OLEOMARGARINE AND BUTTERINE. 7 



buying it, and the genuine article suffers. The consumer gets an inferior article and the 

 farmer has his product on his hands; it is counterfeiting of the most damnable kind, and with 

 the sa m disastrous results as circulating imitations of money entail, only in this case capital 

 and respectability, and want of proper laws, enable the fraudulent butter manufacturer and 

 dealer to ply their vocation unmolested. 



"State legislation has failed, laws badly framed have been passed only to be declared un- 

 constitutional in the- end, while not capable if valid to accomplish the end; for if driven out 

 of one store the enemy only moves into another to ply his vocation. 



" National legislation is necessary, and can alone be effective, or the dairy industry will be 

 completely ruined. Congress must be appealed to and men elected to Congress who will 

 vote for such laws as may be necessary. It is therefore recommended that the dairy farmers 

 in every district in the United States meet and organize on this movement; this the greatest 

 of all others now. 



"The tariff, civil service reform, and all other questions sink into insignificance as com- 

 pared with this, for it concerns the pockets of every man owning any part of the 18,000,000 milk 

 cows in the United States. Organize, then, and elect men to Congress the coming year who will 

 represent your interests, and let the agitation be carried on until every counterfeit butter estar- 

 jishment in the country is closed. In the mean time agitate the question among your friends 

 and neighbors. Not a moment is to be lost. Encouraged by their success your enemies grow 

 bolder and increase their wrong- doing. 



"Factories for the manufacture of the bogus article are springing up daily. It will take 

 the most strenuous efforts to hold out against them until relief can be had. The imposition is 

 the grossest ever practiced against a people; 7,000,000 farmers are left to suffer from the dis- 

 honesty of a few manufacturers. The Revolution was fought for less cause when the popula- 

 tion was less than half that number. Rouse, then, and demand by the majesty of right the 

 suppression of this wrong, and your voice will be heard and heeded. Organize to do it, and 

 when, as farmers of America, you have taught one band of robbers that you can protect your- 

 selves, others who would rob you of your rights and property will begin to fear your ven- 

 geance, and cease their robbery. 



" Already the cause for which our association was organized has spread and gained strength. 

 The agricultural press in different parts of the country has taken up the fight, and speakers 

 and writers in all sections have begun to agitate in your behalf since our movement began. 

 Let the work continue until every pen and every press and every platform sounds the note of 

 warning and comes to your aid. A convention for the discussion of means and measures will be 

 held at the Grand Central Hotel, New York, Friday, February 16-18, 1886, in connection 

 with the American Agricultural Association. Every one interested in the subject and every 

 producer and dealer in butter is requested to attend." 



While dairymen and lovers of legitimate trade are moving for reform the oleomargarine 

 men are not backward in urging their claims. The following from The New York Star of 

 January 3, 1886, will prove of interest in this connection: 



"The recent agitation of the bogus butter swindle by The Star has had the double effect 

 of awaking the public to a realization of the importance of the interests involved, and of 

 prompting the oleomargarine manufacturers to renew their efforts to have their product recog- 

 nized by the State Legislature as a legitimate article of food. Backed by practically unlimited 

 capital and advised by the best legal talent obtainable, they are prepared to enter upon a new 

 campaign in Albany this winter which bids fair to be the most active on record. It is learned 

 from a trustworthy source that they will endeavor by every means in their power to engraft a 

 provision upon the present law removing the prohibition to the use of coloring matter in 

 oleomargarine and butterine. They will urge that this prohibition is unconstitutional, for the 

 reason that many legitimate dairymen use annoto and other materials to color their butter at 

 certain seasons of the year, and that it is manifestly an injustice to prohibit their use by others. 

 These gentlemen forget that, even if they procure the desired change in this law, there will 

 still exist to their detriment certain sections of the Criminal Code, one of which makes it a 



