The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-01-22
THAT LITTLE LEARNING


THAT LITTLE LEARNING"
Ordinary prudence, if coupled with
full information would make any Re-
| publican editor very cautious in assert
| ing the merits Of the late Mckinley
bill as terror to shoddy. When one
does thus engage in it's laudation, and
compares its effects on imports of shod-
dy and it's material with the present
act, it only betrays a zeal unguided by
knowledge. One of these imprudent
ones compares the customs receipts
from shoddy imports under the McKin-
ley and the German acts as conclusive
of the merits of the former in saving
the dear people from wearing all-wool
clothing made from shoddy. This vast
Increase Of about twenty times over
the importations under the roundIy
| abused Mckinley act of 1890 was for
no other purpose than to be used in the
manufacture Of the great amount Of
cheap wooden goods of which the Amer
lean free trade advocates boast so loud
ly and so long"
The editor evidently has not followed
the tariff hearings closely, if at all, or
he would have kept silnece on shoddy
and prated about the need Of protecting
the dignity Of American labor or in
dulged himself in some other similar
platitude. Had he read the reports of
the hearings when the wool schedule
was under consideration he could not
have missed the amusing and too can
did Mr.. Muhlhauser, proprietor of a
shoddy mill in Cleveland. He eIectri-
fed the committee and the wooden man
ufacturers who filed the committee
room with his blunt assertion that all
the wooden mills use shoddy; that they
have to to meet foreign competition
and that 1.-The poor man could not af-
ford wooden clothes if they did not"
He ''can't afford to buy wool that has
been only once on the sleeps back"
He was there to have the Mckinley
rates on 'shoddy restored because, he
frankly admitted, they were better for
! the shOddy mills than are the present
rates. When asked by Mr.. McMillin to
| whom he sold his shoddy, he swept
the room with his eye and said: "To
every manufacturer here" Whereat the
! latter looked as if they realized that
| there are moments when one would
| prefer to be alone and that this was
one Of them.
This one industry was fostered
| oil oil
| if, with it's tax of 80 cents pound
on shoddy and only 10 cents a pound
on the wooden rags from which it is
made. 1t gave the shoddy mills mo-
nopoly Of the business and they -four
ished like Jonahs gourd. They multi
piled in number and their product fore
ed it's way, under the stress Of domes-
| tic competition induced by the COM
pensatory and protective duties given
! the clothmakers, into every article
made in the wooden mills. SO extern
sive was this that no one wishing to
get good and durable clothing, ever
thought Of buying woolens of Ameri-
can weave but took the imported
woolens, thus defeating the purpose of
the Mckinley act to prevent their i'm
portation by excessive duties. So far
was this utilization of wooden rags
pushed that one expert asserted that
| the fleece went no less than six times
through the shoddy mills after it's con-
version into wooden fabrics Judge
Lawrence, the Ohio shepherd, estimates
that each pound of shoddy displaces
three pounds Of wool. In the stimulus
given the manufacture of shoddy, that
supplanted wool to the extent of three
pounds of the latter for each one of
the former made, one can find a much
more potent cause for the fall in the
price of wool than decentralization Of
silver. The protection to wool given
by the Mckinley act was wholly neu-
talized by the protection given shoddy
under the pretense of crushing it by
prohibitive rates of impost