OLEOM A KG AKDOL ,, tj 3 



Mr. STEVENS. Mr. Chairman. I wish to be heard just a moment to 

 indorse what Mr. Cowan had to say in regard to the cattle interests, 

 and I wonld state that there is no set of men on earth more alert to 

 their own interests than the cattlemen of the United States, and they 

 meet and discuss these questions, and the oleomargarine question, in 

 the interest of cattlemen, and they certainly would not make a mistake, 



I have received numbers of letters from my district from cattlemen 

 opposing this bill, and 1 have yet to hear from anyone of them who is in 

 : of it, and I disagree with Mr. Neville when he says that the cattle- 

 men of the country are in favor of its passage. I represent certainly the 

 largest cattle district in the United States. I represent eighty counties 

 in the northern part of Texas. I represent the owners of probably oue- 

 half of the cattle of Texas. You know that Texas produces more live 

 stock than probably any other two States of the United States, and I 

 think my people are universally opposed to this bill. In the first place, I 

 think it is a species of class legislation, and second, it will probably add 

 10 per cent a pound to the value of the product of the men who make 

 butter or have their money in that industry, and take off that much from 

 the cattle raiser, and we find that it would be a class discrimination. 



STATEMEUT OF MR, FRED OLIVER, REPRESENTING THE COTTOH 

 SEED-OIL INTERESTS OF NORTH AND SOUTH CAROLINA. 



Mr. OLIVER. To facilitate the presentation of our views in regard to 

 these bills we have prepared a paper addressed to the honorable Com- 

 mittee on Agriculture, which I will ask permission to read. Mr. Stokes 

 has said that we represent the cotton seed-oil interests of Isorth Caro- 

 lina., South Carolina, and Georgia, but I would like to state that the 

 greater part of that industry is in the States of Xorth and South Caro- 

 lina, there being but one delegate from Georgia. 



Mr. Oliver here read the paper referred to aloud, as follows: 



^ e appear before you as a commit tee representing the cotton seed-oil 

 interests of Xorth and South Carolina to protest against the injustice 

 and damage to our business that would be caused by the passage of any 

 of the proposed bills now before your committee* and various other 

 committees of the House and Senate relative to the manufacture of 

 oleomargarine. We do not expect to be able to present to your honor- 

 able committee any new facts or arguments why these proposed laws 

 should not be enacted, for we realize that all arguments and reasons 

 pro and con have been presented to yon before, and all we can, there- 

 fore, do to-day is, perhaps, to present them in a new light, and impress 

 upon you the injustice and damage to our particular business that such 

 class legislative enactments would cause. We propound two questions 

 to your honorable body, and will give our answers in the light we 

 aeeit: 



Why are there each year one or more bills introduced to regu- 

 late the manufacture of oleomargarine f 



Second. By whom are they introduced! 



The answers to the above questions are apparent to you and every 

 one, for they are always originated and introduced by a special class of 

 the country's population the dairy farmers; not as a unit, however, for 

 there are many honorable, conscientious, justice-loving dairy farmers 

 who do not approve of such class legislation. The object to be* obtained 

 by having these proposed laws enacted is to create a scarcity for the 

 lower grades of genuine cow butter, and thereby enhance its price to an 

 artificial figure for the special benefit of a certain class of dairymen and 



