Henry Baird Favill, AB, MD, LL.D., 1860-1916, a ... - University Library

AGRICULTURE AND DAIRYING 541
is a question of conservation, and the question of the salvation
of this country. I don't want to be misunderstood
in this at all; I haven't the slightest political aspirations,
but I want to call your attention to the fact that this question
of the tariff on dairy products is in a sense by itself
and absolutely must be so considered. Another thing on
this same line of thought is this: Public opinion is very
necessary behind all of this, and still it is not doing anything
about it, because it doesn't care, it is too far away;
all public opinion cares about is the price of butter and
milk. So great is that fact, that whenever we come at the
public with any of our great economic issues in which we
are concerned, we are made to stand before the public
simply on the basis of commercial rivals trying to save our
trade, and the proper development of public opinion can be
made through our increased market work.
As we now stand, the dairy business is the subject of
two very serious problems. One is the competition with a
legitimate food product— margarine, or "oleo," as they call
it now; that is, competition with it on a basis of misrepresentation.
The other is the question of health.
The dairy business and the dairy world have no right
to object to straight business competition with margarine.
There is no ground upon which to have any difference with
margarine except one, and that you know perfectly well —
that the eft'ort in all margarine business is to sell it for
butter, and you know, as long as it is so sold it is a war to the
knife and should be so with every dairyman. As long as
there is any way to distinguish margarine from butter, the
ultimate consumer must at all times know what he is
getting, and that will solve this problem. Who is the ultimate
consumer? Why, the purchaser, the manufacturer will
tell you. That is the argument from Washington, from
Chicago, and elsewhere, but that is n't true. The ultimate
consumer is the individual who gets a piece of butter put
on his plate wherever he happens to be, and the question