OLEOMARGARINE. 541 



milky rolls which lost to the purchaser more than they made of good 

 butter that was on top of the packages. 



In the spring of the year, as I have been saying, we had this Itfew 

 York State butter, that had been speculated in and held over, and the 

 holding of that butter had produced a peculiar flavor. We used to call 

 it a fishy flavor. About the years 1877, 1878, or 1879 oleomargarine 

 was introduced in the market. It was uniform in color, uniform in size 

 of packages, and uniform in rolls. It was very nice, fine looking goods, 

 sweet and fresh as the summer-made goods. It drove that class of 

 butter out of the market; and I may say that class of butter was finally 

 driven into the creameries that are in existence at the present time. 



Senator MONEY. I do not want to interrupt you, so as to cause you 

 to lose the thread of your argument, but I want information on this 

 subject. What became of that butter? You say it was driven out of 

 the market. Where did it go? 



Mr. PAUL. Those small dairies were driven into the creameries. 

 They delivered the milk to the creameries. 



Senator MONEY. The material went into the creameries? 



Mr. PAUL. Yes, sir; the milk went into the creameries. The intro- 

 duction of oleomargarine showed these people that the people of the 

 country wanted something fresh and sweet all the time; that they did 

 not want summer butter palmed off on them in winter as fresh butter. 

 People had been accustomed to that old flavor or taste, but at the pres- 

 ent time you can not get people to eat it. There is a sort of butyric 

 acid arises in old butter, and while it is not strong in flavor, it has a 

 sort of nauseating taste. After you eat it it produces gas, and a sort 

 of fishy, nasty taste will arise from it. That class of butter is practi- 

 cally driven out of the market by the introduction of oleomargarine. 



That continued, as I said before, and we were large shippers of this 

 Ohio butter, shipping probably 50,000 pounds of Ohio rolled butter 

 into the market. I was sent to Ohio as a representative of our firm to 

 sell our goods. Of course it was my disposition to do all I possibly 

 could to place our butter on the market and receive the very highest 

 price for it. I continued along in that line of business until 1881, prac- 

 tically breaking up the men that I sold butter to, and breaking up the 

 people that I sold butter for, for the simple reason that these people 

 in the country, when they would bring their butter to the markets, 

 would expect to sell it. 



The woman who used to bring the poorest butter to the market was 

 the best customer at our store. We could not discriminate and say 

 to Mrs. Jones, "Your butter is not so good as Mrs. Smith's, and we 

 will have to discriminate and give you 5 cents a pound less for your 

 butter than what Mrs. Smith receives." Therefore our butter was sent 

 to the market in all these conceivable shapes and styles, the good, bad, 

 and indifferent together. I continued in this kind of business until 

 1881. In 1881 1 went to the National Butter and Cheese Makers' Asso- 

 ciation, at Milwaukee, and was placed on the committee there with a 

 gentleman from Wisconsin, and another one from Boston, I think, to 

 examine the different qualities of butter, etc. I came back to Chicago 

 and stopped one day in an establishment manufacturing oleomargarine. 

 I asked for a consignment of oleomargarine. At that time they were 

 sending goods in consignments. The gentleman asked me whether we 

 were selling oleomargarine. I told him no, and I explained my situa- 

 tion exactly. I told him the quality of our butter was such that we 

 were compelled to get something that would give satisfaction to the 

 trade, give satisfaction to the poor people, and afford a profit to the 



