OLEOMARGABINE. 491 



Mr. KNIGHT. I will tell you. I have two cases right here to which I 

 can refer you, which bear on that subject. I will tell you the trouble 

 about that, Senator. Whenever that is done, it is done in such a way 

 that we can not get evidence against those manufacturers to connect 

 them with the fraud. But if you will permit me to do so, I will give 

 you a little incident here which I think will convince you that possibly 

 the manufacturers are pretty well in sympathy with those who do pass 

 off oleomargarine as butter. That is as close as we can get to it. 



Senator MONEY. That does not meet the point at all. 



Mr. KNIGHT. It meets it as nearly as we can meet it. 



Senator MONEY. Then you fail to meet that point. The next is 



Mr. KNIGHT. Well, what point is it you want me to meet, Senator? 



Senator MONEY. I want to know where there is any fraud. 



Mr. KNIGHT. Yes; and I will show you right here. I did not want 

 to be forced to do this, but I am 



Senator MONEY. Oh, yes ; let us hear the whole truth. Do not hold 

 anything back. 



Mr. KNIGHT. I simply did not want to be personal in this matter, 

 and for that reason I have left out a great many things that might 

 have been said. 



Senator MONEY. You can suppress names if you do not want to be 

 personal. 



Mr. KNIGHT. I hold in my hand here an answer to a complaint which 

 was made by the collector of internal revenue for the first district of 

 Illinois against the largest manufacturers of oleomargarine in the State, 

 in which they were accused, in twenty counts, of fraudulent entry 

 that is to say, of having sent to the collector's office wrong or fictitious 

 names of people who bought oleomargarine. What was that com- 

 plaint for? It was for what is known as " covering up " dealers. 



For instance, suppose I am a manufacturer and you are a licensed 

 dealer. By law I am compelled to report every pound of oleomargarine 

 I sell to you and your post-office address. The object of that require- 

 ment is to enable the Government to go to you and see that you have 

 the necessary license to sell it, and have paid your tax to sell it. 

 Here comes a man who wants to sell oleomargarine for butter, we will 

 say, or who does not want the Government to trace him out and put a 

 tax on him, so that he will be identified, and so that any person can go 

 to the office and find out that he is a dealer and watch him. 



Senator FOSTER. It is a species of green goods, is it? 



Mr. KNIGHT. Yes, that is it. Now, instead of his billing the goods 

 to the man he wants to cover up he bills them to you. You are none 

 the wiser, because those reports are confidential. And this particular 

 matter was brought out in this way, as I understand it : In the city 

 of Aurora, 111., there was a company formed, known as the Aurora 

 Produce Company. That Aurora Produce Company, as nearly as the 

 internal-revenue collector has been able to find out, sent out broadcast 

 through the country $140,000 worth of oleomargarine, with the stamps 

 scratched off, as and for butter. That oleomargarine was sold as butter 

 in New York State. The company sold it by the carload. They sold it 

 to one man in Buffalo, N. Y. The food commissioner became aware of 

 it, and it cost that man $1,800 in fines for buying something innocently, 

 which he supposed to be butter, because it was colored and he could 

 not tell the difference, as it came there in tubs. Another man, up in 

 Milwaukee, had to go up and pay a $480 internal-revenue license as a 

 wholesaler, because he got hold of some of that oleomargarine, thinking 

 it was butter, and bought it innocently, and sold it as butter. But the 



