Bennington semi-weekly banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 1894-1902, 1895-03-12
The clothing Of the People.

There never was a more egregriOus
humbug, says the Boston Journal, than
the oft.reiterated tariff reform" claim
that the reduction or repeal of protec-
tive duties was going to result in an i'm
mediate and immense improvement in
the quality of the wooden fabrics worn by
the masses of the American people.
In spite of the too-prevalent provin-
cialism which prefers foreign goods, sim
ply because of their being foreign, Amer.
ican manufacturers of standard fabrics
have attained remarkable degree of eX-
eellence. Both British and American
trade statistics prove that the American
manufacturers have been using relative
ly far less shoddy and more wool than
their British competitors. We are not
denying that the new tariff may possibly
result in reducing the cost of some of the
superfine fabrics used by the rich and
fashionable, though this point, we be-
lieve, has not yet been definitely estab-
liShed. We are speaking of goods pur-
chased and worn, not by the four hun
dred, or by the ten thousand, but by the
million. If our new economic legislation
is going to give them cheaper and better
clothing from broad than they have
been procuring from our domestic fac
tories, it ought to begin to be apparent.
There is cogent, expert, non-partisan teS-
timOny, however, that yet there is no
sign of it. TIE American Wool and Cot
ton Reporter, leading trade journal,
, free wool advocate, declares that in the
cheaper grades of wooden goods, the fdiG
eigner is not playing "half as an import
ant part as has been anticipated" The
Reporter offers as an explanation the sig
| nifcant statement that 1.-THE cheap for
egn goods do not stand the test of our
clothiers.'' "That," it continues. 'is
where much of the foreigners trouble
lies. At home his goodS are unrOlled
from the piece as they come from the
mill, and cut up into garments, while
here, subjected to the steaming and
Sponging process, their real character is
at once revealed, the starch and other
| foreign matter which so many of them
contain iS brought out, leaving the fab
ric minus the requisite feel aud finish
which the domestic goods retain" In
| the adulteration of manufactures Of
WOOL" adds the Reporter, I'VE are as yet
only in our A B C's, but on fine finished
results, on cheap goods, the American
manufacturer can give the foreigner
points"
If our tariff reform" experiment is
| going to demonstrate the superior quail
ity Of such American woolsn fabrics as
the average citizen is clothed with, the
tariff reform cause will get another So
we're setback, for it has been in the habit
of adrotly appealing to certain relics Of
the provincial spirit which still linger in
America. The technical authority which
we have cited clearly believes that that
will be the final outcome. If so, it will
| 1. "A, IL, 81
try can be sincerely congratulated, and
that, too, quite aside from any immedi-
| ate bearings on the tariff controversy.
What the London correspondent of the
Boston Herald aptly describes as the
''musty superstition that foreign goods
are necessarily cheaper and better than
domestic goods, is quite unworthy of the
American people in the present era of en-
lightenment.