518 OLEOMARGARINE. 



that he received 55 cents a pound. It is simply a question of getting 

 laws passed that will still further enhance the value of the product of 

 dairy butter produced from cattle that are known often where the milk 

 is bought. But when the dairymen know the surrounding conditions, 

 the quantity of that kind of butter I acknowledge is exceedingly limited 

 and the prices are very excellent. The great complaint that is being 

 put up here is not by the producers. The great bulk of cheap butter is 

 produced by people who do not give any attention to the production of 

 butter. They have not learned what the proper food stuffs are. The 

 complaint is not being made by them, but by the men who buy exceed- 

 ingly cheap butter and have it renovated, give it a taste by bacterial 

 growth, and give it color, just exactly as the oleomargarine people give 

 their product color. Those are the people who are making the biggest 

 fight, and it is practically oleomargarine against oleomargarine. 



Mr. KNIGHT. Will the gentleman yield to a question ? 



Mr. TOMPKINS. Go ahead. 



Mr. KNIGHT. Upon what authority do you base statement that the 

 makers of process butter are the ones who are making this fight here? 



Mr. TOMPKINS. Well, upon the general proposition that we have seen 

 a good deal of them here, and we have heard a great deal of testimony 

 on the subject. 



Senator DOLLIVER. The Secretary of Agriculture, it seems to me, 

 denounced the process butter worse than oleomargarine. 



Mr. TOMPKINS. I know he did. Nevertheless the support of this bill 

 comes largely from those manufacturers. 



Mr. JELKE. The bulk of the testimony introduced under the applica- 

 tion of the butter dealers ol Philadelphia all went to show that they 

 were dealers in process butter, with the exception of two dairymen, one 

 who realized 35 cents a pound the year around for his butter, and the 

 other who averaged 55 cents a pound the year around for his butter 

 and said he never sold butter for less than 50 cents. Otherwise the 

 testimony all through has gone to show that there have been no farmers 

 here, no consumers here. 



Senator HANSBROUGH. From my own State I am in receipt of 6 to 

 20 letters a day, and have been for several weeks past, from individ- 

 ual farmers who are interested in creameries there, who are furnishing 

 milk to them, or are stockholders in them, requesting me to favor the 

 passage of the Grout bill. Those farmers, of course, can not come all 

 the way to Washington. I simply state that as a fact. 



Mr. JELKE. I married my wife on a farm ; 1 have in central Illinois 

 as large a following of good friends who are farmers and the finest 

 people I know of anywhere; but I should like to state that there is not 

 one of them that has had the other side of the question, the oleomar- 

 garine side of the question presented, who would not come down here, 

 if necessary, and take the Capitol by force of arms. 



Mr. KNIGHT. Let me inject a remark. 



Senator HANSBROUGH. Mr. Tompkius, do you object to any more of 

 your time being occupied? 



Mr. TOMPKINS. No, sir. 



Mr. KNIGHT. I want to say this, that two or three days ago there 

 was a resolution introduced at the instigation of the oleomargarine 

 people, in the chamber of commerce in St. Paul. A lot of the business 

 men there failed to pass resolutions condemning the Grout bill. An 

 attorney came before the meeting and gave the oleomargarine side, 

 talked an hour on that proposition, and talked all about the oleomar- 

 garine side of it. Congressman Tawney went up there and gave the 



