without giving thought to the welfare of the other groups within their Nation. No accusation could have been more unfair or more unjust. To me, this question goes well beyond the employee in the butter plant, or the butter manufacturer and the oleomargarine manufacturer. It goes beyond the producer of cream on the farm, the soybean grower in the Middle West, and the cottonseed grower in the South. The Congress is anxious to see that food commodities are made cheaper. As a representative of labor, I share anxiety and I am as concerned as anyone over the high cost of living. But the Congress should make sure that in haste it does not pass ill-advised legislation which may lead to shortages and higher prices for dairy products and shortages and higher prices for beef and veal. The representatives of the soybean growers and the cottonseed growers seem at the moment to favor legislation which would permit oleo to be sold colored yellow like butter. I wonder if they have weighed the small advantage of a slightly expanded market for soybean oil and cottonseed oil against the disadvantage of losing the market for the huge amounts of soybean meal and cottonseed meal presently being sold as feed for dairy cattle. As further evidence of the sincerity of my appearance here and of my concern for the welfare of all the country, I wish to call to the attention of the committee that in 1942, as soon after Pearl Harbor as I could get my personal affairs arranged and make sure that my wife and two children could continue to live in my absence, I left my job and volunteered for service in the armed forces. I served with the Fourth Infantry Division, and on October 10, 1944, while fighting in Germany, I suffered the misfortune of losing a leg. When I was finally separated from the service in 1946, I was fortunate in being able to return to my old position as president of the dairy employees' union and have continued in that capacity since. The point I am trying to make here is that some people are so lazy they don't do much unless impelled from a sense of duty. I do not relish making appearances such as this and believe me when I say that just as duty drove me into the Army in 1942, nothing but a sense of duty and a deep concern for many large segments of our national economy leads me to appear before this committee today.

Because I was born and raised on an Illinois farm and because my widowed mother is still operating the farm, I also would like to say a few words to this committee from the viewpoint of the farmer. I assure the committee that it is not the point of view of the gentleman farmer or of the absentee land-owning farmer. It is the point of view of the person who feeds the cow, takes care of her when she has her calf, the point of view of the person who shovels the manure, milks the cow, and separates the cream and then feeds the skim milk to produce veal or pork, and sells the cream on the best available market. On the farm the sale of cream and eggs provides a small year-round income. The farmer has a term for this income. It is called grocery money. The frost may catch the corn, the beans may not fill, hail may ruin the wheat, but if the grocery money keeps coming in, the farmer will still be able to buy his necessities. The sale of cream provides the largest part of this grocery money. The Congress should think not twice but many times before it permits this source of income to be taken away from the farmer.

I have told you that our local union has 4,400 members. They are employed in over a hundred dairy plants in Illinois, Wisconsin, and

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Indiana. Over 300 members are engaged in the actual manufacturing, cutting, printing, and wrapping of butter.

Approximately 2,700 members are engaged in fluid milk operations, which are directly affected by legislation pertaining to the butter industry. These 2,700 members are working in dairy plants which at times ship fluid milk and at times condense milk or make powdered milk, depending upon the amount of milk being produced by dairy farmers during certain seasons of the year.

These operations of powdering, condensing, and making butter constitute the great cushion or stabilizer of the dairy industry. This cushion is essential to an adequate year-round supply of fresh milk. If we are to have sufficient milk in late summer and early fall, we are, by necessity, going to have an overproduction of milk during some months of the spring and early summer.

Butterfat is the most valuable in dollar value of the component parts of milk. In butter we have a product which makes it possible to store a seasonable surplus of butterfat production. This is due to the excellent keeping qualities of good butter. Butterfat is churned into butter, stored, and comes back on the market during those periods when milk production is slack. This makes possible the profitable operation of powdering skim milk and condensing skim milk; and these operations, in turn, by providing a profitable method of handling surplus milk in the flush periods, make possible an adequate year-round supply of fresh, whole milk.

The profitable manufacture of butter is essential to a rounded-out dairy industry which will provide the people of this country at all times of the year with what is considered their most important foodmilk.

Having given this general over-all picture of the dependence of the welfare of our members upon an adequate butter market, I wish to go back and paint a more complete picture of the 300 or more members of our little local union who are engaged in the actual manufacturing, cutting, printing, and wrapping of butter. Among these members are both men and women. Some of the men have grown up in the butter industry and have never known another job. They have devoted a lifetime to learning methods, and improving upon methods of putting out a quality product. This is reflected in the very high quality of the butter found on the market today.

The female employees of the butter industry are engaged principally in the cutting and wrapping of butter. A survey has disclosed that over one-third of these members are without husbands and have dependent children or other dependents. We often hear of career women, women in advertising, newspaper work, cosmetics, and so forth. These female members of the dairy employees' union are not in factory work for the glamor of a career; they are doing factory work from necessity. The female employee in the butter industry is receiving $1.27 per hour. She works 40 hours a week. She works 40 hours a week. At the end of the week she receives a net average wage of approximately $42. With this $42 she must pay rent, buy food, provide heat and clothing for her dependents, and put money aside for the many emergencies which may arise illness of herself, illness in her family, and possible temporary periods of unemployment.

As a union we are not excessively proud of these wages but neither do we deplore them. We know that, by and large, they are con

siderably above the wages being paid for similar work in the largely nonunionized oleomargarine industry.

In the eyes of the courts, there is no trust more sacred than that of safeguarding funds left to widows and minor children. The officers of the dairy employees' union consider the preservation of the jobs and the livelihood of these women members who are supporting dependents and children as a trust equally sacred. And we would be blind to our duties and oblivious of all moral scruples did we not exert our utmost efforts toward seeing that the welfare of these members is not jeopardized by the unscrupulous and fraudulent imitation of butter..

We use the word "fraudulent" because we know that the oleomargarine industry wants permission to color their product yellow in order to make it appear more like butter and not because it will make oleomargarine the same as butter. Just as we think of Lever Bros. Lifebuoy soap as being red, as we think of Yellow Cabs as being yellow, and as we identify flavors of ice cream by their color, so do we also think of and identify butter by the color yellow. The natural color of oleomargarine is white. Why not let it be sold in that color?

The only reason the oleomargarine manufacturers wish to color their product yellow is because the color of butter is yellow. If butter was brown, red, or blue, you would find them equally as insistent that they be permitted to color their product a red, brown, or blue. They do not want to sell oleomargarine in the place of butter, they wish to sell it just the same as butter.

All labor groups are concerned about the cost of living. The dairy employees' union shares this concern. We recognize that families may buy oleomargarine and economize in food costs. Labor groups are also concerned about what will happen to the cost of oleomargarine if it is permitted to be sold in the colored state. Experience has led us to believe that yellow margarine competes with butter at butterfat prices, instead of competing with vegetable oil spreads at vegetable oil prices. Added to this threat to the cost of living is the danger that a greatly reduced butter market may result in decreased production and higher prices for milk and cream and in decreased production and higher prices for veal and beef. If the Congress desires to keep food costs down it should insist on oleomargarine being sold in its natural white color. Coloring oleomargarine yellow won't keep the price down; it will tend to bring the price up.

Some people may ask, if butter consumption is replaced by oleomargarine consumption, will not the increased employment in oleomargarine offset the loss of employment in the butter industry? To this we reply that if oleomargarine replaces butter as our national spread, the number of persons employed in the manufacture of oleomargarine will never be more than a fraction of the number presently employed in the manufacture of butter. The manufacture of butter, by the nature of its product, is greatly decentralized.

Sweet cream is very perishable. In every crossroad hamlet we have cream-gathering stations, and scattered throughout our great agricultural areas and usually in small rural towns we find creameries engaged in the churning of butter. The finished product must be manufactured near the source of its raw product-cream. Contrast this with the production of oleomargarine. There is nothing very perishable about coconut oil, soybean oil, cottonseed oil, and other

vegetable oils. These raw materials are shipped all over the country in ordinary tank cars and without refrigeration. This makes possible the concentration of the oleomargarine industry in a few very large plants.

Up to the present time, all the oleomargarine produced in this country is produced in not more than 24 plants and the tendency is for greater centralization of production rather than the reverse. Contrast this with 3,500 or more creameries spread throughout the 48 States currently engaged in the manufacture of butter.

Even if we could look forward to the day when every person currently employed in the manufacture of butter could be replaced by a person employed in the manufacture of oleomargarine, we fail to see any justification for this great dislocation of employment. Certainly the people who have put the best years of their lives into the butter industry will not now be employed by the manufacturers of oleomargarine. These displaced employees will largely be thrown upon the industrial scrap heap.

This concludes my remarks. I present to this committee copies of a resolution adopted by the executive board of our union on Monday, February 28, in which is summarized our position, the reasons in brief, and our recommendations on legislation to regulate the manufacture and sale of oleomargarine. The committee will find this. resolution attached to my statement.

RESOLUTION ADOPTED AT CHICAGO, ILL., ON FEBRUARY 28, 1949, BY THE EXECUTIVE. BOARD OF DAIRY EMPLOYEES UNION, LOCAL 754, INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers, AFFILIATED WITH THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR

Whereas the Congress of the United States is considering measures to repeal the so-called oleomargarine tax; and

Whereas this action will meet with the approval of workers in the low-income brackets since it will reduce the cost of this commodity, and

Whereas if colored oleomargarine is sold in imitation of butter the more economical uncolored oleomargarine may tend to disappear from the market since the price of colored oleomargarine is likely to follow the price of butter rather than the cost of the inexpensive oils that go into its manufacture thereby increasing the cost of living; and

Whereas the disruption of the butter market will most certainly lead to a decline in dairy cow numbers and a consequent decrease in production of milk, veal, and beef, with consequent higher prices for these commodities, thereby increasing the cost of living; and

Whereas there are thousands of creameries and thousands of dairy plants. spread throughout this Nation whose employees' welfare is involved in protecting butter against unfair competition; and

Whereas widespread unemployment and scarcities and higher prices for meat and milk would be too high a price to pay for so-called cheaper oleomargarine: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the executive board of the Dairy Employees Union, Local 754, in executive session assembled on the 28th day of February 1949, respectfully request the Congress that it repeal existing oleomargarine taxes and at the same time enact legislation prohibiting the sale of oleomargarine colored as butter, so that the public may at all times distinguish between these products; and be it further

Resolved, That copies of this resolution be submitted to the President of the United States, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Representatives and Senators in Congress; and be it further

Resolved, That the dairy employees' union send a representative to appearbefore the House and Senate Agricultural Committees to emphasize the very great importance of this legislation to the members of the dairy employees' union and the dairy industry.

Senator HOEY. Thank you, Mr. Burnier.

Senator Lucas was forced to leave during the course of your statement, because he had another engagement.

Mr. BURNIER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator HOEY. We will now hear from Congressman Poage, of Texas.

STATEMENT OF HON. W. R. POAGE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS

Representative POAGE. It is a pleasure to appear before this committee and to have a few words to say in regard to the margarine bill that is now before you.

As I understand it, this committee has before it the legislation that was passed by the House, and amendments have been suggested that are at least similar in general purport to the original Granger-Andresen bill.

I want to address myself primarily to the legislation as it came over from the House, because I think that there are some fundamentals involved there.

Too often the witnesses that appeared before the House committee overlooked those fundamentals and jumped to conclusions.

It was my pleasure to have the opportunity to sit here in the early minutes of this morning's session and to hear the distinguished Senator from Wisconsin discuss this legislation, and I observed that his discussion followed the same general plan that was followed by most of the witnesses in the House. They assumed that the passage of legislation similar to that passed by the House would result in the destruction of the dairy industry. No effort was made to prove that point, or to show how that destruction would be accomplished. Merely the assumption was made; and, having made the assumption, the witnesses, without exception, jumped into a portrayal of the evils that will befall the country when the diary industry goes to wrack.

Could I agree with the assumption of the numerous witnesses that have appeared before us, I would undoubtedly agree with a substantial portion of the conclusions. But to my mind the assumption is entirely unwarranted. I, of course, am not familiar with the record that has been made here, but I am quite sure that the record made in the House does not justify that assumption, and does not give any evidence whatever to show that the assumption has any basis in fact.

In that connection I would like to submit for the record, here, and to make a part of my statement, a statement that I have prepared in regard to the effect of the passage of the House bill on the dairy industry, if I may have permission to insert that. May I?

Senator HOEY. You may.

Representative POAGE. Thank you.

(The statement referred to is as follows:)

WOULD THE SALE OF YELLOW MARGARINE ACTUALLY HURT THE DAIRY

INDUSTRY?

(By Hon. W. R. Poage of Texas, Member of the House of Representatives) One of the most frequent prophecies by those who oppose the repeal of the Federal antimargarine laws is that such action would mean the ruin of the dairy industry.