Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-03-09
THE OLEO OUT WEST.
A Man Just From the Newly Created
States Tells About 1t,
CLAIMING IT is VERY ESSENTIAL,
And Neither Government Laws Nor Any
Others Can Squelch 1t.
INTERESTING VIEWS ON BOGUS BUTTER

james Parker is spending q few days
with friends on East street. Allegheny. He
lives in Montana, and his business takes
him all over that State, Washington and
the Dakotas. He tells some startling facts
about the wholesale violation of the oleo-
margarine law in that part of the far West.
The facts came out in the course of con-
versation, and were suggested by a news
paper item Mr.. Parker had read since his
arrival here about the fning OF a number
of grocers 500 each for selling the bogus
butter.
According to Mr.. Parker's statements,
everybody in Montana and Washington eats
oleomargarine. AS it has been ruled out of
the Eastern States, its manufacturers have
resorted to an insidious introduction of the
article in the West. In the extreme West
it is said to be exposed in open market and
sold without restraint; taxes are deliberately
lost sight of, and officials make no attempt
to catch up violators of the law. Mr.. Parker
said:
people out there seem 10 prefer the
bogus butter. 1t is cheaper and will keep
an unlimited length of time. These facts
make it very popular out in remote ranches
or in railroad laborers' camps, where two or
three days horseback riding are required
to reach markets. know of an engineer
ing corps which, when it started out last
year, took with it two or three
frkins of oleomargar1ne. 1t lasted them
during the whole trip, and the
boys actually told me they had lost their
appetite for real butter. Ny subsequent
association with two members of the corps
proved to me that they did prefer the oleo.
You see that is an advantage this article
has in the far West, which it does not have
here. We need out here the most enduring
quality of everything, because of our dis
tance in many instances from stores. Dairy
butter would never fill the bill. 1t is either
oleo or no spread at all.
81 remember on one occasion at Seattle
seeing two carloads of this make-believe
butter come In from the East. It was pack
aged in frkins and tin pans. am positive
everybody in that lively city knew of the
arrival of the butter, and knew of the fact
that it was smuggled over there without the
payment of the tax; but proposition to
prosecute the makers and sellers of it would
have been met with laugh. The public
want it. Public sentiment there does
not demand every law restricting or
prohibiting the sale of the article. The
agricultural interests are not as far ad-
vanced yet, as in Pennsylvania, for instance.
Therefore the existing United States revenue
laws are loosely administered.
"That, 1 should think, is a good illustra-
ton of what it may be IN your own State, if
this Constitution amendment against liquor
is forced upon communities where sentiment
is the other way. Depend upon it, if peo-
pie want liquor still, just as we Westerners
do oleomargarine, they are not going to take
trouble to elect officials who will enforce the
new law. That is precisely the condition of
affairs in the new States 1 have described"