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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 unconstitutional 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 compared 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 estarlishment 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 dishonesty of a few manufacturers. The Revolution was fought for less cause when the population 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 vengeance, and cease their robbery.

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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 recognized 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

misdemeanor to manufacture or to offer for sale for human food any substances in imitation of such food products, while the other prohibits the sale of diluted or adulterated foods, unless the seller shall first inform the buyer of the bogus nature of the articles. They will hardly go so far, unbounded as their audacity is, as to demand the abolition of the State Dairy Department, for that has become a fixture; and as long as this exists, and is managed as honestly and efficiently as at present, the dairy interest will be guarded as well as the limited funds allowed the department will permit."

, Mr. William H. Coughtry, president of the Albany Merchants' Association, which includes most of the grocers and other business men of that city, called upon President C. F. Bussing, of the Retail Grocers' Union, of New York, recently, and suggested the expediency of an organized movement on the part of the combined retail grocers, butter dealers, and dairymen of the State to oppose the machinations of the oleomargarine interest in Albany. Mr. Coughtry declared that the bogus butter lobby in the Legislature would be stronger this session than ever before, and that strenuous efforts would be made to so amend the laws in force as to make them, to all intents and purposes, inoperative. He said he thought it would be well to issue an address to the various associations of grocers throughout the State, as well as to other traders interested in the suppression of the vile traffic, urging them to send representatives to Albany to protest against any change in the law designed to favor the moonshine butter. The address will probably appear in the next issue of the Advocate, the organ of the retail grocers of this city, and President Bussing says that he has no doubt prompt action will be taken by retailers all over the State. This movement, in conjunction with the convention which is to be held in this city Feb. 16, of the National Dairymen's Protective Association, will serve to warn the legislators of the State that this vital and important question is not to be trifled with.

In the meantime the movement in other States is growing stronger and more widespread every day. Robert M. Littler, the secretary of the National Butter, Cheese, and Egg Association, has issued an address to producers and consumers of dairy products, in which he takes the ground that was taken last year in Ohio, and brings the bogus butter question into the field of politics. The address says:

"Chemical analysis as well as common sense shows that many of these counterfeits are and must be unwholesome. In some instances the process and material for deodorizing the lards and fats render the product deadly poison, and if no apparent injury arises from taking these poisons into the system it is because they are so small that their effects are not immediately observable. But it is certain their continued use must undermine the health of the consumer and result in fatal disease.

"Further, in addition to the amount of dairy goods displaced by the counterfeit, the suspi. cion cast upon all dairy goods by the knowledge of the existence of these frauds has sickened the public stomach and discouraged consumption to an extent which we have no means of estimating. To these facts we have the right to largely attribute the depressed condition of the dairy interest of this country during the past year, and reason to fear the great injury if not utter destruction of the dairy interest, which has hitherto been so remunerative, and which is second to no other national industry in point of public importance and financial investment.

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"In view of these facts and this threatening danger, what are the farmers, dairymen, creamerymen, and consumers prepared to do? Will they adopt measures to protect themselves against fraud, robbery, and imposition, or will they let these counterfeiters have full sway and ruin a leading industry, bringing upon the community at large all the dire consequences of such ruin ?

الشتلاف

"It is already demonstrated that imitations, counterfeits, and frauds can be legally suppressed by appropriate legislation, provided people will rise in their might and demand the necessary measures. All that is needed is a healthy public sentiment manifested through the ballot box, to afford an effectual remedy and future preventive of the evils which now confront us. The laws of the land punish the counterfeiter of money with State prison. Why not the counterfeiter of butter or other food? To counterfeit criminally is 'to make something seem

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to be what it is not for pecuniary gain.' The difference is in the degree and not in the essence of the crime. Both are crimes--crimes against the community. Both make something seem to be what it is not for gain.

"The challenge is defiantly thrown down by organized capital against anorganized labor. The only way to effectually meet it is by State, county, and town organizations, for the purpose of electing State legislators and Congressmen who are in sympathy with the people, and willing in their behalf to confront the mercenary hosts of the counterfeiters. Interrogate every candidate of whatever party, and of all parties, and cast your votes for none who are not willing to squarely pledge themselves to vote for the necessary measures to suppress and prevent all frauds on the dairy. Act at once. If your State Legislature is in session, circulate a petition among your fellow-citizens, and have these frauds upon the dairy interest attended to by State legislation."

Attached to the address is a form of petition asking the Legislature, first, to prohibit by law the sale of butter or cheese of any substance not the unadulterated product of pure milk; second, to enact suitable penalties for the violation thereof; third, to appoint a Dairy Commissioner for Iowa charged with the enforcement of the law, and appropriate ample funds for this purpose. This petition has already been numerously signed, and will be presented at the next session of the Legislature.

Among the States in which the movement against oleomargarine is daily gaining strength, is Minnesota, where the sale of the article is altogether prohibited, and a fine ranging from $100 to $500 is the penalty for violating the law. Here the manufacturers are making persistent efforts to make the trade and the public believe that the State anti-butterine law is unconstitutional, and that oleomargarine is a healthful food and product. In a recent communication to the Minneapolis Evening Journal, Assistant State Dairy Commissioner H. C. Howard says, over his own signature:

"It is not necessary to enumerate any of the names of the countless numbers of living organisms found in butterine to prove its deleterious effects on health. Last spring Mr. Lambert, of stall 20, St. Paul city market, used a large carving knife for three weeks to cut butterine from the tub as he sold it, and the acids not only destroyed the silver plating, but actually ate into the steel blade of the knife and turned it black. The knife can be seen any day at stall 60, city market. The eating of butterine made of the above-named materials will destroy the digestive organs of the stomach and cause the early decay of the teeth."

A letter received recently by a dealer in legitimate dairy products from a correspondent in Cincinnati contains some interesting facts with regard to oleomargarine and its allied compounds, and the legislation demanded in Ohio and Iowa, both large butter-producing States. This letter gives the Cleveland Leader as authority for the assertion that a phosphate factory located near a stock yard buys animals that die in transit. The bodies, it says, are placed in ovens and the fat extracted. The first grade of the fat thus extracted is sold to the makers of bogus butter. So much for the product itself.

As to the legislation in Ohio, the letter says that the Ohio Dairymen's Protective Association, formed expressly to counteract the machinations of the oleomargarine men, has rapidly grown in numbers, and is now an acknowledged political power. Through the influence and labors of this association several members of the Legislature were elected last fall on pledges that they would use their best efforts to suppress the traffic in bogus butter. Encouraged by their success last year, the dairymen, who feel assured of the support of all lovers of fair trade, will redouble their efforts in this direction next year, and have hopes of electing representatives who will see that their interests are not ruined by the manufacture and sale of sham butter. The oleomargarine interest in the Ohio Legislature is a powerful one, so powerful indeed, that it succeeded last year in procuring an amendment to the law providing that butter made of "pure suet or oleomargarine, oils and milk," could be made and sold. This effectually de

stroyed the effect of previous legislation, and it is the design of the association this winter to frame a law modeled after that of New York (carefully avoiding those features whose constitutionality has been contested) and appointing a commissioner to enforce its provisions.

In Iowa, the letter says, a similar movement is on foot, and petitions praying for the appointment of a dairy commissioner are being largely signed throughout the State. In other States which have no laws bearing particularly upon this traffic, an effort is being made to press their passage, and the dairymen are appealed to to do their utmost to prevail upon their representatives to take prompt action.

INGREDIENTS USED IN OLEOMARGARINE.

The following is a list, taken from the patents recorded in the Patent Office at Washington, of the ingredients claimed to be used in the manufacture of this article. Manufacturers deny that they use all the ingredients named in these patents, but it is certainly not unfair to assume that when they mention a certain ingredient in their application for a patent, as necessary for its making, they actually use it. This list was obtained officially from the Patent Office by Assistant State Dairy Commissioner Van Valkenburgh of New York.

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SAL SODA,

FARINACEOUS FLOUR,

CARBOLIC ACID,
SLIPPERY ELM BARK,
OLIVE OIL,

BROMA CHLORALUM,
OIL OF PEANUTS,
SUGAR,
CAUSTIC SODA.

It is not sought to show that all these ingredients are used in any single process, but the fact is established that nitric acid is used in all, and it is probable that the other acids named are employed when the most powerful agents are necessary for deodorizing putrid or diseased fats.

Speaking of the materials used under these processes, State Dairy Commissioner Brown

said:

"Our hearts grow warm with gratitude deeply stirred, and our appreciation of virtue is most delicately touched as we contemplate with much relief and great comfort the consoling fact that some of these patentees, these alleged promoters of digestion and benefactors of our race, have considerately determined that if this compound of acids and alkalies, animal facts. and other stuff must be pitched into the human stomach as an article of food, provision shall be made against the danger of an utter collapse of all the vital forces of the victim by the introduction of such comparatively wholesome ingredients as gastric juice and slippery elm bark." The publication of a list of sixty ingredients named in the various patents covering the

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manufacture of oleomargarine and other bogus butter raised a storm of indignation among those engaged in the making of the nefarious compounds; and the organ of that interest, an obscure journal that has little patronage save among the manufacturers of an article that is legally excluded from the markets of the State, indulges in gross abuse of Assistant State Dairy Commissioner Van Valkenburgh. That gentleman, in speaking of the article said:

"The list was prepared in my office, and under my personal supervision. It was made up from the records of the Patent Office in Washington, copies of which were forwarded at my request, and every article mentioned in that list appears in those patents. It is fair to presume that when certain articles are named in an application for a patent as essential for its perfection, those articles will be used. I took it for granted that all the drugs, chemicals, and foreign substances mentioned in these patents were used. If not, what was the necessity for mentioning them? In preparing my list, I used the names of no articles that did not appear on the Patent Office records. In sending it to members of the trade, I took care to use the words: 'And claimed by them (the manufacturers of oleomargarine) to be used in the manufacture of oleomargarine and butterine.' The writer of the article in the organ of the bogus butter trade goes into an analysis of the articles mentioned in my list, and essays to prove that none of them is injurious to public health, but fails to deny specifically the use of any of the articles used. Some he sets down as practically useless, and others as too expensive, but he does not say that they are not used. Still, he does make use of one significant remark that is worthy of mention. He says: 'The seventeen patentees, if a number of the sixty articles mentioned by Mr. Van Valkenburgh can be taken as evidence, show more wisdom than he, for they take care that many of the constituents or articles used cannot be recognized from the names given in the above enumerated list.'

"To be sure they do, and perhaps it was just as well for them that the articles constituting their product could not be recognized. The fact is that these people see that their counterfeit butter is doomed, and are ready to resort to any expedient to postpone the inevitable. The writer of that article shows that some of the drugs mentioned in my list are largely and beneficially used as curatives. So they are. I am ready to admit that; but then the question is, Do we want medicine spread upon our bread and served at every meal we eat? Salicylic acid, I am told, is good for the rheumatism, but when I suffer from that disease do I need to go to a butter tub for treatment? I should add that on my list I was careful not to mention any names, and also to explain that the sixty articles covered all the patents and were not to be. considered as being conjointly used in any one process."

THE EFFECT OF NITRIC ACID.

The following from The New York Star of Jauuary 25th, 1886, is worthy of presentation here in full:

It is authoritatively said that another effort is to be made this winter by the oleomargarine men to prove to the satisfaction of the Legislature of this State that the butterine and other oleaginous compounds that are furnished by them to retailers, who sell them as butter to consumers, in violation of the law, are wholesome. In view of the digestive and microscopical experiments made for the Dairy Commissioner by Prof. Clark, of Albany, and detailed in his report, this is likely to prove an uphill task. Prof. Clark made a specialty of the physiological features of his subject, making experiments in digestion and microscopical investigations, and in other ways showing the importance of public health of a thorough knowledge of what enters, into any food product. As a result of his researches he arrived at the conclusion that oleomargarine is unwholesome and dangerous to health for four reasons. First, because it is indigestible; second, because it is insoluble when made from animal fats; third, that it is liable. to carry the germs of disease into the human system; and fourth, that in the eagerness off manufacturers to produce their spurious compounds cheaply they are tempted to use ingredients which are detrimental to the health of the consumer.

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