OLEOMARGARINE. 399 



Mr. DAVIS. It could not go to the upper courts. The men were 

 acquitted. 



Mr. KNIGHT. Has not that question been decided in some other case 

 in Pennsylvania in the upper courts? 



Mr. DAVIS. Not that 1 know. It had not been decided, unfortu- 

 nately for me, last September when I was out there. 



In addition, although it is not essential to the argument, I want to 

 say this: Assume that you have the power to pass this law, the first 

 section of this act. I do say it would be a most unwise and a most 

 unjust exercise of the legislative power. It would' be unwise for the 

 reasons that have been so fully stated by Justice Shiras and Justice 

 Field; and the Supreme Court reports are alight with observations of 

 the same kind. Assume a man in the State of Virginia to make oleo- 

 margarine. If this bill becomes a law, he has to run the chances of 44 

 varying sets of regulations in order to get that into the commerce of the 

 United States. He not only has to deal with the sister State of Mary- 

 land and the sister State of Kentucky, or of Tennessee, but he has to 

 reckon with Pennsylvania, and New York, and the Western States, or 

 the far Southern States; and it is a prohibition of the manufacture of 

 oleomargarine by sheer necessity, for the man who makes oleomargarine 

 will* have to know the regulations of every State, which are the subject 

 ot constant change. He has to know the laws of every State, which 

 are the subject of constant change; and he may shape his enterprise 

 to-day for next spring's market, only to find that that market has been 

 destroyed by a legislature that has sat in the meantime. It is most 

 unwise legislation. It is most unpractical legislation. It is most 

 impracticable legislation. Not only is it unwise, but it is unjust. It is 

 grossly unjust. 



I perhaps speak with a little more warmth about this than is essen- 

 tial to the argument ; but I have been engaged in representing these 

 interests for a number of years. I have seen this industry grow 

 although I have had nothing to do with it except as a lawyer I have 

 seen from time to time the extension of the industry ; I have seen the 

 prejudice against this article when it was at its height, and I am happy 

 to say that I have seen its gradual disappearance, until presently the 

 man who votes for this oleomargarine bill, if he lives long enough, will 

 be able to say what the late Senator Harris said of himself when the 

 bill was before Congress to give Morse the money to build a telegraph 

 line from Baltimore to Washington. Senator Harris said: "Why, I 

 would just as soon think of voting the Government money to open 

 communication with the moonF He always said, in after life, that he 

 did not like anybody to remind him of that fact. But when this preju- 

 dice shall have entirely passed away, some of us who are discussing this 

 subject will wonder at the feeling that has been got up over it. 



Now, apart from its being unwise, as I say, it is unjust. Here are, 

 throughout this country, numberless factories making this product and 

 putting it on the market. Hundreds of thousands of dollars are invested 

 in the en terprise. Thousands on thousands of men are employed. Tens 

 of thousands of families are supported by it. This industry is turning 

 out a product that the poor man wants not only wants, but is anxious 

 to have that he knows is wholesome and nutritious. He does not want 

 to be deprived of it, and there is no reason that he should be deprived 

 of it, it having the stamp of the leading chemists of the world and of 

 the highest legal tribunal of the world as to its wholesomeness and 

 nutritiousness. 



