Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1892-10-27
DOROTHY'S GOBLETS.
SHE MAKES SOME INVESTIGATIONS
OF AMERICAN MANUFACTURES.

Nalue-dOW 1t COm pafes Win mat OF
Other Countries-Wages Much Higher
Here, Qualities Better and Prices Less.
Yesterday morning Dorothy came fly
ing in before breakfast. Twas up to my
elbows in angel cake -four, sitting it for
the third time, but she flung one arm
around my waist and with the other
dangled bank note with numbers ten
on it before my face. 'Listen, or TT
never let my breakfast cool off again to
talk with you," she exclaimed.
"What want of you is to make your
self presentable and come to town
with me. That real china you gave
me has gone to my head, and | won't
have any but real things in my home, be
they ever so simple" hummed she.
"It's to be cut glass-tumblers a
dozen. Father has told me the name of
dealer-an old man, the first one in
this countrywide made the finest cut
glass. Now fly around flew around
and we went down town. Mr.. John
Hoare, whose name Dorothy's father
had given US, was in, and replied to our
unsophisticated interrogations and eiac-
ulations with much patience.
! said, among other things, that my
friend and ! wanted to make little
purchase and that perhaps he would tell
US something about American cut glass.
There isn't any finer cut glass in the
world than some of US make in this
country" said he, land if the people
don't know it, it is because for twenty
five years you could go the length of
Broadway and not find a dealer who
would admit that he had American
glass in his store, for the people were
contrary, and their confidence was in
foreign things. Wait a bit. I've come
to stay and you watch me- l used to
say. I'll have the American ladies with
their pretty noses up in the air against
what is made in their own country ask
ing for glass made in the United States.
And this is what the best of them do
now, like yourselves, as l could show
you by the books at home.
"Do you mind that?" holding to the
light a tumbler which Dorothy had been
gazing at affectionately for some time.
1t was as pure as mountain stream,
and the brilliant hues reflected on its
prismatic surface were the wild flowers
growing along the brink, 81"
''There's nothing BETTER" said the vet
eran; ''but Of course some are made
with more work on EN-"
Il hope it isn't too expensive" said
Dorothy almost pleadingly.
''Ten dollars dozen, miss"
at is mine, Them she exclaimed, Joy
fully clasping her hands. /
I'm glad you're pleased, miss, and
here's bit of history thrown in. The
sand it was made of came from Berk-
shire, Mass. The glass mixture costs us
fifty cents pound, and 80 per cent of
what you pay for the tumbler is for
labor, Every one of these little cuts
has been gone into eight times with
wheels or brushes. The men who make
them are such as got ten or twelve dol
lars a week in 1850, and the same get
twenty week now. Here is tumbler
with less work, which the retailer sells
now for nine dollars dozen, for which
he got twenty dollars ten years ago. The
difference comes because the demand
for men is always increasing, and we
make SO many more tumblers that we
can sell them that much cheaper. Now,
miss ito meg, you are going to ask about
the imported ones, and here is the truth.
We don't pretend to sell for less money,
but we promise you that you are getting
a tumbler more carefully designed and
cut, and of purer glass than an i'm
ported one for the same money.
when the ladies understand the facts,
[ shouldn't wonder if there was per-
manent quarantine against glass made
by half starved wretches in the ovid
country"
"Well," said Dorothy, eff we make
our own glass here, and the poor things
over there have no money from us, won't
they suffer very much?'' ...
"Now, miss, tell me this: Are you
ever after hearing of drowning man
being saved by another going down and
drowning with him? No. You've got
to pull him up; you can't save him by
holding him down. This Republican
protective tariff is life preserver around
a man. The poor suffering folks in the
ovid country must come over here and
get on Republican life preserver if
they don't want to drown, for the water
is getting deeper over there, and John
Bulls preservers are made to fit the aris-
tocracy.
"Here, mind this" 1t was stopper
from glass decanter The man that
makes such things at my factory gets
twenty-one dollars a week, ard he got
seven dollars in the ovid country, where
they don't believe in protecting the
Yet the spaIpeen is vot-
ng for free trade and for only seven
dollars a week here just to please
Grover Cleveland and John Bull. Now,
sn't he after being accommodated Il
SIN England an apprentice in this
business getsonly three shilhngs and six
pence week for several years of bis APP
which lasts seven years.
IN Austria, as that man standing by the
lesk, Joseph Flogel, of 326 East Ninth
street, will tell you, he had to pay for his
apprenticeship 800, and got no pay
whatever for three years. And | pay
ny apprentices five or six dollars week
1t the start. l pledge my word as to those
'acts, and think there is no better illus
ration of the way this Republican tariff
works"
Then Dorothy and thanked him; she
gave him her address for the tumblers,
md we said good day.
Hester" said she, as we We're going