St. Paul daily globe., 1893-08-28
PULLING THE WOOL.

Over no eyes in this country has the
wool been SO adroitly and successfully
pulled by selfish protectionistS as over
the eyes of those farmers a part of
whose vocation is wool growing. Ever
since wool was transferred from the
free list in 1861, down to the present
time, they have been told that the safety
of their fiockS from destruction de-
pended on putting tariff on foreign
wool sufficient to protect the domestic
product from dangerous competition.
Their credulity and their greed have
been played on with success which is
discouraging to those who look to the
intelligence and unselfiShness of the
American voter for the preservation of
our liberties.
Ihe stern logic of events, the ineXora-
bic decreeS-of the market, the contin-
uous decline of prices in the face of in
creasing tariffs, have not served to re-
lease them wholly from the hold of the
deiusion which enthralls them. Let sill
ver-tongued orators like our own DAVIS
but go among them and talk about the
Democratic English-COnfederat free
trade; tell them again, as he did in 80,
that the MCKINLEY ''increase in the
tariff on wool was for the direct benefit
of the American farmer: for the benefit
of a declining industry made to decline
by unwise legislation in 1885," that
America ought to produce her own
WOOL" that the water powers of this
state should turn ''the thousand spIn-
dies of a thousand looms in the manu-
facture of WOOL and assure them that
all they want is little more tariff OH
wool, and they will applaud him to the
echo and return him to the senate, hap
PLY now rendered innocuous.
But economic laws laugh at those of
men when the latter would superSede
them. They are as ineyorable as the
law of gravity. The aeronaut attempts to
| evade, overcome, DEFY the latter; and in
| the end, his friends gather up the frag-
| ments of his remains. and give them
burial. The law of compensation ever
| holds good; what is gained in speed is
lost in power; reaction equals action.
| The positive force to increase the price
of wool by decreasing the supply is de-
| featea by the negative forces which
| supply substitutes, thus increasing the
supply.
But if the farmer has seen with sor-
row the price of his wool tend steadily
| down. the manufacturer. who combined
| with him to get tariff on wool and a
stiff compensatory tariff on woolens,
looks with equanimity on the situation.
| For the benefit of those of our readers
who may yet believe in taxing wool to
make that business profitable, we CON-
| mend the remarks of THOMAS DoLAN,
woolen manufactures of Philadelphia,
stout prOtectionist and president of
the manufacturers club of that city,
which has been printing documents to
send out to farmers to educate them to
the beauty and beneficence of protec-
| ton. In an Interview in the Inquirer
of his city-a staunch protectionist pa
| per-he says that sin the WOODEN bust
ness everything Went along swimming
| ly until July L. Orders came in good and
strong for fall goods. The situation was
like this: Manufacturers had the bene-
fits of the MCKINLEY act, which kept
out foreign competitors, while they
were able to buy wool at lower prices
than during the previous year" If any
thing short Of surgical operation will
remove the wool from the eyes of those
farmers who have been voting for pro-
lection so that they might get the more
for their wool, this frank and truthful
remark of this woolen manufacturer
should do it.