Chicago bootleggers were in the news today. They were selling margarine.
Oleomargarine—to use the proper name—was first created in France in 1870. The idea was to provide a low-cost substitute for butter, using animal fat. Margarine came to America a few years later. It soon became popular.
The dairy industry fought back. Several states passed laws restricting margarine, and the first federal statute was enacted in 1886. Any company that wanted to make margarine had to pay a hefty excise tax. Adding yellow coloring to pseudo-butter was banned–coloring would make it look too much like the real thing.
A few years before, Congress had passed the landmark Pure Food and Drug Act. Americans were worrying about what they ate. Critics of margarine said it was an unsafe product. Many consumer advocates had the opposite view—they argued that the dairy lobby was just trying to get rid of competition.
The feds didn’t care much about the health angle. They were mainly interested in collecting their tax money. A person who sold margarine without the U.S. tax stamp was cheating the government. That put him in the same category as a backwoods whiskey peddler.
In Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis’s federal court, two “margarine moon shiners” had been convicted. Each man faced a five-year term in federal prison. The judge reduced their sentences, because they were only employees, and didn’t own the illegal business. But they still drew eighteen months in Leavenworth.
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