OLEOMARGARINE. 611 



of food in imitation or semblance of another well-known article of food in a form 

 which is calculated or likely to deceive the buyer or the consumer, and in any sub- 

 stitutes for butter, where the act is aimed at a designed and intentional imitation of 

 butter in the manufacture of the new product and not at a resemblance of qualities 

 inherent in the articles themselves and common to both. (Plumley v. Massachusetts, 

 155 U. S., 461; Commonwealth v. Plumley, 163 Mass., 169; VVaterbury v. Newton, 50 

 N.J. Law, 534; People v. Aarensburg, 105 N.Y.,123; McAllister v. State, 72 Mo., 390; 

 State v. Addington, 77 Mo., 110; Commonwealth v. Schollenberger, 155 Pa., 201; State 

 v. Marshall, 64 N. H., 549 ; Weilmon v. State, 56 N. \V. Rep., 688 Minn. ; Cook v. State, 

 20 Southern Rep., 566 Ala.) 



Swift & Co. and their associates have no respect or regard for State 

 laws. They absolutely hold the lower courts of the various States in 

 contempt. The adverse decisions of the State supreme courts do not 

 trouble them one iota, and five years after the Supreme Court of the 

 United States told them they had no legal right to sell oleomargarine 

 colored in semblance of butter in Massachusetts, in support of the 

 State supreme court, we find them bolstering up 108 dealers, who dis- 

 posed of 2,083,889 pounds of oleomargarine in twelve months, which 

 they do not deny is sold contrary to the State laws and the rulings of 

 the supreme courts of the State and United States. 



What kind of a standing is this to be possessed by manufacturers 

 before a body of representatives of the 32 States which have laws 

 copied after that of Massachusetts? 



The claim of priority in the use of yellow color is so absurdly ridic- 

 ulous as to be unworthy of notice. Under a prior heading the object 

 and original reason for coloring oleomargarine has been disclosed by 

 oue of the Chicago manufacturers. 



FRAUDULENT SALE OF OLEOMARGARINE. 



Swift & Co. then take up the question of fraud in the sale of oleo- 

 margarine, and upon this question have to say: 



Seventh. We wouJd further state, in reference to the claim that it is a fraud upon 

 the sale of butter, that it is absolutely impossible to-day, under the internal-revenue 

 Jaws and regulations, to sell oleomargarine as butter to customers of ordinary intel- 

 ligence, as all oleomargarine sold is required to be branded in large letters and there 

 are stringent penalties for the failure to comply therewith. 



No law can make more stringent requirements to protect customers than the pres- 

 ent laws, and the fact that the output is yearly increasing shows that there is a demand 

 for oleomargarine as such in spite of all hostile agitation and legislation. That there 

 is fraud sometimes practiced in the retail sale of the product is quite possible, and 

 laws have been and should be enacted for the purpose of preventing such fraud, but 

 all that is no reason for stamping out the industry of manufacturing and selling 

 oleomargarine. 



If it is claimed that an increase of the tax would not stamp out the industry, it is 

 at least certain that it would cause an increase in the illegal sale of the article, and 

 therefore would fail of its object in protecting customers from fraud. The present 

 tax of 2 cents a pound on the article which sells at an average of 10 cents a pound 

 is excessive, being 20 per cent of the selling price, and it is undoubtedly a fact that 

 a large proportion of the fraud now claimed is due to this excessive tax, for it is well 

 known, and is vouched for by the experience of the internal-revenue department in 

 its collections of revenue on tobaccos and liquors, that taxes and violations of rev- 

 enue laws increase and decrease in the same proportion. 



Now, let us see about that. It is true the internal-revenue laws and 

 regulations are strict with regard to the stamping of oleomargarine by 

 the manufacturer and retailer. However, in all the fourteen years 

 which this law has been in effect the Government has never imprisoned 

 but two offenders for failure to brand or for removing brands, and the 

 internal-revenue department was very much against bringing this case 

 to trial and making an example of these men, who had been for years 

 persistent swindlers. It was only through the greatest efforts of the 



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