addition of artificial color to oleomargarine causes the product to resemble butter. Colored oleomargarine could, therefore, be easily substituted for butter by the retailer and by the restaurants and other eating places. Should we now remove the present restrictions on the sale of colored margarine, we are opening wide the gates of deceptive and fraudulent practices. The fact that the manufacturers of oleomargarine wish to copy coloring, flavor, texture, and chemical properties of butter makes it evident that it is their purpose to attempt to market their product as a substitute for butter and, ultimately, to supplant butter with oleomargarine.

Summing it all up, all that we ask is that oleomargarine be sold for exactly what it is; that it be prohibited from using the color associated with butter since the beginning of time; the oleomargarine contain no dairy products; and that no material be added that will make it smell, taste or look like butter.

Beyond that, the manufacturers may go the limit.

I have here a reprint from an article found in the St. Paul Pioneer Press, and I would like to read a part of it. This was published last November

At the Fort Worth convention of the General Federation of Women's Clubs in 1942 a resolution endorsing oleomargarine was defeated. The proponents of this resolution claimed that competent authorities had gone on record for oleomargarine, as set out in the following article by Dick Wilcox, which appeared in the St. Paul Pioneer Press recently.

That was last October.

There have been an avalanche of propaganda recently favoring oleomargarine over butter. Dairymen claim that there has been a concerted effort to expand and circulate this propaganda at the expense of the dairy industry.

Doubtful experiments at the Minnesota College, showing that there was no substitute for butter as a good-health producer were published and widely circulated. Similar results were obtained in experiments at Wisconsin and other universities.

Before Russia asked for food from the United States under lend-lease, it experimented with different steps as soldier diet, using butter, oleomargarine and fortified with vitamins, and oleomargarine fortified. It was found that when

the soldiers fed on butter were wounded, they recovered much more quickly than those fed with substitutes.

I thank you, gentlemen.

Senator ELLENDER. Thank you very much, Mrs. Rask.

Our next witness is Mrs. Brinkman. Will you give your full name for the record, Mrs. Brinkman, and your present occupation.

STATEMENT OF MRS. EDNA BRINKMAN, HINSDALE, ILL., REPRESENTING THE CONSUMER'S COMMITTEE OF THE ILLINOIS DAIRY PRODUCTS ASSOCIATION

Mrs. BRINKMAN. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, my name is Edna Brinkman, and my home is in Hinsdale, Ill. I am appearing today on behalf of the consumer's committee of the Illinois Dairy Products Association, of which I am a member.

Senator ÉLLENDER. What is your membership?

Mrs. BRINKMAN. We have about 20 women, sometimes 30. They are chosen to more or less cover the State, so that each part of the State is represented.

Senator AIKEN. That is a committee which is appointed by the Dairy Association?

Mrs. BRINKMAN. Yes. This committee is set up by the Illinois Dairy group that its association may have the advice and conultation of housewives in the use of dairy products.

Our committee is free to analyze the services and practices of the dairy industry and make our recommendations in the light of our experience. It is the wish of this committee that I testify in opposition to the Smith bill 1744.

My own basis for this opposition comes from my experience as a housewife. I have no commercial interest in the controversy and I am not a scientific expert. My reason for opposing this bill S. 1744 is that the existing law affords a most adequate method for consumers to select butter as well as imitation butter. Personally, I buy both. I have no quarrel with oleo. I use cooking oils, lard, crisco, oleo and butter. But I want each of them distinguishable from the others. I think there is room in our economy for all of these products but I see no reason why any one of them should try to take on the hue or the excellence of another any more than a black crow should want to doll up to look like a colorful parrot. I am very fearful that if the 10-cent tax were repealed our grocery stores would soon be filled with all sorts of yellow concoctions which the unprotected and the unsuspecting consumer would take for butter.

The perennial controversies of oleo wanting to shine in a golden hue like butter simply extolls to most women the virtues of the dairy products, and we all love the golden dairy butter the more, to say nothing of the other line of allied benefits.

As far back as I can rember, oleomargarine has been apologized for. Its producers have never given it a place of its own and because they refuse to establish it and choose to push it into butter's place the regulatory 10-cent tax has been established. This analysis also was the consensus of opinion I found among women whom I questioned the past 3 days.

It is stated in bill S. 1744 "that margarine is necessary to the proper nourishment of low-income groups." My observation is that these groups are not trying to save money on their food. Food is the one prize they want and they want the best they can get. Moreover, we are all working toward this end that everyone shall have the best nourishing food possible. As to housewives wasting time coloring oleo, we all know a pound of oleomargarine or two put in the kitchen to take room temperature can be whipped into color and a mold in the time you are waiting for another article to come to the "boil". To those of us with sons in the war the time wasted coloring oleo is as nothing compared to the continued waste of legislator's and citizens' time brought about by bringing up this issue when we should all be getting on with the war. This seems all the more a waste of time when the oleomargarine interests have just enjoyed a 150 percent or more boost in their trade.

Finally, Why not market oleomargarine for what it is?

Senator ELLENDER. Thank you very much, Mrs. Brinkman.

That concludes the list of witnesses that we were to hear today and, under the understanding that was had between the members of the committee and Mr. Holman, who represents the dairy interests, this committee will stand adjourned until 10 o'clock Monday morning. (Whereupon, at 3:10 p. m., the subcommittee adjourned until 10 a. m., Monday, June 12, 1944.)

TO REGULATE PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION OF

MARGARINE

MONDAY, JUNE 12, 1944

UNITED STATES SENATE,
SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE

ON AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY,

Washington, D. C.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to adjournment, at 10 a. m., in the committee room of the Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, 324 Senate Office Building, Senator Allen J. Ellender presiding.

There were present before the subcommittee: Walter E. Camp, Vita Health Foods, 3014 Fourteenth Street, Washington, D. C.; Charles W. Holman, 1731 Eye Street, Washington, D. C., secretary, National Cooperative Milk Producers Association; Fred Brenckman, Washington representative of the National Grange, 1344 F Street, Washington, D. C.; Maj. George W. Hill, Durham, N. C. dairy farmer and breeder; Paul Keller, Tupelo, Miss., field representative for North Mississippi Livestock Association and Mississippi Jersey Cattle Club; A. M. Glover, manager, Knoxville Milk Producers' Association, Knoxville, Tenn.; Glen W. Cope, director, South Carolina Milk Producers and Distributors Association, Cope, S. C.; W. H. Austin, vice president, Mid-South Milk Producers Association, Memphis, Tenn.; B. E. Stallones, general manager, South Texas Producers Association, Houston, Tex.; Benjamin C. Marsh, executive secretary, People's Lobby.

Senator ELLENDER. The committee will be in order.

Our first witness this morning is Mr. Camp.

Mr. Camp, will you give your full name for the record and your present occupation?

STATEMENT OF WALTER E. CAMP, VITA HEALTH FOODS, 3014 · FOURTEENTH STREET NW., WASHINGTON, D. C.

Mr. CAMP. My name is Walter E. Camp, and I am a partner in the Vita Health Food Co. here in the city, selling various vegetable foods.

Senator ELLENDER. Some witness testified here last week that some soybean butter manufactured by Butler Food Products in Cedar Lake, Mich., was handled by your store.

Mr. CAMP. We sold it until recently; yes, sir.

Senator ELLENDER. Why don't you sell it now?

Mr. CAMP. It gets moldy in hot weather, so we discontinued it during the summer.

Senator ELLENDER. In what size container is this soya butter sold?

213

Mr. CAMP. That is the only size I know of [indicating] and this morning I got a new size, but this new size we have never handled yet.

I think it is quoted at about 79 cents.

Senator ELLENDER. I notice the contents is one pint, or 13%1⁄2 ounces, net weight.

Mr. CAMP. Yes, sir.

Senator ELLENDER. Is that new size the same weight as the other? Mr. CAMP. It says on there, I believe, 13%1⁄2 ounces.

Senator ELLENDER. What do you retail that for, what price?

Mr. CAMP. Fifty-five cents.

Senator ELLENDER. How much do you pay for it?

Mr. CAMP. Thirty-eight and one-half cents.

Senator ELLENDER. Is that a normal profit?

Mr. CAMP. It is a little less than our profit that we have to have, but we believe that with common food products we can make a little less. We usually make more on this. If you want an explanation of our profit, I will be glad to give it to you.

Senator ELLENDER. No; I do not care to go into your business. I want to be fair with you.

Do you know that this same product is being sold in Cedar Lake, Mich., and other parts of Michigan and Wisconsin for 36 cents a pint?

Mr. CAMP. That is the wholesale price in that section, I understand. I don't believe it is the retail price, although I am not informed as to what they sell it for. We pay 381⁄2 for it.

Senator AIKEN. My recollection is that one witness said it was selling at the stores for 36 cents in Michigan and 59 cents in Washington.

Senator ELLENDER. That was the testimony here.

Mr. CAMP. I thought it was 55 cents. I am not quite sure about that.

Senator ELLENDER. And you say it cost you 38 cents delivered in Washington?

Mr. CAMP. Thirty-eight and one-half cents delivered here.

Senator AIKEN. One of the witnesses testified that he went into your store to buy some of this and was asked for six ration points, but another one that went in and made a purchase was asked for no ration points at all. Why was one asked to give up ration points and others were not?

Mr. CAMP. Well, all meats went out without ration points very recently, so the one that made the first inquiry, was apparently while it was still on rationing, and when the actual purchase was made, the O. P. A. had taken the points off of soybean oil and meat products, so that when the purchase was made, there were no points on it any

more.

Senator AIKEN. Perhaps Mr. Camp can tell us, if soybean oil is being generally substituted in restaurants for other products, both oleomargarine and butter?

I asked the distributor that question this morning, or last night, rather, and he told me he sells it in 30-pound containers to the Statler Hotel, and he sells it to the People's Drug Stores, and he probably has other patrons. At one time very recently there was absolutely no butter available, and the restaurants and hotels substituted any

thing they could get. For instance, in the sea food restaurants they apparently substitute soy oil for butter when they serve lobster.

Mr. CAMP. We have a restaurant and we use soy oil a great deal. Senator ELLENDER. I was out to dinner the other night, and I do not like lobster very well, but I had to have lobster, and apparently it was soy oil that was served with the lobster. It had no resemblance, so far as I could see, to butter and not much to oleo.

Senator AIKEN. How about the taste?

Senator ELLENDER. It tasted like soy oil. I suppose the restaurant uses it because of their inability to get butter.

Mr. Camp, do you handle oleomargarine?

Mr. CAMP. No; we do not.

Senator ELLENDER. Then you say the reason you are not handling this product any longer is because it mildews in the summer?

Mr. CAMP. It does. I understand there is no benzoate of soda in it. We do not handle products that have benzoate of soda or anything of that sort in them, so we just have to discontinue the product in the summer.

Senator ELLENDER. I believe that is all, Mr. Camp. Thank you very much.

Mr. CAMP. I have some literature here in case you should be interested in it.

Senator AIKEN. When did you discontinue the sale of this product, Mr. Camp?

It

Mr. CAMP. It was as soon as the weather got hot, 2 or 3 weeks ago. may be that one of the downtown stores still have a pound on hand. I don't know how recently you bought it, but it might have been bought just after that. But all of the rest of it was moldy and I just sent it back.

Senator AIKEN. Could that be renovated and sold again?

Mr. CAMP. I don't know about that.

Senator ELLENDER. Thank you very much, Mr. Camp. We will now hear Mr. Holman. Will you give your full name for the record, Mr. Holman, and your present occupation and such other information as you desire to place in the record about yourself?

STATEMENT OF CHARLES W. HOLMAN, WASHINGTON, D. C., SECRETARY OF THE NATIONAL COOPERATIVE MILK PRODUCERS ASSOCIATION

Mr. HOLMAN. Mr. Chairman, my name is Charles W. Holman' My office address is 1731 Eye Street, Washington, D. C. I am secretary of the National Cooperative Milk Producers Federation. am asking permission to file a list of our member units.

I

(The list of member organizations follows:)

MEMBER ORGANIZATIONS

Arrowhead Cooperative Creamery Association, 224 North 57th Avenue, West, Duluth, Minn.

Central Grade "A" Cooperative, Appleton, Wis.

Challenge Cream and Butter Association, 929 East Second Street, Los Anglees, Calif.

Chattanooga Area Milk Producers Association, Chattanooga, Tenn.

Connecticut Milk Producers' Association, 990 Wethersfield Avenue, Hartford, Conn.