Dr. CARLSON. They did refer to this, but I am one of the experimenters there. I did part of the work. There was a little difference in favor of the general health of the oleo people, but not enough to draw any conclusion that that was due to margarine.

The CHAIRMAN. Were the experiments conducted on two groups of children in two different places?

Dr. CARLSON. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. All on the same group?

Dr. CARLSON. No; two different institutions.

The CHAIRMAN. And were the diets, the general diets, under control?

Dr. CARLSON. The general diet was known. It was the average good diet of children, including milk, of course, for children.

The CHAIRMAN. I mean was the general diet of the two schools equal?

Dr. CARLSON. Essentially equal in calories, quantity, quality, proteins, vitamins, and all of them. I am glad you asked that question, Mr. Chairman, because many laymen, and I have read the testimony on these bills in the House, do not understand what a scientific experiment requires. Those diets had to be essentially the same. They do not have to eat the same every day, you understand. It is the same as in any family. But you have to vary only one thing at a time, and the variable here, the only variable was butter in the one case, margarine in the other. Is that clear?

The CHAIRMAN. It is perfectly clear to me that if you are going to have a real scientific experiment, if you are going to have one; you will have to have controls, and if you are running controls in two different institutions the controls have to be the same or approximately the

same.

Dr. CARLSON. That is correct. In other words, the control has to be the diet.

The CHAIRMAN. I was inquiring as to the point whether the controls were the same in both institutions.

Dr. CARLSON. That is correct. The diets are essentially the same. We can never run a control on the children or on man as absolutely as we can on the experimental animal, and either as to his health or diet; and for that reason, Mr. Chairman, we increased the number so that an occasional infection, an occasional cold, an occasional this, and occasional that would cancel out in the two groups. Do I make myself clear?

The CHAIRMAN. Entirely clear.

Dr. CARLSON. I hope each one of you will read this paper. Briefly, it shows that growing children experience normal growth in height and weight when their diets contain only fortified margarine as table fat as shown by a comparison with standard weight and height tables. Whether the greater part of the fat of the diet is derived from vegetable or animal sources has no effect on growth and health as shown by changes in height and weight, and health records of the children observed over a 2-year period. Regardless of whether margarine or butter was the source of the greater part of the fat in the diet, the health of 267 children, during a 2-year period, was uniformly good so far as serious illness is concerned. There is absolutely no evidence that there is any growth factor present in butter which is not present in margarine.

I have noted that since the publication of this paper some of our friends and colleagues in Wisconsin have attempted to show that this work is meaningless. Mind you, they do not say that there is any superiority in butter. They say such things as the controls were not extensive enough, the work was not conducted for a sufficient period of time, and so forth. Have they done any experimenting on children, I want to ask them, with butter controls or longer time? If they have, I have not heard of it. But, gentlemen, we were working with humans and, as I pointed out before, you cannot control their lives as you can with experimental animals. This work speaks for itself. When you add this to all of the work done in this country and abroad on experimental animals, it furnishes additional scientific knowledge.

Margarine has a well-established place in the dietary of this country. It supplies a real need of our people in the lower-income groups. At moderate cost it gives our people a good-tasting, readily digestible fat food. The product is recognized by the Federal Food and Drug Administration, which has promulgated a standard for it under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.

Especially today, with the high cost of living, when so many of our people are hard-pressed to make both ends meet, and with it being a real task for large numbers of our population to secure an adequate diet, I submit to you gentlemen that there is no justification whatsoever for continuing these taxes and that, in the interests of good health, good nutrition, and plain American fair play, these taxes should be repealed.

I know of no parallel to this type of Federal interference with the manufacture and sale of a good food product. And I have been in that field in every State for more than 70 years. Of course, it is well known, and often conceded by the antimargarine group that the Federal margarine taxes were not primarily enacted for the sake of raising revenue. The 10-cents-per-pound tax on yellow margarine obviously is not to enrich the Treasury Department but exists for the purposes of preventing the consumer from getting margarine the way they want it-in a pleasing yellow color.

Furthermore, as far as I can see, this margarine situation is not really a fight between the dairy farmer and the margarine producer. It is a fight really waged by the butter manufacturer against margarine and is carried on for purely selfish purposes in an attempt to gain, by legislation, competitive advantages which are abhorrent to every American principle of free and fair competition.

The antimargarine lobby has for years been attempting to convince Congress that, if margarine were sold yellow, wholesale fraud would be practiced. To me this is preposterous, and yet, to date, this unfounded charge has stood in the way of adequate nutrition for a good part of our consuming public.

A good part of my professional life has been spent in the study of various foods for man. No one food has any exclusive claim to any particular color. Foods have a large variety of natural colors, and foods by the score are artificially colored. This is recognized in the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act when it merely requires that if color is added to food it be declared on the label. As you know, by a special legislative enactment, butter is excepted from this legal

requirement so that the presence of artificial color in butter is not declared.

There is probably an intention, an unknown, an element of deception there, because the rich yellow of summer butter is higher in vitamin A than the less yellow or white winter butter, and vitamin A is an important element in our food.

A lot of butter is artificially colored. Furthermore, the butters are colored to different shades. "Depending upon consumer preference, market by market, the butter manufacturer adds such amount of color as to result in the shade of color desired by his trade.

Margarine should be colored for the same reason as butter is colored. It permits the consumer to get the food in the shade or color that they are used to and is most pleasing to them. In the case of margarine, there is no reason to worry about any fraud because the laws now in existence so adequately cover this situation.

First, there is the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, which applies to the labeling of margarine, as it does to all other foods. Then there is the Federal standard for oleomargarine which covers its ingredients, as well as the labeling. There are the Bureau of Animal Industry regulations, if the margarine has any animal fat. There is the Federal Trade Commission, and I have worked with all of these in court cases. There are State and city food and drug laws and also State and local laws against deception.

You must remember that every pound of margarine, by law, must be conspicuously labeled with the word oleomargarine. Whether it is white or whether the consumer would buy it yellow, the consumer knows that she is getting oleomargarine.

As a physiologist, I can assure you that the coloring of food-in this case oleomargarine-serves, for the human, a good and valuable purpose. We know that people prefer to eat certain foods possessing certain colors. This is the result of many years of conditioning, habit, background, and so forth. When people eat a food in the color they prefer, it is more pleasing to them, and better service to the nervous system and the alimentary tract. They not only get more pleasure from it, but, in turn, actually get more value. That is why, as already stated, much butter is artificially colored, and should be. But, by the same token, the consumers of our country should be permitted to have the oleomargarine they want in the color they want. True, there have been a few cases, and only a handful over the past years, where some dishonest person practiced fraud. Fraud to a smaller or greater extent is practiced in all fields of industry. The CHAIRMAN. Even in the political field.

Dr. CARLSON. Yes, yes.

I know that in no case over the past 25 years was any such person in any way involved with the margarine industry or was he a wholesaler or retailer. So far as I know, just because there are some few dishonest people who violate laws with respect to almost every product on the market, the Congress does not pass discriminatory legislation against all such products. In fact, if you review the reports of the Federal Food and Drug Administration, you will find during every year for many years a very large number of cases involving illegal butter and illegal cream. The cases involved filth, low fat, and short weight which are injurious to the health and are economic cheats.

Yet, notwithstanding these thousands of cases, no one has maintained that there should be a special tax on butter.

In conclusion, I can only say that these oleomargarine taxes should, in the interests of proper and adequate nutrition and in the interests of American democracy, be repealed just as quickly as possible.

May I add this, this being the year 1948, on the basis of the past, these taxes are today stupid.

I thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. That is all. Thank you, Doctor.
Dr. CARLSON. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Identify yourself for the record.

STATEMENT OF LEWIS G. HINES, NATIONAL LEGISLATIVE REPRESENTATIVE, AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR, WASHINGTON, D. C.

Mr. HINES. The name is Lewis G. Hines.

Mr. Chairman, in the interest of time, I would rather file my statement, as I realize that you are running behind and our conclusions concur in what has already been said here with regard to the need for the removal of these taxes.

I might say that our membership encompasses a large number of the people referred to herein as the low-income groups. We feel this tax is discriminatory and should be removed. It should be a forerunner of removal of all taxes in the States. It would serve as an incentive in that direction.

We feel that margarine is a food product in its own right. I was very much interested in the discussion this morning with regard to the protection of the consumer in the restaurant. I concur in the . thought that there is not too much to worry about when you consider the size of the pat of butter or margarine, or whatever it may be. The restaurant could, if they wanted to differentiate, merely state "We serve butter." I do not know that anybody would get hurt with the substitution of margarine, or, in fact, anything else. I want to say I appreciate the opportunity, Mr. Chairman, of appearing before the committee.

The CHAIRMAN. Your statement will appear in the record. (The statement referred to is as follows:)

STATEMENT OF LEWIS G. HINES, NATIONAL LEGISLATIVE REPRESENTATIVE OF THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR, BEFORE THE SENATE FINANCE COMMITTEE, MAY 18, 1948

The American Federation of Labor desires to register its support of the legislation before this committee which proposes to eliminate discriminatory margarine tax on margarine.

At a time when the bolstering of democratic nations throughout the world is dependent upon the American bread basket and our people are asked to ease inflation by eating less high-cost food, a law that artificially boosts prices and bars the consumption of nutritious margarine is unconscionable.

The ancient arguments voiced in support of the present legislation when it was enacted more than 60 years ago are no longer valid. The arguments have generaly been that margarine was an inferior substitute as a table fat, that the law was necessary to prevent fraudulent sale of colored margarine as butter, and that production by the dairy industry must be encouraged and protected against unfair competition.

Let us take a quick look at these obsolete arguments:

Is margarine inferior to butter?

The findings of numerous scientific investigations have been presented to this committee both in past and present sessions. It has been conclusively proved that high-quality margarine, when fortified with vitamins A and D, has the same nutritional value as high-quality butter. I do not presume to be a food expert, but for several years I have heard expert testimony before this committee that the possibilities of impurities and variation in nutritional content are as great in butter as in margarine. For instance, it is a well-known fact that the vtamin A and D content of butter is dependent not upon the cow but upon the diet and sunshine received by the cow.

It is well-known that butter is artificially colored for approximately 8 months out of the year, because, except in the summer months, there is insufficient provitamin A-carotenes-to give the butter a rich yellow shade. There is a greater amount of human handling and the possibility of bovine tuberculosis in butter. It would appear to me that consistent standards of purity and high nutritional content are much easier to maintain in synthetically prepared margarine than in natural butter. If anything, we need a law requiring vitamin fortification of natural butter and labeling of the exact nutritional content of the butter. Will colored margarine be sold fraudulently as butter?

The Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act of 1938 and the definition and standard of identity for margarine promulgated thereunder on June 6, 1941, cover this situation completely. There are full powers and penalties necessary to prevent such fraud under the above-mentioned act without the retention of the present restrictive taxes. I am sure that no member of this committee believes that the present tax and license fees were enacted for revenue purposes, since the revenue received is negligible.

This is what they have done: The excessive license fees have succeeded in preventing two-thirds of the Nation's grocers from selling this highly nutritious, lowcost food. The 10-cent tax on colored margarine has succeeded in driving colored margarine almost completely off the market and forced the consumers to engage in the time-wasting and irritating operation of coloring it themselves. Does the dairy industry need protection?

By coincidence, while I was preparing this testimony, I came across an item in the New York Herald Tribune, February 26, 1948, announcing that the farmers of Wisconsin were supporting the repeal of their particularly vicious State law against margarine. Now we are told that Wisconsin is the leading dairy State in the Union. Can it be that our biggest dairymen have suddenly developed a conscience and feel that free competitive enterprise should be allowed to function? Maybe so, but the reason might also be that because of changed marketing conditions, there is more money in selling whole milk products than in selling butter. A few decades ago, butter was an important factor in the income of the dairy farmer; but today, with glass-lined tank cars for speedy delivery of fresh milk over long distances, the development and widespread use of dried whole milk and the consumption of more cheese and ice cream have changed this situation. The dairyman makes substantially more money and employs less labor when he sells his milk to whole-milk markets rather than as butterfat to the creameries. Even at a dollar a pound, butter is not coming back, and the farmers don't care. Today fluid milk and whole-milk products are up 50 percent over prewar, while butter is down almost 40 percent. Butter is scarce, and the above factors are going to keep it scarce.

In 1946 Wisconsin dairymen received only 1.36 percent of their total cash income from the sale of butter. Even in Wisconsin not enough butter is produced to supply their own citizens with enough butter to meet the standards laid down by the nutrition experts in the Department of Agriculture.

In the long run, the greater use of whole milk is to the benefit of our people. God gave us (by way of the cow) whole milk and probably meant us to consume the whole rather than parts of same. However, nutrition experts tell us that we should eat about twice as much table fat per capita as we are now consuming of both butter and margarine. If the dairy men no longer care to turn out sizable amounts of butter, we should encourage rather than discourage the production and sale of other table fats such as margarine, for the sake of the health of our people.

From the standpoint of our proposed program of aid to the rest of the world, increased substitution of margarine makes sense. It takes 3 times as much acreage and 10 times as much labor to produce a pound of butter as