OLKOMARGAKINK. 51 7 



sits down to a hotel table, or at his own table, may be secure against the 

 swindle involved in paying for pure butter and getting oleomargarine! 



Mr. TOMPKINS. There is not the slighest objection to any scheme 

 being devised which will do that, but which, on the other hand, does 

 not take away from an industry its right to handle its business under 

 conditions that are given to another industry, to the disadvantage of the 

 first industry. Is it any more right for butter collected at railroad 

 stations, appearing in various sorts of shapes, to be doctored with a 

 growth of bacteria, to be colored so as to look like spring butter, to be 

 otherwise doctored and manipulated and sold for what it is not on the 

 proposition that it is spring butter"? 



What this committee wants to do and that is exactly what I am 

 dwelling upon is to undertake what is right in both instances, and 

 not adopt a scheme of taxation that takes away from one side of the 

 question in order to prevent the proper handling of their goods under 

 favorable conditions, and gives to the other side the advantage in that 

 respect, and disregarding in both cases the question of the extent of the 

 misrepresentations made and giving to the untaxed side the right to do 

 absolutely all the things ymi forbid the oleomargarine people to do. 



Senator DOLLIVER. There is great force in what you say. 



Mr. TOMPKINS. That is my whole proposition that whatever testot 

 honesty is to be on one side, be put on the other; that whatever test 

 of competition is put on one side, should be put on the other; if one 

 color is to be eliminated on one side, let it be eliminated on the other 

 but inasmuch as it is not injurious at all I do not see the use of forbid- 

 ding it at all, any more than I see no use in forbidding a woman to 

 attempt to make herself attractive by wearing beautiful clothes. 



All goods used in the manufacture of wearing apparel are put upon 

 the market in nice and attractive shape. A little starch is added to 

 the cloth. It might be said that is not honest. It is said that certain 

 goods weigh I pounds to the yard; as a matter of fact, they do not; 

 they only weigh 3 pounds; the other half pound is starch. That 

 starch is put in because people demand that goods shall have an 

 attractive and smooth appearance. If that question of putting in starch 

 to add to the attractive appearance of goods, when it actually falsifies 

 the condition of the goods, should ever come before this committee, 

 then it would be your proper province to undertake to stop it. If you 

 find occasion to undertake to stop it .in one line of trade, you ought to 

 undertake to try to stop it in another. 



But as a matter of truth, here we have a totally different proposition. 

 We have a condition in which competition has brought new articles of 

 food on the market, Here is an old-established institution overslaughed 

 in their methods, as acknowledged by the distinguished Secretary of 

 Agriculture and we all know that tlxey are finding themselves com- 

 peting with new methods, not keeping their business up to the demands, 

 and failing by reason of competition. Is it fair and proper that they 

 should come here and call down methods that have been devised by 

 energy, by talent, by education, by preparation, and by discovery, and 

 eliminate a great part of the just rewards for that progressivejiess, for 

 the benefit of those who do not do anything of that sort? 



Besides that, if you take this subject to relate only to dairy butter, 

 the people who have cows, who mako the best sort of butter, in every 

 case where these people have developed the best methods they have 

 been able to get ample prices for their product. I have understood 

 that two dairymen in the last two or three days have testified here, one 

 testifying that he got 35 cents a pound for his butter, and the other 



