Milwaukee Sentinel photo; December 23, 1964. Journal Sentinel Inc.; reproduced with permission.

The Oleo Wars

Wisconsins Fight over the Demon Spread
By Gerry Strey
process received a U.S. patent in 1873, and the Oleo-MarF you eat a meal in a Wisconsin restaurant today and garine Manufacturing Company of New York began producwant margarine instead of butter, you may have to ask tion the same year. American manufacturers quickly for itWisconsin law forbids the substitution of marimproved the original process, and by 1886 there were thirtygarine for butter in a public eating place. If you are a student, seven plants in the United States manufacturing oleomarpatient, or inmate in a state institution, you will be served butgarine. ter with your meals unless a doctor says From the start margarine triggered margarine is necessary for your health. Would YOU Buy so much suspicion and alarm that it When you shop for margarine in a WisPearls of Fat? became subject to more regulation consin supermarket, you must buy a To generations of Americans, it was just than any other foodstuff. Most Eurowhole pound colored a prescribed oleo, but the name of the butter substipean countries were concerned with shade of yellow and labeled in letters of tute has a surprisingly complex history. Its inventor, Hippolyte Mge-Mouris, preventing fraudulent substitution of a specific size. Finally, that margarine created the term oleomargarine by comthe new product for butter and with must be made of domestic, not importbining Latin and Greek words. Oleo protecting butter producers, but in ed, vegetable oils. came from oleum, the Latin for beef fat, North America the reaction was far These restrictions are part of Wisand margarine from margaric acid, a fatty acid that was a major component of more intense. Emotions and social valconsin Statute 97.18, Oleomargarine the new substance. (Because of the ues combined with economic selfRegulations, the last fragments of a acids pearly appearance, its discoverer interest to create a visceral enmity once-mighty rampart of law that shieldhad named it after the Greek word for pearl, margarites.) toward margarine, which evolved into ed Wisconsin citizens from the dangers a long-running attempt to suppress it. of butter substitutes. Although WisconThe agricultural community saw margarine as an intruder, a sin was not alone in the fight, the near-century of law making, counterfeit food alien to values based on the moral and physthe public figures who created those laws, and the private citical superiority of the agrarian life. The artificiality and indusizens who either circumvented them or stood in their staunch trial origin of margarine inspired fear and suspicion, not support tell a distinctly Wisconsin tale. unlike public reaction to the genetically engineered foods of The story begins in Europe, where food shortages, partictoday. Governor Lucius Hubbard of Minnesota expressed ularly of edible fats, stimulated a search for a cheap and nutripopular feeling when he exclaimed in 1887, The public has tious butter substitute. By 1869 Hippolyte Mge-Mouris, a been victim of various impositions practiced in different French scientist and inventor, developed a complex process departments of its industry, but I think it will be admitted that that combined heat, pressure, carbonate of potash, and beef the ingenuity of depraved human genius has culminated in fat to produce an oil that, when churned with a small amount the production of oleomargarine and its kindred abominaof milk, water, and yellow coloring, resulted in a palatable tions. substance that was cheaper and kept better than butter. The Conflict between city and farm was a feature of life in the Wisconsinites of all ages and walks of life felt the lure of cheap latter nineteenth century throughout the United States. Ironmargarine across the border in Illinois. These members of the Wisconsin Federation of Womens Clubs, (left to right) Mrs. Burness ically, in spite of rhetoric about the virtues of the pastoral life, Collentine of Lake Geneva, Mrs. Claude Hayward of East Troy, dairy interests, beginning in New York and moving west to and Mrs. H.E. Lowry of Lake Geneva, were visiting an Illinois Wisconsin, were themselves developing an industrial supermarket when caught by a Milwaukee Sentinel photographer.

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along three frontspreventing approach to butter and cheese the fraudulent substitution of production. When margarine margarine for butter, making arrived in the United States in margarine more expensive and the early 1870s, Wisconsin harder to buy through taxation dairying had just begun the and licensing fees, and attackslow shift from primitive, smalling the reputation of margarine scale, farm-based operations to itself. factory production of butter A year after Smiths predicand cheese, and for good reations, Wisconsin passed its first son. anti-margarine law, similar to While most Wisconsin farms those in effect in other states, produced at least some butter, requiring that margarine and counting on it for cash income, butter be marked as such. much of this butter was of Dairy owners first concentrated abysmal quality. Most butter their energies on legislation was produced in summer from preventing substitution of marthe scanty milk production of a garine for butter but quickly few mixed-breed cows. Butter Scientific American expanded their efforts to making was usually the farm The April 24, 1880, issue of Scientific American gave readers a attempts to restrict margarine wifes job, and variations in her perspective on oleo production in OleomargarineHow it is in the market place. Dairy equipment, skill, and cleanli- Made, illustrating workers packing oleo into wooden firkins at the Commercial Manufacturing Company in New York City. interests from various states ness resulted in butter of succeeded in passing federal legislation in 1886 that imposed uneven quality. Even well-made butter, taken in trade by the labeling and packaging restrictions and imposed taxes on local store, could deteriorate while waiting shipment to the manufacturers, but they soon found the laws ineffective in city wholesaler. So bad was the overall quality of Wisconsin controlling margarine sales because of inadequate enforcebutter that in the Chicago markets it was known as western ment provisions. In 1895, Wisconsin passed its own legislation grease and was sold as a lubricant, not for human consumprequiring that hotels and restaurants post signs announcing tion. that margarine was sold on the premises. More importantly, The 1872 formation of the Wisconsin Dairymens Associait also prohibited the manufacture and sale of margarine coltion inaugurated a planned effort to develop a modern indusored in imitation of butter. The color restriction, coupled with try. Under the WDAs leadership, which included future taxation, was to be the dairy industrys most enduring weapon Wisconsin governor William Dempster Hoard, the organizaagainst the hated competitor. tion aimed to improve product quality, to promote centralDespite the restrictions passed in Wisconsin and other ized production through cheese factories and creameries, to states, margarine production increased nationally from 34 introduce superior dairy animals, and to organize dairy marmillion pounds in 1888 to 126 million pounds in 1902, and kets. Inevitably, the association became concerned with prothe dairy industry sought additional protection. It arrived in tecting the infant industry from competition with other the Grout Bill, the greatest legislative victory over mardairy-producing states and from competing products. The garine. The bill was introduced by William Wallace Grout, WDA realized early on that until those standards were raised representative from Vermont, who had had a major role in and butter quality improved, margarine could legitimately putting through the original 1886 law. Passed in May 1902, compete against butterand possibly win. the Grout Bill amended the 1886 legislation in three imporHiram Smith, a former president of the WDA, noted foretant ways: margarine shipped from one state to another was bodingly in 1880 that oleomargarine is giving better satisfacsubject to the laws of the state in which it was shipped, giving tion than most dairy butter as now made. Smith predicted states more control over trade in margarine within their borthat unless butter improved in quality, margarine would drive ders; margarine colored to resemble butter was subject to a it off the market in the large cities. To protect butter, Wisfederal manufacturing tax of ten cents per pound while uncolconsin dairy leaders went beyond improving its quality to ored was taxed only 1/4-cent per pound; and wholesalers and attacking its dangerous competitor. The battle developed

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retailers trading in uncolored margarine had their license fees reduced. Passage of the Grout Bill was a long, hard fight. Dairy and margarine interests lobbied Congress and testified in hearings that lasted several years. In the broadest terms, the dairy industry opposed margarine as a threat to the livelihood of dairy farmers, as an inferior imitation of butter, and as an invitation to fraud in the marketplace. Margarine manufacturers defended margarines wholesomeness, proclaimed themselves the champions of cheap food for the working man, and protested against an unfair restraint of trade. The portly volumes of House and Senate testimony during the Grout Bill debate bulge with fascinating information on the making and marketing of butter and margarine, price comparisons, social attitudes, and undiluted sentiment. Pro-butter witnesses drew pathetic pictures of farmers being driven out of agriculture, cited numerous examples of margarine being substituted for butter, suggested it was made of tainted materials in unsanitary conditions, lamented the fate of dairy cows superannuated by margarine, and claimed the color yellow as the unique property and trademark of butter. The Rural New Yorker On the other side of the aisle, the marThe three-headed hydraa combination of cottonseed oil and lard garine interests claimed their product was as (or shortening), glucose (or cornstarch), and oleomargarinedrawn wholesome as butter, painted their own unsaby A. Berghaus in 1890 for the pages of The Rural New Yorker, typifies the reaction to the factory-produced food and farmers vory pictures of diseased and dirty cows being perception of margarine as a threat to their natural way of life. milked in filthy barnyards, reminded ConWisconsin played a prominent part in the Grout Bill fight. gress of documented scandals involving spoiled butter that Stalwart and energetic dairy patriarch W. D. Hoard himself dairies had reprocessed and sold as fresh while also fortifying spent much time in Washington, lobbying legislators and tescheese with non-dairy fats, noted that creameries routinely tifying for the bill, and Wisconsins Congressional representacolored their butter to make it more yellow, and pleaded the tives made their distinctive contributions. When Wisconsin cause of cheap food. In particular, margarine witnesses Senator Joseph Quarles of Kenosha addressed the U.S. Senclaimed that margarine, while perfectly good in itself, had to ate on March 27, 1902, he spoke for butter in an address that be colored yellow to make it saleableeven the poor were combined dairymens distrust of the artificial product with a ashamed to be seen purchasing the economy spread and nostalgic paean to the dairy cow: embarrassed to serve it in their homes. In 1902, one witness Things have come to a strange pass when the steer testified, People, while they are poor, have some pride, and competes with the cow as a butter maker. When they do not like to go into a store among people who have the hog conspires with the steer to monopolize the money and buy the article, because everyone knows that it is dairy business, it is time for self-respecting men to oleo they are getting. The idea that margarine was food only take up the cudgels for the cow and defend her for the poor was to persist for years and help butter maintain time-honored prerogatives. . . . We ought not now its status as the preferred product.

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to desert her or permit her to be displaced, her sweet and wholesome product supplanted by an artificial compound of grease that may be chemically pure but has never known the fragrance of clover, the freshness of the dew or the exquisite flavor which nature bestows exclusively on butter fat to adapt it to the taste of man. . . . I desire butter that comes from the dairy, not the slaughterhouse. I want butter that has the natural aroma of life and health. I decline to accept as a substitute caul fat, matured under the chill of death, blended with vegetable oils and flavored by chemical tricks. However prejudiced, Quarless comments were a reasonably fair description of the manufacture of margarine in 1902, when animal fats were the principal constituent of margarine. These fats were largely the byproducts of big city slaughterhouses, and butter promoters eagerly retailed horror stories about conditions in the meatpacking plants. An 1894 handbook for packing plants provided ammunition for their arguments. It described the use of chemicals like permanganate and bichromate of potash, sal soda, and sulfuric acid to deodorize and reclaim tainted fats, showed how to make poorer grades of lard resemble the best leaf lard, and provided detailed instructions for reclaiming decaying and bloated hog carcasses to produce saleable lard. The Grout Bill set back the margarine industry in the years immediately following its passage. Production dropped from the 126 million pounds of 1902 to 73 million pounds in 1903. The ten-cents-per-pound tax on colored margarine made it cost as much as the less expensive grades of butter, and the license fees for wholesalers and retailers of the colored product reduced its sales outlets. Though serious, the 1902 setback was only temporary. Because the packaging provisions of the original 1886 federal law continued to allow manufacturers to sell
Right: William Dempster Hoard, future governor of Wisconsin and champion of the dairy industry, 1891. Far right: Joseph V. Quarles, State Senator from Kenosha, asked the U.S. Congress to take up cudgels for the cow in defense of the dairy industry.

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margarine in large containers of ten to sixty pounds, unscrupulous retailers could still easily substitute margarine for butter. In the view of many, the difference between the ten-cent-per-pound tax on colored margarine and the nominal 1/4-cent-per-pound tax on uncolored was unreasonable and a temptation to fraud. Some felt a lower flat tax on all margarine would reduce cheating and yield more revenue. By 1910, developments in margarine manufacturing began to attack two of the dairy interests favorite weapons against margarine: the use of animal fats and the ban on artificial coloring in margarine. The invention around 1900 of hydrogenation, or hardening of vegetable fats, made manufacturing margarine from these oils feasible. Previously, only a small proportion of vegetable oil could be used without sacrificing a solid and spreadable consistency. The use of less animal fat and improvements in meatpacking plant conditions mandated by federal food and drug laws reduced the effectiveness of slaughterhouse rhetoric. In addition, margarine manufacturers began using oils that themselves had a yellow color, producing a food they claimed was naturally colored and thus exempt from the tax on artificially colored margarine. Also around 1910, some manufacturers introduced one- and two-pound packages of margarine, with which they included a packet of coloring material for purchasers to use in tinting the product according to taste. It wasnt until 1931 that the federal government was persuaded to extend the ten-cents-per-pound tax to nat-

WHS Archives, Name File

WHS Portrait Collection, 1942.103

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WHS Archives, CF 604, WHi(X3)29153

Learning to make butter, possibly in a University of Wisconsin short course.

urally colored margarine, but the inclusion of packets of coloring matter with the uncolored product was never outlawed. The dairy industry continued to oppose colored margarine. Its stand as articulated in the influential Hoards Dairyman was that yellow was the natural and unique color of butter. If that color varied, depending on the season, the cow, or the food she ate, a little cosmetic help in adjusting its tint was perfectly legitimate, while any shade of yellow in margarine was an attempt to deceive the consumer. Hoards Dairyman claimed that the dairy interests did not regard oleomargarine as a great competitor and were not concerned in the least about the final outcome of butter if given a fair chance to compete with oleomargarine. Oleomargarine masquerading as butter does not provide competition, but substitution. If oleomargarine had from the start entered into competition with butter, then there would never be any action taken against it. This rather lofty stance was contradicted by actual practice as the Wisconsin dairy industry persuaded the state legislature to pass laws prohibiting the use of the words butter, creamery, or dairy in connection with the sale of margarine, increasing taxes, and preventing the manufacture or sale of

any butter substitute combining milk or milk fats with any other type of fat. Because margarine included milk or butterfat among its ingredients, this last part of the law was really designed to outlaw its manufacture entirely, not merely restrict its market. The Wisconsin Supreme Court struck down this final segment as unconstitutional, arguing that such restrictions could be justified only if margarine was a threat to public health and safety. Even the states dairy lobby failed to push through legislation that would have required margarine to be colored pink or brown. Luckily for the dairy industry, around 1915 pioneering research into vitamins at the University of Wisconsin provided a new weapon. Studies showed that rats fed milk fats were healthier than those fed vegetable oils. Hoards Dairyman jubilantly published an article picturing portly milk-fed rats next to the wizened and rachitic specimens raised on the vegetable oil diet. The margarine industry retaliated with its own publicity, attacking butters health claims and protesting against attempts to exclude margarine from the market. A publicist for margarine commented bitterly, Some [antimargarine propaganda] is put out by persons who actually think that any industry, domestic or foreign, that is at all in

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The Wisconsin State Journal gave protesting dairy farmers the front page of its December 16, 1931, issue.

competition with dairy farming has no rights in our economic system and ought to be outlawed. It was at this time that changes in the margarine industry laid a foundation for a new level of public acceptance. Before 1920, the industry was relatively fragmented, with numerous small and anonymous producers serving local and regional markets. After that year the industry began to consolidate into fewer and larger producers, who were able to take advantages of the latest manufacturing techniques and scientific developments such as the addition of synthetic vitamins, first added to margarine in the 1930s, and the use of vegetable oils. This latter development meant that soybeanand cottonseed oilproducing states now had a stake in the making of margarine. Over the course of thirty years, margarine manufacturers moved away from direct comparisons with butter, abandoning phrases like churned especially for lovers of good butter, made in the milky way, and creamy richness. Instead they began to concentrate on improving product quality and developing national brand recognition for their products, eventually making names like Parkay, Mazola, and Blue Bonnet as familiar for margarine as WHS Museum Collection, 61.11.25 Land-o-Lakes was for butter. The years of the Great Depression favored margarine use. Even burdened by the federal tax, it was still cheaper than butter. When hard times led consumers to choose with their pocketbooks, the public perception of mar-

WHS microfilm P43823

garine had already begun to change, and margarine began to appear on the tables of those who had resisted it or ignored it before. The long Depression years increased margarine consumption. Although per capita consumption of butter was still four times that of margarine, dairy interests reacted fearfully. In December of 1931, Wisconsin farmers demonstrated vociferously outside the Capitol in Madison, prompting the Wisconsin legislature to act quickly to provide more protection for dairy farmers, enacting license fees on manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers of oleomargarine in 1931 and a six-centper-pound retail sales tax on uncolored margarine in a special session of 193132. Colored margarine was banned outright. In 1935 the legislature raised the per-pound sales tax to 15 cents. But an irreversible change in the attitude toward margarine had begun. The advent of World War II brought food rationing, forcing many to use margarine for the first time. Though fats in general were rationed, butter required more points than margarine. Years later the editor of the Daily Jefferson County Union (published by W. D. Hoard and Sons) lamented, It wasnt until World War II that oleo was successful in making inroads on butters market. It had to be done with political help. President Roosevelts [head of the Federal Security Agency] Paul V. McNutt, former governor of soybean-growing

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Indiana, put the squeeze on butter and gave oleo the green light to take over. The growing acceptance of margarine among consumers during the war years shows up in the cookbooks of the era, like the 1943 guide Coupon Cookery, which supplied recipes for butterless butter spread (gelatin, water, evaporated milk, mayonnaise, salt, and margarine); a butter-saver spread made of butter or margarine, milk, salt, and gelatin; and a 4-to-1 butter spread calling for two pounds of vitaminized margarine, one pound of butter, and a can of evaporated milk. By the end of the war, margarine was a familiar presence on family tables across Wisconsin. It had lost the stigma of the poor mans food. In those families that used margarine, acceptance varied from using it only for cooking or baking while reserving butter for table use, to using the uncolored spread exclusively and calling it white butter. PostWorld War II conditions favored the repeal of federal antimargarine legislation. Farmers who produced the vegetable oils used in its manufacture had no interest in protecting the dairy industry at the expense of their own products. Consumer and labor groups resented taxation and color restrictions on an economical food. Food scientists testified that margarines nutritional WHS Archives, Oversize 5-6449 qualities equaled butters, while the National Association of Margarine Butter seems to enhance all foods in this dairy poster, which also highlights the benefit of the vitamins found in butter. After adding Manufacturers coordinated a prosynthetic vitamins to oleo became standard practice in the 1930s, gram of consumer education and margarine also claimed the benefits of vitamins. political action. Congress took up The repeal of the federal tax seemed inevitable. Arthur the margarine question in 1948, and the arguments for and Glover, editor of Hoards Dairyman, wrote pessimistically to his against the repeal of federal taxation were virtually identical to friend brewery heir and hobby farmer Fred Pabst in November those of 1900. The two sides agreed on one thing only: contin1948: ued taxation on imported oils.

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Milwaukee Journal illustration; April 16, 1966. Journal Sentinel Inc.; reproduced with permission.

As the State Legislature continued to protect dairy interests, the average Wisconsin citizen began to lead a double life.

We think it is quite clear that all federal taxes on oleomargarine will be repealed. This does not concern us if we could enact a law which would prohibit the sale of margarine colored in semblance of butter. We doubt whether any such law could now be enacted. It is nothing short of a fraud and deception to ask for butter in restaurants in many states of this Union and be served oleomargarine. . . . It is unfortunate that the Wisconsin legislature enacted a law taxing oleomargarine 15 cents a pound. . . . This, we believe, has done more to get the sentiment of the customer aroused to repeal all taxes on oleomargarine than any other one act.

Glovers apprehensions were justified. The House rescinded the tax on colored margarine in 1949, by a close vote of 152 to 140. The Senate followed in 1950, and the federal law was officially repealed July 1, 1950. The states were now on their own in the fight against the demon spread. Deprived of federal support, state taxes and bans on colored margarine began to fall. Changes in the dairy industry, particularly the increasing importance of fluid milk relative to butter, made state legislatures less interested in protecting butter. In general, states were more willing to drop the ban on colored margarine than they were to forego the revenue from taxing it. For example, Idaho dropped its ban on colored margarine in 1951 but continued to tax colored and uncolored margarines

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at different rates until 1967. Iowa dropped its taxes and ban on colored margarine in 1953; Minnesota gave up its ban on colored margarine in 1963 but continued taxation until 1975. North Dakota never banned colored margarine but taxed it until 1975. Wisconsin refused to modify its laws, and its citizens continued to be unable to buy colored margarine legally. Housewives had to color it themselves, either by laboriously mixing color and margarine in a bowl or by the later and tidier squish-in-a-bag method: squeezing the margarine and coloring together in a plastic bag provided by the manufacturer. The state tax of 15 cents per pound on even the uncolored variety was a significant addition to the family food budget. In 1955 the federal minimum hourly wage was 75 cents, and 15 cents was comparable to about 90 cents today. Inevitably, Wisconsinites looked elsewhere for their Milwaukee Journal illustration; Oct. 31, 1965. Journal Sentinel Inc.; reproduced with permission. When this cartoon appeared, the United States had comprised fifty states margarine, and the era of the marfor five yearsbut oleo had made it to only forty-nine of them. garine smuggler began. Under Wisconsin law, colored margarine could not be sold in itly accepted that no court would convict anyone of breaking Wisconsin, and it was illegal to use it. Individuals who had the law, and the smuggling of colored margarine became a acquired a consumers permit that allowed them to buy marfeature of Wisconsin life. garine outside Wisconsin and bring it into the state were the only The smuggling went on so openly that it barely deserved exception. Even then every pound purchased had to be recordthe name. One family often received packages of margarine ed, and every three months a report had to be sent to the state mailed from New Mexico or Dubuque labeled Oleo: HanDepartment of Taxation (known today as the Department of dle with Care. An accommodating neighbor might offer to Revenue) with a six-cents-per-pound tax. The permits were not bring back a few pounds from a trip out of state, or visiting popular, and the largest number issued in a year was 120, in relatives would bring a case in the car trunk along with the 1954. suitcases and fishing rods. Being in the dairy business was no bar to using margarinethe matriarch of a family of cheese Anyone caught possessing colored margarine without a makers welcomed the margarine brought by the St. Louis permit by an inspector of the Department of Taxation could branch of her family and used it in her baking. The occasionhave that margarine confiscated. However, under the law al disaster happened, such as margarine in a suitcase melting possessing the margarine was not the same as using it, so techduring a hot summer bus trip from Iowa, ruining the rest of nically no one was subject to arrest unless caught in the act of the contents, but there was little to fear from the authorities. eating or cooking with it. Faced with the grotesque prospects Smuggling was especially rampant across the Illinois borof inspecting the contents of school lunchboxes or invading der. Stores and gas stations within an easy drive of the state kitchens in the hope of catching housewives putting marline advertised margarine and kept extra stock on hand to garine in the cookie dough, the Department of Taxation tac-

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supply the Wisconsin demand for the colored, tax-free spread. In the 1960s the Wisconsin Commissioner of Taxation estimated that some service stations near the state line were selling as much as a ton of margarine per week to Wisconsin customers. The city of South Beloit, which straddles the border, was the great entrept of the trade. Margarine could be bought for less than $7 per 30-pound case. Distributors reported that they sold more of it in South Beloit with a population of 4,000 than in the city of Rockford with a population of 130,000, and the difference was made up by Wisconsin buyers. South Beloit retailers enjoyed recounting how the forces of morality, represented by clergy, and the defenders of butter, represented by farmers, were among their Wisconsin customers. Public preference for margarine, the impossibility of enforcing the law, and the loss of revenue led to a movement in the state legislature to amend Wisconsins anti-margarine legislation. Challenges to the law had occurred as early as 1939, and at intervals between 1945 and 1961 there were at least six attempts to repeal taxation and restrictions on margarine, all of which were defeated. When Minnesota repealed its ban on the sale of colored margarine in 1963, the anti-prohibition forces in the Wisconsin legislature were re-energized. Legislators favoring relaxation or repeal of anti-margarine laws were often, though not always, Democrats and usually

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Visiting relatives would bring a case of oleo in the car trunk along with the suitcases and fishing rods.

were from districts with large urban populations. Pro-butter legislators tended to be Republicans and representatives of small towns and agricultural districts. The arguments divided along familiar lines. The pro-butter side declared that margarine was a fraud that sought to imitate the flavor and appearance of butter, that butter was basic to the economic health of Wisconsin agriculture, that the anti-margarine laws protected the identity and reputation of butter, and that stricter enforcement of the laws would increase revenue. The pro-margarine side responded that the laws were unenforceable, cost the state revenue and retailers income, and lessened the respect of Wisconsin citizens for law and order. They argued that the laws did not support butter prices or encourage its consumption and that they deprived Wisconsin citizens of freedom of choice. Finally, they pointed out that many foods, including butter, were color-enhanced to meet purchasers preferences and said that to deny margarine the same opportunity was unreasonable. The margarine forces were given additional ammunition by research indicating that it was higher in polyunsaturated fats and a better food for individuals with heart disease. (In the ever-changing world of medical research, the theory is now that the hydrogenated facts in margarine may actually promote cardiovascular disease.) Each side had its notable champions. Foremost among the

Appealing to thrifty housewives, this mailing promotion from Fleischmanns Blue Bonnet margarine promised flavor, nutrition, and economy.

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WHS Archives, WHi(X3)41467

Above: The famous taste test of June 23, 1965, affected the careers of both these men, exposing the blindfolded Gordon Roseleip to criticism and helping to launch the career of Martin Schreiber, who would later serve as governor from 1977 to 1979. Left: After his failure to correctly identify butter during the famous taste test, staunch butter supporter Roseleip found himself ribbed by the press as a fallen hero.
Milwaukee Journal illustration; May 7, 1967. Journal Sentinel Inc.; reproduced with permission.

butter supporters was State Senator James Earl Leverich. Senator Leverich was born in 1891 on the Monroe County farm his family had settled in 1871, and his vocational and public interests were wholly agricultural. During his career he served as president of the State Horticultural Society, was a leader in several agricultural cooperatives, and helped organize the 1931 Madison anti-margarine demonstration. He was elected to the Senate in 1934 and became chairman of the Senate Agricultural Committee in 1937, which he made the graveyard of margarine law repeal. One of his most controversial and colorful butter supporters was Gordon Roseleip, a Republican state senator representing four southwestern Wisconsin agricultural counties. A veteran and former State Commander of the American Legion, Senator Roseleip was a fierce anti-Communist. On his election in 1962, he took up the margarine issue with equal fervor. Neatly combining his hatred of Communism and his distaste for margarine (if you want to shake when youre 60, just go ahead and eat that greasy stuff) whenever a pro-margarine bill was introduced in the Senate he amended it to permit margarine to be sold as long as it was colored red. The repeal forces found many of their supporters among the legislators from Milwaukee County, including the youthful

Democratic Senator Martin J. Schreiber, representing three wards of the city of Milwaukee. Senator Schreiber conceived one of the most famous publicity stunts in the history of the Wisconsin Legislaturethe taste test of June 23, 1965. Schreiber invited his Senate colleagues to taste, while blindfolded, three samplesone of butter, one of margarine, and one of a low-fat dairy spread developed at the University of Wisconsinto see if they could identify them correctly. Senator Leverich cannily declined to participate, saying I dont want to give [the margarine supporters] any ammunition, but Senator Roseleip agreed to join the test. Most of the tasters did quite wellthirty-two correctly identified butter, four thought it was margarine, and one thought it was the new dairy spread. Twenty-eight of the tasters identified margarine correctly, six thought it was butter, and two thought it was the dairy spread. Asked which they liked best, twentyone favored butter, seven the new spread, and five the margarine. To the joy of the media and the repeal supporters, Senator Roseleip was among the errant, mistaking margarine for butter. The chagrined senator claimed the samples came too fast, and he didnt have time to rinse his mouth between tastes. The equally chagrined editor of the pro-butter Capital Times

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Milwaukee Journal photo; July 5, 1967. Journal Sentinel Inc.; reproduced with permission.

Oleo sales plummeted in Illinois after Wisconsin passed a law permitting colored oleo to be sold within its borders starting July 1, 1967. Here Mrs. Victeleen Layton of Russell, Illinois, makes a sale in Gorskis restaurant near the state line on July 5 of that year.

snapped, The farmers dont need enemies when they have friends like Roseleip blustering and blundering through the legislature and the front pages discrediting their cause. (After Roseleips death in 1989, one of his daughters revealed that the Senator truly had been handicapped. Worried about his health, his wife had, without his knowledge, substituted margarine for butter on the family table.) Senator Roseleips error, though it provided amusement for the public, probably had little effect on the repeal of margarine legislation. Far more significant was the 1966 redistricting that cost Senator Leverich the nomination to his seat and his chairmanship of the Agricultural Committee. While most dairy groups continued to support a ban on colored margarine, Governor Warren Knowles made it known that he would support a realistic and practical repeal bill and that he considered the

issue far less significant than others facing the legislature. Opinion among legislators evolved to favor a repeal of the ban on colored margarine and retaining but reducing the perpound tax. The pro-butter forces began to accept that compromise would be better than losing every advantage. Throughout the early months of 1967 the legislature evolved a bill that would eliminate the ban on the sale of colored margarine in the state but retain a tax of 51/4 cents per pound; the tax would lapse in 1972. The tax was extended until Dec. 31, 1973. To placate the farm interests, the tax revenue was to be applied to the construction of an animal science building at the University of Wisconsin. Assembly Bill 359 passed the Assembly on April 6, 1967, on a vote of 67 for, 30 against, 2 paired. It passed in the Senate on May 4, 1967; the vote was 19 in favor, 10 against, 4 paired. Senator Roseleip voted with the nos.

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WHS Archives, Leverich manuscripts

A Wisconsinite wrote anonymously to Senator Earl Leverich, choosing as stationery a label from a well-known border store and typing on the back his opinions about the senators anti-margarine stance.

The law went into effect on July 1, 1967, and for the first time since 1895 colored margarine was legal in Wisconsin. The heavens didnt fall, and while Wisconsin dairy farming has undergone tremendous stresses and changes, the presence of untaxed colored margarine in the dairy case is not a significant cause. The remaining margarine laws have had little effect on the consumption of butter or margarine and are like fragments found at an archeological site representing an almost mythical past, when butter stood for the good, the pure, and the true, and oleo was the demon spread.

Resources and Further Reading

There are numerous resources documenting and interpreting the oleo wars of Wisconsin and the nation at large. The following were most helpful in the writing of this article. Many books and book-length publications provide general background as well as specific information on the respective industries and pertinent legislation, such as: Theodore Christiansons Minnesota, the Land of Sky-Tinted Waters: A History of the State and Its People. Vol. II: Minnesota Comes of Age (Chicago: The American Historical Society, 1935); Martha C. Howards The Margarine Industry in the United States: Its Development under Legislative Control (Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, 1979); Eric E. Lampards The Rise of the Dairy Industry in Wisconsin: A Study in Agricultural Change, 18201920 (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1963); Robert C. Nesbits The History of Wisconsin, Vol. III: Urbanization & Industrialization, 18731893 (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1985); Coupon Cookery, by Prudence Penny. A Guide to Good Meals Under Wartime Conditions of Rationing and Food Shortages (Hollywood: Murray & Gee, 1943); J. H. van Stuyvenbergs Margarine: An Economic, Social and Scientific History, 18691969 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1969). Government documents were enormously helpful; they include Issues of Oleomargarine Tax Repeal (Washington, D.C.: U.S. GPO, 1948); Speech of Hon. Joseph V. Quarles of Wisconsin in the Senate of the United States, Thursday, March 27, 1902 (Washington, D.C.: 1902); Oleomargarine and Other Imitation Dairy Products, Etc. Senate Report no. 2043, 56th Congress, 2nd. Session (Washington, D.C.: 1901) Developments in Wisconsins Oleomargarine Legislation. Informational Bulletin 65-3 (Madison: Legislative Reference Bureau, 1966 (rev. ed.); Wisconsin Statutes 1973, Relating to Fermented Malt Beverages, Intoxicating Liquors, Cigarettes, Oleomargarine and Enforcement Thereof (Madison: Department of Revenue, 1973); and the journals of both the Assembly and Senate of the Wisconsin Legislature. Although Hoards Dairyman is probably the most visible periodical on this topic, there are many other journals and trade magazines, including Social Problems, and the monograph Fats and Oils Studies, both of which were helpful in the writing of this piece. The newspapers mentioned are The Janesville Gazette, which ran a series by Craig Callaway in 1967 on the controversy over margarine use; Wisconsin State Journal, Milwaukee Sentinel, Sparta Herald, Daily Jefferson County Union, Milwaukee Journal, Darlington Republican-Journal, and The Capital Times. The Arthur James Glover correspondence at the Wisconsin State Archives of the Wisconsin Historical Society (SC 313) provided excellent documentary material, and several telephone or e-mail interviews conducted by the author with Grace Bracker, Richard McEachern, and Charlotte Ocain helped locate the personal stories among all the legislation and official reports.

The Author
Oshkosh native Gerry Strey received her bachelors and masters degrees from UWMadison. She has worked at the Wisconsin Historical Society since 1983, dividing her time between the Societys map collection and the library reference department. Her interest in Wisconsin margarine legislation was aroused by a patrons asking for proof that it was once illegal to buy colored margarine in Wisconsin. She uses butter.

AUTUMN 2001

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