48 OLEOMARGARINE AND BUTTERINE. 



thousand assertions by Judges of the Supreme Court, indorsed by the Court of Appeals, can- 

 not make it true. The imitation butter law which the court has rejected was, like other laws 

 CK the same subject that are still in force, enacted for the protection of the consumer. Legis- 

 lation against imitation butter has been demanded for the protection of the people. It is true 

 that the dairy interests have suffered, and still suffer, by reason of the manufacture and sale- 

 of the imitation, and that the laws have been supported by the farmers, but primarily they 

 were enacted for the benefit of the people who eat butter, to prevent them from being deceived 

 and from bein- fed with an unwholesome product. 



The farmers who make butter may reasonably help the consumer in his contest with the 

 bogus butter men, for the quantity of butter exported has fallen from nearly 40,000,000 pounds 

 in 1880 to only 21,683,000 pounds in 1885, while the quantity of imitation butter and oleo oil 

 exported has risen to 37,882,000 pounds. The consumer in the city or in the country, has a 

 right to demand that he shall not be deceived by those who sell him food, and that stuff that 

 will undermine his health shall not be palmed off upon him as a genuine product of the dairy. 

 The trade in bogus butter thrives on deceit and lives by deceit alone, and no amount of talk 

 from judges or paid attorneys about competition and the trade's "importance as an industry " 

 can convince intelligent people that it is opposed by no one except the makers of real butter. 



A MERCHANT ON BOGUS BUTTER. 



N. Y. Star, Jan. 26, 1886. 



From mercantile circles on every side, no less than from private consumers, The Star 

 continues to receive emphatic indorsements of the crusade it has opened up in the interest of 

 pure and healthful food products and against adulteration. One of the best-known commission 

 merchants in New York, who has been for many years prominently identified with the butter 

 trade, writes us as follows : 



NEW YORK, Jan. 20. 



To THE EDITOR OF THE STAR SIR : Your editorial in this morning's issue on Com- 

 missioner Colman's work is an excellent one. Too much stress cannot be placed upon your 

 own words. They are as follows: "The people at large the consumers are being made 

 victims of a colossal organized fraud. Those engaged in the legitimate business of supply are 

 being oppressed and injured by dishonest competitors. The situation is deplorable from every 

 point of view." 



The Democratic party could do nothing better for the country than to wipe out this gigantic 

 fraud. Pure food products can be produced far in excess of home consumption. There is no 

 excuse in the world for feeding our people so much contemptible trash. It is destroying the 

 confidence of foreign nations in the purity of our food products and our integrity as merchants. 



I hope The S tar will continue to agitate the question, that our law-makers in this country- 

 may see the necessity of stringent means regulating the sale of adulterated products. 



Very respectfully, JAMES H. SEYMOUR. 



Mr. Seymour's is not an isolated case of opposition to the vicious and unwholesome traffic 

 in counterfeit butter. Mr. F. B. Thurber, the largest wholesale produce merchant in the East, 

 several weeks ago wrote to The Starihat his firm had refused to sell oleomargarine, or butter 

 substitutes, being unwilling to share in the odium attached to the traffic. This was followed 

 by the combined action of the retail Grocers' Union, which decided to sell no more counterfeit 

 butter, and even urged the Legislature to pass a law compelling dealers in the stuff to color it 

 blue or pink. Since that time the war has extended into a dozen States. Reputable dealers 

 everywhere are falling into line ; they cannot afford to withstand the overwhelming tide of pub 

 lie condemnation that has set in against adulterated butter in every shape. People have had 

 their eyes opened to the real character of the deceptive compounds they have been consuming 

 for several years past under the pleasant delusion that it was the genuine creamery product 

 they saw shining in yellow, tempting rolls on their breakfast and dinner tables. They refuse 

 longer to be poisoned by slow degrees, in order that the manufacturers of bogus butter may 

 become rapidly rich on their snug profit of four or five hundred per cent. Congress has the 

 whole subject of butter adulteration before it, and the State legislatures are preparing to do 

 their share of the task of conserving the general health and stopping the raid on the public's 

 pocket. All the signs point to the conclusion that bogus butter, as a salable article of food, 

 must go. 



We commend to the members of our State Legislature the views of such gentlemen as 

 Messrs. Seymour and^Thurber, which ought to possess considerable weight in this connection. 

 The people expect that the Legislature will do its whole duty in the premises and adopt such 

 a measure as will protect equally the legitimate producer of honest butter and the general con- 

 sumer from further imposition by the manufacturers and retailers of poisonous imitations. 



