, 1900-02-08
THE POOR MANS SUIT.
American Wage Farmers Wear tho Bsss
and tho Cheapest Clothing.

and tho Cheapest Clothing.
Under all kinds of tariff laws wealthy
people can obtain good clothing. 1t
Is the poor and semi-poor who are most
vitality interested in such laws. Realiz-
ing this fact in a way. the advocates
of low tariffs and no tariffs most siren
uously insisted that the duty on wool
should be removed and that on woolens
cut down in order that the poor man
clothing could be reduced in price. The
Wilson act made wool duty free and
took off both the pound rate or com.
pensating duty and about o%ne-third OF
the ad valorem duty from wooler
cloths. What was the result?
The first result was a great increase
ID the importation of foreign cloths o,
low grade. every additional yard oil
which took the place of a yard OF
American cloth, and helped to throw
American workers out of employment
These foreign cloths, chiefly English
were in general not sound, all WOO
stuffs, but largely made of cotton and
shoddy mixtures. E%ngland's use OF
wool substitute is far in excess of ours
per capita, while her proportionate con
sumption of wool is only two-thirds
as great as ours. English wooden man.
ufacturers are adopts in the fabrication
of cloths of good appearance from the
trashiest materials. and the American
market was soon flooded with spurious
woolens. The foreign manufacturer
had his ance and he reveled in it
II the price of clothing was slightly
decreased the standard of quality was
decidedly lowered.
The American wooden manufacturer
loon saw what he was up against"
He was compelled to compete with the
kind of stuff that was making the mar
ket. He accordingly began to import
wool substitutes. This is clearly prov
en- by the statistics of imports. The
Mckinley act. which preceded the Will
son act, discouraged the Importation
of shoddy by a duty of 80 cents a
pound. The Wilson act took the OPP
posite curse by putting a merely nom
inal duty Of 10 per cent on such ma
terials. During the seven months end
ing March 81, 1893, the imports of
shoddy n waste were 1893 4S7 pounds,
n for a like period ending March 81.
1894, only 40,2SS pounds. In the seven
months ending March 81, 1S5 tsuc-
ceeding the passage OF the Wilson act).
the imports of shoddy and waste
amounted to 1886. 7S0 pounds, or 225
times the quantity brought in during
the same section of the preceding year.
Will any person now assert that the
degradation OF the American woolens
market thus brought about was an ad-
vantage to the poor man, even with a
considerable reduction in price? AND
the reduction in price could not be con-
siderable, and was not. A suit of
clothes takes on an average about three
yards of cloth, the cost of which is.
say, about half the first cost of the
suit. Reducing the duty on the wooden
cloth does not lessen the cost of labor,
trimmings or other expenses. and the
amount so decreased was found by
many expert Investigations and calcu-
lations to cut but a small figure in the
retail price OF a suit. But the injury
to quality, the lessened durability was
a practical and tangible evil, as many
a wearer of medium and low-priced
clothing discovered.
The Dingley act restored the duty on
shoddy as well as on wool and wool
ems, and the American mills are turn
ing out honest and durable cloths in
all grades. The poor mans suit" costs
little If n more than when it was
made of a spurious worsted from the
shoddy mills Of England.