OLEOMAKG ARTISTE. 645 



The CHAIRMAN. Is there the same necessity for putting this addi- 

 tional 8 cents on this article that there was for putting a tax on 

 whisky? Is this a luxury? 



Mr. KNIGHT. It seems to me it is a luxury if people pay 18 cents a 

 pound for it instead of 12. 



Mr. NEVILLE. Will that not virtually drive it out? 



Mr. KNIGHT. It is prohibited now. All those States prohibit traffic 

 in it, but the 10 cents profit is an incentive for people to violate 

 the law. 



Mr. NEVILLE. Why do they sell it? 



Mr. KNIGHT. They find that so long as it is an exact counterpart in 

 appearance of butter that they can sell it and make this large profit. 

 You understand, gentlemen, that it is the coloring of it that we wish 

 to prohibit. The oleomargarine that is under discussion here is col- 

 ored oleomargarine, and it is prohibited in 32 States. Now, if the State 

 has made that kind of law prohibiting that kind of thing, it is for the 

 purpose of protecting the consumer. 



Mr. WILSON. Is it a fact that it does hurt the consumer? Does it 

 not really protect the man who makes the butter? 



Mr. KNIGHT. It protects the consumer and makes it possible for him 

 to get oleomargarine when he wants it and butter when he wants it. 

 In the city of Chicago the city is overrun with people selling oleomar 

 garine for butter, and for 10 or 15 cents a pound more than it ought to 

 be sold for. Every man who buys butter is not a chemist, and if they 

 want oleomargarine, they should buy it for the oleomargarine price 

 12 or 13 cents a pound. The only reason that they pay 20 cents is that 

 they think it is butter. 



Mr. ALLEN. It is wrong for anything to float around under a false 

 color, because that would be a fraud. But since your own Statx5 has 

 undertaken to protect its own individual citizens under its own law 

 and can not do it, why is the necessity of coming to Congress for it? 



Mr. LAMB. What is the law? The law of Virginia the anticolor 

 law is as follows: 



The manufacture or sale of any article made wholly or partly from any fat or oil 

 not produced from unadulterated milk or cream, which is in imitation of pure yellow 

 butter, is prohibited; but oleomargarine, butterine, or kindred compound, made in 

 such form and sold in such manner as will advise the consumer of its real character, 

 and free from color or other ingredient to cause it to look like butter, is permitted. 

 Signs, with the words "Imitation butter used here," shall be displayed in eating 

 places, bakeries, etc., where the articles above named are used. 



That is a system which it seems to me they ought to be compelled to 

 follow, because you can not get the stuff to see it, and you can not tell 

 whether it is butter or oleomargarine. 



Mr. ALLEN. You have got to attack the manufacturers. We have 

 got to go to the fountain head. You have got to press every opening. 

 It is just like it is with a band of counterfeiters who are flooding the 

 country with counterfeit money, you will have to go out over the coun- 

 try and find the counterfeiters before you can stop the spread of the 

 counterfeit money. You can not stop it.by merely arresting and prose- 

 cuting the people in whose possession you find it. 



Mr. KNIGHT. Yes; but you can go to the retailer and take that 10 

 cents a pound incentive out of his way, so that he will not find it 

 exceedingly profitable, as he does at present, to sell the stuff at all. As 

 it is, you would have to go in and tap every tub of butter or butterine 

 that was sold in order to find out what it was. You take a tub of but- 

 terine, and with that profit on it it will bring him in $6 of profit, and 

 he will sell that out in one or two days. 



