OLEOMAKGAKLNE. G75 



every way in our power. We will not wine and dine you; we will not 

 go out and get drunk with you, or anything of the kind. I take it for 

 granted that none of you gentlemen do such things: we do not in the 

 West. We simply want you to come as business men and understand 

 what the manufacture of this great food product means to the millions 

 who are compelled to buy it, and who can not buy the higher priced 

 butter. 

 I thank you, gentlemen. 



STATEMENT OF JOHN C. McCOY. 



Mr. McOoT. Gentlemen, I am a member of the Kansas City Live 

 Stock Exchange, a commission merchant, a farmer, a stock raiser, and 

 a feeder. 



I am one of those persons who believe the Lord made everything for 

 some purpose, and all men for special lines. While I have been trying 

 for a good many years to find out just exactly what I was made for, I 

 learned a good many years ago that it was not to make a speech. And 

 if this committee will pardon me in what I have to say, I would like 

 the privilege of reading. 



There is a bill pending before the House of Representatives, viz, 

 House bill No. 3717, known as the Grout bill, which has been referred 

 to your honorable body, and it is for the purpose of discussing that 

 measure we have asked for a hearing. This bill is aimed at the life of a 

 great commercial industry, that of oleomargarine. We believe it will, 

 if enacted into a law, seriously cripple one with which by comparison 

 both oleomargarine and that of its opponent, butter, pale into insig- 

 nificance. I refer to the live-stock industry. My associates and myself, 

 representing as we do the second largest live-stock market in the world, 

 a market at which was received, during the year 1899, 5,963,573 head of 

 live stock that had a valuation of $120,946,439; a market which loans 

 annually from $20,000,000 to $30,000,000 to the farmers, feeders, stock 

 growers, and ranchmen to assist them in carrying on their industries: 

 a market that had for its patrons during 1899 the stock raisers of 

 thirty-two States and Territories, feel that our interests in these measures 

 are of sufficient importance to be our apology for thus trespassing upon 

 the time of the committee. 



In discussing this bill it is not my purpose to go into the relative 

 merits of oleomargarine and butter as an article of food, as I am will- 

 ing to leave that to such eminent students of economic questions as 

 Professor Schweitzer, professor of chemistry, Missouri State University; 

 Prof. G. 0. Oaldwell, of Cornell University ; Prof. W. O. Atwater, Direc.- 

 or of the United States Agricultural Experiment Stations; Prof. H. W. 

 Wiley, chief chemist of the United States Department of Agriculture, 

 and scores of others who have expressed themselves on the subject. 

 Nor will I discuss the purity or healthfulness of the two commodities, 

 as the subcommittee appointed by the United States Senate Com- 

 mittee on Manufactures, of which the Hon. W. E. Mason was chairman, 

 found " that the product known as oleomargarine is healthful and nutri- 

 tious and no further legislation is necessary." But, even if that were 

 not the case, the most scientific chemists of the National Laboratory 

 are available to this committee for that purpose. Nor will I touch 

 upon the question of coloring matter, whether each commodity has a 

 different material or both the same, whether it be harmless or unhealth- 

 ful, for that question could be settled within twenty-four hours to the 

 entire satisfaction of this committee by the Government chemist just 



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