OLEOMAKGAKINE. 883 



bodies to offset the outside cold. It is not uncommon that a bride of 

 an Eskimo receive as a bridal present a box of tallow candles. If 

 oleomargarine does keep down the price of butter why do we not have 

 an export outlet for a large surplus of our butter! The development of 

 the butter business of foreign countries is continually expanding and 

 growing, yet our exports are less than before so much oleomargarine 

 legislation was enacted, and within the last two years butter has been 

 returned from London to New York because the price was higher' in 

 the United States than in England. The United States the greatest 

 agricultural country on the globe bringing back butter from England, 

 all on account of the high price in this country, manipulated by the 

 dairy union. If we can not produce butter of a quality and at a price 

 that will supply the demand of Europe with our product is it right to 

 urge any legislation that will increase the price of a necessary food 

 product to the consumers of our own country? 



If the dairy union will look to their own business with the idea of 

 increasing the commercial greatness of the United States they will 

 study to improve the quality of their butter and reduce the cost of 

 manufacture so they may successfully compete with any country that 

 sends butter into England or other foreign nations. Notwithstanding 

 the enormous sale of butter in England, England is one of the largest 

 consumers of margarine. In this connection I would say that not a 

 single country in Europe, not even England with her war expenses, has 

 deemed it advisable to place a tax on oleomargarine. The United 

 States alone has burdened its people with a tax on a necessary food 

 product, the greatest burden of the tax now imposed under the Federal 

 law now existing falling on the retail dealers. 



It has been urged by the friends of the Grout bill that the retail 

 dealer is the principal violator of the law in selling oleomargarine. If 

 this is so it is because he is abused and his rights as a citizen of the 

 United States unjustly interfered with by an outrageous tax. 



Just think, $48 per annum for selling oleomargarine. The tax on 

 food being greater than on whisky. Is it not an outrage that a little 

 corner grocer has to either pay this exorbitant tax or supply his patrons 

 with a cheap quality of butter at a high price? Will the increase of 

 the tax to 10 cents per pound on oleomargarine stop all frauds in the 

 sales of butter and protect the consumer from getting rancid, impure, 

 and unwholesome butter at high prices? Does the Dairymen's Union 

 expect to increase the prestige of the United States among nations by 

 stunting the growth of the oleomargarine industry, or do they desire to 

 increase manufactures and industries by enlarging the outlet for all 

 agricultural products of the United States? Beinember that every 

 article entering into the production of oleomargarine originates and is 

 a product of the farm. 



We, as manufacturers, have always recognized the fact that oleo- 

 margarine in itself has sufficient merit to stand on its own bottom for 

 what it is a substitute for butter; but at the same time oleomargarine 

 must not be robbed of one of the ingredients that is absolutely the same 

 as is contained in butter, and which adds the first recommendation to 

 its palatableness that of pleasing the sight. We have always sold and 

 advertised our product and endeavored to educate the consumer to the 

 use of our brands of oleomargarine as oleomargarine, evidenced by the 

 statements of the Chicago daily papers, herewith presented. 



These statements are from the leading Chicago newspapers. I will 

 not weary you with reading them, but I would like to have them 

 entered in the record. I will simply call off the names of the news- 



