Los Angeles daily herald., 1888-07-14
FOR CONGRESS. SIXTH DISTRICT
REEL b. TERRY, of Fresno.
The wool-Gathering Tribune.

Ihe NOOl.GatnerlmS lr1Dumes
We suggest to the Republican National
Committee that.they supply the necessary
funds to translate the Los Angeles Tri-
bune to New York where it might be-
come the central organ of its party and
the editorial reservoir from which all
the Republican presses Of the country
could draw their inspiration. 1t has too
much light of the kind adopted by that
party in this campaign to be hidden
under bushel in this remote corner OF
the Union. Its bold, brazen and reckless
misrepresentation of facts fills the intel
ligent and posted reader with wonder
and admiration.
Yesterday it gave some ''.tacts about
WOOL" Gentle and credulous reader,
just ponder 'them facks" for mo-
ment. 1t says that lin 1880 there were
l61, ,557 men employed in the wool indus
try, and they received in that year as
wages 1864, ,252, ,913. That was an aver
age of $4.60 per day to each manp' The
amazing temerity of a writer who can say
that the wool industry in any of its phases
pays $4.60 per day to each of its en-
ployees, is Napoleonic and unapproach-
able in the line OF unadulterated asser-
tion. Let us see what the truth
is. In 1880, according to the
decennial census report, the total
number Of employees in the wooden mills
Of the United States was 32l 1896, and
the average annual wages $293, or at the
rate of 81 cents per day of three hundred
working days. But of course this COM
putation fails to include the shepherd
ers, and it is probably in the wages of
that muni6cently-paid class of workers
that the Tribune will justify its figures
Now, while the average Of annual wages
paid employees in the woolen mills OF
the United States is $293, we find that in
the great manufacturing State of Penn
sylvania the amount is only $212, or a
fraction over 70 cents per day.
The Tribune proceeds from the basis of
its bogus figures to show that the impor-
tance of the wool industry overshadows
the iron and other mining industries,
and even assails our credulity by declar-
ing that one voter in every twelve in the
United States is engaged in the produc-
tion of wool and mutton. But this is
too obviously tough to merit serious at
tention.
1t also says that the number of sheep
in California in 1887 was 6,O69, ,69S. This
statement is given upon the authority
OF McCarthy's Statistician; but we take it
for granted that it is exaggerated to the
extent of about three million muttons ;
for the Federal census gave us in 1880
only 3,S00,0 600 sheep, and the settling up
of the State since that time has driven
great numbers of wool growing men out
Of California into the adjoining Terri
tories, and thus greatly reduced the num-
Der of sheep in the State.
1t is really great pity that the Tribune
has not wider theatre in which to exer-
else its mendacious faculties. Its bazoo
should be blown from the house-tops OF
the great commercial emporium of the
Fast, or at least from the dome of the
National Capitol at Washington. 1t is
not only "cribbed, cabined and confined,
in this remote corner Of the Union. but
our people lack the necessary Ignorance
to gulp down without protest its diurnal
political rot.