OLEOMARGARINE. 321 



Mr. TOMPKINS. Well, the whole proposition is this: Here are two 

 food stuffs. Put one through identically the same tests that you do 

 the other, and the only difficulty about that, so far as the dairy people 

 are concerned, would be that the oleomargarine and cotton-seed oil 

 products would come out ahead every time. 



Mr. SCHELL. If the committee and the speaker please, that formula 

 which is given there is only the formula used in one particular grade 

 of oleomargarine at one particular factory. It is not a criterion of all 

 that that factory turns out or of what any other factory turns out. 



Senator DOLLIVER. Is there any accessible criterion to which we 

 could turn? 



Mr. TOMPKINS. The Secretary of the Treasury has made an investi- 

 gation, and you could ultimately get the result of his investigation by 

 applying for it. But, as I tell you, it is very variable. Some factories 

 use 8 per cent, some 



Mr. KNIGHT. The Secretary of the Treasury says 10 per cent is the 

 average. 



Mr. JELKE. About 10 per cent. 



Mr. TOMPKINS. The Secretary's report gave 10 per cent as an aver- 

 age of the whole sum of oleomargarine. There is oleomargarine made 

 without any cotton-seed oil at all, I think. 



Senator MONEY. That is the lowest grade. 



The ACTING CHAIRMAN. Then you cotton-seed oil men are rather 

 opposed to some kinds of oleomargarine? 



Mr. TOMPKINS. No; we are not opposed to any good thing. We 

 think a good thing is all right and ought to be let alone. It is only 

 the dairy men who are " gunning for it." 



Mr. TILLINGHAST. I call the attention of the gentleman to this fact, 

 which probably will not be provided against as the bill now stands: 

 Cotton -seed oil, under this bill, could not be used at all, because cotton- 

 seed oil has quite a little color in it, and, as I suggested when I was 

 speaking 1 before the committee, it would be one of the ingredients 

 which would cause it to look like butter. 



Mr. TOMPKINS. Then, in that phase of the bill, I do not understand 

 how a committee of the United States Senate could consider for a 

 moment the passage of an act which would permit the use of a color- 

 ing matter in one case and prohibit it in another, any more than you 

 would permit the wearing of a dress of a certain kind by one woman 

 and prevent the use of the same color by another. I do not see under 

 what pretext it could come about. 



Senator MONEY. It appears, from what they claim here, then, that 

 everything needs coloring except cotton-seed oil. [Laughter.] Butter 

 needs coloring, and oleomargarine is colored, but cotton seed oil does 

 not need anything in it. 



Mr. TOMPKINS. Cotton-seed oil really, on its merits, needs absolutely 

 nothing. This is a controversy between other products. 



The ACTING CHAIRMAN. Your time is up, Mr. Tompkins. We must 

 go to the Senate. 



Mr. KNIGHT. If there is any other representative of the cotton- seed 

 interest here I would like to get him to give me the figures as to the 

 interests of the cotton- seed oil people here. According to a little cal- 

 culation I have made, the amount of cotton-seed oil used in oleomar- 

 garine constitutes less than two-thirds of 1 per cent of their gross 

 output. 



Mr. TOMPKINS. I can tell you right now that they have 80,000,000 

 worth of interest a year in it, if this bill is passed in depreciation of 

 S. Rep. 2043 21 



