322 OLEOMABGARINE. 



the value of cotton seed. According to my estimate of 3,000,000 tons 

 of cotton seed which are used for making oil every year, their loss would 

 be $6,000,000 a year the loss of the cotton-seed people alone. Now, 

 you would bleed the working people of the country of ten millions more, 

 and you would bleed the stock people of five. That is what you would 

 do. That is an estimate of the value, in dollars and cents, of these 

 interests. 



The ACTING CHAIRMAN. We have been informed that 107,000,001) 

 pounds of oleomargarine were made last year, at about 20 cents a pound. 



Mr. SCHELL. You are forgetting the eflect of this legislation on 

 exportation. 



Mr. TOMPKINS. Yes; its effect on the market price, in decreasing the 

 market price of oil, and increasing the price of the food stuffs of the 

 working people, who now buy oleomargarine. You must not forget 

 those two facts. 



Thereupon, at 12.05 o'clock, p. m., the committee took a recess until 

 2.30 o'clock, p. m. 



At the expiration of the recess the committee resumed its session. 



Present: Senators Dolliver (acting chairman) and Foster. 



Present, also, Charles Y. Knight, secretary of the National Dairy 

 Union ; John F. Jelke, representing Braun & Fitts, Chicago, 111. ; Frank 

 W. Tillinghast, representing the Vermont Manufacturing Company, of 

 Providence, R. I. ; Charles E. Schell, representing the Ohio Butteriue 

 Company, of Cincinnati, Ohio, and others. 



The ACTING CHAIRMAN. Who is the next speaker f 



Mr. TILLINGHAST. Mr. Conley is ready to be heard, as I understand. 



The ACTING CHAIRMAN. You are here in the interests of cotton seed ? 



Mr. CONLEY. Yes, sir. I represent the De Soto Company, of Green- 

 ville, Miss. 



STATEMENT OF J. B. CONLEY, OF GREENVILLE, MISS. 



Mr. CONLEY. Mr. Chairman, I am here representing the Crushers 

 Association, and more particularly the mills of Mississippi. There are 

 other gentlemen here from different sections of the country represent- 

 ing the same interests, who will enter their protest with mine against 

 the passage of the bill known as the Grout bill. 



1 feel sure, Mr. Chairman, that the passage of this bill will be far 

 more reaching than you now contemplate. It will affect the cotton- 

 seed oil mills very materially, to a greater extent than we can now 

 realize if we take into consideration only the loss of the sale of the oil 

 that goes into oleomargarine. The effect of the passage of the bill 

 would be to leave a surplus on hand which we would have to in some 

 way dispose of; and the best that we could count on, assuming that 

 we could dispose at all of this accumulated surplus of oil (and I will 

 add here that the mills generally carry over a surplus of oil) would be 

 to dispose of it at a lower price. As you know, Mr. Chairman, a sur- 

 plus of any commodity means a lowered price. 



There are something over 400 mills in the cotton States, about 240 

 mills east of the Mississippi River, 21 in Arkansas, and 2 in Missouri. 

 As to the number of mills in Texas, I am not accurately informed, but 

 will estimate it at about 150. We have 45 mills in Mississippi; and if 

 this bill becomes a law it will entail a very serious loss to the mills 

 and to the planters and to the laborers and everybody interested. We 

 have 4 mills in the little city of Greenville, where I live, representing 

 a capital of something like $400,000; and I do not think I exaggerate 



