468 OLEOMAKGAKINE. 



and that they can not operate under it is raised against every law that 

 has ever been brought up. 



We went ahead and endeavored to prosecute. We brought the mat- 

 ter before a justice of the peace. In one case I think we went into 

 court twelve times. The first case we brought before the court and 

 we thought we were doing a pretty shrewd trick at the time was the 

 case of a man who sold oleomargarine manufactured by an illicit manu- 

 facturer. We thought we would at least get a case with this man 

 defending, because he was not a customer of theirs. What was our 

 surprise to find their attorneys defending this man who was selling 

 oleomargarine manufactured by an illicit concern. 



Senator HANSBROUGKE. That is, a concern that had not paid the 

 regular tax? 



Mr. KNIGHT. Yes, sir. And the amusing thing about this whole 

 business is that in this little statement I read from here, Mr. Moxley 

 speaks of how his attorney routed us in that case. The effort was made 

 there to prove, and they did prove, that this man whom we had arrested 

 had bought this oleomargarine as butter. When we had determined 

 ourselves that he was innocent of knowledge of the kind of goods he 

 was selling we dismissed the case, because we did not care to proceed 

 against the man who really thought he was selling butter. They made 

 their boast about how they got that man dismissed, etc. 



A few weeks ago the internal revenue department took that factory 

 up and exposed it and arrested the man and put him in $5,000 bonds, 

 which was evidence enough that our proposition and our claim that 

 this was oleomargarine, which we proved by two chemists, was true. 

 In none of the cases that came up in Chicago we prosecuted seventeen 

 of them at an expense of $1,600 did they once deny the allegation 

 that oleomargarine had been sold as and for butter. That was never 

 denied, They simply defended on technical grounds, and in the five 

 years I have been in Chicago, endeavoring to prosecute these people, 

 we never have been permitted to go as far as the jury with the case. 



There was a young man here who raised the point and asked the 

 Secretary of Agriculture, " Did you ever know a case where a consumer 

 made a complaint and prosecuted a dealer for selling oleomargarine for 

 butter?" I have had dozens of consumers come to me and offer to go 

 on the stand as witnesses against people who sold them oleomarga- 

 rine for butter. Why did we not take them! Instead of taking their 

 evidence, we went out and got evidence. In the first place, a consumer 

 who knows enough of law to get evidence in regard to an article like 

 this is very difficult to get. Yon can not let the article go out of your 

 hands from the time you get it until you put it in the hands of a 

 chemist. None of them understand that, hardly. They put it in their 

 ice box, and then the question of identity of the goods would come up, 

 and they can not make the connection between the sale and the time it 

 goes to the chemist, because they never think of it at the time. 



Another thing. Every time we have had a case up we have had to 

 go into court from at least three to a dozen times. The food commis- 

 sion, when they first started to prosecute cases in Chicago, undertook 

 to use some of the consumers, and there were two or three cases in 

 which consumers did go to the food commission and bring them samples 

 and offer to give evidence. What did they do? Mr. John S.King, 

 employed by William J. Moxley & Co., is defending to-day the cases in 

 which the food commission is charging the people with selling oleomar- 

 garine for butter. There was a letter carrier, for instance, who came 

 into the food commission and offered them a sample. The chain was 



