666 



OLEOMARGARINE. 



$150,000,000, or about one-half of the value of the cotton crop itself. Oil 

 mills employ colored men exclusively in every department excepting 

 superintendents and skilled mechanics at least 95 per cent of all the 

 help employed being colored. These colored men earn from 75 cents to 

 $2.50 per day, and are a very worthy, self-sustaining, law-abiding class 

 of citizens. Why should the product of their labor be legislated again st 

 simply to give another class of citizens the dairymen a monopoly as 

 against oleomargarine, a food product that the buying consumer is now 

 satisfied to furnish to his family and himself. The consumer knows 

 that this product, oleomargarine, is healthy and clean, and it costs him 

 much less money than cow butter and is equally as satisfactory, and 

 suits him much better than low grades of dirty butter costing the same 

 or less money. 



It is simply a fight in which the "survival of the fittest" should be 

 allowed to prevail, and it is not right or just, no matter in what light 

 it is looked upon, to handicap, by a 10 cent per pound tax, or any 

 other tax or regulation, a manufactured article that has been, is now, 

 and always will gradually overcome the public prejudice and work 

 itself into public favor to the detriment of much so-called butter that 

 is only fit for the soap-boilers' kettle. Why not tax cotton clothing of 

 all kinds, simply because it is supplanting woolen and silk goods ? Why 

 not tax beet sugar because it will, in the end, drive out cane sugar if 

 left to a free fight on their merits and cost? Why not prohibit by tax, 

 or impose restrictions upon electric light and power, because it is 

 driving out of use gas arid horse power? Why, oh, why, did not the 

 farmer that furnished tallow to the candle makers look far enough into 

 the future, years ago, and prevent the almost total annihilation of the 

 candle manufacturing by the products of petroleum? Why not pass 

 laws to prevent all inventions and improvements to the conditions of 

 the human race just because there are some farmers selfish enough and 

 self-satisfied to live and die as their fathers and grandfathers lived 

 and died years before them? 



GEO. L. BAKER, 

 A. 0. PHELPS, 

 THOS. TAYLOR, Jr., 

 F. K. BORDEN, 



C. FlTZSIMMONS, 



FRED OLIVER, 



Committee. 



Eepresenting mills in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia 

 as follows : 



Southern Cotton Oil Co., Columbia. 



Produce Mills. 



Interstate Cotton Oil Co. 



Newberry Oil Co. 



Laurens Oil and Fertilizer Co. 



Union Oil and Mfg. Co. 



Greenwood Oil Co. 



Victor Cotton Oil Co. 



\\oodruff Cotton Oil Co. 



Simpsonville Oil Mill. 



Easley Oil Mill. 



Honea Path Oil Mill. 



Ninety-Six Oil Co. 



Greers Cotton Oil Co. 



Coronaca Oil MilL 



Belton Oil Mill. 



Liberty Oil Mill. 



Williamston Oil and F. Co. 



Clinton Oil Mill. 



Gray Court Oil Mill. 



Seneca Oil Mill. 



Southern Cotton Oil Co., Savannah. 



Saluda Oil Mill. 



Campobello Oil Mill. 



Excelsior Oil Mill. 



Abbeville Oil and F. Co. 



Llberton Oil Mill. 



Fountain Inn Oil Mill. 



Tiger Shoals Oil Mill. 



Goldville Oil Mill. 



Fair Forrest Oil Mill. 



Anderson Oil and F. Co. 



Lowndesville Oil Mill. 



McCormick Oil Mill. 



(*84) 



