cerned, and where their result is to increase food prices unjustifiably or to prevent efficient distribution, we believe they should be revised.

The CHAIRMAN. I would like to say that we are very glad to have had you come, sir, and we have enjoyed your statement very much. Mr. ANDRESEN. Dr. Carlson, I am sure that you qualify as an expert, and I am not surprised that the University of Minnesota awarded you recognition.

Dr. CARLSON. It was not the University of Minnesota, sir. It was the Minnesota State Medical Association. I believe that you are from Minnesota.

Mr. ANDRESEN. That is right.

Dr. CARLSON. I was called, sir, to your university as a member of the faculty 30 years ago, but I could not accept it.

Mr. ANDRESEN. I am sure that they lost a good man when they did not get you.

You are here appearing as a scientific expert, Dr. Carlson. Are you here in your own behalf, or are you here giving expert testimony in behalf of some group, or some concern?

Dr. CARLSON. I am here at the invitation of our chairman, Mr. Fulmer. I am also here at the request of Mr. Tocker, Washington attorney, who I think represents the manufacturers association of this country.

Mr. ANDRESEN. That is, the margarine manufacturers association? Dr. CARLSON. The margarine manufacturers of this country; that is correct.

Mr. ANDRESEN. I just wanted to get the record clear on that.
Dr. CARLSON. That is correct.

Mr. ANDRESEN. You are here appearing for them and being paid by them for your appearance here?

Dr. CARLSON. There has been no payment. I have paid my way so far. I hope that they will pay my expenses, but after Mr. Fulmer, your chairman, asked me to come, I had sufficient interest, sir, in the public health problem in this bill that I would have come here at my own expense.

Mr. ANDRESEN. I think that you should have your expenses paid, and that is all right; but I want to get the record clear on that point.

Dr. CARLSON. All right. I would like to make the record clear, too. Do you know what the Federal Trade Commission of our Federal Government pays experts when they appear in court? $1.50 a day. Mr. ANDRESEN. Is that all?

Dr. CARLSON. And I have never collected it.

Mr. ANDRESEN. I am surprised to hear that that is all they pay experts, and I am not surprised that you did not collect it.

I just wanted to ask you a few questions, Doctor. Are all 1943 margarines of the same quality?

Dr. CARLSON. I do not think so; no more than the 1943 butter is all of the same quality. I spoke of good margarine and good butter. Most of the margarine, I think, now having any national sale are about equally good, fortified with vitamin A, certainly, and vitamin D. They are, of course, uncolored. So far as purity is concerned and so far as taste is concerned, in the past I have worked biologically and scientifically to test out margarines when beef fat was largely the

element. Now, I would not say that they are all equally good, nor would I say that all butter was equally good.

Mr. ANDRESEN. I agree with that, but, by and large, the butter is much better now than it was years ago when every farmer made his own butter.

Dr. CARLSON. Well, I think that I would agree with you, most of the butters now are better. They are cleaner. I would agree with you on that.

Mr. ANDRESEN. Have you examined or made some scientific tests of the oleomargarine that is now being manufactured?

Dr. CARLSON. Do you mean have I tested it out?

Mr. ANDRESEN. Yes; to ascertain if it has the 9,000 units of vitamin A.

Dr. CARLSON. Oh, yes; yes. I have assisted, sir, in a piece of research that ran for 3 years, and I refer to the research work done at the University of Southern California; but I have made no assay as to whether the claim of 9,000 international units of vitamin A in the labeled margarine is there or not. I can say this, however, Mr. Andresen, that looking over the records of foods and drugs of the last few years, there have been much fewer seizures and condemnation of substandard margarine and fraudulent margarine than there have been of substandard butter.

Now I want to be entirely fair and have no misleading statements come from me, to my knowledge, but it might be explained by the fact that there is much more better butter sold in interstate commerce than margarine.

Mr. ANDRESEN. Your predication of the nutritive value of oleomargarine is based upon the fact that it will contain the 9,000 units of vitamin A?

Dr. CARLSON. No, no, no. That is just one item, obviously, vitamin A and vitamin D. The big item in the fat is the caloric value. That is the big item.

Mr. ANDRESEN. I wanted to get that clear. Oleomargarine has sold all the way from 18 cents to 30 cents a pound at different times, and different types.

Dr. CARLSON. I think that there is a spread something like that. Mr. ANDRESEN. You mentioned something about a human being getting along without milk after the mother's milk was exhausted.

Dr. CARLSON. I said more than that. I said that they are getting along splendidly.

You live far enough West to know the Sioux Indians. Well, they did not get much milk from the wild buffalo or the mountain goat, and they were splendid specimens of manhood.

Mr. ANDRESEN. I think they were all right. They were out in our country, you know, at the time Lief Erickson came out and settled in Minnesota.

Dr. CARLSON. At least the Indians were there whether Lief Erickson was there or not.

Mr. ANDRESEN. You stated that these poor people you have mentioned could buy a pound of oleomargarine and 2 quarts of milk for the price of a pound of butter.

Dr. CARLSON. I say approximately.

Mr. ANDRESEN. I think that is correct. You do not think that this quarter of a cent tax that is on margarine materially increases the price?

Dr. CARLSON. Well, I, of course, object mostly to this 10 percent on color and the tax on the distributor and the restaurant man.

If time permitted I could tell you a personal experience on that point.

I do not know what the tax does, but the 10-cent tax makes it an infernal nuisance for the consumers having to do their own churning, as it were, in the home.

Now, gentlemen, think of what is happening just now. For lendlease and for overseas, for our own forces, the margarine bought by the Government has got to be colored, and yet with the present shortage of butter there is a waste of food in the coloring of margarine in the home, and a nuisance to the housewife.

No; that one-half cent a pound would not be so serious, but that is just one of the troubles, Mr. Andresen.

Mr. ANDRESEN. I understood you to say that color did not add anything to the nutritive value of the oleomargarine.

Dr. CARLSON. You should have listened.

Mr. ANDRESEN. I did.

Dr. CARLSON. When a scientist talks, he weighs his words. I said it does not add anything to the nutritive value except to the extent that it is pleasing to the eye because of our food habits, and then I went on to explain-and that is the field where I know something because I happen to have worked on this problem, as you people of Minnesota should know, and that psychological situation, if you please, has a favorable effect on digestion and absorption, but it does not add calories.

Mr. COOLEY. Doctor, what is your explanation as to why color is added to butter and why artificial synthetic flavoring is added to butter?

Dr. CARLSON. Because of this common notion-the richness is in the butter. That is a superstition.

Mr. COOLEY. It is all for the same purpose, to make it more attractive?

Dr. CARLSON. Certainly. Now, it would be ungracious for me to suggest that these artificial flavors that are undoubtedly added to some butter are added for the purpose of obscuring poor butter. I would not even suggest it.

Mr. COOLEY. I would like to say that your statement has been very clear, cogent, and convincing, so far as I am concerned.

Dr. CARLSON. Thank you, sir.

Mr. ANDRESEN. May I proceed now? Now, I admire the color of red, like in the ribbon in the lady's hair out there. I think that is a very fine color, and I like her red roses.

Now, why do not the oleo people advocate coloring the margarine red, or some other color, rather than trying to imitate the appearance of traditional butter?

Dr. CARLSON. Well, you are a member of our National Congress, are you not?

Mr. ANDRESEN. I hope so.

Dr. CARLSON. I will not need to answer your question in that case. Human habit gets used to certain things. Our generation likes white bread and will like pink salmon. It is largely a question of what we have gotten used to. If we have gotten used to red vegetables, you have got to look at it biologically in that way.

Mr. ANDRESEN. Well, they can color it any other way than the color of butter and they would not have to pay the 10 cents tax.

Dr. CARLSON. It is used under the same conditions as is butter. Yes; I know that old argument-color it red. Color the butter red and you will see what you get. That would be all right, sir, if you started in with infants at 6 months or a year and showed them red butter and brought them up to know nothing else, and they would get along just as well as we do now with yellow.

Mr. ANDRESEN. Is it not a fact, Doctor, that some want to color oleomargarine to have it appear, or imitate butter and be as nearly as possible the same color as butter?

Dr. CARLSON. That is undoubtedly true, as I said in my statement, Mr. Andresen. Occasionally-way back when, as a matter of deception and fraud-undoubtedly it was.

Mr. ZIMMERMAN. Why do they put coloring in butter? Is that to make poor butter look like good butter?

Dr. CARLSON. They do it exactly for the reason that we are used to the yellow color in butter, and we think that the yellow color indicates superiority in purity and nutritional value.

Mr. ZIMMERMAN. And that is why they put color in grapefruit?
Dr. CARLSON. Well-

Mr. ANDRESEN. We know that color does not give the quality to butter; it just gives the appearance.

Dr. CARLSON. Mr. Andresen, when you have most of the color in butter produced by true vitamin A or the carotene, then you have the things that during absorption and nutrition produce the vitamin A that we need and then it is true.

Mr. ANDRESEN. Just before I conclude, I want to make it clear that you are talking here for the removal of restrictions on the sale of oleo colored to imitate butter; is that correct?

Dr. CARLSON. I am talking here in favor of the passage of Mr. Fulmer's bill, and I have done it, sir, on the basis of nutrition and in my interest of public health.

Mr. ANDRESEN. Will you concede that the quarter of a cent a pound tax on uncolored oleomargarine does not materially increase the price to the poor people?

Dr. CARLSON. I think that it is just a nuisance tax. I do not know just how much a quarter of a cent a pound difference would make in the long run, but I am opposed in principle to all nuisance, special, or restrictive taxes because they all add up to make it difficult for the consumer to get wholesome food.

The CHAIRMAN. May I ask you this question? Can you give any good reason why we should put a cent tax on oleomargarine and not on any other product?

Dr. CARLSON. Why, the reason is in human nature and pressure groups, and misunderstanding. I have been around. I was not born with a golden spoon in my mouth. I have been around and I know human nature. I presume that our democracy could not work on any other basis than pressure groups, but sometimes those pressures are

unwise and have got to be balanced. That is the real reason, and there is no scientific reason today. Away back when part of this was enacted, it was partly ignorance; not on the part of Congress, but on the part of ourselves.

Mr. ZIMMERMAN. Assuming that Mr. Fulmer's bill is passed and you remove the restrictions and the tax on the sale of colored margarine, do you think that there is any possibility of fraud, that the margarine colored to imitate butter would be sold as butter?

Dr. CARLSON. By individuals in localities. Now, do not be mistaken about what this repeal will do. I understand that there are over 30 States that individually have State laws. Yes, the possibilities of fraud, the possibilities of cheating are there, but, gentlemen, you are adults. The possibility of fraud and crime is everywhere.

Mr. COOLEY. We have had Federal laws against misbranding, and if there was fraud they would be violating that law and they would be imprisoned for violating the law if they undertook to do that. Dr. CARLSON. Certainly.

Mr. PACE. Does this bill seek to repeal the requirement that margarine be properly branded on the package?

Dr. CARLSON. This bill does not touch that, the existing laws.

Mr. PACE. Right there. On the question of imitation, there have been numerous imitations of wool, and I recall that last year, or the year before last, we enacted a bill not to put an enormous tax on an imitation wool blanket but to require that blanket be stamped as having so much wool and so much of other commodities. Is that not identically the same plan?

Dr. CARLSON. Absolutely, sir. I said in the paper I published that labeling will take care of it so far as fraud can be taken care of by legislation. Most Americans can read.

Mr. PACE. No effort was made to put a tax on the persons who did not have the means to buy a 100-percent wool blanket, but if it was a higher percentage of cotton or other commodities, it was branded so that he might know what he was buying.

Dr. CARLSON. Yes.

Mr. PACE. And you insist that the same thing should be done with margarine?

Dr. CARLSON. Exactly the same principle.

Mr. PACE. It should be branded, and its contents should be noted, and then the person should be free to buy it or not.

Dr. CARLSON. That is correct.

Mr. KLEBERG. May I ask you, have you in addition to your scientific research, made any study of the economic conditions, for instance, in Denmark, which is a great butter-producing nation, or was, and which at the same time had a very high consumption of margarine?

Dr. CARLSON. I have, sir. That is a part of my duty.

Now, after my service with the Army, after the armistice, I went with the American Relief Administration, and food relief was not under our auspices and was not such a big thing in Denmark as it was in Czechoslovakia, Austria, Poland, Yugoslavia, the Baltic Provinces, and Finland, in all of which countries I worked, but we had the problem of to what extent and in what way wholesale nutrition affected the health of the people and what kind of diseases were produced-tuberculosis and dropsy-so I went to Denmark twice. Well,