522 OLEOMARGARINE. 



55,00,000 bales doubled the price. Isn't it reasonable to suppose that a 

 like cause would have a similar influence on the prices of other goods! 



Mr. KNIGHT, I do not think that any man who is engaged in busi- 

 ness will assent to the statement that the destruction of a market for 

 a half million dollars' worth of goods will cause a loss of $2,000,000. 

 I will ask you this: If the displacing of the product of half a million 

 dollars' worth of cotton-seed oil will depreciate your stock $2,000,000 in 

 value, what do you think will happen to the dairymen, or is happening 

 to the dairymen, where they are deprived of a market for $20,000,000 

 worth pf their products? Would it not be that they were beaten out of 

 $80,000,000 a year? 



Mr. TOMPKINS. If all other honest occupations were eliminated, your 

 argument would be all right, but we are discussing the subject of its 

 being unfairly done. 



Mr. KNIGHT. On the other hand, why not apply the same rule to the 

 cotton growers, and say if the other occupations were closed to them 

 that the value might be so and so? 



Mr. TOMPKINS If it were, I dare say cotton would go to 25 cents 

 a pound that is, if you were to forbid the production of wool and flax. 



Mr. KNIGHT. Then, as a matter of fact, it is easy to destroy the value 

 of butter to the extent of $80,000,000 a year on that basis, or to 

 decrease the price of cotton-seed oil $2,000,000. 



Mr. TOMPKINS. And decrease the value of cattle and charge the 

 laboring elements of the country that much more than they ought to 

 pay. 



Mr. KNIGHT. All right. That is what I have been trying to get out. 



Senator DOLLIVER. There seems a very much larger production of 

 cotton-seed oil than enters into the manufacture of oleomargarine, 

 and a vastly larger production of oleo oil than enters into the manu- 

 facture of oleomargarine. If these laws restraining the sale of oleo- 

 margarine, such as exist in 32 States, were wiped out, and no action 

 at all taken by either State or local governments, would it be pos- 

 sible for oleomargarine to occupy the whole field for butter, thereby 

 totally destroying onej^f the chief commercial products of the country? 



Mr. TOMPKINS. It would not, on account of the variety of tastes. 

 There are people who will not have any lard but lard rendered from 

 hogs raised under circumstances that they themselves know about, 

 people who will not buy commercial lard at all. Equally there is a 

 large consumption of dairy butter by people who will not eat any- 

 thing else. The province of this committee is to put itself in the 

 position of a purchaser who wants to know what he purchases. It is 

 not a question of elimination. 



Senator DOLLIVER. My question was based upon the theory that the 

 oleomargarine product has now become so perfect an imitation of 

 butter that people would be unable to discern whether it is butter or not. 



Mr. TOMPKINS. But I do not think you would have any difficulty 

 Under the police regulations in reference to that matter. We have the 

 testimony of a gentleman from Cincinnati here, who is a State official. 



Mr. JELKE. He was collector of internal revenue. 



Mr. TOMPKINS. I will undertake to say he would keep track of that 

 difficulty. There is no trouble in organizing a body of agents or 

 inspectors, just as is done in the case of whisky and tobacco. 



Senator DOLLIVER. About four years ago we received an elegant 

 specimen of oleomargarine that had taken the first prize as butter at 

 the State fair of Pennsylvania. 



Mr. TOMPKINS. Yet your proposition would be to totally eliminate a 

 food product 



