OLEOMARGARINE. 515 



any immorality in the one, there is certainly a similar immorality in the 

 other. 



Senator ALLEN. You would not claim that butter made from the 

 product of swill-fed cows is wholesome, would you? 



Mr. TOMPKINS. I understand that people object much more seriously 

 to eating that kind of butter than they do to eating many products 

 that are entirely healthful. 



Senator ALLEN. I have eaten it, and often found it as sweet as any 

 butter in the world. 



Mr. TOMPKINS. Of course it depends upon what the swill comes from. 

 But in the great majority of cases, of course, we know that the use of 

 any of the swills produced in cities is very much objected to for the 

 production of milk or for any food purpose. 



To my mind the Secretary of Agriculture day before yesterday struck 

 the keynote of the whole remedy when he was talking about the sub- 

 ject of the education of a lot of young men, as the result of which the 

 dairy business has been put in a very improved condition. To the com- 

 petition of the valuable products that go into our milk we must look in 

 the future, as we have in the past, to giving the very freest opportunity 

 for the exercise of talents, of new inventions, the development of raw 

 materials for cheaper and better products; and there is nothing in the 

 world that will so much contribute to an understanding of the subjects 

 they are handling as the education of the youth of the country. At the 

 present time what the agricultural and dairy interests of the country 

 want is not a law putting an embargo, as it were, upon the energies and 

 talents of those who are working the cotton- seed oil business, who are 

 developing the production of stock; upon the consumers who are using 

 the products, and upon the advancement that has been brought about 

 by these occupations, but leave them in a situation in which competition 

 will drive them to the same intelligent endeavor to find out in what 

 way they can better their products, in what way the people who a^e 

 furnishing this cheap butter at railway stations can be induced to fur- 

 nish good butter, thus enabling the consumer to get a higher class and 

 a better quality of butter at better prices, just as the oleomargarine 

 people have found a way, by means of cotton-seed oil a most whole- 

 some product and the application of chemical science and the best 

 mechanical appliances, to make a good, wholesome, and cheap food for 

 the people. 



Then in whatever respect either one of these occupations misrepre- 

 sents its goods to the trade it ought to be forbidden. To any extent 

 which either one of them is furnishing an unwholesome article of food 

 to the people it ought to be prevented. But to simply handicap 

 improvements that one set of people have found out; to handicap 

 the new food stuffs that, by energy and talent and education, have 

 been brought to the people, by a tax for the benefit of the other people 

 who are not giving proper attention to the development of their trade, 

 is to depart from the principles upon which all the industries in America 

 have been built up. Whenever a man has had the freest opportunity 

 to find out something that was not known to other people, thereby 

 enabling him to make as cheap goods or cheaper goods than other peo- 

 ple furnished, something that was not unwholesome, that should do no 

 harm to anybody, he has the right to put that article on the market 

 and enjoy the emoluments arising therefrom. We equally know that 

 when an industry finds itself in that condition where, in competition 

 with others, by the application of more intelligent methods or the appli- 

 cation of new processes, it can not work to equal advantage with or 



