534 OLEUMAKCIAKINE. 



Mr. TOMPKINS. Why not put a revenue stamp on all of them, whether 

 butter or oleomargarine? 



Mr. KNIGHT. The first time the tax is attempted to be evaded you 

 will find the Department down on him. 



Mr. SCHELL. We insist that an adhesive stamp on each package, 

 with a heavy penalty attached for obliterating it or taking it off. will 

 reduce the whole fraudulent business to boarding houses and hotels. 

 We do not claim anything more. All we want for the manufacturers 

 is that the article be sold absolutely on its merits, so that the public 

 will know what it is getting when it buys. 



Senator HANSBROUGH. In regard to the collection of the tax, I may 

 as well read two or three lines from the House report: 



Representative BAILEY. Do you think that this law is enforced as well as any other 

 internal-revenue law? 



Commissioner WILSON. With respect to collecting the tax, better; with respect to 

 the incidental matters, so far as the pure-food law is concerned, no. 



Mr. KNIGHT. That was the Commissioner's testimony before the 

 House committee. 



ADDITIONAL STATEMENT OF MR. C. Y. KNIGHT. 



Senator HANSBROUGH. The committee will listen to Mr. Knight, for 

 five minutes, I think he said. 



Mr. KNIGHT. To begin with, I will say that when process butter first 

 came out and was being manufactured there were, as Mr. Jelke read yes- 

 terday, a great many patents taken out for its making, just as there 

 were when they first made olernargarine. Those same patents were 

 brought out and are now on file at the Patent Office. The first process 

 butter that was made was made from about as rank stuff, I suppose, as 

 anybody could conceive of. The goods were gathered up in the coun- 

 try, as they are now. But at that time they had lain a much longer 

 time than is now customary. It was then the custom of country store- 

 keepers to keep everything lying around until they got a barrel full 

 before sending it off. But to-day I am telling the absolute truth, 

 without prejudice in the matter in the system of manufacturing proc- 

 ess butter it is not permitted to get out of condition, with rare excep- 

 tions. There is no doubt, as has been stated to the committee by a 

 gentleman from Philadelphia, that there is some awful stuff that goes 

 into process butter. They say that fat is not easily contaminated, and 

 when it is once contaminated there never has been an acid discovered 

 that will successfully bring it back. You can no more bring back 

 dairy butter to its original sweet condition than you can bring back 

 contaminated fat of any kind. They have tried it. They have made 

 experiments with alkalis, etc., but it only saponifies the fat, makes it 

 soapy and fluffy, and takes the life out, so that it is soft like lard. 



The butter is collected and taken to the central factories; there 

 it is melted in a temperature from 102 to 120 in large tanks by the 

 use of hot water and steam. Those vats are placed on a slant; they 

 are crisscrossed with pipes with hot water running through them, and 

 the fat inelts and is drawn off into a vat. That fat is left there in the 

 vat so that the casein and water may be precipitated, leaving a clear 

 amber oil on top, and taking the casein and water and salt out under- 

 neath. That water and salt and casein are drawn oft' from the bot- 

 tom, leaving the clear oil on top. There are various methods for get- 

 ting out what may remain in the shape of casein that does not pre- 

 cipitate immediately. The process used to be to leave that fat at a 



