OLEOMARGARINE. 439 



the other side know perfectly well, as I know, who have come in contact 

 personally with hundreds of merchants in my State, that they would be 

 glad to sell oleomargarine under those conditions, but they do not want 

 to sell it in competition with other merchants who are willing to sell it 

 in violation of law. This will be a premium upon honesty. Many of 

 the manufacturers are perfectly willing to make their butterine uncol- 

 ored, and do not desire to build up a fraudulent business. One of them 

 has admitted it to me, and he said to me: "I will concede to you that 

 the time is coming when we shall make this article uncolored, sell it at 

 a reasonable profit for what it is, and build up a business here in this 

 country which will make the dairymen shake in their boots." I said: 

 "Very well, gentlemen, if you can do that we shall be compelled to 

 shake, because we will have no argument in our defense." 



If this substitute is reasonably wholesome, why do you not take it 

 and go into the markets under its own color and do what you can with 

 it and obtain a reasonable business? But the trouble is, they come 

 up into my city, and they say to some of the grocers there: "You sell 

 this in violation of law and we will protect you. We will pay the 

 expenses." Some of these firms are practically in a conspiracy to 

 break down the laws of the various States in this Union; and so we 

 come to Congress knowing that you gentlemen in the United States 

 Senate and in the lower House know perfectly well that it is not 

 dishonest to exercise the taxing power of this Government to stop a 

 great fraud. It has been done before. It was done in 1886. It was 

 done in the passage of the filled cheese bill. It was done when we 

 passed a law taxing adulterated flour and providing for labeling. Our 

 friends said these measures were all unconstitutional. They said they 

 were dishonest. They said that Congress could not do it; but did 

 they ever take a case to the Supreme Court? Did the law of 1886 ever 

 go to the Supreme Court? I came down here three times in behalf of 

 the filled cheese bill. I went before the Committee on Ways and 

 Means over in the other House. 



Judge Crisp, of Georgia, and Mr. Grosvenor, of Ohio, insisted that I 

 should discuss the matter of the wholesomeness of filled cheese. I said : 

 " Why, I don't propose to waste a minute on that. It is not a question 

 of the public health ; it is a question of honesty. Here are a lot of fel- 

 lows taking skimmed milk, taking the natural butter fat all out, put- 

 ting the artificial fat in, and making an inferior product, calling it full 

 cream cheese, sending it into the markets of the South, sending it 

 across the ocean, and thereby, by placing that inferior product in the 

 markets of Europe, cutting down our exportation of cheese from 

 120,000,000 pounds to 38,000,000 pounds in a year." That bill was passed 

 by the American Congress simply to stop that fraud and to build up 

 and maintain the trade of this nation. We do not come here represent- 

 ing the farming interests of this country to demand class legislation. 

 We do not want it. We have no right to come here and ask an unjust 

 thing simply because there are millions of us. By no means. If I 

 were a Senator of the United States and every man in my district 

 wanted me to vote for an unjust and an unfair law, I would not do it. 

 We come here and ask you to do what we believe is right. We do not 

 want any protection from legitimate competition, but because of our 

 numbers, because of our industry, because of the way in which we have 

 placed States and built up a wholesome prosperity, we come to the 

 American Congress and we ask for justice and protection, not against 

 competition, but against fraud. 



Mr. JELKE. Is not your industry more prosperous now than it ever 

 was before? 



