OLEOMARGARINE. 775 



Dr. WILEY. I doubt if you can find a sample of butter in this town 

 colored with annotto. 



^Representative HENRY. Annotto is used all through the creameries of 

 the North, so far as I know. 



Eepreseutative WILLIAMS. Perhaps the law in Connecticut requires 

 butter to be colored with aunotto. 



Dr. WILEY. They use coal-tar dyes in the product sold here. 



Eepresentative WILLIAMS. Do you regard the aniline dyes as equally 

 wholesome? 



Dr. WILEY. I do not say that coloring your intestines saffron injures 

 your health. The amount of color used in these substances, however, 

 is very small. I do not, myself, fancy eating artificial colors. I would 

 rather have the good, old-fashioned butter, with its natural color, 

 whether deep or light; and I believe that we ought to educate the taste 

 of our people in that way. I believe we are ruining the taste of our 

 people by coloring our butter; and the farther South you go the deeper 

 the color gets. 



Representative HENRY. Pardon me again do you think these ani- 

 line dyes affect the flavor of butter? 



Dr. WILEY. No, sir; oh, no. These dyes are absolutely without 

 flavor. 



Eepresentative HENRY. Wherein are they unwholesome? 



Dr. WILEY. I did not say they were. I said I did not, myself, fancy 

 eating them. 



Eepresentative NEVILLE. Do you think the fact that people color 

 butter is any excuse for people being permitted to color oleomargarine, 

 if, as a matter of fact, it results in putting butter and oleomargarine 

 onto people who do not want to eat it in that shape? 



Eepresentative BAILEY. Then reverse the question. 



Eepresentative NEVILLE. Yes, sir; answer it, and then reverse it? 



Dr. WILEY. I believe that every food product should have the same 

 right before the law. I do not see why there should be a distinction. 



Eepresentative BAKER. You stated a minute ago that the manufac- 

 turer of every food product has the right to make it palatable to the 

 consumer. 



Dr. WILEY. And to make it attractive in its taste, provided he tells 

 what is in it provided he does not injure the health of the consumer. 



Eepresentative NEVILLE. You just stated that you would prefer to 

 have butter without coloring? 



Dr. WILEY. Yes, sir; I prefer it so, very much, for myself. 



Eepreseiitative NEVILLE. So do I, and I apprehend there are a great 

 many people in the same position. 



Dr. WILEY. I prefer it very much ; and having been brought up in 

 the dairy industry, and being interested in the subject, I believe we are 

 injuring our dairy industries by permitting the coloring of butter. 



Eepresentative HENRY. That has been for years my contention with 

 butter makers that the dairy interests were injuring their own prod- 

 ucts by artificial coloring. 



Dr. WILEY. Yes; that is my idea, my conviction. You can get 

 uncolored butter in New York; you can go and get it at Delmonico's, 

 and some other high-priced restaurants ; and the fact that the uncolored 

 butter brings the highest price in the market ought to be an object 

 lesson to our dairymen that they are standing in their own light when 

 they color their butter. Now, if they would let the manufacturers color 

 oleomargarine, and would keep butter at its natural color, there would 

 be no difficulty in discriminating between the two. 



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