OLEOMARGAKINE. 337 



neighbors in securing a crop of stones, showing that I am the poorest 

 farmer in the bunch, yet with my two little Jersey cattle I gain a 

 revenue sufficient to compensate me for my ignorance in other direc- 

 tions, as my milk pays me much more handsomely than any other part 

 of my operations as a fanner, and is a proposition which applies to 

 every other farmer in the county, the majority of whom sell milk to its 

 residents and are better satisfied with the returns than those from 

 any other product. 



There is, however, a more serious aspect to this bill from the farmer's 

 point of view which, if they rightly understood it, they would be less 

 ready to be used and quoted as disciples of the false creed and doc- 

 trines which have been conceived in selfishness and sin, born under 

 misconception and falsehood and practiced with deception toward the 

 cow owners and consumers until the real merits of the question have 

 been hidden and obscured in a mighty clamor which has been manu- 

 factured for the present occasion, until even the representatives of the 

 whole people have been cajoled and misled into an indorsement of an 

 act intended to but partially, at most, benefit a class, instead of the 

 mass, of the people they are supposed to represent. 



I contend that, far from injuring the farmer, the oleomargarine indus- 

 try can be made a positive, lasting benefit to him. At present in 

 States prohibiting oleomargarine the milk producer must sell either to 

 the milk dealer or to the creamery man. If this is true then would it 

 also be true that if oleomargarine makers were operating in all the 

 States a larger and still more profitable market for milk would be 

 gained, as the milk producer would have another large and steady com- 

 petitor for his product, with a certainty of still better prices; in proof 

 of which many farmers in New York and New Jersey are on record who 

 formerly sold their total product to the factories in those States. 



Now, in harmony with what I have just stated, I want to digress and 

 say this: That we have in New Jersey a county called Sussex, which, 

 as I have already stated, produces the great bulk of the milk that is 

 sold in the State as milk. Owing to the agitation in the State legisla- 

 ture regarding oleomargarine, I have personally visited hundreds of 

 farmers in Sussex County, all of whom were in accord in saying that 

 they got better prices for their milk when we had oleomargarine factories 

 in New Jersey and New York than they have ever been able to get 

 since. 



That I am not alone in this contention I submit the following extract 

 from the July report, 1895, of the Hon. Ueorge W. Eoosevelt, United 

 States consul at Brussels, Belgium: 



Some time since, France sent a delegation to Holland for the purpose of studying 

 the methods employed there for the suppression of frauds in butter making, and also 

 to ascertain if the manufacture of margarine (oleomargarine, butterine) has been 

 favorable to agricultural interests. The report contains the attestation of seven 

 mayors of communes in southern Holland, snowing that since the introduction of 

 the margarine industry in that country (Holland) not only has the price of milk 

 increased, but also the number of cattle, which plainly shows that the industry in 

 question has become a source of profit to the farmers. 



That buttterine is a "large" subject is already well attested by the 

 mass of testimony that has been adduced before the lower House, like- 

 wise by the testimony which has been presented to this committee, and 

 by the more painful fact that an extraordinary large tax is sought to be 

 placed upon the product which is the subject of this discussion. I ask 

 the committee to bear with me a few minutes longer, in order to say that 

 the most bitter of our opponents no longer oppose oleomargarine on 

 the ground of unhealthfuluess or impurity. On the contrary, the con- 



S. Rep. 2043 22 



