832 OLEOMARGARINE. 



And later, in reply to a question by Senator Money (p. 421), Mr. 

 Wilson said: 



Well, you have a perfect right to buy oleomargarine, but I do not want you to 

 be deceived and pay 10 cents a pound too much. The poor people are being robbed 

 by this deception to the extent of 10 cents a pound; and you and I, who have to 

 take butter from second or third hands in this city, are deceived regularly. If you 

 will send me samples of the butter you are eating between now and spring, I will tell 

 you the percentage of it that is oleomargarine. I will have it analyzed. In fact, we 

 nave been analyzing it for members of Congress who have sent samples to us. 



Said President Cleveland, in his message approving the oleomargarine legislation 

 of 1886, as shown by evidence before House committee, page 3: 



"Not the least important incident related to this legislation is the defense afforded 

 to the consumer against the fraudulent substitution and sale of an imitation for a 

 genuine article of food of a very general household use. * * * I venture to say 

 that hardly a pound ever entered a poor man's house under its real name and in its 

 true character." 



THE COLOR QUESTION. 



The entire question now before Congress is, Shall the General Gov- 

 ernment aid, through the Grout bill, the enforcement of the laws of 

 the various States which prohibit the manufacture and sale of oleo- 

 margarine colored in semblance of butter? 



It is admitted and expected that colored oleomargarine with a tax 

 of 10 cents per pound upon it will have to compete in price with but- 

 ter. The intention of the framers of the law is to bring its cost of 

 production up to such a figure that there will be no incentive of a 

 large profit, which is now the sole cause of the great fraud being per- 

 petrated upon the public at the expense of producers of pure butter. 



It is admitted that the producers of butter do in many months of the 

 year color their product. But they claim that they have done this 

 from time "whence the mind of man runneth not back." To quote 

 Senator Dolliver, "The poets speak of butter as yellow." Henry C. 

 Pirrung, general manager of the Capital City Dairy Company, Colum- 

 bus, Ohio, makers of oleomargarine, in his statement (see p. 188) said: 



On the contrary, in my humble opinion the coloring of butter should be allowed, 

 because even the school child who has passed the primary grade will define the color 

 of butter as "yellow," and every adult expects at this advanced age to have the 

 product served to him "yellow." 



Mr. Rathbone Gardner, attorney for the Oakdale Manufacturing 

 Company, oleomargarine makers, of Providence, R. L, said, as recorded. 

 on page 33: 



Even before the invention of the great creameries, and before the use of the sub- 

 stance which has now been adopted for coloring it, butter has always been artificially 

 colored. 



Hon. G. L. Flanders, assistant commissioner of agriculture of New 

 York State, is reported, on page 125, as follows: 



Now, how about the question of competition? In the first place, let us no back to 

 the color of butter. The natural color of butter, when the cow is living on nature's 

 food, is a rich yellow. Butter has been that color so long that the memory of man 

 runneth not to the contrary. When these people, back in the seventies, started to 

 make oleomargarine what did they do? They undertook to make it look like our 

 commodity. Is that all? No. In taste and smell they attempted to make it like 

 our commodity, so that every feature would deceive every sense that man could pos- 

 pibly apply to the commodity. Were they content with that? No, sir. They came 

 into the market and sold it for butter. 



It seems to be settled, therefore, that butter has always been known, 

 spoken of, and looked upon as yellow. Therefore the only question 



