Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1894-06-28


What Reciprocity has Accomplished
Potatoes and Protection.
Aov the Industries of a Prosperous City
Were Paralyzed.
A correspondent of the Inter Ocean has
been writing up the past and present of
West Superior. He describes how the
foundations Of prosperous city were laid
in the primeV Il forest, how the town grew
in four years from a lonely hamlet of a
very few hundreds, to a city of 10000 or
more, paying out $o,OOO,OO0 in 1892 for
wages. manufacturing S3O,OOO,OO0 OF
products, and having an assessed yalua-
ton of 500, O00,O 600. This growth outdoes
Bellamy's dream, and is Il splendid ex-
ample Of the influence of American pro-
lection. Here is part of the story as told
by the correspondent:
"What has the Democratic policy done
for this tariff town? That was the Ques-
ton L asked of business men, lawyers,
newspaper men and laborers.
:. Taken the opportunity to work from
1000. men who We're in the American m
gall, the inventor and builder of the ia
nous whalebacks. In three years l paid
out $3,0O0,OOO to labor, and converted
raw material, the earth which we shower
I'D out here few miles, into Whaleback
vessels, which have been loaded with
grain and flour, and some of them made
the circuit of the globe Those 1000 men
earned an average of ~ day, and we
paid out 81, 100000 a year for labor OF
one class or another:
We had the iron ore, and all that was
needed was labor to convert it into
whaleback. When we began here L had
200 men working on the excavations and
was paying them So day for that labor.
A mob of men came down here with
hot trio tO nraVnnf from
working for those wages. Now men
come here every day and beg for work
for 81 day or any wages. But in the
last II months instead OF paying out
100000 in wages we have PAID less
than $4,000, and now instead of 1000
men we have about 80 on the pay rolls,
who are kept on repair work, and to keep
alp the organization. That is what the
Democratic policy has done for the Amer
lean steel barge works. And the men
employed helped to do it, They listened
to the saloon talk and voted the Demo-
cratic ticket, because they thought l
must be a Republican The yards here
We're full of work when the financial
crash came, and we finished up the most
of it. There is the framework of one
whaleback on the ways, and we shall
finish it sometime. 1t is difficult to say
when
This whaleback is the most conspicu-
Gus object in the shipyards. Its great
steel ribs stand there like the skeleton of
some mighty leviathaG of the deep which
has been scraped and wired by the natu-
ralist. President Cleveland seems to be
the naturalist who has dissected the body
of the industrial giant that trOd the
American continent only a year ago.
The West Superior Iron and Steel
works are as quiet as the shipyards.
Where there We're 600 men, 400 of them
skilled .workmen, receiving S3oO,OOO in
wages in 1892, there are now only the
watchmen to protect the property from
destruction. The chair factory, that en-
plOyed 800 men. now has about half that
number working at reduced wages. The
wagon works have 100 men instead of 200
a year ago: the Superior Stove works,
that had 100 men a year ago, have given
the men but one months work this year,
because there cannot be orders secured
for more work. These works will start
up again about June 20 with twenty men
and a straight cut of 20 per cent in
wages. For the last ten years the bust
ness of the stove foundries had steadily
increased at the rate of 10 per cent. q
year in this country. but last year it fell
off One-third presumably because the wage
earners did not have money to buy stoves
and heat their houses as they had done in
more prosperous times. The same depres-
sion has run through all the manufacture
ing plants in Superior. with the exception
of the flour mills. Some of these have
only been finished in the last year, and
they have entered into sharp competition
with other mills. They have kept up their
full forces of men, but have run only
about one-half their capacity. and they
have saved the average payroll of the in
dustrial army from falling below SO per
cent of what it was in 1892.
1.-THE trade review published by the
Evening Telegram April 81, this year.
places the number of men employed last
year at 1912. as against S176 employed in
1892, and the wages paid at $500, 900,
as against nearly $5,OOO,OOO paid for
wages in 1892"
Three Wool Periods.
The following table from the American
Economist gives the increase of the wool
Gin during the last three wears of the tar