OLEOMARGARINE. 829 



Now, then, I do not want to forget anything. 1 came near forgetting a point that 

 I wished to make. We formerly sold to one man perhaps $50,000 worth of high- 

 grade oleomargarine every year. That man had a rule behind his stalls, where he 

 had four cutters, that if one of them ever gave away the fact that oleomargarine wag 

 being sold in that stall he did it at the peril of his position, and he maintained that 

 rule for years. I can think of three gentlemen in Camden who bought it and sold it, 

 and they will tell you to-day that a pound never went out of their possession except 

 for genuine butter, and they would not dare do it, and they would not do it. They 

 sold it all for butter. 



Now those are the facts. I would be glad to be permitted to sell oleomargarine if 

 there were any demand for it as such. But 99 per cent of it is sold fraudulently. 

 That is absolutely my candid conviction, and it is what I gather from facts that have 

 come under my own knowledge. Every dealer to whom we sold oleomargarine would 

 tell you that he never could sell it, or would not sell it, except as butter, for the reason 

 that he would not want his trade to know he was handling oleo. If he did, the cus- 

 tomer would say, "Why don't you let me have it at a reasonable price?" The 

 dealer would sell it at a price about a cent below that of fancy butter; hence the 

 enormous profit. 



Mr. Samuel Jamison, also of Philadelphia, appeared before the com- 

 mittee, and his evidence appears on page 232, Senate testimony, from 

 which we take the following: 



We ask for additional legislation because we find that the goods can not be con- 

 trolled except at the factory. The minute they leave the factory the deception begins. 

 As reputable merchants, merchants of standing, with capital behind us, and with 

 prominent locations in the center of a large city, we can not violate these laws. We 

 are the first men to be arrested if we do violate them. But we have customers who 

 sell these goods at retail. After they get possession of those goods, they remove all 

 marks absolutely. They remove the revenue stamp; they scrape the word "oleo- 

 margarine" off the boxes. They receive the oleomargarine itself without any marks 

 whatever on it. Then they proceed to sell it as butter. * * * 



I doubt very much whether any individual can go to any one of those retail dealers 

 who has a Government license to sell oleomargarine and succeed in obtaining oleo- 

 margarine if he asks for it. I have repeatedly asked retail dealers who had a Gov- 

 ernment license (generally under some assumed name; instead of taking their own 

 name, they call themselves some creamery company or other) for oleomargarine. I 

 have said to these men, "Are you handling oleomargarine?" "No; I do not sell it." 

 Still, we know that they pay tor a Government license. We know that they receive 

 the goods. We know that they sell to their regular trade, every day, oleomargarine 

 for butter. A stranger who comes to one of their places of business and asks for but- 

 ter will probably receive butter, because he is an unknown buyer; but to their reg- 

 ular trade we find that they sell oleomargarine to this day, in spite of what may 

 be called the prohibitory law of the State of Pennsylvania and a national law which 

 requires oleomargarine to be marked. We find it simply impossible to control the 

 sale of oleomargarine as oleomargarine after the goods leave the factory. 



From Baltimore, Mr. S. B. Medairy, of the firm of Bosee, Medairy 

 & Co. , and president of the protective association of Baltimore, appeared, 

 and made, among others, the following statement, as printed on pages 

 4AO and M2: 



During that time (two years) , as well as my memory serves me, out of nearly one 

 hundred and forty-one cases I think that was the exact number, although I may be 

 mistaken in regard to one or two cases there was not a single retail sale in the course 

 of prosecution but what was sold as and for butter by the storekeeper or the restau- 

 rateur, and in many instances we found that the people who were being prosecuted 

 were innocent of any intention of violating the law, but had been deceived by the 

 vender, who in turn had bought his product from the manufacturer's agent, but had, 

 subsequent to its purchase, taken the product from the original package and placed 

 it in a basket or a box, a vessel of some kind, and sold it as and for butter. The 

 uninitiated, not being able to distinguish one from the other by virtue of its sem- 

 blance, bought the same for butter and in turn sold it as such. 



We have yet to have an arrest of a dealer, other than a manufacturer's 

 agent, and my statement can be verified upon investigation, wherein anyone, with- 

 out exception, man, woman, or child, sold colored oleomargarine as and for such. 



