588 OLEOMARGARINE. 



and consumers of dairy products against fraud, and its officers serve 

 absolutely without further compensation than their actual and neces- 

 sary expenses incurred in the discharge of their duty. No officer has 

 ever received one cent salary, but upon the other hand they have spent 

 hundreds of dollars in expenses while working in the interest of the 

 cause, for which no account has ever been rendered the organization. 



I have had charge of the work of organization and the collection of 

 facts regarding the oleomargarine traffic of this country, and it is the 

 enormous illegal and fraudulent growth of the business during the past 

 two years, in face of the best restrictive laws the States have been able 

 to devise, that has brought us to Congress as a last resort to ask for 

 relief. 



THE ORIGINAL OLEOMARGARINE LAW. 



For the information of the committee, all of the members of which 

 may not be familiar with the history of national legislation along 

 this line, I will state that fourteen years ago, finding the powers of the 

 State helpless to cope against the peculiar character of this fraud, the 

 dairymen of this country arose en masse and came to Congress for 

 relief, feeling that nothing but Congressional action would save their 

 business from absolute ruin. They convinced Congress that national 

 legislation was necessary, and the result was that numerous measures 

 were introduced for their relief. The matter of legislating against a 

 counterfeit article, however, was found to be a complex proposition for 

 Congress because of the constitutional restrictions which prevent the 

 Congress of the United States exercising police powers except for the 

 protection of its revenue receipts, interstate commerce, and other mat- 

 ters absolutely within the limits of the Constitution, and after months 

 of tedious investigation and effort, what is known as the Hatch bill 

 was finally originated by the Committee on Agriculture, and brought 

 into the House. 



PROVISIONS OF THE HATCH BILL. 



At that time it was thought, as many have become to believe since, 

 that the manufacture and sale of oleomargarine could not be permitted 

 and at the same time protect the public against fraud. Acting upon 

 this theory the government of Canada did and has ever since abso- 

 lutely prohibited the traffic in any character or condition and oleomar- 

 garine is not permitted to be sold in that country in any way, shape, or 

 manner. France, where oleomargarine originated as a necessity during 

 the Franco Prussian war, found it impossible to protect its people 

 against fraud, and even its present law forbidding the sale of that 

 article in any store or shop where butter is sold is not considered ade- 

 quate a law which would not stand under our Constitution a week 

 because of the great scope of liberty afforded under our form of gov- 

 ernment. Germany has also adopted the same plan, which has not 

 proven satisfactory, and various other measures are being suggested 

 in that country. In fact, Denmark, Australia, Eussia, Italy, Spain, 

 and every other European, antipodean, and Asiatic country has found 

 the same trouble in endeavoring to control this deceitful substitute for 

 butter. 



It will therefore be seen that the Agricultural Committee had before 

 it a perplexing problem, and one which it seemed to finally despair of 

 solving and at the same time permit the article to survive in commerce, 

 the result of which was the recommendation of a measure which would 



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