Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1891-07-08

Educated IN Dependence.
Our illustration of the evil effects of
protection is found in the slight attention
paid. by our manufacturers to the de-
velopment of their industries on the ar
tistic side. Everybody knows how large
part patterns, designs and the manipu-
lation of colors plays in rendering many
articles salable and popular. Success in
manufacture depends upon close study
of the tastes Of the people and in devel-
oping that taste. This is especially true
in the manufacture of all kinds of pot
terry, furniture and textile fabrics, like
carpets and clothing materials.
In our country almost nothing has
been done to train young people in the
art of designing, our manufacturers de-
pending more upon high tariff than
upon the beauty and excellence Of their
products. Secure in the possession of
the home market, ''the very best market
in the world" they have almost wholly
neglected the art side of manufacturing,
and they become themselves importers
of European goods for the purpose of
copying the superior designs of the for
eigner.
The American Wool Reporter, prom
inent protectionist trade journal entirely
friendly to our manufacturers, com
plains that sin no other direction is the
manufacturer Of woolens, mems wear
and dress goods so sadly deficient as in
giving suitable and original style to his
goods. 1t is frequently remarked that
the market shows range of patterns
and colorings common to nearly all the
various makes; that the buyer in look
ing through the samples of two or three
agents has had placed before him the
full range of styles in the market. There
is considerable truth in this, and this
condition will continue to exist until the
manufacturer becomes an originator in
lieu of being an imitator; when he relies
upon his own brains instead of upon the
brains Of foreign makers to furnish him
designs, then will the industry take a
step forward and competition become
healthy"
The same journal points out that ''the
designer in our mills, except in isolated
instances, has practically no place as
such; his functions are merely those
which call for no effort of the mind, or
of artistic sense" This condemnation is
pronounced upon the entire range of
textile manufacturing-the carpet indus
try, silk weaving, mems and women's
wooden goods, cotton prints, etc.
These words of The Reporter called-out
letter from designer in Philadelphia
mill, in which he gave case illustrat-
ing the slight regard in which tue arts
tic and accomplished designer Is held by
our manufacturers. A great Philadel-
phia manufacturer wanted ga first class
designer, one who thoroughly under
stood his business" Such a designer
was brought to him, one who is well
known both in this country and in
Europe as being one of most excellent
taste, having just filed an engagement
that paid him $3, 900 year. The great
manufacturer, anxious ''to secure the
cream of the market, had the audacity
to offer him So per week, and besides
that he wanted him to do a certain
amount of mental work"
Such a fact as this goes far toward ex-
planning the large importation of the
higher classes of wearing fabrics from
Europe. The manufacturers and their
protectionist hackers claim that this was
because the duties were not high enough
and hence the Mckinley law with its
enormousduties ON wooden goods.
The importation of foreign wooden
goods for clothing is caused much more
largely by their superior artistic designs
than by lack of protection high enough
to prohibit. In all the great manufac-
turing nations of Europe trade schools
are found in which art designing, har-
mony of colors, construction of fabrics,
etc, are patiently and laboriousIy
taught. Museums of industrial art are
also formed, and from these institutions
young men are turned out who are much
more formidable competitors of Amer
lean manufacturers than the SO called
pauper labor of Europe.
These European schools and museums
are largely sustained by the manufac-
turers who are to profit by their work.
In America, on the other hand, manu-
facturers have done next to nothing in
this line. Schooled SO long by the Pro-
tectionists in the notion that they have
a first mortgage upon the sacred home
market, they feel themselves secure in
its possession; and when European com
petition becomes keen by reason of su-
perior taste in designs and skill in work
manship, they run to an all too willing
congress with cries for higher and higher
duties They neglect to establish and
support schools of industrial art, and
lean on the great and only Mckinley.
A small trade school, however, was
established in Philadelphia several years
ago; yet the complaint is heard that
'Philadelphian manufacturers are no
ticeably Indifferent respecting its sue
cess"