The weekly tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1891-1894, 1892-07-23
b SURE YOU ARE RIGHT, ETC"

"bE DUKE U ARE RIGHT, ETC"
Davy Crockett's motto, "Be sure you
are right then go ahead" may be OBJ
served by editors with quite as much
profit to their readers and to themselves
as by men in other pursuits of life. II
the editor of the River Press would have
brought its teachings home he would
have saved his readers the perusal o.
many a column of unauthorized rot and
himself needless humiliation.
Under the caption 1.-THE Shoddy Lie
the River Press not only d~isregards
Crockett's motto but makes a holy show
of its ignorance-using no harsher term
quite as ~inexcusable as it is ~uncalled
for. If the River Press had consulted
the last census for its figures it would
have learned that there are 96 shod.
dy mills in operation in the United States
and that in 1889 thew manufactured in
round tignres 100000 pounds Of
shoddy. Last year, according to stats
tics procured by the ways and means
committee OF the present house of rep
resentatives, the output of the mills
reached 154,OOO,OO0 pounds. AS the
River Press is not delving in democratic
literature nowadays it doubtless has
failed to see these figures.
The River Press is again wrong ia as
Stunning that because the American peo
pie consume over 6OO,OOO,OOO pounds of
raw wool that in view of our importa-
tions and home growth of wool no room
can be found for the shoddy. 1t is as
faulty in its figures as it Is in it's conclu-
sions. According to..the statement of s.. G.
Brock, chief of the bureau OF statistics.
under date of January 81, 1892, the total
production of wool in the United States
for 1891 was 285,OOO.OOO pounds, of which
29l,922 pounds were exported, leaving
2S4, 1OS,O1S pounds of domestic wool for
home consumption. During the same
period of time we imported and O n
sumed 12G,G7O,525 pounds of wool, max
ing our total consumption al. 37s.GOS
pounds, Much of this long imported
wool is used to hold together that 154,-
100000 pounds of shoddy which is sold
in the form of cheap clothing.
We may have consumed only GOO,OOO.-
GOO pounds of wool in 1889 but that does
not dlsprove the assertion that 154,OOO.-
GOO pounds of shoddy now finds it's way
into so-called wooden clothing. Nor does
it disprove the fact that our consumption
OF so called woolens was so much greater
in 1891 than in 1889 that to supply
the difference between our production of
2S4, I0S,O1S pounds of wool last year and
6OO,OOO,OW pounds we consumed there
was plenty of room for our 15i,OOO,OOO
pounds of shoddy.
But the River Press did not stop here
in its exhibition of ignorance. With the
solemnity of an owl it gravely tells its
that ''the price of shoddy has
been increased to the extent of thirty
cents per pound, the duty imposed by
the Mckinley law" The statement car
ries its W contradiction in lis absurdity.
Here are the facts. Under the Morrell
tariff shoddy was Quilted at 10 per cent.
Mckinley raised it 80 per cent adj va
lorem-not 30 cents a pound, as the
River Press has it, But that 30 per cent
iuty is enough to keep out foreign
and to increase the number of
mills in this country from 30 in
1870 to 9G in 1890 and the product from
y 100000 pounds in 1850 to la, 100000
pounds in 1891. The effort of the Fort
paper to make it appear that
'hoddy is not taking the place of our
grown woods and depressing it's
market price has simply resulted in the
exposition of an ignorance ~inexcusable
n a paper supposed to be devoted to,
md TO represent the sheep interest of its
The River Press man should
night lessons in the effects of the
Mckinley wool schedule upon the sheep
industry of the country.