2 6o THE BUTTER INDUSTRY IN UNITED STATES [484 



reports of the state dairy and food commissioners. 

 Many are very clever and make interesting reading 

 matter. One of the earliest and commonest frauds of 

 which the dealer has been guilty, is the mixing of butter 

 and oleomargarine in his own store. This evil called 

 forth a provision in the law of 1902 declaring a dealer 

 guilty of such an act to be a manufacturer of oleomar- 

 garine, and to be subject to the special tax of $600. 

 The Internal Revenue Commissioner as late as 191 1 1 

 reports that dealers frequently buy the uncolored oleo- 

 margarine and then color it in their store. This is done 

 by buying a tub of colored oleomargarine and paying 

 the special tax of $48 for dealing in colored oleo- 

 margarine. The dealer buys a lot of uncolored oleo- 

 margarine, colors this artificially, and puts it in the tub 

 that still contains some of the colored oleomargarine 

 that he bought from the manufacturer. This has been 

 discovered by field officers, but its practice is very diffi- 

 cult to prove. The Commissioner says that by this 

 simple process the dealer "can add 9^ cents to every 

 pound manipulated, and, by furnishing this to his cus- 

 tomers when they call for butter, he is enabled to dispose 

 of this product, which cost him from twelve to fifteen 

 cents per pound, at anywhere from twenty-five to forty 

 cents a pound. The comparative immunity from detec- 

 tion and punishment and the great financial profit grow- 

 ing out of the transaction have proved sufficient induce- 

 ment to cause thousands of otherwise reputable grocers, 

 market men, and dealers to engage in the nefarious 

 business of defrauding the Government of its revenue 

 and perpetrating a fraud on their customers. It is con- 

 fidently believed that the oleomargarine law is, at this 



1 Report, p. 17. 



