OLEOMARGARINE AND BUTTERINE. 25, 



represented in Congress, prompt action for its suppression or regulation would speedily 

 follow. 



" I believe that the consumption of butter to-day is 30 per cent, less than it would be but 

 for the almost universal sale of these counterfeit, deleterious products of the oleomargarine 

 factories. I believe also that large numbers of dwellers in cities abstain from the use of butter 

 entirely for fear of getting hold of the bogus stuff, and I know personally of several families 

 at whose table butter no longer appears. 



" In years gone by American butter maintained a deservedly high reputation in Germany^ 

 and was largely exported to that country, but since the advent of oleomargarine (or butterine 

 as it is called now, since its original name has grown into well-deserved disrepute) the German 

 authorities, who keep a close watch on the food products sold to the people, and visit adultera- 

 tion with severe punishment, have issued orders that no American butter shall be received in 

 future until after it has undergone a thorough chemical test to establish its genuineness and 

 purity. This is in one sense a compliment to the skill and ingenuity of the oleomargarine 

 manufacturers, for it shows they turn out a product calculated to deceive even the best experts ; 

 but the mercantile community, the basis of whose foreign trade is their unblemished honor and 

 their reputation for fair dealing, view this new order with sorrow. They cannot blame the 

 German authorities, for their action was brought about by the importation of thousands of pounds 

 of sham butter or oleomargarine oil out of which to make it, and was taken purely in self-defense. 

 But they do blame their own government for failing to so regulate this nefarious traffic as to 

 prevent the possibility of such wholesale swindles. 



" So long as this stuff, made of the refuse of the stables and the shambles and of other 

 materials that make one shudder to think of, is manufactured in the West and I believe that 

 the greater proportion of the most worthless grades of oleomargarine comes from that section 

 is shipped to this market as butter, I cannot see how the legitimate trade can be protected. 

 It comes in quantities over the railroads, paying freight as butter, and, in spite of the law pro- 

 hibiting its sale, gets into the hands of conscienceless retailers and then figures on the tables 

 of our citizens as dairy or creamery butter. The manufacturers shield themselves from the 

 penalties of the law by selling the product under its own name, but they know as well as I do 

 that it cannot be sold in this city except as natural butter. Is not this offering a premium 

 for crime ? The retailers, when arrested and arraigned in court, always deny that they rep- 

 resented the article as butter, but in nine cases out of ten the proof that they did is produced, 

 and this fact the manufacturers must know. 



"What we need is a national law regulating this traffic, and if we get the law we want to 

 see it enforced. Prohibition of the manufacture of oleomargarine is, I think, out of the ques- 

 tion, but it is generally conceded that Congress has the power to regulate interstate commerce^ 

 and an act of this nature would come within its province." 



The exports of oleomargarine have increased rapidly since its introduction, so that where 

 they only reached one-half of the exports of the genuine dairy product in 1880 they now about 

 double them. The annual average of decrease in the exports of butter between 1880 and 1885 

 was 9,51 0,706 pounds, while those of oleomargarine have shown an annual average increase 

 of 2,647,000 pounds. The figures appended show the recorded exports of butter and oleomar- 

 garine for the years named, but there is reason to believe that a considerable amount of the 

 latter was exported as butter. 



Butter. Oleo. Total. 



1880..: 39,236,650 20,000,000 59,236,650 



^881 31,560,500 26,300,000 57,800,500 



1882 14,794,300 22,000,000 3 6 >794,3 



1883 12,348,640 23,400,000 35,748,640 



1884 20,627,374 39,322,841 59>95* 2I 5 



1885 21,683,148 37,882,155 59>5 6 5>33 



By these figures it will be seen that while the exports of butter decreased 18,609,276 pounds- 



