The news & observer., 1901-01-13
Dairy Interests and tho Grout Bill

To the Editor:
There has been some opposition to this
bill in North Carolina The movement
which resulted in the Grout bill ia one
in which class Of small farmers are
resisting, being smothered by a cheap
counterfeit Of STAPLE farm product on
the manufacture and sale Of which their
living depends
The promoters of the Pure Food Laws
also icin in this movement to the end
that any article should be presented and
sold for what it is and that purchasers
OF butter may get butter when they pay
for it,
In an article against this movement re-
Gently coming under the writer's obserya-
ton the statement was made that "at the
demand of certain butter trusts in the
North who have organized themselves into
creameries and buy milk from farmers of
certain sections, Congress has pending a
bill intended to destroy the manufacture
of what is called oleomargarine, a chemi-
cally pure article manufactured of pro-
ducts not only of the farm but very large
ly Of Southern farms and altogether help
ful"
That dairying is conducted by trusts is
certainly new to this writer. On the con-
trary from the very nature OF the facts
and conditions this is perhaps the one
interest which would be hardest to cap
ture were an effort made to handle it as
a trust.
A statement made by a paper in the
Northwest, The Minneapolis Journal and
.approvngly copied by The Rural New
Yorker effectualy shows the contrary, and
that a trust lobby is making fight to
legislate against farmers: THE situation
in the Senate affecting the Grout bill is
suspicious. The dairy interest is made up
Of farmers, who have no money to spend
TO promote legislation, while the oleomar-
garine interest is made up of the big
meat packers who maintain an extensive
and expensive lobby in Washington"
The butter making industry Of the North
and the whole country is in reality con-
Quoted about as it is being done around
our capital city today. Our Wake county
farmers, like others over the length of
the State have as much interest in the
passage Of the Grout bill by the United
States Senate and the enforcement of it's
provisions IS have the farmers of any
Northern State from Maine to Montana,
or California; so also of the farmers of
the whole South. and west
Instead of smothering any manufacture
the provisions of the Grout bill reduce
the tax OF two cents a pound to one
fourth of one cent a pound for all oleo-
margarine rot colored to resemble but
ter. For oleomargarine so colored the
tax is TO be increased TO ten cents per
cound
The chemically purified offal fats which
were formerly made into a cheap axle
grease may still be combined into an ar
ticle os food which anyone who wishes
may buy, but it may not under the provi
sions of the Grout bill be continuously inn
posed on too confiding public as real
/ butter which it is not. however artfully
and deceptively the names may be applied,
or how closely the imitation may approach
The res. article.
The farmers and pure food people are
! determined that from next July this
article, oleomargarine, must be sold for
just what it IS. If the manufacturers
were honest in their assertions that the
people prefer it, they would welcome
change which would raise their motives
above the suspicion of masquerading be-
| hind such conditions as The Philadelphia
| North American unearthed in the city Of
Brotherly Love last year.
7 Anything which tends to supplant the
! product of a dairy cow with cheap imi-
! tation hurts the owners of 5000 North
Carolina COWS. 1t damages the present
and prospects of future COW owners. What
must we think of our fellow citizens who
allow themselves to be so far misled as
! to appear in opposition to measure
which is calculated to encourage the hon.
est efforts of the mass Of our population
both as regards this industry and the pur-
ity C eooG?
| At different times exaggerated state
ments have been sent out in print, of diff
ferent citizens favoring the great packers
against their humble neighbors in the
mistaken notion that their own direct in
terests are at stake. 1t is not hard to
show the absurdity of the statements
but they are put in circulation to have
an effect before they can be overtaken and
refuted We trust the North Carolina
Senators VIII be found in line with the
interests of their constituents in the sup
port of the Grout bill for an early pass
a-e.
FRANK e. EMERY.