The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1910-01-26
The IRIQUITY OF The 0LE0MAR-
GARINE TAX.

Editor Constitution: applaud you're
cent editorial on the subject of the tax on
and discrimination against ole~omarga:ine.
In addition to the imquitieS you point
out SO clearly, the result to the l~ong-sutfer-
ing public is bad butter. II is impossible
to get good table butter in the average
market at any price. 1t is well to remem-
Der that one of the inevitable results of
governmental m~onOpolics is that with the
rise of price there goes a fall in quality.
Our English f0refathers might have sub
mittcd to the high-priced soap which fol-
lowed King Charles grant OF monopoly to
sell 1t, but when the mOnOpolistic soap be-
gan to raise blisters, the people began to
raise armies under Cromwell and, with the
cleansing soap of revolution, cleaned out
the Augean stables.
Atlanta, Ca, December IA, 1905
AleZ. V. Smith.
1T is impossible to get good table in the
market at any price"
That is the deliberate statement Of one
of the best-poised citizens of Atlanta, q
man totally unacquainted with random
and hysterical Indictment.
And yet, were the unreasonable and
wholly outrageous restrictions upon he
manufacture of artificial butter removed
not only would the average coneumer be
assured a good table product, but as we'll
a produces at a living price and product
the sale of which would Unreasonable in
crease the south's commerce.
OleOmargarine is manufactured from a
com pound of which cotton seed oil, n Of
the pureSt constituents know to chemistry
IS the determining basis.
Nineteen-twentieths of the Oleomargar-
inc offered on the open market is infinitely
more pure, incompatible cheaper, than the
lOw-priced butter.
The law reqrires that this by-product of
cotton seed oil be branded as ''oleomar-
garine," that the consumer may buy I'M
der no misrepresentation. That stipula-
tlon is just enough. The provision that is
farclally unju S is that oleomargarine
artitically colored shall bh taxed 10 cents
q pound, while renovated, or ''dOped up
natural butter, swarming with germs and
dirt, for all the buyer knows to the con-
trary, goes tax free, even though it's max
crS use the same artificial cOloring en-
ployed in oleomargarine.'
The oppressive inconsistency OF the re-
gulatiOn is apparent.
There is no tax on dubious natural but
ter; there is an almost prohibitiYe tax on
oleomargarinee by every law of probable
ity and composition likely to be pure.
At the last analysis, this practice sim
ply constitutes a discriminative tariff
against a southern product.
Might as we'll tax the products made
from the corn and wheat of the west!
Their is no more logic, no more %iustifi-
cation for taxing Ole"Omargarine made of
Gotten seed oil than there would be in tax
ing the aatiiicial products made OF these
other paste substances.
Brand oleomargarine in box-car letters;
that il. fair and proper. Inspect is rigor-
ouslv to insure its quality; that also is
fair and proper.
But a man in moderate circumstances
should be allowed to buy pure oleomar-
garine, if he so desires, and at a price with
in reach of his pocket.
That is almost impossible under pre-
sent conditions. On the other hand,
either many a poor family must 60 with
out any semblance of this necessity of life,
or put up with Indifferent, artiffcially
colored and "doped up" natural butter at
an eXtortionate cost.
Let congress decree a square deal in
this matter. bath for the sbutheEn farmer