70 percent of total fats allocated for food will be available for civilian consumption. Military services will get 9 percent, and the remaining 21 percent will be allocated to exports, including lend-lease, commercial exports, and requirements for feeding liberated countries. It is expected that domestic fats and oils will represent 90 percent of the total for the above purposes in comparison to 82 percent in peacetime.

Proponents of the pending bill have based many of their arguments upon the removal of oleomargarine taxes on the ground of economy. It appears that consumers driven to economical measures would better turn to other avenues of relief so far as fats, and oil consumption, and their wartime conservation is concerned. My experience, as a home economics person, has taught me that many families use fats and oils to excess and without regard to economical and judicious choice. On many and varied occasions, have I sat down to dinners where vegetables were literally reeking with fats which, both from an economical and digestible viewpoint, were excessive. Furthermore, in choosing the use of fats for various purposes selections could oftentimes be greatly improved, both from a standpoint of taste, digestibility, and economy. Quite a high percentage of oleomargarine now consumed in American homes is used in various phases of cooking. In view of the over-all supply of butter and other spreads, as oleomargarine, the principle of rationing could be better carried out by substituting other fats in cooking for both butter and oleomargarine. This viewpoint is further supported by the fact that substitutes as lard are both cheaper and more abundant. During the last 23 years, lard has averaged from 2 to 12 cents per pound cheaper than oleomargarine. At the present time it is about 6 cents per pound cheaper than oleomargarine. Yet, today many families are using oleomargarine for shortening pastry, biscuits, muflins, and other quick breads, and cakes, where lards would serve the purpose equally as well at a much lower cost. Furthermore, since in 1944, supplies of lard are expected to be so much in excess of edible requirements that 500,000,000 pounds will be diverted to soap manufacture. It would be a distinct contribution to the war effort to refrain from using the normal spreads for cooking purposes. To summarize, the advantages of such measures would be fourfold: (a) would allow for greater economy to low-income families; (b) would increase supply of spreads; (c) would give better distribution to the total oils and fats supply; (d) a more liberal allocation of lard for civilian consumption would more nearly meet the preferences of many consumer groups than would an allotment of an increased production of oleomargarine, which would probably be diverted to cooking purposes.

Proponents of oleomargarine have contended that it is equal in nutritional value to butter. On this point I quote from leaflet No. 204 of the United States Department of Agriculture:

Butter furnishes vitamin A and vitamin D, the vitamin A value of butter depends to a very large extent upon the vitamin A content of the cow's feed. Summer butter is in general higher in vitamin A value than winter butter1 unless the winter ration has been reinforced with feeds rich in carotene or vitamin A. Butter has been found to range as a source of vitamin A from less than 1,400 to more than 27,000 international units per pound.

1 Less than 20 percent of creamery butter is made in the winter months.

However, in a telephone conversation on November 16 with Dr. C. A. Cary, chief, Division of Nutrition and Physiology, Bureau of Dairy Industry, United States Department of Agriculture, it was learned that more recent research has disclosed that the vitamin A content of butter rarely ever falls below 9,000 international units per pound. On this point I quote Dr. Cary directly:

There are no practical conditions in the United States under which the vitamin A content of butter per pound runs below an average of 9,000-10,000 international units at any period of the year.

The quotation from leaflet No. 204 of the United States Department of Agriculture continues:

The vitamin D value of butter varies too, as it depends not only on the cow's feed, but also on the extent to which the cow is exposed to sunlight. Butter may be increased in vitamin D content by including irradiated feeds as part of the ration, or by exposing the cows to sunshine. The vitamin D content of butter has been found to vary between 40 and 1,800 international units per pound.

Vegetable fats and oils are likely to contain very little if any vitamin A ; neither are they significant sources of vitamin D. Most animal body fats contain in their natural state at least small amounts of vitamin A. However, very little of the vitamin A content remains in fats and oils after they undergo the rendering or refining processes commonly employed in preparation for the market.

Generally speaking, then, salad oils and cooking fats other than butter and oleomargarine are not considered appreciable sources of vitamins A and D. The value of oleomargarines as sources of vitamin depends upon the vitamin content of their ingredients. Animal-fat oleomargarines_that contain a substantial proportion of oleo oil have some vitamin A value. In general, however, oleomargarines are not considered good sources of vitamins A and D unless they are fortified with vitamin concentrate. The manufacturers of some vegetable oleomargarines have fortified their products with vitamin A concentrates. The manufacturers of oleomargarines that contain animal fats inspected under the Federal Meat Inspection Act are not permitted to add vitamin concentrates.

Vegetable oleomargarine accepted by the council on foods of the American Medical Association as fortified in vitamin A must provide at least 7,500 international units of this vitamin per pound of the oleomargarine and be so labeled. Such oleomargarine may also be labeled "contains vitamin D," as both vitamins A and D are present in the concentrates added in the manufacturing process. The intention of the manufacturers is to add these vitamins in the proportion in which they occur in so-called average butter.2

Through 1940, the volume of vitamin concentrate added per pound of oleomargarine manufactured was negligible. Since that date the vitamin concentrate added per pound has increased materially_but has varied widely from year to year and even more so from month to month. Therefore, at the present time, the public remains in doubt as to the percentage of oleomargarine which is fortified with vitamin concentrate and to the degree to which oleomargarine containing vitamin A concentrate has been properly fortified.

To quote further, and with respect to the relative nutritional value of butter and oleomargarine

Since the nutritional factors have not all been identified, and since butter contains numerous additional fatty acids of unknown nutritional significance, the consuming public has a right to demand that the practice of identifying oleomargarine and butter so that anyone can differentiate between them should be continued."

For these reasons, I am forced to the conclusion that proponents of the present bill have exaggerated the benefits which would accrue to

2 Fats and Oils for Cooking and Table Use-Leaflet No. 204, United States Department of Agriculture. Journal of the American Medical Association, August 22, 1942, vol. 119, p. 1427.

consumers through its enactment into law, and am convinced that the passage of such a bill would be detrimental to the welfare of dairy producers, and very possibly would be contrary to the interests of

consumers.

STATEMENT OF MRS. EDITH C. CHENEY, CORNING, N. Y., MEMBER OF THE NEW YORK STATE ASSEMPLY; PAST PRESIDENT, NEW YORK FEDERATION OF WOMEN'S CLUBS; DIRECTOR, GENERAL FEDERATION OF WOMEN'S CLUBS

When I arrived at Fort Worth in April 1942, to attend the General Federation Convention I found, much to my surprise, a group of women well organized to put over the oleomargarine resolution. This was a resolution which would have placed the General Federation on record as favoring repeal of Federal taxes and regulations on oleomargarine. It was then the seriousness of the situation dawned on me. I also realized that the women were dabbling in a resolution that they did not fully understand-once more we were being used for private interests.

Very shortly letters and wires began to arrive from home urging me, as president of the New York State Federation of Women's Clubs and member of the assembly, to prevent the passage of the resolution. These communications came from all over the State of New York, comprising women's clubs, home bureaus, county organizations of ruraĺ women, public health nursing committees. The president of the home bureau and the president of the council of rural women wired their opposition.

It has been stated that undue lobbying took place at Forth Worth. If Mrs. Johnson thought that any of us were proud of the situation, she is mistaken. We felt that it was something being shoved down our throats, and it had no place on the program. The federation is composed of both urban and rural women. It would not be likely that the urban women could feel the interest in the question that the rural women felt; therefore, if it came to a vote, the result either way would not have been an intelligent vote.

The present laws of New York State prohibit the sale of oleomargarine colored in semblance of butter, but do not prohibit the sale of uncolored oleomargarine or impose any tax. It simply requires that oleomargarine be sold for what it is. Any change in this law would be opposed by all the farm groups.

The farmer and his friends are not willing to have the dairy interests ruined in order to promote the sale of a butter substitute. If this product could be sold as some of the table spreads are and colored to distinguish it from butter, then the problem could be solved.

This is a very inventive age and unless we maintain some standards and regulations, we will soon be known as the synthetic age. Standards are the definite measure of quality value, so quality can be compared and measured accurately in terms of service or value. Industrial standards must develop and maintain a substructure of definite grades. Let us not try to solve all our old problems under the guise of a war need. As director of the General Federation, from New York, I feel that I am in close touch with the women in New York State. Previ

ous to the General Federation convention in New York, the same resolution was defeated at one of our State conventions in New York, so the women had a chance to express themselves, and it gives me a concrete platform to stand on.

STATEMENT OF MRS. HOWARD PRICE, WAUKESHA, WIS., WISCONSIN FARM WOMAN

I am a farm member of the Wisconsin League of Women Voters. Farm women are too much in the minority in that worthy organization, and those of us who are in have been much too inarticulate, I fear, in getting the rural producers' and consumers' viewpoint across to our leaders. Some of their recent deliberations seem to have been influenced by unfair propaganda.

As a dairyman's wife, I am both a producer and consumer, and in the interest of both classes it would be a mistake to repeal the Federal taxes on oleomargarine.

Speaking first as a producer-selling untaxed oleo, especially the colored, would steal the butter market at a time when the dairyman's job to produce is hard and uncertain enough already. The economic welfare of every dairy State in the Union would be seriously dislocated and the number of dairy States is constantly on the increase, both south and north. It is the wrong time for more dislocations than are absolutely necessary.

Speaking as a consumer-the one-fourth cent a pound on uncolored oleo and the $6 retail tax are so low that removal of them would not cheapen the product enough to help the consumers scarcely at all.

The repeal of the 10-cent tax on colored oleo would lower the price, but by all means, the consumer needs that much protection to make her conscious that oleo is not butter and never can be, that its nutritional value as compared to butter is still a moot question among leading authorities. If oleo is as good as butter, why is it that it is butter which has been raised to 16 points ration value, presumably to store reserves for our fighting men and the starved people of the world.

Uncolored oleo has a right to be on the market at a low tax, but not when it is colored and flavored to be a cheap imitation of butter. That kind of masquerading should be taxed high enough to protect both the dairy producers and all consumers as well.

Do everything possible to hold the Federal tax regulation on domestically made oleomargarine.

STATEMENT OF MRS. MEADE FERGUSON, RICHMOND, VA., STATE LEGISLATIVE CHAIRMAN, VIRGINIA FEDERATION OF WOMEN'S CLUBS

The Virginia Federation of Women's Clubs has actively supported the Federal tax on oleomargarine. In annual session in Roanoke, Va., April 1942, our organization voted its opposition to lowering or removing the Federal tax on oleomargarine and our delegates to the national convention of the General Federation of Women's Clubs were instructed to support the resolution as passed at our State convention.

The influence of the Virginia Federation was used to defeat a resolution introduced at the general session in Dallas, Tex., in 1942, the purpose of which was to remove the oleomargarine tax.

Virginia club women are not opposed to the sale of oleomargarine, but we are of the opinion that it is necessary to protect our pure-food standards and also to protect our great dairy industry in Virginia. In 1940, 26,800,000 pounds of country and creamery butter were produced in this State. The gross farm income from these dairy products was about $34,000,000. There has been an appreciable increase in both the quantity and the income of this product during the past 2 years. Our dairy industry continued to expand and it is only natural that we should be anxious and interested to foster and protect this growing source of tax returns for our State..

The Virginia club women feel that oleomargarine should be sold on the market for what it is and that under no condition should it be colored with butter-yellow color nor should it be flavored to taste like butter.

Our interest in opposing the removal of the Federal tax on oleomargarine is motivated entirely because of the desire to protect and to promote honest food standards and to protect our great dairy industry in Virginia.

STATEMENT OF MRS. R. G. BOATWRIGHT, COEBURN, VA., PRESIDENT, VIRGINIA FEDERATION OF WOMEN'S CLUBS; DIRECTOR, GENERAL FEDERATION OF WOMEN'S CLUBS

The Virginia Federation of Women's Clubs, for whom I speak, numbers 14,500 members. We are opposed to the passage of Representative Fulmer's oleomargarine bill, H. R. 2400 for the following

reasons:

This is no time to bring up a commercial issue when our country is at war.

A united home front is essential to win the victory and peace; it cannot exist with Representatives in Congress divided on a commodity product that causes section feeling.

A resolution asking only for the repeal of the taxes was defeated at the General Federation of Women's Clubs Convention, Fort Worth, Tex., May 1942, because this resolution bitterly divided the States and a motion was made in the interest of harmony and unity and carried for the tabling of same for the duration.

If the women in this largest organization of the world feel this way it is equally more important that our Representatives in Congress vote for the tabling of the oleomargarine bill to preserve unity that is so desperately needed in our hour of peril.

The President of the Virginia Federation represented the action taken at State convention (the vote was almost unanimous) to vote against the resolution for the repeal of taxes on oleomargarine. Virginia dairy industry do not oppose the legitimate sale of the product but do oppose the camouflage for butter.

(The dairy in

Regulations and taxes we do not find prohibitive. dustry pays far more taxes into the State than the oleo people.)

The farmers and dairymen all are having it hard enough and do not need to be demoralized by this issue coming up, for they are work