434 OLEOMARGAKINE. 



Mr. ADAMS. As far as my individual judgment is concerned 1 wish to 

 say with perfect frankness to this committee what I have said all the 

 time that I do not care about any governmental tax upon oleomar- 

 garine under its own form and color. The principle I am contending 

 for here in this bill, not simply in the interest of the competing class 

 except as they have a right to be considered in making an honest profit, 

 is that the color shall betaken out of oleomargarine whereby it becomes 

 a counterfeit of an honest and more costly product. 



The figures given to me or to my assistant by gentlemen connected 

 with the firms which have been cited here as to their sales of what they 

 call uncolored butterine, a portion of which is evidently un colored but- 

 teriue, and a portion of which is faintly colored, possibly, and possibly 

 not that is to be determined by a chemist, are: Jensen & Beck, 

 3,000 pounds a year; Hanley Brothers, ,^,000 pounds a year; D. 0. 

 Adams, Milwaukee, 19,000 pounds a year; L. Linehan, 5,000 pounds a 

 year, and Hoenig & Co., of Oshkosh, (5,000 pounds a year. These are 

 approximate figures. Perhaps D. O. Adams, of Milwaukee, who said 

 he sold 60 pounds a day, sells more or less than the figures I have 

 given. Sixty pounds a day during six days of the week, calling 320 

 days to the year, would amount to about 19,000 pounds. 



Mr. TILLINGHAST. Would you in the enforcement of the laws of your 

 State prosecute anyone for selling goods of that character under that 

 clause, that it had an ingredient that causes it to look like butter? 



Mr. ADAMS. I expected that question, and I am very glad the gen- 

 tleman asked it, because what we want to get at are the facts. So 

 far we have confined our prosecutions to more flagrant violations of 

 the law that appear upon the surface. In that case, for the reason that 

 the butter is so light, the violation of law is so small, and they have 

 gone beyond the border line to such a limited extent that it is extremely 

 difficult in presenting a sample like that to convince them that it is 

 colored at all, even if the chemist can extract from it a very faint indi- 

 cation of color*. 



Mr. TILLINGHAST. Suppose you should find no color whatever, and 

 yet the ingredients were so used that it resembled butter? 



Mr. ADAMS. I understand the question of the gentleman to be this 

 we might just as well state it. 1 think I can state it better than he 

 can. 



Mr. TILLINGHAST. Very likely. 



Mr. ADAMS. Do I believe that oleomargarine should be manufactured 

 by the use of other ingredients than mere coloring matter in infinitesi- 

 mal quantities, so that it can resemble yellow butter? I say that I do 

 not. I think it is against public policy. 1 think it means deceiving 

 the customer just as much in the one case as it does in the other. 



Now, our friends on the other side come up here and say that we are 

 prejudiced, that we are simply operating through class interests; and 

 they say that the courts, in passing upon these laws, have simply said 

 that the States, in the exercise of their police power, can do extraordi- 

 nary things, and that the courts can not inquire into the exercise of that 

 police power by the States. Do you lawyers upon the other side ?ay 

 that it is possible for a State legislature to pass any law doing any 

 injury to any legitimate interest, label that an exercise of police power, 

 and go to the courts of your State and the Supreme Court of the United 

 States and claim that the courts can say nothing about that legislative 

 act because they have labeled it an exercise of police power ! Not by 

 any means. 



Senator ALLEN. Does not the police power of a State extend to all 

 things that affect life and health ? 



