352 OLEOMARGARINE. 



having the right to purchase a product that is cheaper than butter if 

 they desire to do so? 



Mr. MC/NAMEE. Not necessarily to purchase a product that is cheaper 

 than butter; no, sir. 



Senator ALLEN. Well, 1 should not say " cheaper," but they have a 

 right to a choice between the two? 



Mr. McNAMEE. They should have a right to a choice between the two. 



Senator ALLEN. That is your contention? 



Mr. McNAMEE. That is the substance of it. Senator; and, moreover, 

 it is a fact that if the manufacture of butterine is prohibited, the but- 

 ter manufacturers, whether they are individuals or a combination of 

 individuals formed for the purpose of monopolizing that particular 

 industry, will have the opportunity of manufacturing almost any sort 

 of product they please that can be used as butter generally is, and of 

 charging for that product any price they please. We hold that if the 

 manufacture of butterine is prohibited, then men using butter or using 

 a spread of that kind for their bread who desire to use it will then, as 

 now, have the choice of either buying it or going without it; and the 

 chances are that the price will be so high that a great many such citi- 

 zens in moderate circumstances will be compelled to go without it. On 

 the other hand, if the manufacture of butterine is perpetuated, it will 

 equalize the butter market. 



Senator ALLEN. The competition will bring down the prices, of course. 



Mr. McNAMEE. And it will keep butter within the reach of those 

 who do not care to use butterine. 



Now, I appeared before the committee on agriculture of the Ohio 

 legislature, and after having dissected all of the various arguments in 

 favor of certain measures for the destruction of the butterine industry 

 (and I guess they had five or six of them up there), there was a farmer 

 who said to me : 



Suppose you fellows are permitted to go ahead and have this butterine manufac- 

 tured without limit. Suppose there is no restraint put upon its manufacture, or it 

 is not stopped in some way what are we going to do with our cows ? 



That expression of that farmer represents as plainly as it is possible 

 for words to express it the one and only object that is sought in the 

 passage of this Grout bill, viz, the legislative destruction of a legiti- 

 mate industry in the interest of its competitors, after those competitors 

 have failed, by their inability to maintain their goods up to a proper 

 standard, to themselves successfully compete with the product of that 

 industry, and the desecration of our legislative bodies having such 

 glorious traditions and such sacred duties to perform in the accomplish- 

 ment of such a base purpose. 



Gentlemen, there are hundreds of thousands of our citizens in mod- 

 erate circumstances who are now looking to the United States Senate 

 for protection against the perpetration of such a gross injustice. They 

 are depending absolutely upon that sense of justice, that sense^of honor, 

 fair play, and conservatism which has always characterized this body to 

 protect them Irom this, one of the most culpable violations of their rights 

 which any individual or combination of individuals has ever attempted 

 to perpetrate upon the American public. They are looking to this body 

 with the firm hope that its traditional love of justice will prevail and pre- 

 dominate in this crisis. Should this measure become a law, arising 

 from the mists of the near future there will come a monster into whose 

 insatiable maw the contributions of our citizens shall continually flow, 

 and whose appetite shall be increased by all attempts at its gratifica- 

 tion. This monster we have all, in our apprehensive conviction of the 

 certainty of its existence, learned to regard as the creamery trust of 



