St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1895-08-08
WHY THIS FUsILADE.

There is good method in the mad
ness with which the Republican
press attacks the wool schedule of the
senate tariff act. 1t is excellent tao
tics. 1t is massing the troops on the
broken center 1t is the stitch in
time that may save nine" 1t is a
vain attempt to retrieve an ire
trievable blunder by the protection
lists that dominated the senate. So
we have the assault all along the
line. We are gravely told that the
mere apprehension of untaXed i'm
ports of wool sent millions of do
nestle sheep to the shambles, one
reckless paper stating their number
at over sixty millions Others, more
cautious, estimate that the slaughter
has diminished the home clip over
sixty million pounds. Doleful, pa,
thetic pictures are drawn by these
word artists of the miserable condi-
ton to which the merely impending
poor American farmer.
Then the farmers have been given
comparative figures showing the i'm
portations of foreign wool before and
after" the blow fell on the f1ocks.
Only 55,O00,000 pounds of wool came
from pauper sheep in 1894, as COM
pared with some 200, 10000 pounds in
1895. That imports fell off in antici-
patton of the removal of the tax;
that the imports of '93 were 173, OOO.,
900 pounds; of '92, 5000, OOO-these
are immaterial matters, not peril
nent to the discussion, and there.
fore omitted by them. That also is
excellent tactics. Leave to your OBJ
ponent the discovery of your weak
points. Then we have had stout de-
malls of any advance in the price of
domestic wool. Prices today are put
alongside those of two or three wears
ago to establish this. The omission
to make the prices of last year, while
wool was still under the wing of it's
guardian angel, the basis of com
parison, is another bit of adroit fenc-
ing. Interviews with wooden man.
ufacturers are given in which they
assert that free wool is not helpful
to them. And so, one way or an
other, the assault is fiercely made
and persistently kept up.
This, we repeat is good tactics.
Free wool breaks the center of the
whole protective policy. 1t strikes out
the keystone of the arch. If the long
struggle since 1887 had resulted in
nothing more than this, the end just
flied the effort. It opens a breach
in the wall through which the hosts
of commercial freedom will press. 1t
is to the repairing of the breach
that the enemy are bending their eff
tofore- zealously maintained the line
intact. A corner of a bastion was
knocked off when quinine was placed
on the free list and another when
hides went there, but they were not
serious breaches. The strength of
the protectionists has been in their
ability to bamboozle the farmers into
believing that, somehow, they also
were the beneficiaries. The wool tar
if has been given as illustrating this.
If wool remains free, if the price does
not fall to the extent of the tax re-
duction, if, on the contrary, it adj
vances from the lowest price OBJ
tanned while it was protected, there
is imminent danger that the farmer
will have the wool pulled from his
catspawed.
Then will come the turn of the
manufacturer of woolens. The farm
er whose wool meets, like all his
other commodities, a price made by
unsheltered competition, will in
sist that the cloth made from his
wool stand a similar competi-
ton. He will join the free traders iii
demanding free woolens as we'll as
free woods. Here is where the man
ufacturer scents danger to himself. )
He is satisfied with the present ar
rangement that gives him from 40 to
so per cent of protection from compe-
tition, but he sees that, if the farmers
turn against him, now that the part
nership is dissolved, it is all over
with him. When woolens are as
free as wool, the manufacturers, too, I
will join the growing hosts of COM
mercial freedom to get their neces--
sarieS of life and manufacture I'M
taxed. And thus the movement will
spread from class to class. It is
this that our opponents see, and it
is to prevent this that they are now
centering their efforts in an attack
on free wool. If they fail, they
know that their whole fabric will
come turbling down about their
ears.
There was an incident of the strike
of the tailors of New York city
against the sweating system that
deserves special notice. These tail
ors are all foreigners, Poles, Rus
slams and Bohemians for the most