OLEOMAKGABINE. 



653 



large number of persons engaged in the cattle-raising business in Texas, 

 Kansas, Colorado, Indian Territory, Oklahoma, and New Mexico, and a 

 considerable number of the members of this association also reside and 

 have their places of business in Montana, Wyoming, and the Dakotas, 

 and elsewhere in the range country. 



At an annual' meeting of the Cattle Kaisers' Association, composed 

 of about 1,200 members from the different sections of the country which 

 I have named, which annual meeting was held at Fort Worth on the 

 13th and 14th of March, 1900, the following resolution was passed, 

 and it was adopted unanimously without a dissenting voice; and it 

 was requested that the secretary of the Cattle Kaisers' Association 

 have it printed and have copies placed in the hands of the members 

 of Congress and presented to the committees. It so happened that I 

 was coming to Washington in connection with a case known as the 

 Terminal Charge Case that we have, as between the Cattle Kaisers' 

 Association and the railroads at Chicago, and I was directed by the 

 committee to see if I could get a chance to have a hearing before the 

 committees of Congress and present these resolutions, among some 

 others that I have from the committees, and call the attention of the 

 committees to the desires of these people, who I believe to be very 

 estimable people, who are engaged in the business of raising cattle, 

 along the lines mentioned in this resolution; that is to say, in opposi- 

 tion to the proposed law to increase the tax on oleomargarine, which 

 is a product which is made from the cattle which our people grow, as 

 well as other ingredients that go into it as component parts. If I may 

 read this resolution, I will do so. 



The CHAIRMAN. Certainly. 



Mr. COWAN (reading aloud): 



To the honorable the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States: 



Your orator, the Texas Cattle Raisers' Association, respectfully represents unto 

 your honorable body that it is an association composed of 1,200 cattlemen, engaged 

 in breeding, raising, feeding, shipping, buying, and selling cattle, and that its 

 members are owners of cattle aggregating over $100,000,000 in value. 



Your orator desires to file its emphatic protest against the enactment of the sev- 

 eral bills now pending before the different Congressional committees seeking to 

 impose a heavy tax and other restrictive measures upon oleomargarine and to deprive 

 it of all rights and privileges as an article of interstate commerce. 



I will explain that the Cattle Kaisers' Association in this meeting 

 was not definitely informed as to just what the provisions of these vari- 

 ous bills were, but they were informed that there were a number of dif- 

 ferent bills, some of them having the object of depriving oleomargarine 

 of the benefits of the interstate-commerce law. I do not know, but we 

 were so informed, and hence this paragraph of the resolution : 



These measures are a species of class legislation of the most dangerous kind, calcu- 

 lated to build up and restore one industry at the expense of another equally as impor- 

 tant. They seek to impose an unjust, uncalled for, and unwarranted burden upon 

 one of the principal commercial industries of the country for the purpose of pro- 

 hibiting its manufacture, thereby destroying competition, as manufacturers can not 

 assume the additional burdens sought to be imposed by these measures and sell 

 their product in competition with butter. 



The enactment of such laws would completely destroy a business which has been 

 recognized by law, which now furnishes a large annual revenue to the Government 

 ($1,956,618 in A. D. 1899), which provides employment for thousands of men, and in 

 which citizens of the United States have invested fortunes. It would seriously 

 affect the cattle industry, as the manufacturers of oleomargarine have created a 

 demand for oleo oil, made from the choice fats from the beef, at a price at least $3 

 per animal greater than it would be worth if it had to be used, ns before the advent 

 of oleomargarine, for tallow, thereby entailing a loss on the producers of millions of 

 dollars annually. f*71 ^ 



