444 OLEOMARGARINE. 



lutely perfect so far as proof was concerned. It was not doubted or 

 denied in any way by the attorney for the defense. The attorney for 

 the defense was the mayor of that city a skilled lawyer. He came 

 before the jury. He did not put a single witness upon the stand not 

 one. He simply said to the jury, " Gentlemen, this man who has been 

 arrested has been a citizen of this city many years. He is a good man. 

 He pays his taxes. He is regarded as honest. These men who are 

 trying to enforce this State law have come up here and induced him to 

 break it. He is a good fellow." There was a saloon keeper on the 

 jury. He said, "This law is like the Sunday closing law, not designed 

 for enforcement. Now, what you want to do, gentlemen of the jury, is 

 to go out and acquit this man." They went out and in three minutes 

 they acquitted him, in spite of the evidence, in spite of the law. We 

 go down to the city of Racine and arrest men for selling colored but- 

 terine, and they are aided by their friends in Chicago. They employ 

 the most talented attorneys in the city. He comes in and secures 

 postponements and motions from one court to another, and it comes up 

 for final trial in the circuit court. The circuit judge disappears prop- 

 erly, no doubt and another judge from a distant county comes in and 

 throws the case bodily out o court, because he says the complaint was 

 improperly drawn; and yet every case in the State of Wisconsin that 

 has been brought before the best judges in that State has been based 

 upon the same form of complaint a complaint used in Massachusetts, 

 a complaint used in New York, a complaint which has practically been 

 passed upon by the highest courts in the land. That is the way this 

 law is evaded in the State of Wisconsin. I can not give you all the 

 details. I give you some of them because my time is limited. 



Senator ALLEN. It ought to be a very easy matter to draw a suffi- 

 cient complaint. 



Mr. ADAMS. It was sufficient. The judge simply turned it down. 

 All the authorities were arrayed behind that complaint, without a sin- 

 gle exception. But I just give this as an illustration of the difficulty 

 of enforcing the laws of my State. 



One of the gentlemen on the other side, fair-minded, as I believe, as a 

 rule, and courteous always, came in here the other day and made a 

 statement which I think on reflection he would be willing to change. 

 He says the representatives and friends of this Grout bill have come 

 in here and made the cowardly statement to this committee that their 

 laws were not enforced. I would ask the gentleman and ask the com- 

 mittee if it is cowardly for the representative of any interest to come 

 in here and tell the truth. We say it is not enforced to the extent that 

 we desire. We say that in the great State of New York, represented 

 before this committee by a dairy and food commissioner who for seven- 

 teen years has been improving by his own mind and judgment the laws 

 of that State by necessary amendments, and who has enforced to a 

 great extent the laws of New York, the facts are honestly admitted. 

 The admission includes his assistant, who came before this committee 

 and said that in one thousand cases in the city of New York during the 

 last three or four years in every solitary one of them he secured convic- 

 tions, and in every case the product was bought for and as butter by 

 the people who wanted butter. 



Why, gentlemen, you talk about the merits of this law and you say 

 that you men who represent the dairy commissioners ought to go out 

 and enforce it. We do go out. We do the best we can. In the State 

 of Wisconsin only 700,000 pounds were sold last year, and that is only 

 one-third of a pound of oleomargarine to every inhabitant in that State. 



