sell oleo- 

 margarine to this day, in spite of what may be called the prohibitory 

 law of the State of Pennsylvania and a national law which requires 

 oleomargarine to be marked. We find it simply impossible to control 

 the sale of oleomargarine as oleomargarine after the goods leave the 

 factory. I have had considerable experience with oleomargarine; we 

 sold it ourselves previous to the legislation in the State which made it 

 impossible to sell it legally, and that is why I say these things. 



As I was saying, these retail dealers have continued to sell oleomarga- 

 rine as butter to this day, and that is the reason I think the goods 

 ought to be controlled at the factory, because as soon as they leave 

 the factory they are in such a shape that they can not be controlled 

 by either the State or the present national law. If they are taxed at 

 the factory or put in such shape that they must go to the consumer 

 as oleomargarine we will be perfectly satisfied. Individually I have 



