OLEOMARGARINE. 315 



competition as having been acknowledged in all industrial occupa- 

 tions. In putting forward something which puts the old processes at 

 a disadvantage a fight has always resulted, and the fight has always 

 ended in exactly the same way. The new and better thing has always 

 won in the end, and it is going to do it in this case, in my opinion. 



The value to humanity to any new discovery or invention may be 

 tremendously hidden by the action of a body which exercises such tre- 

 mendous powers as the United States Senate. But that one class of 

 people shall be legislated for to the exclusion of all humanity getting 

 the benefit of the advanced method of putting food stuffs on the market 

 I do not believe, or that the inferior of those propositions will succeed 

 as against that larger one which appeals to the whole of humanity as 

 against the interests of a small class in one occupation alone. 



When the power loom was invented there was the same fight. The 

 hand-loom weavers made a great growl about the power loom tearing 

 up a domestic industry by the roots, about the unfairness of having 

 machinery to put cheaper goods on the market than could be made 

 by the hand loom, and there was riot after riot over it, just as in these 

 modern times there is appeal after appeal to the United States Senate 

 to protect something which in the first place does not need protection, 

 which is against the interests of 90 per cent of the people and in favor of 

 the interests of 10 per cent. And it is just as in the case of the power 

 loom, or in the case of the introduction of aniline dyes as against 

 indigo. You might as well be legislating upon the subject of whether 

 we could dye our cotton goods with aniline dyes or whether we ought 

 to be made to dye them with indigo, because it is a farming industry 

 which ought to be protected. 



Whatever the outcome of this particular investigation may be, what- 

 ever the Senate may do on this particular occasion, if a food stuff has 

 been found out, extracted from vegetable products, largely made up of 

 perfectly healthful products on the other hand, which is a good thing 

 for all the humanity of the United States, and especially a good thing 

 for the working people of the United States, then in time, if you pass 

 this law, it is going to be repealed. Some Senators have told me that 

 they feel constrained to vote for it because they have heard from their 

 constituents. I say that if they pass this legislation, they will undo it 

 later, because they win hear from their constituents again when they 

 do do it. And why"? Because, for instance, if you pass this law, 

 throughout the whole South you will appreciate the products of corpo- 

 rate dairies, of men with large fortunes, while you will depreciate by 

 $2 a ton all the cotton seed that is sold in the South to a cotton-seed 

 oil mill. 



If petitions from farmers were any good, and if these cotton-seed oil 

 people had had the foresight to go about it, they could have gotten a 

 petition signed by every cotton farmer in the South, because practi- 

 cally none of them have any interest whatever in the dairy business, 

 and every single one of them has an interest in the cotton-seed oil 

 industry to the sake of making or losing $2 a ton, according to whether 

 you pass this bill or whether you do not pass it. 



The ACTING CHAIRMAN. Do you think it would depreciate cotton- 

 seed oil ? 



Mr. TOMPKINS. I know it. 



The ACTING CHAIRMAN. What is cotton seed worth now? What is 

 the price of it ? 



Mr. TOMPKINS. It varies from $8 to $12; and if you put this tax on 

 oleomargarine, and destroy the market for it, the cotton seed will have 



