Lapas attēli
PDF
ePub

siders necessary, they would be spending 28 percent of their total food budget for milk and milk products, and the moderate-cost families, 24 percent.

This is altogether too much for essentially one item in a food budget. If the margarine tax no longer boosts the price of this item, because of the height already attained, it certainly helps to keep the price from falling.

Average weekly factory earnings in 1947 amounted to about $49 a week. This meant about $2,500 a year. The city worker's family budget of the United States Department of Labor, for all purposes including food, ran well over $3,000 a year for a family of four in June 1947. The difference between the income and the cost of the budget only shows how unfair the tax really is. It falls on those least able to pay it. The Department of Labor budget, in fact, allows only margarine in its diet, while the low-cost diet of the Department of Agriculture calls mainly for margarine, even if it allows a small amount of butter.

WRITTEN TESTIMONY SUBMITTED TO COMMITTEE ON FINANCE, UNITED STATES SENATE, PREPARED BY J. S. QUIST, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY, IOWA CREAMERIES ASSOCIATION, INC.

This brief against passage of the Rivers bill, H. R. 2245, is submitted by J. S. Quist, executive secretary of the Iowa Creameries Association. Mr. Quist served with the extension service, Iowa State College, from 1918 to 1945, as a county agricultural agent, State 4-H Club staff member and State county agricultural agent at large. During this period he was active in emergency food production work during World Wars I and II. Since February 1946 he has been executive secretary of the Iowa Creameries Association.

This organization is composed of the local creameries of Iowa, both the cooperatives and those independently owned. The officers and directors of these creameries are nearly all farm dairy producers. The local creameries of Iowa in 1946 churned 170,138,485 pounds of the total 207,987,261 pounds of butter produced by creameries in Iowa. The local creameries serve as processing and marketing agencies for the milk and cream produced by about 160,000 Iowa farmers.

This petition to the Finance Committee of the United States Senate urging them to defer action on H. R. 2245 until the emotional reactions of the public has subsided and the impacts of such legislation is fully realized.

Only two aspects of the impact the passage of the Rivers bill will have will be listed in this statement.

I. Permitting the unrestricted sale of butter imitations will seriously affect the agricultural economy of the North Central States, and indirectly of the entire Nation.

The attached map gives the 1946 butter production for the States of Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, North and South Dakota. It will be noticed that 23 percent of all butter produced was in the first five States named and 57 percent in the latter seven States listed. Of all butter produced in the United States, 80 percent was made in these 12 States.

Milk cows are a part of the farm business for most farms of this area. On many farms the only enterprise is dairying.

Approximately 80 percent of all creamery butter made in Iowa is exported to the large consuming centers outside our State. Nearly 60 percent goes to the markets of New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Buffalo, Detroit, and Chicago; also large shipments are made to the west coast.

Aside from Chicago, the markets for Iowa's surplus dairy products are long distances from the places of production and processing. Of all dairy products, butter alone can be shipped long distances and stored efficiently so as to reach the far markets and be available for leveling off the seasonal production fluctuations.

Facts do not substantiate the recommendations that Midwest creameries should market milk and cream in dairy products other than butter. Many of Iowa's creameries are equipped to manufacture milk and cream into any product. Minnesota and Wisconsin are even better equipped.

The following table for the years 1946 and 1947 show how the States of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa have had to depend on butter in their dairy

marketing programs. The following information has been taken from the United States Department of Agriculture reports:

[blocks in formation]

Attention is called again to the diversion to butter production in these three States during a period of full employment, high wages, when creameries are equipped to market milk and cream in any form the market demands and when milk production on farms is on the decline.

II. Dairy cows are essential to good land-use practices.

Iowa's agriculture is adaptable to diversified farming. Iowa ranks fourth in total milk production on farms. Its milk production is largely from small herds. According to the Iowa crop reporting service, the 1942-46 January 1 average of dairy cows and heifers 2 years old kept for milk per 100 acres of land on farms, was far greater in 72 Iowa counties than the average numbers of feeder cattle on feed per 100 acres.

Iowa has become a great food-producing State because Iowa farmers know there must be crop rotation with non-raw-legume crops and pastures. The dairy cow has been a profitable utilizer of the roughages and pastures. Destroying the market for butter by allowing the unrestricted sale of buttter limitations will force Iowa farmers to farm programs that will be soil depleting.

This appears to the Senate Finance Committee for their most careful consideration to the Rivers bill before recommending it for passage, is not based on a selfish request for the protection of the Midwest agriculture. It is based on a request to protect proven methods of farming that are so necessary for keeping our lands fertile and productive.

Certainly Congress will not be consistent to appropriate vast sums for soil conservation work and at the same time pass legislation that will force the farmers of our most productive areas into methods of farming that will tear down the splendid work of the soil conservation program.

Consumers too must realize in their inspired clamor for cheap food that this in the long run may mean less food. The dairy cow and her products must be given due consideration in our agricultural and national economy.

THE IOWA HOLSTEIN BREEDERS' ASSOCIATION, INC.,

Senator EUGENE D. MILLIKIN,
Chairman, Senate Finance Committee,

Waterloo, Iowa, May 11, 1948.

Washington, D. C.

DEAR SENATOR MILLIKIN: The slam-bang, shallow consideration which the Senate proposes to give to the consideration of the oleomargarine question is very disheartening to the dairy industry. Such utter disregard for the welfare of a large, fundamental industry such as the dairy industry makes one wonder who is pulling the strings back of the scene.

I would like to call your attention to the following basic facts:

1. Dairy farming is synonymous with soil conservation farming and when something is done to curtail dairying, soil conservation suffers.

2. Butterfat, regardless of all theoretical analysis, is the basic keystone of the entire dairy industry.

3. Farmers will not object to the removal of taxes on the sale of oleomargarine, but they will protest forever permission for the use of butter's yellow color in any substitute product.

4. Do you know of any foreign country having any dairy industry of note that permits the manufacture of yellow oleomargarine? I believe that Denmark, as

[graphic][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed]

one example, has long permitted the manufacture of oleomargarine without taxes, but they have prohibited the coloring of it to resemble butter.

5. To permit the manufacture and sale of colored oleomargarine is merely to encourage fraud, misrepresentation, and trickery. It deprives the American consumer of adequate protection from unscrupulous manufacturers.

6. Don't be fooled by the report that the soybean farmers are in favor of such legislation. The officers and directors of the American Soybean Association are, for the most part, processors or managers of processing plants primarily and many are not soybean growers at all.

7. I suspect that some New Deal officials are supporting this legislation because the dairy industry refused to go along on the little-pig killing program propounded during the New Deal regime of the 1930's.

8. Remember that the dairy business in all its ramifications is more important to every section of the United States than any other business in our economy. I sincerely hope that you can stop the hysterical scramble to try to enact such legislation, and will do everything in your power until the Congress can "Stop, look, and listen" as to the dire consequences of such fundamental legislation. This is very important to the future of the entire agriculture industry and warrants very thorough investigation and study.

Yours very truly,

ERNEST M. WRIGHT, President.

MAY 12, 1948.

To the Members of the Senate Committee on Finance: We, the members of the Kentucky Margarine Consumers Committee, respectfully request that the following resolution be made a part of the testimony to be considered by the Senate Finance Committee when hearings are held on the margarine bill (H. R. 2245) on May 17 and May 18, 1948:

"RESOLUTION

"Whereas, margarine is a nutritious, low-cost food approved by health authorities and subject to the regulations of the Federal Food and Drug Administration, and

"Whereas, the present Federal excise taxes on colored and uncolored margarine, and retail and wholesale licenses, are discriminatory, unwise, and unfair, and "Whereas, the effect of these restrictions is to deny or make difficult the purchase of this needed food by housewives, and particularly low-income families, and "Whereas, these restrictions narrow the market for fats and oils produced by American farmers, and

"Whereas, these restrictions do not promote better national health, a sound farm economy, or encourage interstate commerce, and

“Whereas, these taxes and licenses cannot be justified as a revenue measure, as testimony by the United States Treasury Department has shown, and "Whereas, these restrictions tend to keep prices high and contribute to inflation: "Resolved: That we, the members of the Kentucky Margarine Consumers Committee, urge the Senate Finance Committee to immediately approve the margarine bill (H. R. 2245) as drawn, so that it may be voted upon by the 80th session of the United States Senate."

GARNETT BALE,
Chairman.

MEMBERS OF THE KENTUCKY MARGARINE CONSUMERS COMMITTEE

Chairman: Mrs. Garnett Bale, Elizabethtown, Ky., president of the Kentucky League of Women Voters.

Co-Chairman: Mrs. F. J. Smythe, St. Matthews, Ky., member of the board,
Kentucky League of Women Voters.

Mrs. Rudy Vogt, president of the Louisville League of Women Voters.
Harry Petty, president of the Kentucky State Federation of Labor.

John E. Slaughter, Jr., vice president of the Girdler Corp.

R. H. Raibert, secretary of the Kentucky Retail Food Dealers Association.

Ralph Johnson, secretary of the Kentucky Wholesale Grocers Association.

Ruth Gilbert, secretary of the Kentucky Merchants Association and the Retail Grocers Association.

76269-48-23

George Korfage, Southern Foods Sales, Inc.

Carl Meyer, Durkee Famous Foods.

Nate Gallagher, chairman of the Kentucky Legislative Committee, Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen.

Frank B. Bloemer, Bloemer Food Sales Co.

W. B. Taylor, regional director of the Congress of Industrial Organizations for the State of Kentucky.

Henry G. Meyer, secretary of the Progressive Grocers Association, Inc.

G. W. Allen, Henderson, Ky., secretary-treasurer-manager of the Ohio Valley Soybean Cooperative.

M. W. McGrath, Early & Daniels Co.

Harold Miller, Louisville Soy Products Corp.

W. T. Owens, president of the Advertising Club of Louisville.

LAGOMARCINO GRUPE CO., Burlington, Iowa, May 5, 1948.

Senator EUGENE D.. MILLIKIN,

Senate Chamber, Washington, D. C.

DEAR SENATOR: Your committee will soon have before it the highly controversial margarine question. Being in the wholesale food business and dealing with a great number of rural stores, I feel that I can tell you the feeling in this territory on this subject.

It was very well stated to me today by Mr. Carol Walz, owner of the rural store in Lowell, Iowa-a community of probably 50 people. His business is principally with the farming trade. He says "I sell more margarine than butter and 80 percent of it goes to farmers, and these farmers are in favor of repeal."

The Iowa farmer is a fair-minded individual and can certainly tell right from wrong. That positively is the way this problem should be decided-not on presWashington has too often done the expedient thing. Why not do the right thing this time, which certainly would be to repeal these antiquated taxes and regulations.

sure.

The butter lobby claims to be speaking for the farmers of Iowa. I do not believe they do. If these farmers could speak for themselves I am confident that they would decide this problem from a viewpoint of right or wrong.

G. D. PARKER,

Vice President.

Senator EUGENE D. MILLIKIN,

Chairman, Senate Finance Committee,

LINWOOD CREAMERY,

Wichita 9, Kans., May 14, 1948.

Senate Office Building, Washington, D. C.

HONORABLE SIR: The entire dairy industry is putting its last hope and trust in your committee that we will receive adequate time and consideration so that all evidence can be presented fairly and without trying to stampede this legislation through the United States Senate.

As a Senator from a neighboring State, I feel sure that you realize the extreme importance of this legislation; particularly to the 4,000,000 small dairy farmers in our country.

So far most of the reasons that have been advanced by the supporters of the Rivers bill has been discriminatory taxes. Surely any tax or law that is devised to protect the American public from fraud isn't discriminating against anybody, and certainly this tax hasn't had any discriminating effect on the sales of oleo. As of today they are at an all-time high, but it is discriminating against the consumer when any imitation product, colored like butter and tasting like butter, can be palmed off as butter when there is a large difference in price.

There are 65,000,000 meals served daily in public eating places in our country. What assurance will these people that eat their meals in restaurants have that they are eating genuine butter when there is no protection that will prohibit the serving of a substitute for the real thing? But regardless of all of the arguments on either side, there are a few facts that will affect the American farmer and housewife if existing taxes and regulations on oleo are removed. These facts should certainly be considered by your committee.

« iepriekšējāTurpināt »