The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1894-09-27
Free Wool FaIsehoods

TTee wool FalSenOOuS
1t is distressing to see so able and or
dinarily so fair paper as the Philadel-
phia Times betrayed into printing an
absolute and bare-faced misrepresenta-
ton like this:
When the Mckinley bill went into effect
wool brought rs cents pound and fell to
10 cents inside the first week. AS the flock
masters were not giving away their prod
uct, they stopped selling, and under the
highest protective tariff ever known found
neither market nor buyers. The new tar
III rate makes heavy reductions, nothing
less than 30 per cent. and all the way up
10. Under this tariff last week an Ohio
wool.grower in the Woodfleld district sold
10. 1000 pounds at 20 cents. At Washington,
in this state, the wool clip commands 81
cents, and this in spite of the fact that the
Washington farmers were assured that the
free wool measure was their ruin. To top
all Monongahela firm yesterday instruct
cd its country agents to take up 800 600
pounds at 20 cents where they formerly
paid Is.
The first sentence of this extract
from the Times of Saturday has not
one scintilla of truth in it. If the
Times will refer to its own files it will
discover that wool, in its entire his.
tory, never ''fell to 10cents.." It's low
est point, in the Wood county, o., dis
trict, was reached one year ago last
August, when choice fleeces, which the
year before, two years after the Nc
Kinley bill had gone into effect, had
brought 25 to 80 cents per pound, went
begging at 16 and II cents. At this
price dealers quit buying and farmers,
of necessity, quit selling. The reason
for this decline was not the Mckinley
bill, under which, as Scrantonians
haye good reason to know, the textile
industry, for time, enjoyed rapid
growth; it was due, directly and almost
wholly, to the election, in 1892, of
Democratic administration upon rad
ical free trade platform, which caused
manufacturers 10 lose confidence, capi-
tai to seek safe hiding place, woolen
mills to stop, merchants to quit buying
cloths and the wool-growers to be
caught with whole seasons supply of
fleeces on hand, for which there exist
ed no market.
The writer Of these words in the sum-
mer Of 1893 talked with dozens of Ohio
wool growers who were begging in vain
for wool dealers to buy, at any price,
some of the finest clips that the eye of
man could wish to look upon. Some
of these wool growers had, the year
previous, voted the Dem ocratic ticket.
One aptly expressed the common ex-
perience when he said: "For years we
farmers had got 80 to so cents for our
wool. Oflate years the market, owing
to overproduction, had declined. One
year ago, under Harrison, we got only
% cents. We thought this too cheap.
Frank Hurd and other free trade DEM
ocrats came through here and told us
that if we would knock out the tariff
we could get dollar bushel for our
wheat and restore the old prices on our
wool. We were fools enough to be-
lieve him. Now wheat is cheaper than
corn, and wool-well, simply can't
give it away, this summer, because no
one has any use for it while the facto.
ries are closed and the looms locked
up" This fall in prices from
% cents to nothing at all although
nominally the market ruled at l6 and
II cents, occurred not, as the Times
says, "inside the first week" of the
Mckinley bil's going into effect. 1t
occurred in the third year of that tar
iff law, and not until the American
people, in moment of madness, had
voted to smash that law and, as Henry
Watterson luridly said, "scatter the
ashes of protection to the four winds Of
heaven"
"The new tariff rate" says the
Times, "makes heavy reductions,
nothing less than 35 per cent. and all
the way up to co." Upon wool of GER
tain grades it makes this reduction:
1t takes the duty of, entirely. "Un.
der this tariff the wool grower of the
Woodsfeld, o., district, wherever that
is, may, for few weeks, get 26 cents
for his clip, before the conditions of
foreign competition have adjusted
themselves to the new American tariff;
and the same with the Washington.
Pa, wool grower. Our wooden mills,
too, cannot keep closed forever, even
under Democratic threats of free trade
prosecutions; many of them, less pres
cient than the South Scranton wooden
mill, during the low prices of raw wool
had neglected to buy up and store
large quantities Of wool and now, in
order to start, even on limited time, to
fill immediate orders, have to go into
the market and buy wool, thus Great
Ing temporary and artificial demand,
which momentarily advances prices.
But does the Times believe and will 1t
predict that thisdemand will grow until
American raw wool, beating down the
unrestrained competition of Hungary,
Russia and Australia, where wool
brings one4third our prices under pro-
lection, will regain the 40 and so cent