The Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1885-1886, 1886-01-30
THE TROUBLE AT LYNN.
THE GREAT SHOE TOWN AND IT'S
LABOR AND CAPITAL.
Too Much Steam Giving Deal OF Worry
to Both Master and Man-The "Rowdy
West" in the Shoe Trade - Ominous
Figures That Tell No Lies.

BosToN, Jan. 30-Keene Brothers, OF
Lynn, the shoe manufacturers who are
threatened with boycott q few days
hence unless they comply with the demands
of the Knights of Labor, explain the diff
culties under which they and other New
England manufacturers are struggling
After stating that it is necessary now to
have coarse goods made outside of Lynn
leaving the fine grades to be manufactured
in Lynn, they go on to say
A generation ago the shoe factory OF
handwork had its thousand employees in the
woods of Maine and New Hampshire and on
the shore from Nahant to Cape Ann Twenty
years ago came the introduction of machin-
cry and the exodus from the country into
the city, since which time Lynn has twice
rebuilt her business center, first in wood
from 1860 to 1870, then in brick from 1870 to
1850 Finally, to-day appears the rapid de-
velopment of shoe manufacturing west
To-day the prairie shoemaker of the west,
an army 60,000 strong, is making more shoes
west of the Hudson river than there are
manufactured in all New England, and
by his side stands the prison shoemaker of
the west, making one tenth part of all thu
goods west at wholesale, and twice as many
shoes as Lynn makes for the same market
Massachusetts, with its product Of SS0,0N,
900 of shoes for the west, meets SlO0,0O 900
OF western-made shoes to-day, against one
half that amount ten years ago 1t faces it,
army of 50,000 shoemakers against 90, 900
there to-day and 100000 ten years hence
These figures are very unpleasant and Sc
rious, but they are facts and must be met
Lynn competition from prison goods: Lynn
goods sold west, s., coo 900; prison goods sold
west ladies1 s7,5O),0o Lynn competition
from the west: Amount of goods made in
Lynn and west Qadies1:
Year. West Lynn.
1861 i.......................S5 0O0O20 SIS 0oo 0oJ
1875 -.--..-..... l0,0JlO lOObuJUJ
1885 j-...-....-.....,....... - UC0,Ooo 5.00GN
Massachusetts, competition from the west
and south: Massachusetts goods sold west,
$50, ,000, ,00J; western manufacture, SS4, 900, :
| 600 Employees, Massachusetts,, on western
goods, 50, 00o; western factories, 5000 The
supremacy of our state has gone, never to
| return What the fisherman shoe maker
has been in the past the prairie shoe MAKER
| will be in the future The workmen said
| last September; Why don't you give US 5
| cents a pair extra! Go ahead and sell your
| goods at the advance and everything will
work out satisfactorily. They have man
aged the sales since last summer, and there
is no business Whyl Because cents pair
advance means IS case of sixty pairs,
and on the 100000 cases Lynn makes it
amounts to $4,000, and the whole profits
| in Lynn are not over $500, 900 year: in
fact, not half of that, for Lynn does not in
crease 81 900 900 in five years How could it
| THAR iIaoS IN ha
spirit of ths age All manufactured prod
ucts will be sold year by year cheaper, not
higher in price The trouble is not too little
silver to-day, but too much steam. Five
cents pair in Lynn here at the sources of
| supply means great deal at the mouth of
the river. 1t represents an advance of 25
cents by our friends, the iobbers, and SO
cents to the consumer. People, you must
remember, out west don't do business for
philanthropy or to run benevolent institu-
| tons A small rise here means great
and impossible advance there Rather than
pay that advance it will pay the farmer to
| stop raising wheat, working at 70 cents n
! day, and set his boys and girls to work max
| ing their own shoes, and that is Just what
they are doing and our prairie shoe
makers with machinery and a fec
| tory, is the iron-clad we meet when
| we get out to sea. Either shoes
will be sold cheaper by the east to the west
or they will not be sold there at all New
England manufacturing will remain to
Lynn for market, but if they have not the
intellectual grasp to see the handwriting on
the WALL while the glory of the past is
secure, the chapter closes, the end comes
The HISTORY of Lynn is written as an indus
| trial factor of the nation west