OLEOMARGARINE. 375 



Mr. DILLON. That does not answer the question at all. Mr. Chair- 

 man, our point is just this: We make butter. We have made it for 

 centuries. We have an honest product, and all that we want these 

 people to do is to keep their hands off and let us alone. 



Mr. TILLINGHAST. Then you are satisfied with your own State law? 



Mr. DILLON. We are not satisfied with our own State law. Of what 

 avail is our own State law to us, when right over in New Jersey and 

 Illinois and Ohio and those other States they go right on and ignore 

 the laws and consume oleomargarine there, and then send their butter 

 into our markets and into other markets where we ought to go, to com- 

 pete with us ? 



Mr. McNAMEE. Is it not a fact that there is being manufactured 

 very extensively at this time in New York a product known as process 

 butter, that is colored and fixed up in imitation of good butter? 



Mr. DILLON. I do not think there is. I think not; no, sir. 



Mr. McNAMEE. Now, Mr. Dillon, on that same principle (pardon me 

 for being so persistent), would you not do this? You say that you have 

 an honest industry, which has been in existence for centuries? 



Mr. DILLON. I do. 



Mr. McNAMEE. Now, would you, on the same grounds, be in favor 

 of doing away with the pneumatic tubes or the little cash railways in 

 dry-goods stores, simply because the cash boys have been displaced, 

 and because there has been an honest method of securing change in 

 the stores displaced ? 



Mr. DILLON. I would if the manufacturer of those tubes got them 

 up as automaton boys, and tried to make the users of them believe that 

 they were genuine flesh and blood. [Laughter.] 



Mr. McNAMEK. That is reducing the argument to an absurdity. 



Mr. DILLON. Well, sir; you started it, and I hope you will get all 

 the benefit there is in it. 



Mr. SCHELL. Just one question, which I think the gentleman will 

 take pleasure in answering, and which I think is pertinent, and about 

 the only question I have aimed to put during the entire proceedings: 



Your only object, as I understand, is to force oleomargarine on " its 

 own side of the fence." Now, if (mark the if) it is possible to get a law 

 by which the oleomargarine manufacturer and dealer would be com- 

 pelled to sell their product for what it is, you would not object to his 

 coloring it with harmless coloring matter, would you? And if it were 

 shown to you, as an honest man, that the effect of this bill would be, 

 not to regulate the color question, but to practically drive the colored 

 product out of existence, whether sold honestly or not, you would be 

 with the opponents of the bill rather than with its friends, would you 

 not? 



Mr. DILLON. Well, you imply quite a good many ifs. 



Mr. SCHELL. It is only conditioned in that way that I want your 

 answer. 



Mr. DILLON. In order to answer that question intelligently, let me 

 say this : In the first place, we have been trying to do for you for seven- 

 teen years what you propose now to do in a certain series of ifs. We 

 have been trying to get you to sell oleomargarine for what it is. 



Mr. TILLINGHAST. On the contrary, have you not been trying to put 

 colored oleomargarine out of your State? That is the law is it not? 

 Your law is entirely prohibitive as to colored oleomargarine, is it not? 



Mr. KRACKE. Just one moment. For seven years it was tried, in our 

 State, to compel the sale of oleomargarine for what it really was. 



Mr. DILLON. Mr. Kracke has said what I was about to say. 



