Democratic Sentinel, Volume 21, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 July 1897 — WAR ON ALL BUTTERINE. [ARTICLE]

WAR ON ALL BUTTERINE.

National Dairy Unicn Intend* t» Drive It from the Land. “Butterine must be legislated out of the United States” is the dictum of the National Dairy Union. The successful fight for the new anti-butterine law in Illinois has inspired the dairymen of the entire We-st to crush and utterly annihilate the butter substitute industry. They are going into politics to do it. Right now the creamery proprietors, the butter dealers and the dairy farmers of the big butter producing States —Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, lowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, Michigan and the Dakotas—are being drawn into a compact fighting organization of not less than 500,000, and maybe more than 1,000,000 voters and vote controllers. They are being pledged in writing to work unceasingly for legislation that will prevent the coloring of butter substitutes and “to fight the men in high places who are unfriendly to the interests of the dairymen.” Promises of money contributions go with the pledge. A campaign fund which would delight the heart of a professional politician is already in sight. If necessary, a fighting capital of $1,000,000 can be raised, it is believed, before the Legislatures of these dairy States meet again. This fund will be used to drive the butterine manufacturers from their few remaining strongholds, and if the industry then find loopholes in State legislation, the organization will move on Washington. W. D. Hoard, former Governor of Wisconsin, and president of the National Dairy Union, is giving the movement all the benefit of his organizing ability and political acumen. Charles Y. Knight of Chicago, secretary of the National Dairy Union and manager of the anti-butterin* fight in the Illinois Legislature, is secretary and treasurer of the new movement. The dairymen have already done much to restrict the manufacture of butter sub? stitutes, colored to resemble the genuintOs dairy article. prohibiting the oring of such substitutes are now in force in Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, lowa, Nebraska, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York. But there are two State* in particular which have no such laws and which are favorably situated with respect to the packing centers and the sources of raw material for the manufacture of butterine —Indiana and Kansas. Since the market for the colored article is unrestricted, except in these few Western States which have legislated on the subject, enough butterine can be made in Indiana and Kansas to cut a big figure in the butter trade of the country. The dairymen expect, therefore, that the butterine makers will make a hard fight to retain their standing in Indiana and Kansas, and even to have rescinded the antibutterine legislation in some of the other States. Hence the broad scope of the dairymen’s movement to complete the annihilation of their enemy. The National Dairy Union is building up its fighting organization around the creameries. There are nearly 4,000 of these in the north Mississippi valley. Each creamery has on an average 100 farmer patrons, or 400,000 in all. The price paid by the creameries to these farmers for their milk is regulated by the price of butter. The extinction of competition with butterine raises the price of butter and therefore of milk. It follows that all these 400,000 farmers are expected to be eager for enlistment in a last rally against butterine. The farmers who work up their milk into butter in their own dairies outnumber those who sell to creameries. They are expected to take an interest in this movement. The same view is held of the farmers who ship milk to the cities, the price of their product being influenced always I jar the price it will bring at the creamerr®*. Then there are the creamery operators and their employes, and the men who handle butter in the big cities, the commission men—all these are interested in one way and another in boosting butter and killing butterine. Tliis indicates why the active spirits of the National Dairy Union are figuring on a political army of 1,000,000 men or more. The movement is being given the widest publicity through the dairy press. “Butterine must be legislated out of the country” is the war cry.