526 OLEOMARGARINE. 



demands. It does not make any difference in what shape the packages 

 are, but all the packages must be uniform in order to be merchantable. 

 So with butter. Butter must be uniform in packages, uniform in body, 

 uniform in the amount of salt, uniform in flavor, uniform in color. The 

 weather conditions may be such that one day will make white butter 

 and another day will make yellow butter. I tell you that it is neces- 

 sary that we do something to keep the color uniform. When I tell you 

 that, I am telling you what I know. I say to day that it would be 

 better for the butter trade if butter could be made white uniformly 

 and all the time, rather than yellow part of the time and white part of 

 the time. The consumers would soon become used to that uniformity. 

 But we can not accomplish that. In the winter time butter might be 

 nearly white if the color is kept out of it. If oleomargarine were white, 

 where would our distinction be? In this bill \ve seek a distinction 

 between the two articles. If a bill could be passed that would cause 

 the color to be kept out of butter and oleomargarine in the winter 

 time, then the oleomargarine men would go to their retailers and tell 

 them, " You know there was a law passed at the last Congress which 

 practically forbids coloring butter." Where would the value of the 

 law be that would bring the two articles down to the same basis as 

 regards color? It is true that would be an advantage in the summer 

 time, when butter is cheap, and oleomargarine has no market to amount 

 to anyhow. But when it came to the winter time the color might be 

 taken out, and the two articles standing side by side would show the 

 same color, and then fraud would be practiced just the same. Every 

 man who wanted to sell oleomargarine for butter would convince the 

 consumer that it was natural butter, and would tell him that color had 

 been forbidden by law, and that butter is white in winter. 



Mr. MILLER. It is a fact that creamery butter is colored in the winter 

 time. 



Mr. KNIGHT. That is in Kansas. 



Mr. MILLER. Yes. Why? Because they want to keep it uniform. 

 Mr. Tompkins's point is this: This renovated butter is reworked and 

 sold on the market as creamery butter. 



Mr. KNIGHT. I am going to talk about that renovated butter for 

 five minutes. 



Senator HANSBROUGH. I suggest that Mr. Toinpkins be allowed to 

 finish his statement first. 



Mr. TOMPKINS. The proposition seems to reduce itself, even after the 

 gentleman's explanation, to one thing that we want to keep them 

 trom putting their articles of manufacture into nice and attractive 

 shape, and we want the liberty to do so ourselves; that we want you 

 to fine them for doing it, but we want to go scot-free. That is the 

 whole proposition. That is my interpretation of all that he has said. 



Now as to the question of who is affected by this bill. There is an 

 enormous number of small farmers and many of them have been per- 

 suaded to send deputations here when their interests practically lie on 

 the other side, or only on the side of improving their methods. The 

 fellow who sells butter to dealers, who, in turn ship it to the dairymen, 

 gets very little, if any, more for his butter than the oleomargarine peo- 

 ple do for theirs. The number of that class of people who make a kind 

 of butter that does not go upon the market in these attractive shapes, 

 is very large, whereas the number of people who produce the high kind 

 of butter, either naturally on the farms or in dairies for renovation, are 

 the interested parties, and are comparatively few. So that the great 

 bulk of the small farmers who feel that they are getting entirely too 



