Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1892-05-13
CONGRESSMAN JOHNSON ON WOOL.

year 81; six months, 81; three months. rs cents.
CONGRESSMAN JOHNSON ON WOOL.
The speech of Hon. NJ. N. johnson of
North Dakota, in the house of represen-
t~atives, when Springer's bill to place
wool on the free list and to reduce the
duties on wooden goods, was up for
consideration was both dignided and
forcible. He knocked the pins right out
from under the free WOOL advocates
and left them in an inextricable mire.
Mr.. johnson said:
Mr.. CHAIRMAN: We have heard much.
talk here to the effect that putting wool on
the free list will not lower the price OF WOOL.
That talk is evidently intended for home
consumption among the wool groWels or
the interior districts. 1t will decleue no.
body in my district; and l will tell you
u live within seventy miles of the line
between our country and British Amer
lea. For $50 miles, between the district
l represent and the province OF Manitoba,
there is only an imaginary line Indicated
by iron monuments at every mile. There
is the same prairie country, the same Gil
mate, the same kind of people and the
same kind of sheep on both SIDES OF mat
line.
Now, last year we sold our wool on the
south side Of that line for from 7 to II
cents a pound more than they dlo on tne
north side of that line. You need not tell
the farmers of North Dakota that the tariff
did not make the difference. There is no
mountain or ocean or other physlcal
obstacle between us, not even a wire renee
nothing but that imaginary line marked
by those iron monuments.
MI, johnson read a statement from an
American consul at Hamilton, showing
the same condition of affairs on the
border line of Ontario and New York
market price at Hamilton 1917 to 20
cents, and when shipped across the line,
sold at 80 cents. Continuing, Mr.. John
son said:
BY passing this bill you remov the only
barrier that exists to-day between the
wool growers of our country and The cheap
pastures, the cheap labor n the cheap
civilization of other countries. COmpetl.
ton with them would either drive us out
of business or compel us to adopt their
habits and methods.
Experience shows that every increase in
the tariff on wool has been followed by an
increase III Ilc uulllUCl dllu AAlPloNSAAShAc
in the quality of our flocks, while every
decrease in the tariff has been tOlloWed by
a decline in the number of sheep. 1t the
protection which our wool growers nave
always enjoyed, in a greater or less degree,
ever since the tariff act of 1916, were to be
swept away at a single blow, as is pro
posed in this bill, our f1ocks would be
driven to the shambles as rapidly as they
could be disposed of.
We now own One-siXth of the sheep and
consume one-third OF the wool OF the
world.
Three years of free wool would practi-
cally eXterminate our t1ockS, and thirty
wears of protection would be necessary to
replace them; and in the mean time there
would be no escape from sending annually
millions OF our good American gold and
silver, money that ought to have gone into
the pockets of American wool growers, as
a tribute to those people to whom a dem
ocratic free trade policy had surrendered
our industrial independence.
Sheep h%usbandry, like every other in
dustry, has its natural and unnatural enc
mics, against which it must be success
fully defended before it can thrive II
prosper. Sheep are constantly exposed to
the danger of injury from vicious dogs n
wolves, and scab, and foot rot, and demo-
cracy.
The most destructive of all these is de-
Mr.. Chairman. l was surprised the other
day when the gentleman from Nebraska,
[Mr. Bryant, with evident pride. made the
statement that though there had been in
his state a time when, according to pOpula-
ton, there was on sheep per capita, sheep
raising had now dWindled until there was
not a pet lamb for every woman named
Mary in that state. And the statement
was greeted with tremendous applause by
this great democratic majority. Now L
am proud of W things: First, that be-
long to a party which cannot, either in
con grsss or out of congress, either feel
or express delight at the destruction of
any American industry, and least of all
such an innocent and beneficient industry
as that of keeping sheep, an employment
which from time immemOrial has fur
nished our forefathers in this, in Europe
and in Asia with food and raiment.
And 1 IN proud of another thing,
that instead of living in a state where this
industry of sheep raising has dWindled, |
live in a state where it is rapidly increas-
ing. In 1889 we had in North Dakota only
1854 sheep, liz 1890 we had 9S,290; in 1891
an increase of more than 700 per cent.
within three years. l am proud of that
fact. If the gentleman'S state and my
state go on in these opposite directions, be-
fore the generation now living shall have
passed away, his state will be in a position
OF poverty dIu ulluo Ill d pOSlLioL OI
wealth. [Applause on the republican
side. In my single congressional district
we produced last year one-tenth OF the en-
tire wheat crop of the United States, esti-
mated by the secretary of agriculture at
5 $1,000, 900. and by our state commissioner
Of agriculture at 100000 bushels, equal
in value to the entire annual silver pro-
duct of the United States. But wheat rails
ing, though extremely profitable when all
the circumstances affecting yield and price
concur to produce a favorable result, is a
very uncertain business, more precarious
even than mining or fishing.
There is always uncertainty where a
community stakes its entire years work
on a single crop, a single industry, OF
single venture of any kind. No prudent
man will do it. In order to escape the
chances of such accidents as "bad years
and crop failures we must diversity our in.
dustries. There is nothing that can fur
nish so sure and safe a reliance to tide us
over in a "bad crop year" as the wool and
mutton products of our focks and herds
fed almost entirely on wild lands and the
scatterings in the grain fields thai
would otherwise be lost. Sheep will re.
store the fertility exhausted by wheat
farming. The opportunity to put in Oul
time prSfitably in taking care of sheen