584 OLEOMARGARINE. 



tion. The tax as provided in the bill, however, is trifling and nominal. 

 This is done in the spirit of fairness. If there are any persons who 

 wish to eat this mixture in preference to butter, who ask it because 

 they are poor, they would then be enabled to buy it for what it is 

 worth. They could not be cheated into paying a butter price for some- 

 thing that in no honest sense is butter, or like butter. 



The oleo combine and their apologists and defenders have a great 

 deal to say about oleomargarine being a cheap food for the " poor." 

 There is consummate hypocrisy in this plea. You will notice that the 

 poor people are not making this plea. It is made for the purpose of 

 overreaching the poor. 



The friends of this measure are the true friends of the poor, for they 

 ask that the force of law and the burden of onerous taxation be turned 

 against the counterfeit, while the article which is not colored to deceive 

 can have free course. 



What does oleomargarine cost? Armour & Co., of Chicago, testified 

 before a Federal district court in New York that, with the 2-eent Federal 

 tax added, the cost was less than 7 cents a pound. If it was uncolored, 

 the poor could buy it for 10 cents, or at most 12 cents a pound. Yet 

 I saw the colored article selling in Ashland, Wis., to the poor, for 28 

 cents a pound. 



This plea for the poor, by these exploiters of poverty, finds conspic- 

 uous parallel in the history of Judas Iscariot. When the women 

 annointed the feet of Christ with alabaster ointment, Judas had a 

 great deal to say why the ointment was not sold and the money given 

 to the poor. Yet I imagine it is not necessary to inform this commit- 

 tee that Judas was a traitor to both Christ and the poor. 



To give added force to the first section of this bill it is also provided 

 in the second section that a tax of 10 cents a pound shall be imposed 

 on all oleomargarine in the color or semblance of butter. In plain 

 words, this is repressive taxation. In 1886 Congress, in response to 

 the demand of the people, placed a tax of 2 cents a pound on this 

 counterfeit, and exacted heavy license fees for its manufacture and 

 sale. 



This was done in the interest of the public welfare. Congress has 

 the undoubted right to exercise this power. It has exercised it in the 

 tax on State bank circulation, on filled cheese, and adulterated flour. 

 This is a part only of the duty and policy of internal protection. 



It has been found, through the inefficient administration of State 

 laws and the powerful influence of this oleomargarine combination, that 

 this protection is insufficient. 



The manufacture of the counterfeit has grown from 34,000,000 pounds 

 in 188S to 83,000,000 in 1899, and, be it remembered, 90 per cent of it 

 consumed under the supposition that it is butter. 



This product of 1899 would make 1,383,684 60-pound tubs. If placed 

 side by side they would reach 3,400 miles; if loaded into farm wagons, 

 a full load in each, they would reach 400 miles in length. The output 

 equaled the output of 415,650 cows, worth $12,469,500. 



The hoped-for effect of the legislation asked of Congress is not to 

 destroy the oleomargarine industry, but to force it over onto its own 

 ground ; to compel it to be made in its own guise and color. Is there 

 anything unjust or unreasonable about this? 



With a tax of 10 cents a pound on the counterfeit substitute, we 

 believe the temptation for unjust profits, deceptive sale, dishonorable 

 and dangerous conspiring against law, and fraudulent competition with 

 an honest industry will be greatly modified. 



(*2) 



