OLEOMARGARINE. 353 



the future the combination of creamery interests into one great organi- 

 zation, which shall monopolize the manufacture, not only of the food 

 product known as butter, but of everything of that nature. That octo- 

 pus is now being conceived. If the United States Senate should consent 

 to the passage of a bill so outrageously unjust as this one is, then its 

 birth will have been accomplished. 



I am not an attorney and have never had the advantage of study- 

 ing law. My intercourse with the world has been principally upon 

 the deck of a locomotive. But by virtue of that instinctive sense 

 of justice, that untutored, instinctive, layman common sense con- 

 stituting the jury feature of and recognized as being as essential 

 in the maintenance of our common courts as is the learned judge on 

 the bench by that instinctive sense of right, I can not but realize 

 that the passage of this bill or the establishment of a law of this kind 

 is class legislation. I can not, as a common, everyday citizen, see it 

 in any other light, and I am satisfied that the Supreme Court of the 

 United States will take the same view of it that my colleagues and I 

 have taken, and there is no question but that if this bill becomes a law 

 it will meet the same fate that the income-tax bill has met. If the 

 income-tax bill has been declared to be class legislation by the Supreme 

 Court, I can not see how that court can hesitate to place this in the 

 same category. 



Not only that, but a precedent will have been established which 

 must either be sustained or subject some of our honorable Congressmen 

 to submit to the charge of inconsistency. You will have every corpo- 

 ration which has a competitor, a small competitor, that it wants to 

 crush, coming here to the United States Congress and trying to get it to 

 enact legislation based upon one pretext or another, none of which can 

 be more flimsy than the alleged justification upon which the passage 

 of the Grout bill is sought. 



In contending for the defeat of this measure I do not make the claim 

 that wage earners are all poverty stricken not at all. There are many 

 wage earners who are in very comfortable circumstances. But even 

 they shall suffer by being compelled to pay an enormous tribute to the 

 god of monopoly by virtue of the existence of the institution of which 

 I have spoken, which will be as sure to arise upon the destruction of 

 this industry as the sun will upon to-morrow morning. The poorer 

 classes being compelled in such event to go without a material of the 

 kind altogether, they will simply have to eat dry bread, or use some 

 of this glucose, of which some of our dairy and food commissioners in 

 some of our States, so industrious in the endeavor to destroy this legiti- 

 mate industry, permit to* remain upon the market. 



Much of the zeal evinced is more an effort on the part of some of 

 those gentlemen to establish them selves politically than it is the expres- 

 sion of a desire to protect the public interests. In proof of that state- 

 ment, I will, with your permission, read to you a circular which, prior 

 to the last election, was circulated broadcast amongst the farmers of 

 our State. This will explain itself, gentlemen, and I am sure that it 

 needs no elaboration on my part. 



APRIL 13, 1900. 



DEAR SIR : Case No. 6000, supreme court of Ohio, referred to in Bulletin No. 4 of this 

 department, inclosed herewith, was decided in favor of the dairy and food depart- 

 ment on Tuesday last. 



A copy of the Columbus Citizen of April 10, 1900, telling the whole story, has been 

 mailed you. As the course I have pursued in this matter sets the pace for the food 

 commissioners of other States of our Union whose oleomargarine laws are practi- 

 cally copies of ours, this victory means that the death knell of oleomargarine has 

 been sounded, not only in Ohio, but in the entire United States. 



S. Rep. 2043 23 



