784 OLEOMABGA.RINE. 



Gentlemen, the passage of a law such as the Grout bill would destroy 

 an industry in which there are $15,000,000 invested and 25,000 men 

 employed. Butterine in its natural state is unsalable, because it is not 

 pleasing to the sight. We could not sell butterine with an additional 

 tax of 8 cents per pound; therefore, should this bill become a law, a 

 legitimate industry, which it has taken years to build up, would be 

 wiped out of existence. The effects of such legislation are manifold. 

 The butterine manufacturers, wholesale and retail dealers, and con- 

 sumers, are not the only injured parties. It would deprive the Govern- 

 ment of over $2,000,000 revenue annually, and practically destroy the 

 cotton-seed oil industry of the South, in which there are millions of 

 dollars invested and many thousand men employed. The injury to the 

 cattle and hog industry is almost beyond estimate, although it has been 

 conservatively stated that the depreciation would be $62,000,000 

 annually." 



The present tax and regulations are sufficient to control the sale of 

 this product, and the intent of the proposed legislation is not to fur- 

 ther regulate but to destroy the industry altogether. This would 

 establish a dangerous precedent of destroying one industry to the 

 advantage of another, which is directly against our Constitution. 



While butterine is consumed in large quantities by the better class 

 of people, yet it is sold principally to a class of buyers who can not afford 

 high priced butter. Kill thebutterine industry and millionsof poor labor- 

 ers will be compelled to do without a palatable article for their bread. 

 Twenty cents per pound was the very lowest price at which the cheap- 

 est grade of butter could be purchased during the winter months in 

 Kansas City, and the quality of the article was not even up to the 

 cheapest grade of bntterine. A good, sweet, and palatable grade of 

 butterine retailed during this time at 15 cents for a single pound, or 2 

 pounds for 25 cents. The laboring man has some rights, as well as the 

 creamery man, and his rights should be taken into consideration by all 

 legislative bodies. 



It has been represented to this committee that the butterine indus- 

 try was killing the butter business that, to use the language of the 

 opposition 



National legislation such as is embraced in the Grout bill is absolutely essential 

 to prevent the almost absolute destruction of an industry bringing to the agricul- 

 turists of this country fully $500,000,000 per year. 



We would call attention to the fact that figures do not show that the 

 butter business is going backward, but, on the contrary, actual figures 

 show that it is steadily growing. From 1870 to 1890 the output of but- 

 ter in the United States increased 134 per cent. From 1890 to 1900, 

 the production of butterine in the United States increased 172 per cent. 

 The total sales of butterine the last revenue year are only 2J per cent 

 of the total make of butter. In 1890 the total butterine sales were 2.6 

 per cent of the total amount of butter produced, or a decrease of one- 

 tenth of one per cent in ten years. Yet without these figures you 

 would be led to believe that butterine was an octopus, the arms of 

 which were stubbornly fastened into the very vitals of the dairy indus- 

 try, crushing out its life and energy. The average prices of butter for 

 the year ending January 1, 1900, was the highest since 1894. Does this 

 look as if the industry needs protection to prevent its almost absolute 

 destruction? This crusade is purely a matter of sentiment rather 

 than justice. 



Now, it may be asked where I got my figures for the last year. I will 

 say that I got them from Mr. Wilson, who is editor of the Elgin Dairy 



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