234 



CONGRESS. (THE OLEOMABGARINE LAW.) 



inquiry as strict as may be, but even if investi- 

 gation shows that it is not fit food for the peo- 

 ple, let us not attempt to destroy it by taxing 

 it out of existence. The more you tax the 

 American man the less he likes it. As to food, 

 there is a great variety of taste. "When I was 

 abroad, I saw a man on the Neva, from the 

 frozen regions of the North, eat a tallow- candle, 

 and he looked as happy and cheerful and com- 

 placent, and smiled as pleasantly as my friend 

 the gentleman from New York and my col- 

 league from Pennsylvania would after an elab- 

 orate dinner at Delmonico's." 



Mr. Tucker, of Virginia, conceding the power 

 of Congress to levy the tax provided for in the 

 bill, protested against perverting the powers 

 given for one purpose to another: "I believe 

 that Congress has the power to lay the tax on 

 oleomargarine. For what purpose ? To raise 

 revenue. Can you use a power I put it to 

 any gentleman here who has ever been a trus- 

 tee can you use a power delegated to you as a 

 trustee for a certain purpose for some other 

 purpose that is denied to you in the trust? 

 Can you use that as a weapon to destroy some 

 industry that is not within your power, merely 

 because you have that weapon to use for the 

 purpose of raising revenue ? The question to me 

 is too plain. I do not mean to judge for any 

 other man's conscience, but I mean to say that 

 honestly I could not vote for such a use of the 

 power, because to use a power given to me for 

 one purpose in order to accomplish another 

 purpose that I have no power to subserve is 

 really dishonest. It is evading my constitu- 

 tional obligation to exercise a power which 

 was never given me for the purpose at all for 

 the purpose of accomplishing an object not 

 confided to me by the Constitution." 



Mr. Henderson, of Iowa, argued that the 

 levying of a new tax was in some sort a finan- 

 cial necessity : "As will be seen, the Secretary 

 of the Treasury estimates that there will be a 

 deficit of $24,589,000 on the 30th day of June, 

 1887, and he states in detail the basis for his con- 

 clusion. Now, this is not any rambling state- 

 ment. It is a careful official estimate submitted 

 by the official financial head of the republic. 

 In addition to that, this Congress, with a patri- 

 otism that I commend, has added to the pen- 

 sions of the widows and orphans of the Union 

 soldier $6,000,000 per annum, not taken into 

 account by the Secretary of the Treasury, but 

 which will be added to the expenses of the 

 Government, thus raising the amount of the 

 deficit to $30,000,000. Then, if the Mexican 

 pension bill goes through the Senate as it has 

 gone through the House, we shall have from 

 forty to fifty millions more to pay. I need 

 not call the attention of the House to the 

 fact that we have a vast debt still unpaid, that 

 we have appealing rivers and harbors, that 



Sublic buildings are needed nearly every State 

 emanding them until we are afraid we have 

 not money enough to give all that is needed. 

 I need not remind this Chamber that the Army 



of the United States has been reduced to a 

 platoon, and the Navy to a naked flag-staff. I 

 do not need to remind this Chamber that we 

 have no merchant marine ; and let it not be 

 forgotten that the idol of one great party in 

 this nation, "the Old Sage of Gramercy," 

 has counseled and appealed for the expendi- 

 ture of millions for our coast-defenses. We 

 stand to-day a stingy and cramped nation in 

 regard to many needed expenditures; and I 

 say, with Secretary Manning, that we do need 

 this money. 1 ' He declared, moreover, that it 

 was not of any practical importance whether 

 the law was passed to raise revenue or to crush 

 out a particular branch of industry, since the 

 real purpose in passing it could not be sepa- 

 rated from the professed purpose: "The ju- 

 dicial power dare not enter the chamber of the 

 lawmaker's mind to find motives for the pas- 

 sage of a law, but is bound to accept the law 

 itself for that guide. We have a right under 

 the Constitution to levy and collect taxes. 

 Here we are deciding whether it is necessary 

 or not to do that. We exercise the power; 

 and the mode of its exercise can not be ques- 

 tioned by the highest judicial tribunal in the 

 republic. I say, then, it is a waste of time to 

 discuss this bill from a constitutional stand- 

 point." Mr. Henderson also dwelt at length 

 upon the excellence of butter and the filthi- 

 ness of oleomargarine, and produced a for- 

 midable mass of figures to show how seriously 

 the manufacture of the latter was affecting the 

 agricultural interest of the country. 



Perhaps the best statement made in behalf 

 of the bill, however, is embodied in the report 

 of the Committee on Agriculture. As to the 

 constitutionality of the measure the report said : 



The power of the Federal Government to impose 

 an internal-revenue tax upon the manufactured com- 

 pounds sold as imitations and counterfeits of butter, 

 as enumerated in the second section of the substitute 

 bill reported by the committee, is too well established 

 by a long line of precedents to require any argument; 

 indeedj as far as your committee are advised, this 

 power is unquestioned and universally conceded by 

 those who deny the necessity or expediency of such a 

 tax. This power to tax is not limited alone to the ne- 

 cessities of the Government for the amount of revenue 

 derived. It has been invoked in more than one in- 

 stance to provide for the general welfare and sustained 

 by the highest judicial tribunal of the land. It is 

 contended oy some that the tax on oleomargarine, as 

 defined in tlie bill, is excessive, and is advocated for 

 the purpose of destroying or impairing its manufact- 

 ure and sale, and is, therefore, beyond the constitu- 

 tional power of Congress. It is a sufficient answer to 

 this to say that, the power to tax being conceded, there 

 is no limitation to its exercise except the discretion 

 and wisdom of Congress. 



As to the necessity for the proposed legisla- 

 tion the report said : 



We find that there are in the United States over 

 15,000,000 cows, producing annually over 1,000,000,- 

 000 pounds of butter and 300,000,000 pounds of cheese, 

 and that the product is worth $250,000,000 ; that about 

 an equal amount of milk is consumed as milk, so that 

 the product of the dairy interest of the United States 

 is worth $500,000,000 ; that cows were worth on an 

 average $40 per head until the introduction of coun- 

 terfeit butter, and are now worth but $30 each, mak- 



