546 OLEOMARGARINE. 



Mr. PAUL. He could not get milk and cream enough to make butter 

 enough to continue his business. 



Senator MONEY. The price has gone up, has it? 



Mr. PAUL. No; the price has come down, but at the same time every- 

 thing else has come "down in proportion, so that they are getting a very 

 good price for their butter. 



Senator MONEY. Do you sell butter now? 



Mr. PAUL. Yes, sir; as a commission merchant. I am selling butter, 

 eggs, and cheese. 



Senator MONEY. You sell both butter and oleomargarine? 



Mr. PAUL. Yes, sir. 



If oleomargarine is legislated out of existence by an excessive tax 

 you will destroy the creamery system of the United States. It will be 

 a step backward, because the renovated butter system will become the 

 butter of the day. My reasons for saying so are that during the 

 summer months, or when butter is cheap, butter will then be made, 

 as I said before, in any slipshod way and held for better prices through 

 the winter season, and renovated, and forced on the public as butter. 

 It will so cripple the creameries now in existence that they will be 

 forced to retire or adopt that plan of making their butter. 1 believe 

 that the creameries will finally have to adopt the system of making 

 butter as the process- butter people are doing at the present time if this 

 law is passed, because there will be no money in creamery butter. 



Oleomargarine does not affect fine butter. It, however, drives poor 

 butter out of existence, or makes poor butter makers, owing to the low 

 price they receive, sell their milk and cream to the creamery men. The 

 creamery men had better stop fighting oleo, because it is their besfc 

 friend. What we want is fancy butter for those who can afford to pay 

 for it, and we want oleomargarine as the butter for the poor man. A 

 creamery man who can not make better butter than oleomargarine had 

 better retire. 



Senator MONEY. The testimony here by gentlemen on your side has 

 been that you can not tell the difference; and Senator Allen said he 

 had been eating oleomargarine here all winter and did not know it. 



Mr. PAUL. That probably is taste with some people, but a tine but- 

 ter is the finest thing that goes into a man's stomach. There is so 

 much of it, however, that is not fine that these people want to foist 

 onto the public as fine butter. 



Senator ALLEN. How can a man tell whether he is eating poor but- 

 ter or oleomargarine? 



Mr. PAUL. On the same principle how can a man tell that an egg 

 is counterfeit? 



Senator MONEY. I suppose that I have eaten pounds of oleomarga- 

 rine, but I never knew it. I don't know that I ever ate a mouthful of 

 it, but they tell me since I have been here I am eating it all the time, 

 although 1 am boarding at the Senate restaurant, the best restaurant 

 in town. 



Mr. PAUL. I would not eat it on my table; I will tell you that. 



Senator MONEY. Could you tell whether it was butter or not? 



Mr. PAUL. Yes, sir; I can tell. In 1893 I took a trip West with my 

 little family, and after we left Denver the butter that was on the table 

 was not fit to eat. Where we got oleomargarine it was all right. I 

 stopped in a certain hotel in one of the Western cities, and when we sat 

 down at the table I said to my daughter, "Helen, this is oleo." She 

 said: "Well, it is a plagued sight better than the butter we had down 

 at Pueblo." So that is the difference. People will not consume so 

 much poor butter. For instance, in my little family at home, consist- 



