Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1896-10-15
CLOTHING NAKED LIMBS.
What Mr.. Bryan and Others Prone
ised This Country.
prophecy and Experience" as Comment
ed on by the Bulletin of the National
Association of Wool Manufacture
ers-The Crime of 1894.


article entitled Prophecy and Expert
ence-the Wool Tariff of 1894" in the
September issue of the Bulletin of the
National Association of Wool Manufac-
tuners. In this able paper il is shown.
with almost terrifying exactness, what
bountiful blessings the democratic free
traders-chief among them Mr.. w. j.
Bryan, a member of the congress ways
and means committee which framed
the Wilson bill-promised this country
from the reduction of duties, and what
destruction and ruin they gave it. As
we shall make liberal use of the facts
and figures furnished in that valuable
article, we give in the beginning. as
does the author of the paper, the fol-
lowing prophecies:
Pass this bill, and thousands of feet
heretofore bare, and thousands OF limbs
heretofore naked or covered with rags
will be clothed in suitable garments. and
the condition of all the people will be inn
proved Ii will give employment to 50,-
coo more operatives in wooden mills: it will
increase the demand for wool and prices
viii increases and with increased demand
for labor, wages viii increase. Those wfo
favor It's passage may be assured that they
have done something to promote the gem
eral veal, something
TO scatter plenty Ger smiling land
Speech of William NJ. Springer, April 4.
1882
Speaking for myself, ii is immaterial, in
my judgment, whether the sheep grower
receives any benefit from the tariff or not
Whether he does or does not, am for free
wool-in order that our wooden manufac-
turers, unburdened by tax upon foreic
wool and unhurdened by a like tax upon
llnf
81 wider market Speech of William j.
Bryan, January 10, 1894.
AT the time bare feet We're to begin to
be shod and naked limbs to be clothed
in the gorgeous fashion pictured by Mr..
Springer and Endorsed by Mr.. Bryan
the sheep flocks of the United States
had reached total of 47.223,Ooo and
were increasing at the rate of 100000
year. The value of the sheep was
$113,057, 500. Since wool was put on the
free list the sheep have decreased early
in 1896 to 36,000,O00, valued at $56,00o,-
600, according to the department of
agriculture; and, according to W. b.
Snow, formerly the assistant statisti-
clan of the department, the fiocks now
are reduced to 32,000,O0O.
Under the Mckinley act the wool
clip had reached, in 1898. 34s, 500 900
pounds. valued at S52 100000. The clip
of the present year is estimated by the
National Association of Wool Manu-
facturers to be 270.000,000 pounds,
valued at S2O,soO,0o0.
That is how the Wilson law clothed
the limbs and shod the feat of the farm
orc a,tG he- J.,4
us see how it was with the manufac-
turer.
In the first year after the Wilson law
went into effect the imports Of foreign
wooien manufactures represented do
nestle value Of 100000, COO, equivalent
to one-third of all the wooden goods
made in the United States in 1890 In
1895, says the article, the output of
American mills was reduced in d larger
percentage than the imports we in
creased; 10 such a degree, in fact, that
it is safe to say that nearly one-half Of
all the woolens which entt ed into con-
sumption that year were of foreign
manufacture. !" though Eve have in this
country enough wooden machinery to
manufacture all the wooden goods our
people can consume"
The quantity Of wooden cloths inn
ported in 1895 was almost equal i'm
pounds t4o.070.14sl to the total guam
THY (41,739, $500 imported in the three
years. 1891. 1892 and 1898, under the Me-
Kinley tariff. Nor was the Mckinley
tariff BY any means a prohibitory tariff,
for in 1892 the cloth imports were the
largest in quantity (16.24s,313 pounds
up to that date
These enormous impor TONS, under
valued by cheaper qualities and al
valorem duty frauds, stopped American
looms by the thousands. But The Will
son law started foreign loom for
every American loom it stopped, as the
article explains:
THE Bradford Observer described 1895
as the annus mirabilis I'm the history OF
shat center of the English worsted indus-
try The Bra ford exports 10 other coun-
tries were smaller than usual in that year:
but to the United States they reached n
total never before Appropriated: they rose
TO s27. rs. 09G an increase of q per cent. over
the value Of the exports thence Of the
largest previous year. 1889, when their value
was s22, S25, SOL
Hundreds of households it says. have
been stranded, because their maids-of-all-
work have thrown away the cap and print
dress, to don the weayer's harden skirt IT
probably never happened before that Eng
land found herself short-handed while the
United States was filled with people look
ing for work.
We come. then, to summing up Of
what the Wilson law did for the Ameri
can manufacturer:
Toward the end of the year 1895, there
fore, production began to decrease, and
before the heavyweight season was over
nearly one-half OF the machinery employed
upon mems wear was idle. In the transi-
ton from the heavyweight to the light
weight season, the real condition OF the
American wool manufacture was for the
first time apparent. Many mills shut down
entirely. others ran alternate days, or
half or two-thirds time; stfll others dis
charged the half, or more, Of their en-
ployes: and with the advance of this sum
mer about 50 per cent. of the wool ma
chinery of the country stood idle"
And now we shall see how many feet
mara SfxvaraI xKft h znFt