Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1886-07-30
THE OLtOMiRGARIkE BILL.
Senator Riddleberger's Five Minutes
Remarks.

Mr. Butler. NO; L ylelu 10 the
Senator from Virginia.
Mr.. Riddleberger. Mr.. President,
this is the only opportunity l be-
lieve that has been afforded to ex-
press an opinion of this bill other
than such as has proceeded from its
friends or its opponents based on
the dairy system or the right to
manufacture anything, and l desire
to express my hostility to the bill,
coming as / do from farming COM
munity, because it is to all intents
and purposes an internal.revenue
tax. I do not believe that there is
a farmer in the western, north
western, or southwestern part of
Virginia who does not deSpise the
suggestion of internal revenue. /
know that when cross the James
river and get into the tobacco cOun.
try where We have people upon
whose product so much per pound,
s cents, for instance, is levied, they
hate the idea and they reprobate
the internal revenue. 1t begins
wrong.
DO not love oleOmargarine. do
not eat it knowingly, and will not
have it if 1 can help it. 1t is a
fraud. l would not take it under a
law enacted here. II it be such a
fraud as the Senator from New
York says it is, l wOnld not have
anything to do with it; would not
license it. / would not say with
the Senator from Kansas that you
should pay the Government a cent
a pound for it, any more than |
would license any other fraud
But when it comes to the question
OF whether We ought to permit its
manufacture and sale in this coun-
try, then | am with the farming
community and say 1 would pro-
hibit it entirely. desire that to
be understood.
desire it to be understood, more
over, that IN opposing this bill l
think that l am opposing the most
obnoxious law that today stands
upon the statute books of the Unit
ed States, that which says that to-
bacco shall be taxed, that liquor
shall be licensed, and the manu-
facturer of oleomargarine shall have
the right TO sell it If he shall pay
the revenue tax on it. am opposed
TO this bill. l ask that the farmer
who makes honest butter shall be
put a little bit above the whisky
distiller of the mountain counties.
/ ask that we shall proceed in this
matter in some other way and say
il this be poisonous food, if Chicago
furnishes hogs that die of disease
out of which there shall be made
hog butter or butterine or oleomar-
garine that enters into the physical
system and destroys the life of man
woman, or child, that we will not
license it; we will not permit it.
That is the simple way in which the
question suggests itself to me.
Here we have been day after day
trying to determine between the
Senator from Kansas and the Sena-
tor from New York whether one
makes good butter or the other buys
cheap oleOmargarine, whether the
labOring man wants the oleOmarga-
rine or the laboring man does not.
Perhaps the laborlng man would
prefer the oleomargarine in some
sections, as we sec resolutions com
ing here against Its taxation. How
easy it is to teach him that as be
destroys the COW he abridges the
number of the calves. He can not
reduce the price OF his butter as he
increases the price of the COW. So
we find these men coming up in
their State organizations and tell
ing us that they prefer honest but
ter because it is made by honest
men.
say give us no more internal
revenue taxes. Let us have this as
II ought to come from the Congress
OF the United States. Deal with il
as heroically as the surgeon would
with the knife with a man on the
field, where 1t must be promptly ap,
Piled or the subject would die. We
are treatingthis thinghere childish
ly. 1t does not become us, it does
not become the Congress. The coun.
try does not want such treatment.
If this be fraud, do not let Con.
gress license it. The states may do
it; give them the opportunity Of
correcting it themselves; but for
Gods sake do not let the Congress
of the United States set the exam.
pie Of licensing a fraud. Rather
let the fraud 60 on. Let every
fraud 60 on; LEI your gambling
houses 60 on; let every unlicensed
institution that the country ought
not to tolerate 20 on rather than
the Congress OF the United States
even by indirection should pass a
bill here recognizing the thing and
say that it is licensed. Let OleO-
margarine be manufactured if need
be, but do not let us tax it and IL
cense it; let butterine be manufac-
tured if need be, the one from the
carcass OF the hog and the other from
the steer, but let us leave it out of