592 OLEOMARGARINE. 



can be applied to the responsible manufacturer in whatever part of the 

 country he may be found. Any tax imposed will be collected. No 

 regulation prescribed will be enforced by the internal-revenue depart- 

 ment unless its violation is likely to impair the revenue. The more 

 the branding clause of the 1880 law is violated the greater the revenue, 

 because the oleomargarine pays the tax whether sold for what it is or 

 as butter, and more is sold for butter than oleomargarine. A tax of 

 10 cents per pound, if levied, would be collected upon all oleomarga- 

 rine, colored to resemble butter. The collection of this tax alone would 

 accomplish the result of taking out of the counterfeit article the large 

 profit now held up before the eyes of the retailers as an incentive to 

 commit fraud and violate State laws, and, profits on oleomargarine and 

 butter being equalized, each would have a fair chance of sale. 



Tenth. The use of the taxing power of the Government to accomplish 

 this result would not be the usurpation of the rights of the States to 

 regulate their own affairs. It would simply be the cooperation of the 

 General Government with the States upon petition of their people to 

 do a thing they had failed to accomplish individually, and enough people, 

 through their legislatures, have already adopted the policy of exclud- 

 ing yellow oleomargarine to have the moral force of a constitutional 

 amendment. 



Eleventh. The claims of damage to the beef-raising, cotton -growing, 

 or hog industries is an impudent and easily exploded argument to 

 secure the antagonism of the cattle raisers of the North and cotton 

 growers of the South to this measure and induce them to rush to the 

 defense of a class of manufacturers who, with their records as law- 

 breakers, can hardly have standing before a body of law-makers 

 representing States whose statutes they are openly ignoring, boldly 

 defying, or secretly evading. 



Twelfth. The policy of prohibiting the coloring of oleomargarine in 

 imitation of butter has the approval of the highest authority in the 

 decision of the United States Supreme Court in Plumley v. Massachu- 

 setts (155th W. S.) in which such a law as is now in force in thirty-two 

 States was strongly upheld upon the grounds that it was plainly a reg- 

 ulation in the interests of honest dealings, and again in Schollenberger 

 v. Pennsylvania (171st Federal Report). Such laws have been before the 

 supreme courts of many States and never in a single instant has such 

 policy been declared doutrary to their constitutions. 



Thirteenth. While the questions of healthfulness might be an inter- 

 esting one in this connection, we do not feel called upon to permit our- 

 selves to be drawn into a controversy which at best would resolve 

 itself into the expensive and time consuming confusion of a war of paid 

 experts, which was thoroughly investigated in 1886 by the Agriculture 

 Committee, with a result of recommending a 10 cent tax on all oleomar- 

 garine, and is now a matter of record easily accessible to all who 

 desire to consult it in the files of the Congressional Eecord. 



All we ask is that the people be protected in the right to choose 

 between the two articles. If the makers of oleomargarine can convince 

 the public that their product is all they claim for it, we are willing that 

 the people thus convinced should be enabled to purchase that article 

 If cents per pound cheaper than can be done under the present law. 

 Our charge is fraud in selling to the people an article they do not 

 intend to buy at the price of what they desire to purchase. Because 

 an article may be proven to be healthful is no reason why it should be 

 permitted to be fraudulently substituted for another. Can the adulter- 

 ation of pepper with corn meal be excused and defended upon the 



(no) 



