OLEOMARGARINE. 845 



Mr. KNIGHT. You do not grasp my question. That is what I have been trying to 

 get at in the cotton-seed business. What do you consider to be the relative value of 

 the production of oleo in this country to cotton-seed oil? 



Mr. TOMPKINS. I consider the finest pressed oil about 5 cents a gallon. 



Mr. KNIGHT. That is not the question at all. What is your market for cotton-seed 

 oil to these manufacturers? How much do you market? 



Mr. TOMPKINS. We have their testimony for that. I think they can give you a 

 more accurate estimate of it than I can, probably. 



Mr. KNIGHT. Is it not true that the Internal-Revenue Commissioner shows that 

 you sold to them last year less than $500,000 worth of that oil? 



Mr. TOMPKINS. I could not answer that question. 



Mr. KNIGHT. Well, it is a fact. I think the committee will accept my statement, 

 because this is a matter of record. 



Mr. TOMPKINS. But that may not be any measure at all of the quantity of oil that 

 goes into the product, because it may have gone through several other channels. 

 We know that they use cotton-seed oil to the extent of 10 to 30 per cent and that it 

 furnishes a large market for it. 



Mr. KNIGHT. Do you not know how much they actually use? 



Mr. TOMPKINS. According to their testimony, I say. 



Mr. KNIGHT. Do you not know how much, exactly, they use according to their 

 own testimony? 



Mr. TOMPKINS. That testimony stands for itself. 



Mr. KNIGHT. What I want to get at is, what is the value of the product? Accord- 

 ing to the Secretary of the Treasury it was about 8,800,000 pounds, as I understand. 



Mr. TOMPKINS. It is not a question of the value of that. It is a question of what 

 will be the cause of destroying that market and limiting the sale of cotton-seed oil 

 in the markets that are left. 



Mr. KNIGHT. I want to ask you this question: You claim here, as I understand, 

 that the loss of a market of a half million dollars' worth of cotton-seed oil would 

 lower the value of your product to the extent of $2,000,000. 



Mr. TOMPKINS. In a differential market it might easily. 



Mr. KNIGHT. Then, why would it not be a good investment to burn up a half mil- 

 lion dollars' worth and thus advance the price $2,000,000? 



Mr. TOMPKINS. We are not in the business of burning up. Each man would have 

 to burn his own oil, and you can not bring about a situation of that kind. It might 

 bring about the same result if you did. No individual man is going to burn his own 

 product, and I doubt if the law would permit a combination to do it. That is not 

 the question at issue. 



Failing to secure any satisfactory explanation the following state- 

 ment was made at the suggestion of Senator Allen, as shown on page 

 48?. The representatives of the oil mills were present, one of them 

 having just concluded, and they made no objection or criticisms fur- 

 ther than recorded, Mr. Miller being a representative of the Armour 

 Packing Company, of Kansas City, Mo. The statement and discussion 

 follows: 



Mr. KNIGHT. It was stated by Senator Allen that probably I would want to answer 

 something that the gentleman preceding me has said in regard to cotton-seed oil. 



From his figures I gather that the value of the cotton production of this country is 

 $475,000,000. From figures presented by other people here I take it that the value 

 of the cotton-seed-oil industry is $50,000,000, making a total of $525,000,000. Of those 

 $525,000,000 in value of the cotton and cotton-oil product, the oleomargarine people of 

 this country use less than one-half of $1,000,000 worth. The amount of cotton-seed 

 oil used in the manufacture of oleomargarine in this country, in proportion to the 

 product of oleomargarine, basing it upon the figures of the cotton-seed-oil people 

 themselves, is about two-thirds of 1 per cent. So that we can not see, gentlemen, 

 any great harm that can accrue to the manufacturers of cotton-seed oil as a result of 

 this legislation, even if it would (as they claim) crush out the industry entirely, 

 which we den}*. 



Mr. MILLER. I would like to call the attention of the committee to the statement 

 made by Mr. Culbertson, representing the Paris Cotton Oil Company, of Paris, Tex. 

 That statement was to the effect that the amount of oil made for the manufacture of 

 oleomargarine was 25 per cent of the total amount of oil made. 



Mr. KNIGHT. I do not know what Mr. Culbertson said, but I do know that the 

 Secretary of the Treasury has reported that in the 83,000,000 pounds of oleomarga- 

 rine made in this country last year there were less than 9,000,000 pounds of cottou-seed 



