463] ADULTERATION AND OLEOMARGARINE 239 



the federal law as well. A portion of the Report of the 

 House Committee on Agriculture says, " That there are 

 from four to five million American citizens engaged in the 

 dairy business and that they must all abandon it and be 

 driven into some other already overworked branch of in- 

 dustry unless they can be relieved from the present ruinous 

 competition with cheap imitations of butter and cheese "- 1 

 When the law of 1886 was to be amended in 1902 dairy as- 

 sociations again became active. 2 



This was mainly a fight between economic interests — 

 the dairymen on one side and the oleomargarine interests 

 and stockmen on the other. The arguments the oleomar- 

 garine interests raised were that the product was a boon to 

 the poor people who could not pay the price of butter, that 

 large quantities of cottonseed oil were consumed in the 

 manufacture of oleomargarine, and that large amounts of 

 the country's capital were invested in oleomargarine estab- 

 lishments. These arguments were presented to enlist var- 

 ious classes to aid them in their fight with the dairymen. 



The laws themselves show very little of the nature of 

 this movement. Some of the early laws, however, reflect 

 it in their titles. For instance, the title of the first New 

 York law reads : " An Act for the protection of dairymen 

 and to prevent the deception in sales of butter ". The title 

 of the Maryland law of 1878 is similar. 



Very little also can be learned as to the nature and origin 

 of the movement for oleomargarine legislation from the 

 opinions of the Supreme Court deciding upon the ultimate 

 validity of these laws. The logic and reasoning of the court 

 rather tend to center one's attention upon abstract ethical 



1 Report of the U. S. Internal Revenue Commissioner for 1887, p. 

 cxxxi. 



2 Vide, for instance, Michigan Dairy Association Report for 1901, 

 p. to8. 



