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Milwaukee Sentinel photo; December 23, 1964. © Journal Sentinel Inc.; reproduced with permission.
The “Oleo Wars”
Wisconsin’s Fight over
the Demon Spread
By Gerry Strey
I
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 it—Wisconsin 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 Wis“Pearls 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
Mège-Mouriès,
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
acid’s 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 Mège-Mouriès, 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 Women’s 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 fronts—preventing
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 Smith’s 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
wife’s job, and variations in her
perspective on oleo production in “Oleomargarine—How 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 Dairymen’s 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 WDA’s leadership, which included future
taxation, was to be the dairy industry’s 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 butter—and 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 margarine’s 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 hydra—a combination of cottonseed oil and lard
garine interests claimed their product was as
(or shortening), glucose (or cornstarch), and oleomargarine—drawn
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 Wisconsin’s 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 saleable—even the poor were
combined dairymen’s 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, Quarles’s 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.
OF
HISTORY
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 wasn’t 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
6
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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 Hoard’s
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. Hoard’s
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
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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 state’s 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. Hoard’s 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 butter’s 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 oil–producing 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-
8
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 1931–32. 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
wasn’t until World War II that oleo was successful in making
inroads on butter’s market. It had to be done with political
help. President Roosevelt’s [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
man’s 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.”
Post–World 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 margarine’s nutritional
WHS Archives, Oversize 5-6449
qualities equaled butter’s, 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 Hoard’s 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.
10
Glover’s 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 years—but 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 “consumer’s 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 margarine—the 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 entrepôt 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 Wisconsin’s 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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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
Visiting relatives would
bring a case of oleo in the
car trunk along with the
suitcases and fishing rods.
sy of
Appealing to thrifty housewives, this
mailing promotion from Fleischmann’s
Blue Bonnet margarine promised flavor,
nutrition, and economy.
12
Courte
hering
Tim T
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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 you’re 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
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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 Legislature—the “taste test” of June 23, 1965.
Schreiber invited his Senate colleagues to taste, while blindfolded, three samples—one of butter, one of margarine, and
one of a low-fat dairy spread developed at the University of
Wisconsin—to see if they could identify them correctly. Senator Leverich cannily declined to participate, saying “I don’t
want to give [the margarine supporters] any ammunition,” but
Senator Roseleip agreed to join the test.
Most of the tasters did quite well—thirty-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 didn’t have time to rinse his mouth between tastes. The
equally chagrined editor of the pro-butter Capital Times
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WISCONSIN MAGAZINE
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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
Gorski’s restaurant near the state line on July 5 of that year.
snapped, “The farmers don’t need enemies when they have
friends like Roseleip blustering and blundering through the
legislature and the front pages discrediting their cause.” (After
Roseleip’s 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 Roseleip’s 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
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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 no’s.
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WISCONSIN MAGAZINE
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HISTORY
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 senator’s
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 didn’t 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.
The Author
Oshkosh native Gerry Strey
received her bachelor’s and master’s
degrees from UW–Madison. She has
worked at the Wisconsin Historical
Society since 1983, dividing her time
between the Society’s map collection
and the library reference department.
Her interest in Wisconsin margarine
legislation was aroused by a patron’s
asking for proof that it was once illegal to buy colored margarine in Wisconsin. She uses butter.
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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 Christianson’s 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. Howard’s The Margarine
Industry in the United States: Its Development under Legislative Control (Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, 1979); Eric E. Lampard’s The Rise of the Dairy Industry in Wisconsin: A Study
in Agricultural Change, 1820–1920 (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1963);
Robert C. Nesbit’s The History of Wisconsin, Vol. III: Urbanization & Industrialization,
1873–1893 (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 Stuyvenberg’s Margarine: An Economic,
Social and Scientific History, 1869–1969 (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 Wisconsin’s 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 Hoard’s 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.
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