when we can take a chance and amend, even in the slightest, our present protective Federal legislation.

STATEMENT OF DR. ROBERT PRIOR, TREASURER-MANAGER, WASHINGTON STATE DAIRY PRODUCTS COMMISSION, SEATTLE, WASH.

Butter versus oleomargarine has been a controversial subject between the people of the Nation and the manufacturers of the substitute product for the past 60 years, or ever since the formula was brought to our shores from Europe in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. There was a clamor for control legislation on account of fraudulent practices by the manufacturers and distributors of the oleomargarine and renovated butter, and in 1886 the Congress passed legislation, for its control, which has since been amended from time to time to meet existing conditions, and included certain taxes and license fees to be paid to the Treasurer of the United States to defray the expense of the enforcement of the laws and regulations by that branch of our Government (the Treasury Department), charged with these duties.

The Treasury has done a very acceptable job of correcting the objectionable practices which had been resorted to, and the general enforcement of the laws and regulations, and it is the general opinion that they should not be disturbed in this enforcement work by the removal of license fees and taxes which would leave the field wide open for the return of the old fraudulent practices for which the original control measures were enacted.

However, of late years the program has taken on new aspects, which may be described under these general headings, namely, (1) Economic, (2) Discriminatory, and (3) Nutritional. A brief discussion of these will be taken up in order.

ECONOMIC PHASE

This phase is certainly effected with the public interest and should be given very careful consideration by Congress, in order that our entire agricultural economy be not upset and our entire food program peacetime and wartime alike, disrupted.

The dairy industry branch of agriculture represents one-fifth of our total returns in dollar volume from our agricultural pursuits, and represents an investment in the 26,000,000 milch cows, 5,000,000 heifers and bulls, the farm lands necessary to produce the grains, forage and pasture for maintenance, trucks and transportation equipment, for transporting from farm to factory, processing and manufacturing equipment, and distribution equipment, wholesale and retail, is approximately $30,000,000,000. This industry gives employment to 3,250,000 persons and provides the living for 12,675,000 people or 9.7 percent of our total population and this under a wartime economy. It is increased during normal times, when shorter hours are worked and there is recognition of week ends, vacations, etc. Grains and concentrated feed stuffs to the amount of 1,180,000 tons are necessary to feed the dairy cattle population of the Nation. This is the equivalent of

92417-43--26

59,000 car loads or 3 full railway trains per day, for the entire year. The daily pay roll of the dairy industry based upon union wage rates and average daily agricultural wage rates, approximates $14,625,000 per day or $4,387,500,000 for the year allowing for 300 working days. Now let us take a look at another phase of the economic problem, that of soil conservation, in which our Government, representing all the people of the Nation, has made a considerable investment, especially during the last 8 years past. It is a recognized fact that continuous cultivation year after year of our soil lends itself to erosion and loss. of soil from wash from rains and snows and in some localities wind also. There is ample evidence of this in the cotton and tobacco lands of the South and grain lands of the west central portion of the country. Now, our conservation experts recognize that cover crops of pasture and forages are our very best methods of rebuilding these lands and that the dairy herds of the Nation are our most efficient laboratories to convert the production of these pastures into concentrates, to feed our population, armed forces, allies, and the starving peoples of occupied countries, and with the barnyard fertilizers produced, increase the fertility and production of our cultivated lands during the crop rotation to that type of agricultural production, our dairy herds, therefore, are seen to be one of our very best implements of conserving our soils, and the people of our Southern States are to be commended for their foresightedness in so greatly increasing their dairy herds in the 10. cotton-growing States, to the point that their receipts for dairy products now exceed those from cottonseed by over 100 percent (1940), and the amount of cottonseed oil used in the manufacture of oleomargarine during this same year was only fifty-eight hundredths of 1 percent of the total receipts for the products of the cotton fields paid to the farmers of the cotton-growing States or for the product going into oleomargarine, a total of $3,830,000, while at the same time they received a total of $153,396,000 for the dairy products produced in this same area. Consequently, the appeal that is brought in the name of the cottonseed-oil growers of the South would seem to be without foundation in fact, and that farmers and especially cotton farmers would be better situated financially if more of the cotton lands were given over to animal husbandry in order to rebuild their soil to the state where cotton could again be produced economically and at a profit to the farmer as well as to the few large corporations who are in the refining business and who, along with the manufacturers of oleomargarine, may be the inspiration back of the so-called cotton farmers' organization, as they, and not the cotton farmers, are the ones who will profit by the passage of H. R. 2400.

The division of the fats consumed by the people of the United States in 1940 (the last full year before the war) was as follows: "Butter, 23.5 percent; lard, 19.7 percent; tallow, 12.6 percent; soybean oil, 5.1 percent; coconut oil, 6.1 percent; cottonseed oil, except that used in oleomargarine, 12.9 percent; all other fats and oils, 18.9 percent. Cottonseed oil used in oleomargarine, 1.2 percent, about an equal amount of animal fats and peanut oil was also used, and slightly less of soybean oil, so that the total percentage of all oils used in the manufacture of this substitute was approximately 3.3 percent of our total oil and fat production, which, by the way, amounted to one-half a billion pounds short of our requirements for all purposes.

Therefore, it may be seen from the standpoint of our general economy, the public interest demands that any encouragement that can be extended to the dairy industry at this time is justified from the standpoint of labor, agriculture, conservation of soil, and especially those groups of oilseed-producing farmers in whose name the measure H. R. 2400 is being sponsored, the cotton and peanut farmers of the South, and soybean farmers of the Midwest. The growers of meat animals have already recognized the fact that they were being used as trial balloons and that, if oleomargarine were to be made entirely of their fat product, it would mean that the farmer would receive only 212 cents of the consumer price, while for butter he receives 22.6 cents of the consumer price, the spread is the same between what the consumer pays and the farmer receives.

DISCRIMINATION

The foregoing has discussed briefly the economic phase and some of the principal aspects thereof, so let us take a look at the so-called discriminatory features that are referred to by the proponents of H. R. 2400. They charge:

1. That it deprives the poor people of the Nation from buying a highly nutritious product as a result of the Federal taxes levied. Well, just how bad is that? If the above class were to use the combined per capita amounts of butter and oleomargarine of 2012 pounds per year, the Federal tax to the consumer would be 51% cents on the uncolored product per person, or for the average family of 4 persons, 2012 cents per year. When you add to this the $600 license fee for manufacturers times 41 (there were 41 manufacturers in 1940), you would have an additional 0.00007 of 1 cent per pound. When the wholesale and retail licenses are added it does not amount to one-half of 1 cent per pound on the uncolored product, or less than 40 cents per family, or 3 packages of cigarettes for the papa per year. The uncolored oleomargarine is permitted to counterfeit the flavor of butter, also to include the necessary coloring matter with directions to the housewife for producing the color of butter when added. Thus it will be seen that all of the Federal taxes now in effect would cost the head of the average family of 4 in the Nation on 2011⁄2 pounds of oleomargarine, one-sixth of 1 cigarette per day if it is passed on by the producers and handlers of the product.

The proponents in their discussion of this subject in the press are unfair, as they always try to leave the impression that the tax on this substitute is 10 cents per pound, when the fact is there is a very small percentage of the total that is colored at the point of manufacture. By supplying the color, it is very easy to evade the payment of the higher rate, and if all taxes and licenses were removed, the consumer would not receive the uncolored product for any less.

The dairy industry has always contended that they were the ones discriminated against. Butter has a distinctive color and flavor. The color may vary in degree according to type of feed provided or season, but research by scientists in the field of animal nutrition are demonstrating that by following certain feeding practices that the variations in color and vitamin content can be reduced to a minimum, especially the latter, as set forth in experiment station bulletin by Hodgson,

* * *

Knott, Murrier, and Graves, No. 7, This experiment shows that with ordinary care and feeding the color and vitamin content can be maintained well above the color standard and vitamin content always above the point which the substitutes advertise they are fortified to, and from which they never vary. The study of the above reference would lead one to believe that the studies referred to by proponents of H. R. 2400, where they cite some extreme variations, the subjects must have been deprived of nutrients almost to the point of starvation to get the results which they have publicized. Such low color and vitamin content cannot be secured in samples taken from creameries which are engaged in the manufacture of butter as a regular enterprise.

The dairy industry has no objection to the sale of oleomargarine for what it is, even if colored with any other color in the spectrum other than the yellow which is characteristic of butter, or flavored with vanilla, strawberry, or peppermint, so long as they leave out the flavor of butter. The dairy industry feels that the color and flavor belong to them from use over a long period of time and as a natural characteristic of their products and is theirs by right of inheritance just as surely as if protected by a patent or copyright. Any counterfeiting of these characteristics should be prohibited, especially by a product which is of questionable nutritional value by way of comparison.

That the butter industry has been very definitely discriminated against by those charged with the rationing of foods is very evident, when the point value of butter is placed at 16 and oleomargarine at 6 with the general fat shortage such that we are beseeching the housewives to save all of their waste fats to aid in the manufacture (and I believe this a worthy cause) of munitions. Why not embargo the use of fats of questionable nutritional value in the manufacture of butter substitutes, especially when our scientists through research are developing information that they are at least inferior to butterfat, a natural constituent of milk? From the above I think without mentioning discriminations by the Federal Food and Drug Administration which are all in favor of substitutes that nearly all has been against the dairy industry and not the substitutes for butter, oleomargarine. I will try to show this in the discussion of the next heading on nutrition.

NUTRITIONAL ASPECTS OF THE FAT OF MILK COMPARED WITH THAT OF

VEGETABLE FATS

Milk fat unlike other fats was provided for food by nature for the young of mammals and is an active substance, the result of the synthesis in the lacteal glands of glandular secretions, while the other fats are the result of storing of the inert and surplus products of digestion for future use by the individual plant or animal as the case may be, and studies and research by our biochemists and pathological chemists are establishing the fact that milk fat is superior, from a nutritional standpoint, to the other animal and vegetable fits. These studies and research projects are being continued to establish beyond any doubt, this superiority, as we do not wish to make any statements regarding milk and its products that have not been checked and double checked from a scientific standpoint. In other words, we do not wish

to take the position taken by our test tube nutritionists, political demagogues, and hirelings of consumer leagues, whose statements have no foundation in fact, and therefore misleading to the consuming public in that they only tell the story in part and do not take all factors concerned in digestion, synthesis and metabolism of fats into consideration. We are seeking the truth, not jumping at conclusions, like many of the proponents of H. R. 2400 are doing when they state that fortified oleomargarine is just as nutritious as butter. As previously stated, we have considerable evidence to the contrary, largely the result of biochemic and pathological chemistry fundamental research and experimentation on animals and clinical records on humans by some of our outstanding research persons in the field of nutrition.

A brief review of this work will be undertaken for your information. Biochemistry is the chemistry that deals with the chemical composition and the reaction that goes on in the living cells, either plants or animals (Dr. J. S. Hughes testimony in case of State of Kansas versus Sages Stores Co., a corporation, and Carolene Products Co., a corporation, No. 35143, before the commissioner at Madison, Wis.); further quoting Dr. J. S. Hughes :

The definition of pathological chemistry would be the same except in that case we are dealing with cells that are abnormal because of some changes in the chemical reaction or composition from the normal.

We will now take a look at the composition of milk fat. Chemically the fats referred to are the component parts and the compound will be considered a lipin, in other words, it would be a milk lipin or a cottonseed lipin, to represent the oil of milk or the oil of cottonseed. The following is a summary of the fatty acid content of butter and of raw cottonseed oil:

2 Lost by hydrogenation, absence predisposes to Burr's disease.

It will be noted that linoleic acid, of which there is 39.3 percent in cottonseed oil, is lost by hydrogenation, which, according to the studies of Dr. Burr, the lack of it predisposes to Burr's disease, an eczematous condition of the skin. It will also be noted from above table that there is a vast difference in the composition of the fat of milk and that of the vegetable product.

Research has been carried on to determine the comparative value of the fat of milk and of vegetable fats in the feeding of calves by