ILLINOIS DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



253 



matter, testified that it could be made and sold at a profit of seven 

 cents a pound. The product to manufacture it out of was unlim- 

 ited, the capacity was unlimited. You can readily see had there 

 been nothing done, had they been allowed to go ahead and man- 

 ufacture and sell without any restrictions, where would we have 

 been. Every one would have been forced through necessity to 

 go out of dairying entirely. 



First, I will give you the proceedings as they took place. We 

 first secured the passage 6i a law taxing their product 2 cents a 

 pound. We thought we had thrown every safeguard around the 

 dairymen, but we found that the profits were so large that they 

 had an incentive to manufacture the product and sell it in viola- 

 tion of the law% and that our law was a dead letter. Then we se- 

 cured the law we have now, in which the product colored to imi- 

 tate butter is taxed 10c per lb., and uncolored reduced to 1-4 cts. 

 No restriction now on the legitimate sale of their product, but 

 places them in a position where, if they sell it for our product 

 and color it, they have got to bring the price up to what butter 

 is worth. It was our only salvation. It was the only way; it was 

 forced upon us. We simply took it as a measure of self-protec- 

 tion. This work has been accomplished by the National Daily 

 Union. 



If I could take time to tell you of the fight from beginning 

 to end, it would take much longer time than I have got. I will 

 say this : There never was a -fight waged between two interests 

 that was fought Avith the same degree of vigor, with the same vin- 

 dictiveness as the two factors. It went through justice courts, 

 circuit courts and now at last to the supreme court. Taken before 

 the state legislature of every state in the union, and finally before 

 the national legislature, where we got the law we have at the 

 present time. 



I will also say this for what we have accomplished. Where 

 they had 123 millions of pounds, when this law was enacted, it 

 fell to about 50,000,000 of pounds. Over seventy per cent of 

 their product has been knocked out by this law. 



Three weeks ago v\-e succeeded in getting three suits l^efore 



