Fremont weekly freeman. [volume] (Fremont, Sandusky County, Ohio) 1850-1853, 1851-06-28


the frss losson Of all is well-founded conf
dence I'M our own artisans, our own capacities,
with patriotic resolution to encourage the
former and deyelope the latter And this
confidence is abnndantly justified even by what
is exhibited here. While our show of products
is much less than il might and less even than
il should have been, those who have really
studied ID draw thence hope and courage. No
other nation exhibits within similar compass
so great diversity of excellence-no other
exhibits solarge a proportion of inventions and
valuable improvements. Even in the depart
ment of British machinery, the number and
importance Of American inventions exhibited
(some of them adapted to new uses or improv-
ed upon 10 this country others merely incor-
porated with British movements,) is very stri-
king. ! doubt whether England during the
last half century has borrowed so many inven-
tions from all the world beside-I am sure
she has not from all except France--as she
has from the United States. And yet we are
blessed with the presence of sundry Ameri-
cans here who without having examined our
contributions. without knowing anything more
about them than they have CLEANED from The
Times and Punch, aided by hurried walk
through the department, are busily proclaim
ing that this show makes them ashamed of
their country. -.
Here is the great source of our weakness
a want of proper pride in and devotion to our
own industrial interests. Every sort Of patri-
otisn is abundant in America but that which
is most essentiaI-that which aids to deyelope
and strengthen the Nations productive ener-
gies. No other people buy Foreign fabrics
extensively in preference to the equally cheap
and more substantial products Of their own
looms. yet ours do i habitually. had testi-
mony after testimony from American mer-
chants on the voyage over, as well as before
and since, that Foreign fabrics habtually sell
in our markets for ten 70 twenty per cent more
than is asked for equally good American pro-
ducts, while thousands of pieces of the latter
are readily sold on the strength Of fabricated
Foreign marks at prices which they would not
command, TO customers who would not buy
them, if their origin were known. This is GER
tainly disgraceful to the seller-what is to the
buyer: The mercantile interest naturally
leans toward the more distant production
the margin for profit is larger where an article
is brought across an ocean, while the cost Of a
home made article is so notorious that there
is little chance of putting on large profit
Give American producers the prices now
readily paid throughout our country for For
eign fabrics. and they will grow rich by man
ufacturing articles in no respect inferior 10 the
former. But with only ashare of the Amer
lean market, and this mainly for coarsest and
cheapest goods, while the purchasers Of the
more costly and fanciful on which the larger
profits are made, must have .Fabrique de
Paris or some such label affixed to render
them current, our manufacturers have no fair
chance. While fools could be found to buy
Cashmere Shawls.' costing Fifty to hundred
dollars, for FIVE hundred 10 a thousand, under
lhe absurd delusion that they came from
Eastern Asia, the fabrication and the profits
were European, let an American begin to
make Just such Shawls and the secrets out.
50 the price sinks at once to the neighborhood
of the cost Of production. So with De LANES,
Counterpanes, Brussels Carpetings, and fab
RIGS generally and yet Americans will talk as
though the encouragement given BY Protec-
tive duties to Home Manufactures were given
at the expense Of our consumers. Valnly are
they challenged from day to day to name one
single article whereof the production has been
sransplanted from Europe to America through
Protection, which has not thereby been mate
rally cheapened to the American consumer;
it suits them better to assume that the duty is
a tax on the consumer than to examine the
case and admit the truth, But delusion can
not be eternal.
That our country would at some future day
work its way gradually out of its present semi
Colonial dependence on European tastes, Eu-
ropean fashions, European fabrication, even
though all Legislation encouragement were
withheld, firmly believe. The genius the &C
tiyity, the energy, tie enterprise Of our peo-
pie conspiFe to assure it. So the thief the
burglar, the forger, are certain to suffer for
their misdeeds though all the penalties Of hu-
man laws were repealed. and yet consider
state prisons and houses of correction salutary
if not indispensable Il is difficult for even an
ingenious and inventive race to make improve
ments in an art or process which has no exis-
tence among them, Whitney's Cotton Gin
presupposed the growth of Cotton; Fulton's
steamboat the existence of internal commerce
and navigation; without Lowell, Bigelow might
have invented new trap for muskrats but
not looms for weaving Carpets, Ginghams.
Coach. Lace, DC. deeply feel that our Coun-
try owes to mankind the duty of so sustaining
her Manufacturing Industry that further and
more signal triumphs of her inventive genius
may vet be evolved and realized, not merely
In the domain of Fabrics but in that of Wares
and Metals also, and especially in that of the
chief metal, Iron Had Iron enjoyed for TWEEN
ty years such measure of Protection among
US as plain Cottons obtained from 1916 thr'o
Mr.. Calhoun's minimum Of six cents per square
yard, we should. in all probability, have been
producing Iron by this time as cheaply as
drills and sheetings-that is, as cheaply (qual-
ity considered) as any nation on the globe
as cheaply as we produce School Books. News
papers, and nearly every article whereof the
American maker is shielded by circumstances