OLEOMAKGAKINE. 735 



the State of Texas yon reach and touch the very poorest people we 

 have in the State the very poorest people who have contended hardest 

 for a living. 



jSTow, with reference to the price of the seed. When cotton was 4J 

 cents a pound, and they were selling it for that, we were at that time 

 paying as much for seed as now. We were helping these poor people 

 very greatly. If it had not been for the price he was getting for his 

 seed, it would have absolutely bankrupted the tenant. 



Mr. WILLIAMS. At that time the-value of the cotton seed was a little 

 over a third of the value of the cotton itself. 



Mr. SANSOM. Yes, as high as twelve and fourteen dollars a ton. It 

 helped them out a great deal. Of course, when you speak of Texas, 

 it is quite an extent of country. The part of Texas I represent has 

 no negroes. We never see a negro there, except if we have got any 

 he is in town shaving somebody or waiting on the table. They are 

 white people there, and an industrious, hard-working people, made up 

 from every section of the country represented there, and they work and 

 till their land. The section I am interested in is made up of small 

 farmers owning from 200 acres of land and over. Whenever you touch 

 the cotton crop you hurt them and hurt them bad. They will find 

 another outlet for this oil, if this business is closed to their product. 

 The whole world is using it, not the United States alone, but I do not 

 believe that even Congress can tax it out of existence. You may hurt 

 it for a time, but you can not down it. 



They first educated us abroad to use this oil. Our product was used 

 before we knew the value of it at all abroad both the meal product and 

 the oil as well when our own farmers at home, many of them, did not 

 know the value of a sack of cotton seed meal. And they do not know 

 it to day, many of them. They do not know the value of it as compared 

 with the German farmer who never saw a stalk of cotton in his life. 

 That being the case these people raising it and displaying it as a cheap 

 food we are naturally jealous of any attempt to cut off our market for 

 it. There is a principle of ownership involved there one section 

 against another. If cotton seed were raised all over this country, don't 

 you think it would be a pretty hard matter to come in here with a bill 

 like this? There are some people in this country who are opposed to 

 cotton seed, and when you find a man like that he is a dairyman every 

 time. And these people come here and call upon you to help them 

 down the other fellow, and then they will be able to make all the money 

 they want. They say "Help me down him, and then I will make all 

 the money I want after I get shut of him." It is a class legislation that 

 we do not think is right. 



Mr. NEVILLE. You understand that this bill does not seek to do away 

 with oleomargarine altogether, but simply to prevent its being made 

 as a counterpart and in imitation of butter? 



Mr. SANSOM. I stated in my talk a while ago that I understood the 

 proposition came down to a question of coloring. I believe I answered 

 that by saying this : Suppose you go to work and say that we could not 

 color our cotton goods when they are manufactured, if people like color 

 and it does not make it harmful? 



Mr. NEVILLE. I would certainly say you would not have a right to 

 color it in imitation of anything else and sell it in imitation and for 

 that other goods. 



Mr. SANSOM. We understand the law protects you fully; that is, 

 the license has to be paid on it to be sold; but the law is violated 



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