OLEOMARGARINE. 443 



Now, I want to say to him, and I want to say to this committee, that 

 we appreciate the way in which modern inventions come in here and 

 change things. We are perfectly willing to accept the fact that oleo- 

 margarine under its own color is a product of modern genius and is a 

 substitute, to a certain extent, of legitimate products; but we insist 

 that it is not in the line of progress to bring into the American market 

 something in the form of a counterfeit; that it does not pose as being 

 in ^he line of progress simply because it has some merits, because it 

 exists in the market and masquerades there- in the form of a more 

 valuable and a better product. Why, our friends say that we have not 

 brought any evidence to prove here that oleomargarine is not as good 

 as butter. We have brought some evidence, as a matter of fact, and I 

 want to suggest to the consideration of this committee, so far as the 

 relative merits of these two articles are concerned, that I do not 

 believe this is a statement of belief that any member of this Senate 

 Committee on Agriculture, in view of all that has been claimed for 

 oleomargarine, or that any of the 90 Senators of the United States, or 

 that any one of the 357 members of the lower House, at any time or any 

 place, ever went into a restaurant or a hotel or any other place where 

 food could be found and called for oleomargarine. No matter what the 

 attorneys or the persons interested in this business may say, the judg- 

 ment of men in this country is that butter is superior to oleomargarine 

 as a food product. They go into these hotels and restaurants and 

 places where it is sold, and call for what? Did you or any of you ever 

 know of a man who went in and called for butterine! 



Our friends say the Wadsworth substitute is a proper substitute for 

 this measure, and that substitute is designed to prevent the sale of 

 oleomargarine for anything except what it is. Let me tell you what 

 the facts are. In the State of Wisconsin, from which I come, and where 

 for six years it has been my purpose and my effort to enforce the dairy 

 and food laws of that State, this is the way they deceive the people 

 there. To a very considerable extent we enforce the law. The manu- 

 facturer sells his oleomargarine for what it is. The wholesaler sells it 

 for what it is. The retailer, as a rule, buys it for what it is; and the 

 retailer in Wisconsin, as a rule, sells it for what it is, but the men and 

 the women who buy the great bulk of that product in the State of 

 Wisconsin, buying it for what it is, place it upon the tables of their 

 boarding houses and hotels and restaurants and along the counters, and 

 sell it in response to a call and a desire for what? Oleomargarine? 

 Not for one instant. It is sold in response to a call for butter, to peo- 

 ple who do not want oleomargarine and do not ask for it. Not only 

 that, but in the State of Wisconsin the law is evaded in another way. 

 Our friends in Chicago have agents in that State. These agents go 

 around to the different people whom they think may want to buy oleo- 

 margarine. They take orders and those orders are sent to the Chicago 

 dealer and the goods are sent to the final purchaser in the care of this 

 agent and delivered by him to them ; and undoubtedly, although we 

 can not prove it in prosecutions, these agents take the difference be- 

 tween the wholesale price and the retail price. 



Under the law of Wisconsin an agent is not a seller, and we are 

 unable to reach the traffic. That is the way they avoid it in our State. 

 In the main our prosecutions are successful, but not always. Let me 

 give you as an illustration one case where they were not. I sent my 

 inspector into a city in northern Wisconsin having a population of 

 30,000. He bought some colored oleomargarine sold by a dealer in 

 violation of law. We appeared in court. Our testimony was abso- 



