318 OLEOMARGARINE. 



the other it would be on the side of cotton-seed oil every time. There 

 is not a more wholesome article made, and it so closely approaches olive 

 oil, which is one of the finest foodstuffs that has been known for cen- 

 turies upon centuries, that you can scarcely tell the difference, even if 

 you are an expert, while those who are not can not tell the difference 

 at all. 



Senator MONEY. Will you allow me to interrupt you? 



Mr. TOMPKINS. Certainly. 



Senator MONEY. A few years ago the Italian Government prohibited 

 the importation of cotton-seed oil because it was destroying the olive- 

 oil industry. 



Mr. TOMPKINS. And what was the result? That the exportation of 

 olive oil fell off about two thirds, as I understand. 



Senator MONEY. Yes. 



Mr. TOMPKINS. That is just what I am predicting will follow in this 

 case. They found that it injured an industry much greater than the 

 one which they were making laws about, and that they had to promptly 

 repeal the act which they had passed just as soon as they could get to 

 it. They found that the interests of the olive-oil people themselves 

 were interfered with by an act which practically destroyed a large part 

 of the trade in oil. 



Senator DOLLIVER. They mixed the cotton-seed oil with the olive 

 oil and sold it to the purchasers as being the genuine stuff, did they 

 not? 



Mr. TOMPKINS. Sometimes they mixed it and sometimes they did 

 not. Sometimes they sold it without any mixture as the genuine stuff"; 

 and it was the genuine stuff. It was just as good an oil. It was a 

 vegetable oil. It was refined to the same degree of color. It was used 

 for the same purpose, and you could not tell it from the other. Why 

 was it not the same stuff? 



Senator MONEY. Why, the Senator himself is using it every day. 



Mr. TOMPKINS. Of course he is. 



Senator DOLLIVER. No; I avoid all suspicious mixtures. 



Mr. TOMPKINS. Then you do not eat anything but cotton-seed oil, for 

 there is nothing suspicious about that. I think about a great many of 

 these other things, and especially anout dairy butter, there would be 

 quite a suspicion attached to them. I am not criticizing it, you under- 

 stand, but I say there would be quite a strong suspicion attached to 

 dairy butter as regards simply whether it was nothing but dairy butter 

 or whether it was something made in a dairy, and was oleomargarine 

 or butterine, as you call it. For it is a fact that even the buttermen 

 use coloring matter. It is probably harmless, and is all right enough, 

 but in many cases they also use more or less stearin and cotton-seed 

 oil in their products. In fact, when they put the coloring matter in 

 the butter, I understand they use cotton seed oil as a medium for the 

 color, so that all the so-called dairy butter has more or less cotton- 

 seed oil in it, wherever it has been colored, and cotton -seed oil has 

 been used as the medium. 



Senator MONEY. All the higher grade butter has cotton-seed oil in it? 



Mr. TOMPKINS. All the higher grade butter has cotton-seed oil in it. 

 [Laughter and applause.] 



I had occasion once in my life to be sent to Germany to put up a 

 lot of machinery, and in going to the place where I boarded, 1 observed 

 that there was some trouble about the question of my sheets. On 

 investigation I found that they were straining a point considerably to 

 give me linen sheets to sleep on instead of cotton sheets. When I 



