This fall, Colorado voters will have a chance to do something they haven’t done for nearly a century – decide whether a law passed by the legislature and signed by the governor will go into effect.

It’s the rarely invoked power of referendum by voters, the flip side of the more frequently exercised power of Coloradans to initiate laws and constitutional amendments.

This year, voters will decide whether to keep or reject a law passed last year to award Colorado’s Electoral College votes to the winner of the national popular vote, instead of to the candidate who carries the state.

In 1932, the last time voters faced a similar question, Coloradans weighed in on a law to impose an excise tax on margarine, known at the time as “oleomargarine,” to level the playing field between the two. It was the latest skirmish between producers of butter and their competitors, who could churn out a butter-like substance at a significantly cheaper price.

In the early part of the last century, fake butter was made from animal fat – it’s mostly made from vegetable oil these days – and various laws required that it look different enough from butter so consumers wouldn’t be fooled. Only real butter, for instance, could be tinted yellow, according to a requirement in effect in some states until the 1960s.

But in the depths of what would come to be known as the Great Depression, it appears families were happy to serve oleomargarine instead of butter if it would save them some money.

That’s where the new law came in.

When opponents of last year’s National Popular Vote law learned they had gathered enough petition signatures to place that question on the ballot, the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office pointed to the online archives maintained by the Colorado Historic Newspaper Collection, which included coverage of the 1932 referendum.

The Oct. 6, 1932, edition of the Colorado Transcript – “Colorado’s Oldest Weekly Newspaper,” published in Golden, the former territorial capital – surveyed the upcoming election in detail.

 “You can be your own legislator Nov. 8 and you should be thoroughly advised of the propositions at issue,” the Transcript’s unsigned editorial instructed, pointing readers to a the multitude of state ballot questions.

Among them was the referendum on House Bill 10, “An Act Defining Oleomargarine and Relating to the Sale Thereof and Providing for an Excise Tax Thereon,” which had been approved May 18, 1931, but had been prevented from taking effect by opponents and their referendum.

“There has always been more or less trouble over the sale of oleomargarine ever since it came onto the market,” a news story said. “This bill was sponsored by the dairy interests of the state and passed the last legislator and was signed by the governor. The manufacturers of oleomargarine have been instrumental in having it referred to the voters in hopes that it might be defeated. Those interested in building up the dairy business in the state feel that it should be approved and become a law.”

In keeping with what turned out to be an anti-tax mood, voters sent the oleomargarine tax packing, with 62% of voters giving it the thumbs down, according to the 1932 voter abstract maintained by the Colorado Secretary of State.

In all, state voters were preparing to decide seven proposed measures, among them a constitutional amendment increasing the terms of county officers from two years to four years.

“Those favoring the amendment claim if a man is qualified for the office, two years is too short a terming in the interest of good government, he should serve four years,” the newspaper said. “Those opposed contend that if the official is qualified, he has no trouble to be re-elected, whereas even two years is too long for an incumbent who proves to be unsatisfactory.”

As it had two years prior, the amendment failed.

It was a historic election by any measure.

Voters replaced Republican President Herbert Hoover in the White House with Democrat Franklin Roosevelt and his “new deal,” while also electing Democrats up and down the ballot in Colorado, giving the party a grip on state government it wouldn’t see again until the aftermath of the 2018 election.

State voters also repealed Prohibition in its entirety.

The Wray Gazette’s Nov. 17, 1932, edition took stock of the election that had just occurred.

“When the Colorado voter went to the polls last Tuesday he stayed there long enough to vote on every thing,” wrote Alva A. Swain in his Under the Capitol Dome column.

“Never in the history of the state has every candidate and every proposition been given the consideration that was accorded them last Tuesday,” he said, noting that there were nearly as many votes cast for the proposed amendment “at the foot of the ballot” as had been cast for president.

Voters defeated several tax proposals, also including an income tax to pay for schools and a gasoline tax increase.

While Swain concluded Coloradans were “well satisfied with the gasoline situation” and had made clear their opposition to a state income tax, he suggested the lesson of the oleomargarine question was murkier.

“[T]hat was a fight between the dairy interests and the beef cattle interests so there is not much of an opportunity to tell just what was in the mind of the average voter on that subject,” he assessed.

Judging by the vote in different counties, it appears Colorado voters in more urban areas – Denver and Pueblo – rejected the oleomargarine tax by enormous margins, while counties with more farmland, like Weld and Mesa, sided with the dairy industry and approved the tax.

Elsewhere in the Wray newspaper, the editors surveyed the fallout from the election.

In an unsigned editorial, the newspaper asked why the results of the election – and Roosevelt’s landslide win – would take so long to be felt.

“And then, just why, when the people have expressed themselves for a new deal, as they did in this last election, should the country have to wait for five months and through a session of Congress for the change to become effective? If this is a really democratic country and the people declare decisively that they want a complete change, we think they should have it, and have it at once.”

There was also a lighter side.

“In the aftermath of the election and out of the dust of battle come a few good laughs, the only saving grace of any election. For instance there is that Republican candidate in Missouri who made a speech in every county in the state, excepting one, and when the election returns were in, he had carried just one county – the one in which he did not talk,” the editorial board said.

As was the custom of the day, an amusing item from another newspaper appeared at the bottom of a column, attributed to the Holyoke Enterprise:

“Following the election one man was heard to say: ‘The country has sure gone to hell.’ The other replied with equal emphasis: ‘No, the worst you can say is that it’s staying there.'”

In a bit of light verse titled “Post Mortem,” attributed to the pseudonymous Penny Ante, the Wray newspaper glanced at the political season just past.

The Democrats

   can rest a bit

Enjoying all

   the zest of it;

Republicans

   for just a bit

Will have to make

   the best of it.