The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1900-08-22

to tax and regulate the sale of oleomar-
gariue." The principle of the Parker
bill was therefore taxation.
What is the principle of the Grout
bill? To regulate the production and
sale OF oleomargarine through "the po-
lice powers of he State" What are a
States "police powers?" Its power to
protect the public health or morals,
abate nuisancee, etc In the exercise
of this power it may forbid the traffic
in an article of food deemed deleterious
to tae public health, or punish fraud in
such traffic-the sale, for example, of
an article as butter which is an imita-
ton Of butter. The Grout bill distin-
cuisines between oleomargarine "when
the same is not colored in imitation of
butter" and when 80 colored. The
former it recognizes as legitimate ar
ticle of commerce by imposing thereon
the merely nominal tax of one-fourth of
a cent pound; on oleomargarine
masquerading as butter it places a
tax forty times greater. The essence
of the Grout bill is in this last provi-
sion. Upon the fraud it places heavy
tax and let's loose upon it the police
powers Of the State, while the bill care
fully provides that it shall not "be con-
strued to permit any State to for
bid the manufacture and sale of oeo-
margarine in separate and distinct
FORM" etc., and places upon it a just
and reasonable tax.
The Parker bill made no distinc-
ton between oleomargarine Sin
separate and distinct FORM" and
when offered for sale in the guise of
butter. 1t gave both a standing in
trade, the fraudulent equally with the
honest article, and proposed to tax
both, the good and the bad, alike. A
license to sell was the same for the
honest article as for the fraudulent imi-
tation, and this tax and this license
were utterly prohibitive of the manu-
facture or sale OF "oleomargarine in q
separate and distinct FORM" 1t was a
crude, ill considered measure. The
ostensible purpose was taxation, its eff
feet would have been prohibitive. 1t
was far exceeding the bounds of legiti-
mate and reasonable taxation. 1t was
as il the trainers of the existing corpo-
ration tax law had said to themselves,
Railways are a nuisance, they kill peo-
pie, their locomotives 60 screeching
through our towns, they upset the old
ways of travel and transportation, and
we will place tax on their gross re-
ceipts that will put them out of exist
ence. Now had those legislators
placed tax of fifty per cent on the re-
ceipts of the railways, would the I'M
constitutionality of that act, it's viola
ton of the constitutional requirement
that every member of society shall con-
tribute his proportion of the expenses
of maintaining government, be "a mat
ter of opinion at most" as Mr.. Parker
airily says of the claim that his bill,
taxing oleomargarine Is cents a pound
and imposing an annual license Of
$4,000 on wholesale dealers and $4,000
on retail dealers, was prohibitive, and
therefore unconstitutional?
Any person who can see betwee n
the rungs of a ladder will be able to
discover that the alleged identity either
of principle or of details or means, be-
tween the Parker bill and the Grout
bill exists only in the depraved "inntl
consciousness' of the Grout partisans-
and for campaign purposes only.
1t is equally clear, also, that MIR
Dillingham; would be able to espouss
the cause of the Grout bill in the United
States Senate, or any improvement Of
that measure, with more than the rea
son and enthusiasm he put into the
bill which he favored in 1884, anC
which became law, law which EN-
bodied the principle that is the es
sence of the Grout bill, to wit, thu
subsection of the illegitimate traffic il
oloomargarine to the police power o
the government.
1t will not be necessary to point GU
that the United States law of 1885 wa