the food products, and yet a very meager space indeed when compared with the output of dairy products in the country. If you place a tax on it, you either drive it from the market, or you make the poorer classes of our people pay a very large additional sum because of the tax. NO BOVINE-TUBERCULOSIS DANGER I say that oleomargarine is free from all tubercular germs, and this can not be said for all dairy products, because according to table 426 of the United States Department of Agriculture, pamphlet No. 977 year 1927, pages 1064 and 1065, it is shown that a general average of 3.3 of the dairy cattle of the States showed reactions to tuberculin tests and that the range in various States is from 0.5 up to 14.7 per cent. Why should not the dairy people clean their own house before they attempt to become a monopoly? It seems to me that this country is becoming a land of subterfuge. If you would have a little beer, you must buy the malt and other necessaries, take it home and make some home brew; if you would have wine, you must purchase some grape-juice concentrate, take it home, treat it and have wine; and now, according to this bill, if you would have some attractive oleomargarine, you must buy the ingredient which must be practically whiter than snow, secure a capsule of coloring matter and take it home and mix it yourself. We According to these subterfuges, we are fast eliminating the experts in the manufacture and treatment of these products. Surely this country is in no condition for the increase cost of living. have provided the farmers with $500,000,000 for their relief. Shall we also provide the dairy interests with a monopoly of butter products? I am opposed to this bill and to the granting of a rule for its consideration. STATEMENT OF JOHN C. KETCHAM, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN Mr. KETCHAM. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I desire to submit a brief statement to the members of the Committee on Rules showing the tremendous economic importance of the dairy interests to the country at large. I am exhibiting a chart that has been prepared from official figures showing the total amount of farm products produced in the United States. The total amount of the gross farm income of the Nation is shown thereon to be $12,000.000,000. As will be observed, $2,500,000,000, or 21 per cent of the total income, is represented by dairy products. Anything that adversely affects more than a fifth of the farm income of the United States has far-reaching economic consequences. Particular significance attaches to the income from dairy products because of the fact that it ordinarily comes every two weeks in the form of a milk check, and, therefore, has come to be considered as the mainstay of agriculture by providing money for current expenses. The action of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue in permitting the use of palm oil in the manufacture of oleo to give it a natural butter color, without the payment of the 10 cents per pound tax, is the most harmful departmental action toward agriculture in my memory. Its consequences have not been fully apprehended or experienced. Dairy farmers are among the most substantial in the whole agricultural group, and to strike such a deadly blow to the dairy industry at this time creates the urgency for this particular legislation. I sincerely trust that the committee will take favorable action and authorize a rule for the consideratiton of H. R. 15934 at the earliest possible date. STATEMENT OF HON. HAROLD KNUTSON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MINNESOTA Mr. KNUTSON. Mr. Chairman, I desire to submit for the record the following letter from the Minnesota State Agricultural Society: Hon. HAROLD KNUTSON, MINNESOTA STATE AGRICUTURAL SOCIETY, St. Paul, Minn., February 6, 1931. Representative in Congress from Minnesota, Washington, D. C. DEAR MR. KNUTSON: At a recent annual meeting of the Minnesota State Agricultural Society the following resolution was passed, which I am pleased to hand you herewith for your consideration: "Whereas the Federal Internal Revenue Department has ruled that the admixture of refined palm oil with oleomargarine is not a coloring of such oleomargarine within the meaning of revenue regulations imposing a tax upon colored oleomargarine, so called; and "Whereas the admixture of such palm oil actually does so color oleomargarine that it may be sold in perfect imitation of butter without payment of a tax; and "Whereas the dairy industry is depressed, and it is expert opinion that the sale of oleomargarine colored with palm oil has directly contributed to a loss of several cents a pound in the sale price of butter; and "Whereas the price of butter automatically tends to establish prices on all other dairy products: Therefore be it "Resolved, That the Minnesota State Agricultural Society in annual convention assembled hereby urges and petitions the United States Internal Revenue Department to speedily rescind the ruling to which reference has heretofore been made, and that the Congress of the United States enact such legislation as may be necessary to effectually prohibit the sale of oleomargarine colored in any manner whatsoever without the imposition of the customary tax of 10 cents a pound; and be it further "Resolved, That the secretary be instructed to transmit a copy of this resolution to the United States Internal Revenue Department and to all Members of Congress from the State of Minnesota." Yours truly, RAYMOND A. LEE, Secretary. That is in support of the Brigham oleomargarine bill. I desire also to note the presence of Representatives Clague, Andresen, Goodwin, Selvig, Pittenger, Kvale, Christgau, Nolan, all of whom are heartily in favor of this measure. Mr. ANDRESEN. Also note the presence in behalf of the Brigham bill of Mr. Maas, and of Mr. Kading. Mr. KADING. I am in favor of the bill. (NOTE. The following Representatives also noted their presence. at the hearing to the shorthand reporter:) Messrs. Johnston of the sixteenth district of Missouri: Mr. Romjue; Mr. Short, of Missouri; Mr. McFadden, of Pennsylvania; Mr. Adkins, of Wisconsin; Mr. Frear, of Illinois; Mr. Morehead, of Nebraska; Mr. Willis G. Sears, of Nebraska; Mr. Dickinson, of Iowa; Mr. Hull, of Wisconsin; Mr. Sinclair, of North Dakota; Mr. Strong, of Kansas; Mr. Halsey, of Missouri; Mr. Ewin L. Davis, of Tennessee; Mr. Garber, of Virginia; Mr. Lambertson, of Kansas; Mr. Goss, of Connecticut; Mr. Nelson, of Missouri; Mr. Fred G. Johnson, of Nebraska; Mr. Charles H. Sloan, of Nebraska; Mr. Simmons, of Nebraska; Mr. Taber, of New York; and Mr. Schneider, of Wisconsin. (Mr. Strong, of Kansas, submitted the following statement :) Hon. BERTRAND H. SNELL, Chairman the Rules Committee, Washington, D. C.: FEBRUARY 12, 1931. The undersigned officers of a meeting of representatives from the States largely interested in dairying that was held recently, when the disastrous results of the decision secured by the manufacturers of oleomargarine from the Commissioner of Internal Revenue became known, have been asked to file the following statement with your committee in the interest of securing a rule for the consideration of H. R. 15934, known as the Brigham bill. The passage of this bill, H. R. 15934, through Congress will not increase the tax on oleomargarine that has existed in the past nor will it change the law regarding oleomargarine from what Congress intended when the same was passed. Its sole purpose is to carry out the intention of existing law which has been set aside by the ruling of the Internal Revenue Commissioner. Unless H. R. 15934 is passed, coconut oil and palm oil, neither of which are produced in the United States and both of which are admitted without payment of duty, will become practically the sole ingredients of oleomargarine, eliminating the use of animal fats, cottonseed, peanut, and soybean oils. There is no objection to the manufacture of oleomargarine if it is not made and sold to the public as butter, but it is being so sold. Salesmen of oleomargarine are calling attention to the fact that " oleomargarine is now manufactured and colored looks like butter, tastes like butter, and spreads like butter, and when taken from the packages, which are similar to those of butter, it can not be told from butter under ordinary conditions and can be sold for much less than the cost of producing real butter." The result will be that hotels, restaurants, boarding houses, and railroads will be induced to perpetrate this fraud upon those who desire and believe they are being served the healthgiving qualities of real butter, and the dairy industry will be destroyed. The claim that people who desire to use oleomargarine because of its lower price will be forced to pay the tax of 10 cents a pound is untrue, for the tax of one-fourth cent a pound, which uncolored oleomargarine has carried in the past. will not be increased under the passage of this bill, whose sole purpose is to protect those who produce real butter and the public from having an article sold as butter that is not butter. The appeal to cotton producers because of the use in the past of cottonseed oil as an ingredient in making oleomargarine does not now apply, since palm oil is cheaper and used with coconut oil creates a substance more nearly resembling butter. For many years the Department of Agriculture and agricultural colleges of the different States have been urging diversified farming and pointing out that though the milking and caring for cows meant hard work and long hours, that it would insure a fair return to those who would engage in it, with the result that millions of farmers in over half the States of the Union have invested millions of dollars in dairy herds, which they have striven constantly to improve. For the last year depressed prices for butter have forced the dairying industry to carry on with little or no profit. Since the recent decision of the Internal Revenue Commissioner permits oleomargarine, colored to look like butter, to be sold without the oleomargarine tax it has paid for years, the price of butter has fallen to where dairying is being carried on at a loss, and unless some relief from the sale of imitation butter is secured this great industry will be destroyed. We therefore respectfully, on the part of a large number of Representatives from butter-producing States, request your committee to report favorably on a rule to make possible the immediate consideration of H. R. 15934. JAMES G. STRONG, Chairman. (Thereupon the committee proceeded to the consideration of other business.) Commission to Study and Report on Conservation and Administration of Public Domain HEARINGS BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON RULES SEVENTY-FIRST CONGRESS SECOND SESSION ON H. R. 6153 A BILL AUTHORIZING THE PRESIDENT TO APPOINT A |