Mr. NEVILLE. To feed to their cows ?
Mr. ALLISON. Yes, sir; the German and Holland people, who are
the largest butter producers, buy it simply because the cattle fed upon
it produce better butter and more butter. It produces it because of its
nutritive qualities, and because of that certain small percentage of the
cotton-seed oil left in the meal, which is of so nearly the same constit-
uents of the material required to make the butter that it passes through
the cow's stomach almost unchanged into the milk ducts.
Mr. NEVILLE. Does it bring about as much when sold to the dairy
people as food for their cows as when it is sold to the butterine people?
Mr. ALLISON. 1 think you misapprehend me.
Mr. NEVILLE. You mean cotton -seed oil?
Mr. ALLISON. Yes, sir.
Mr. NEVILLE. Will the cotton seed produce as much when sold to
the dairy people as feed for cows as when sold to the butteriue people?
Mr. ALLISON. I do not understand.
Mr. NEVILLE. Is the oil used in the production of oleomargarine
higher priced, and does it bring more value to the producer of cotton
seed than the cotton-seed meal when sold to the dairy poople?
Mr. ALLISON. Why, thay are two entirely different products. They
are entirely different products. They are not to be compared at all
Mr. WILLIAMS. What you want is to know which is the by-product
and which is the main product?
Mr. BAILEY. What do you sell the cake at?
Mr. ALLISON. Twenty-one dollars a ton, about.
Mr. BAILEY. Twenty-one dollars a ton?
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OLEOMARGARINE. 729
Mr. ALLISON. Yes, sir.
Mr. BAILEY. That is what it will cost the dairyman. Now, you say
your oil is worth how much a gallon ?
Mr. ALLISON. Forty cents; that is, the butter oil.
Mr. BAILEY. And 8 pounds to the gallon?
Mr. ALLISON. Seven and a half; yes, sir.
Mr. BAILEY. Five cents a pound ?
Mr. ALLISON. It would bring $100 a ton in oil, and $20 a ton in these
by-products.
"Mr. BAILEY. Of course there is oil in this [indicating piece of oil
cake in the hands of Mr. Neville],
Mr. ALLISON. It is impossible to extract it, even if we thought it
advisable. By solvents it would be possible to take all the oil out.
Mr. NEVILLE. You simply leave some of the oil in there?
Mr. ALLISON. Yes, about 10 per cent, and for the very reason that
it makes it more valuable as a feed for cattle.
Mr. WILLIAMS. That oil, you say, comes to $100 a ton?
Mr. BAILEY. Yes; and this cake to $20?
Mr. ALLISON. Yes, about $20 a ton.
Mr. BAILEY. I have bought carloads of it.
Mr. NEVILLE. The point I desired to make was that even though the
oil was not used in oleomargarine a large portion of it still remained in
the cake, and would be sold to the cattle feeders.
Mr. ALLISON. It is left intentionally in the cake, in order to improve
the quality of the cake as a feed for the cattle.
Mr. WILLIAMS. I am sure that Mr. Neville does not understand.
This is after the oil is pressed out [indicating piece of cake in his hand].
Mr. NEVILLE. I understand that that is oil cake
Mr. WILLIAMS. The main product is the oil, and the by-product is
the cake. Then, in addition to that, there is the hull, which is used for
cattle feed.
Mr. BAILEY. Eoughers.
Mr. NEVILLE. But the principal feed with us is oil cake, in Western
Nebraska, and it has oil in it. I do not know what the quantity it has
in it is.
Mr. ALLISON. It is a butter producer. If it is possible to kill the oil
mills of the South the butter feeder would suffer. It would deprive
him not only of the best feed, but of the feed that enables him to use
his home-grown feeds cottonseed meal being a highly concentrated
food which enables him to use roughers.
Mr. WILLIAMS. Suppose you were deprived of the sales for your oil,
would it pay you to run your cotton-seed mills just for the cake?
Mr. ALLISON. No, sir.
Mr. WILLIAMS. That is the point.
Mr. ALLISON. Mr. Alexander has said that he was buying cotton-
seed cake at $20 a ton. It is worth a little over that. It takes three
tons of cotton seed to make one ton of cake.
STATEMENT OF MR. W. R. CANTRELL, SECRETARY OF THE WILLIAMS
& FLASH COMPANY, OF NEW YORK CITY, EXPORTERS AND COM-
MISSION MERCHANTS OF COTTON-OIL PRODUCTS.
Mr. CANTRELL. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, this
subject has been so thoroughly gone over that there is very little I can
add to it, but I do desire to call your attention for a moment to a few
figures going to show the extent to which the manufacture of cotton-
(*U7)
730 OLEOMARGARINE.
seed oil and its by-products has grown, and the position it occupies in
the foreign commerce of this country.
Your attention has been called to the injury the passage of the Grout
bill would inflict on the southern farmers and laborers by depriving the
manufacturers of cotton oil of one of their most important home outlets.
Not only, however, would the home consumption of cotton oil be cur-
taile.d, if this proposed bill should become a law, but we should also
suffer in our export demand, and, as evidenced by the following figures,
the cotton-oil exports in the last three years have assumed a position
of considerable importance in this country's foreign commerce.
In 1897 the exports were 27,198.883 gallons, or 543,976 barrels.
In 1898 they were 40,230,784 gallons, or 804,615 barrels. In 1899 they
were 50,627,211) gallons, or 1,021,514 barrels, which latter amount, taken
at the average price of that year, represents a value in dollars and
cents of $13,103,076.94. This sum simply represents the exports of oil
alone, and does not include the exports of meal and cake, which would
amount to as much more.
This foreign demand has been created after years of effort and at the
expenditure of thousands of dollars, but at this juncture it is menaced
by country after country endeavoring to stop its import by the imposi
tion of prohibitive duties. France, to whom was shipped last year
339,187 barrels, and Germany, 70,428 barrels, are both laboring to enact
legislation that would close their ports to this great American staple:
Now, if our own legislature should stigmatize this article, and by a
prohibitive tax prevent its sale in this country in the form of oleomar-
garine, it would be putting a weapon in the hands of our foreign com-
petitors that they would not fail to use to enact legislation that would
prohibit its sale, thus entailing a loss of millions of dollars to our for-
eign commerce and the effects of which would be felt by every railroad
in this country and by every ocean steamer leaving our ports.
The growth of the cotton oil industry has been rapid, and the demand,
especially in this country, has failed to keep pace with the increasing
production, therefore, if the article were deprived of any portion of its
already inadequate home demand it would mean that the surplus thus
created would have to force an outlet in Europe, and this could only be
accomplished at the expense of values.
If the outlet we now possess in oleomargarine is destroyed and a
surplus thus created it would cause a decline in values of at least $2
per barrel, which, taken on last year's production of 2,000,000 barrels,
means a loss to the farming interests of the South and Southwest of
$4,000,000.
Mr. NEVILLE. Is it not true that the proposed legislation in France
is against oleomargarine and not against cotton-seed oil ?
Mr. OANTRELL. No, sir; that is not true. France, a lew years ago,
and up to within the last four or five, took about ten or twenty thous
and barrels of cotton-seed oil. They used the arrish-seed oil, which is
a wild peanut, as well as several other things of that sort, but the cot-
ton-seed oil was so much cheaper and purer that the manufacturers of
those countries were forced to use it, and they were forced to go to the
cotton-seed people. And they found themselves compelled in France
to put a prohibitive duty upon it.
Mr. NEVILLE. Is it not a fact that only a few weeks ago they did
pass legislation against oleomargarine?
Mr. OANTRELL. Not that I am aware of.
Mr. NEVILLE. The reason I asked you is because I read it only day
before yesterday.
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OLEOMARGARINE. 731
Mr. WILLIAMS. Do you know anything about the comparative purity
of fine cotton-seed oil and olive oil and vegetable products?
Mr. CANTRELL. Yes, sir; but I would very much prefer the cotton-
seed oil. In fact, salad oil which is made from cotton seed oil is not
only purer, but more cleanly, and it is sold in all the large cities of the
North now as cotton- seed oil. In fact, the bulk of the olive oil coming
to tbis country is mostly the poorer grade, and it is prepared and made
in rather an uncleanly manner. The olives are put in the press and
the first pressure taken from them is a very tine grade of oil, and that
retails in a city like New York in this country for four or five dollars a
gallon. Then, having extracted the better parts of the oil, the olives
are put in a bath of hot water, and sometimes salt, and are pressed
again, and that is a very inferior product, and is the olive oil that is
sold to the average person in the larger cities, and is absolutely unfit
for consumption.
STATEMENT OF MR. EDWARD S. READY, SECRETARY, TREASURER,
AND MANAGER NEW SOUTH OIL COMPANY, OF HELENA, ARK.
Mr. READY. I have never made a speech in my life, Mr. Chairman,
nor am I used to talking publicly. You gentlemen have listened very
patiently to the other gentlemen, and consequently I will say nothing
of the general conditions, and will speak only of local conditions, and
that very briefly. We have in Llelena four oil mills. The town is
located on the Mississippi Kiver. We have there four oil mills and the
cost of the equipment of these four mills is about $350,000. In addi-
tion to that we have capital invested to the extent of another $350,000,
making $700,000 invested. We employ 200 people, all adults with a
few exceptions; there may be eight or ten boys in the whole business.
Sixty-six to 70 percent of those men are heads of families and I think
I am safe in saying that out of the population of 8,000 inhabitants
those four mills support 750 to 800 people.
Thus, you see, it is a matter of very considerable moment to us. Of
those employees about 85 per cent are colored and the remaining 15
per cent are whites. We handled last season, I presume, as near as I
can get at it I can safely say that we expended $600,000 for the pur-
chase of cotton seed. We ran about six months in the year and fur-
nished employment, as 1 say, immediately in the mill, for 200 men.
The surrounding country depends very largely in addition to the
town 700 or 800 of the population depend very largely upon our
mills. The farmers come there, as has been stated to you, the negro
small cropper, and the small white farmer, and we buy all of our sup-
plies of seed from them. If this butterine or oleomargarine law is
enacted it would affect our markets very considerably. It would
result in the reduction of the price of seed, how much I can not say,
but it would be largely felt, and I felt that I should come here and
enter our protest against it, and request the committee not to deal too
harshly with the butterine industry, as it largely affects ourselves.
The CHAIRMAN. Are there any other questions?
Mr. COONEY. You have four mills?
Mr. KEADY. Yes, sir.
Mr. COONEY. You are secretary and treasurer of the society there?
Of what is that society composed?
Mr. READY. No, sir; I did not say that. I am secretary and
treasurer of one of the four mills.
(*149)
732 OLEOMARGARINE.
Mr. COONET. All these mills are acting independently 1
Mr. READY. Entirely so.
Mr. COONEY. Absolutely?
Mr. READY. Yes, sir.
Mr. COONEY. o connection?
Mr. BEADY. No, sir; none whatever.
Mr. ALLEN, No trust in them ?
Mr. KEADY. No, sir. There is one of the mills that is under the so-
called American Cotton Oil Trust.
Mr. WILLIAMS. Is not it a fact that the cotton-seed crushing trust
business is one of the few instances of a trust which is not a success?
Mr. READY. Yes, sir; I would say that I was connected with the
American Cotton Seed Oil Trust and left it in 1897 and went into busi-
ness on my own account, and I did not fear it, and I think the three
independent mills there in my town are hitting it pretty hard.
Mr. WILLIAMS. Independent mills are springing up everywhere?
Mr. READY. Yes, sir ; everywhere. Two were built right close there
last year.
Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes, one was built right in my own town.
STATEMENT OF ME, W. H. WRIGHT, PRESIDENT OF THE PINE
BELT COTTON OIL COMPANY, OF LITTLE ROCK, ARK.
Mr. WRIGHT. I think, Mr. Chairman, that about everything has been
said that ought to be said from the crushers' standpoint. There are
other gentlemen here in different lines of the business who have not
been heard, and I had rather give up my time to them.
STATEMENT OF MR. MARION SANSOM.
Mr. SANSOM. Mr. Chairman, I have to go away to-inorrow and I am
here representing the cattle interests of Texas, and I will only detain
you for a minute just long enough to cast my vote and if you will
allow me I would just Hke to do the voting act for you, as they sent me
up here. As I come up here representing these people I would like
to get before the committee, and I am obliged to leave to-morrow. I
have here a letter from the live stock association and they just simply
wanted me to appear here in opposition to this bill as representing
them, and also I speak in the interest of the cotton-seed oil industry.
The CHAIRMAN. We have made this arrangement for this day's
meeting for a cotton-seed oil meeting.
Mr. SANSOM. I will just read this letter so you will understand what
my credentials are.
(Mr. Sansom here read the letter referred to.)
We come here to show you the interest we feel in this matter and we
put forward our best people here yesterday to take this matter up. We
wish to show to you, however, that Texas is interested in every single
article that enters into the manufacture of oleomargarine except the
coloring, so-called, and I do not know but we may manufacture that;
but I do not know what it is. But we do raise about one million head
of cattle which are slaughtered annually and which you understand,
as has been gone over to you a number of times, enter very largely
into the .product. We raise about one- third of the cotton raised in the
United States. We are third on the list of hog raisers of the United
States. So, you see we are very materially affected by this legislation.
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OLEOMAKGARINE 733
Now, it occurs to me this way, that this thing has simmered down very
largely to the matter of color. We are not a manufacturing people
there in Texas. We hope some day to get in line and are getting along
a little. This is really the only manufacturing industry we have worth
speaking of in the State, in which we have about 130 mills.
We are perhaps the largest buyers of imported goods in this Union.
When I say imported, I mean from other States. We send our cotton
up here to our Eastern neighbors and they make it into goods so beau-
tiful and so fine we do not know whether it is silk or cotton; but we
have never said that they have no right to do that, but we have gone
on and bought the cotton. They have put a coloring in it which makes
it very beautiful and tine, and it suits us, and then we want to buy it.
And we can see no reason why things should not be colored. They put
a color on all kinds of machinery we buy. I do not know whether col-
oring makes machinery any better; perhaps it does. Whether it makes
butter any better 1 do not know, but I suppose the people like it better
for that reason. But we simply enter our protest, insomuch as we
understand it, from the cattle raisers' standpoint, regarding this as a
question of class legislation, one class against the other, and it appears
to us we are not considered as we should be in this matter. All we
ask is to be let alone. Of course if we are doing anything that is going
to really injure anybody, then we are willing to be called down; but we
do not think it is proper and just to people that have been struggling
as we have, sending away all of our raw material to be manufactured
elsewhere, and this is the only manufacturing industry that we have.
I will say that all of our cotton has been sent away to be manufactured
to the Eastern cities and it has been manufactured and we have sent
all our hides and cattle. We are now engaged in the manufacture of
this product, in the manufacture of cotton-seed oil, and it is a big
thing to our people, and Texas, and from this we expect to get into
other lines, and if we get stricken down and knocked out in this matter
right on the start we do not think it is really fair.
Mr. NEVILLE. If you were to send your cotton up to the manufactur-
ing concerns up here and they should manufacture it into imitation
silks and send it down to you and sell it to you for silk, would you care
or not?
Mr. SANSOM. If they sold it to me at a proper price, I probably would
not. If they sold it to me for a price that was unjust, I probably would
not like it.
Mr. NEVILLE. The difference is that you manufacture this oleomar-
garine in such a shape that I can not tell it from butter, and they put
cotton -seed oil and other kinds of oil into it and deceive me, and yet
you think it does not hurt me and you insist that you have a right to
do that.
Mr. SANSOM. I would like to answer that question this way : If the
silk producer and the wool producer, if you please, had as much right
to come to Congress and ask for legislation against wool entering into
the manufacture of cotton goods, or cotton into wool goods, which is
usually the cheaper of the two, as you all know very well as you
know woolen goods has always a percentage of cotton goods mixed
in with it now, the wool man would have just as much right to come
to us, he manufacturing the most valuable part of it. We object to
this. You and all of the balance of us have worn and are wearing
every day what is supposed to be till wool and a yard wide, and yet we
all know that there is a large percentage of cotton in all this goods.
You are not particularly damaged and you have got your goods worth
(151)
734 OLEOMARGARINE.
the money, and you have the same right the wool man does to come to
Congress and ask to have these people stopped from mixing this goods
and forced to make it all cotton or all wool.
Mr. NEVILLE. Don't you believe that we would have the right to
come to Congress and ask them to prohibit the manufacturing of cot-
ton goods and the selling it as silk goods?
Mr. SANSOM. We believe in letting people who are enterprising and
trying to produce something for themselves go on and try to produce
the best results. We do not think the position taken by the people
who are urging this bill here, asking the Congress of the United States
to come to their relief we do not think the ground is well taken, and
we think for you to lend the assistance of this Government to the manu-
facturer of one article, for the product of one article, above and to the
discrimination of another which is equally pure, as we claim, from the
standpoint of our country that furnishes the lard and tallow and the
oil that goes into this product, is wrong and unjust. I do not under-
stand that the purity of this food has really been questioned at all, and
if we have done this we can not see why we should be discriminated
against.
Mr. COONEY. What is your connection with the cattle business?
Mr. SANSOM. I raise cattle and feed cattle pretty extensively. I am
what we call a pretty large feeder in Texas.
Mr. COONEY. Is your business more largely involved with the cattle
feeding and raising than with the oil production.
Mr. SANSOM. Yes, sir; my interest is much larger in that business.
I am engaged in the oil mill business, but my business is much greater
and I devote much more time to raising and feeding cattle than to the
oil business.
Mr. COONEY. Eaising them on the ranch or buying and selling
them ?
Mr. SANSOM. Yes, sir; I own a ranch, and I buy a great many cattle
which I mature at these oil mills feed the product of two or three oil
mills.
In this connection I would like to show further that there has been
a disposition from the time we began to manufacture the cotton-seed
products on the part of people we came in contact with and that
means the dairy people and the Western people who produce beef to
discriminate and to knock us out. They had even gone so far as to pro-
pose at one time that they would condemn the beef fed on cotton-seed
meal. If the beef business had not been handled by such strong hands
there is no doubt there would have been some such action taken. But
when it came to condemning all the beef fed on cotton-seed meal, the
dairy people found that was too strong for them.
Further, I would like to refer to the value of cotton- seed meal as a
food stuff. I myself, as you will see by referring to the Breeders
Gazette, furnished beef fed on cotton seed meal to parties in Chicago,
in March, 1899, and I have sold cattle in Chicago at 25 cents a hundred
above any native steer on the market, for more than forty days after
the sale was made, and ten or fifteen days before. In November, 1899,
I sold cattle there as high as $6.75 a hundred, which is much higher
than the highest price paid for natives at that time, and they were not
quite so well finished as those I had sold before. I mention this to show
you the interest we have in this legislation ; and whenever any legisla-
tion comes up our interest is identical, except that our interest in the
cattle is large. Every time you take off 10 cents from cotton seed in
OLEOMAKGAKINE. 735
the State of Texas yon reach and touch the very poorest people we
have in the State the very poorest people who have contended hardest
for a living.
jSTow, with reference to the price of the seed. When cotton was 4J
cents a pound, and they were selling it for that, we were at that time
paying as much for seed as now. We were helping these poor people
very greatly. If it had not been for the price he was getting for his
seed, it would have absolutely bankrupted the tenant.
Mr. WILLIAMS. At that time the-value of the cotton seed was a little
over a third of the value of the cotton itself.
Mr. SANSOM. Yes, as high as twelve and fourteen dollars a ton. It
helped them out a great deal. Of course, when you speak of Texas,
it is quite an extent of country. The part of Texas I represent has
no negroes. We never see a negro there, except if we have got any
he is in town shaving somebody or waiting on the table. They are
white people there, and an industrious, hard-working people, made up
from every section of the country represented there, and they work and
till their land. The section I am interested in is made up of small
farmers owning from 200 acres of land and over. Whenever you touch
the cotton crop you hurt them and hurt them bad. They will find
another outlet for this oil, if this business is closed to their product.
The whole world is using it, not the United States alone, but I do not
believe that even Congress can tax it out of existence. You may hurt
it for a time, but you can not down it.
They first educated us abroad to use this oil. Our product was used
before we knew the value of it at all abroad both the meal product and
the oil as well when our own farmers at home, many of them, did not
know the value of a sack of cotton seed meal. And they do not know
it to day, many of them. They do not know the value of it as compared
with the German farmer who never saw a stalk of cotton in his life.
That being the case these people raising it and displaying it as a cheap
food we are naturally jealous of any attempt to cut off our market for
it. There is a principle of ownership involved there one section
against another. If cotton seed were raised all over this country, don't
you think it would be a pretty hard matter to come in here with a bill
like this? There are some people in this country who are opposed to
cotton seed, and when you find a man like that he is a dairyman every
time. And these people come here and call upon you to help them
down the other fellow, and then they will be able to make all the money
they want. They say "Help me down him, and then I will make all
the money I want after I get shut of him." It is a class legislation that
we do not think is right.
Mr. NEVILLE. You understand that this bill does not seek to do away
with oleomargarine altogether, but simply to prevent its being made
as a counterpart and in imitation of butter?
Mr. SANSOM. I stated in my talk a while ago that I understood the