Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-12-24
WORLDS TOY MAKERS
Who Work to Make the
Children's Christmas.
ALL THE YEAR ROUND
MACHINERY TAKING TIE PLACE
OF HAND LABOR.
In the Greatest of All Toy Centers-
For the Stockings of the
Little Ones.
ALL THE YEAR ROUND

Written for The Evening Star.
Merry Christmas, you who have worked
the long year through to make merry
Christmas for American boys and girls.
very, very merry Christmas, one and all.
To Judge from the cohorts of tin soldiers,
"glitterng in silver and gold that are
marching and countermarching and engag-
ing in deadly combat, and the countless
thousands of wax dolls, china dolls. PAPER
mache dolls, rag dolls, talking dolls and
dumb dolls that win be Rugged close in
many a tiny make-beleve mothers arms,
one would naturally say that this Christ
mas greeting is meant for goodly portion
of the worlds population, the inhabitants
of entire provinces, states, countries.
But it isn't. Indeed, the men and women
who earn their livelihood day after day
fashioning Christmas toys for Johnny Jones
and his sister Sue form an BILE
but by no means Neutrality-suspicious. of
the worlds population. Why, if they were
all got together in one place-mobiliZed, as
it were-they would be far inferior in num-
bers to the Japanese army that has been
steadily driving Kuropatkin northward in
Manchuria since last spring. Field Marshal
Oyama is credited with having 100000 men
at his elbow; the worlds year-in-and-year-
out Christmas workers scarcely total half
that figure.
This is no haphaZard guess. United States
consuls: leading importers of ship load
after shipload of hobby horses, Noah's arks,
submarine boats, baking donkeys and
what not; economic and industrial investf-
gators of the old world and manufacturers
of toys themselves are responsible for these
figures. They are agreed that only fifty
thousand people find steady employment
fashioning material childish delights in that
greatest of all toy lands, Germany; half
that number are likewise engaged in the
next biggest toy center, France; Austria,
A NJ oh, fl,,,
10000 such workers, while the rest of Chris
tendon cannot muster sufficient quota by
several thousands to make up the number
necessary to give these toy workers half
the numerical strength of the victorious
Japanese hosts.
In Old Nuremberg.
If these figures are surprising what is
there to be said Of the statement, vouched
for by the aforementioned authorities, that
in the greatest of all toy centers, his
toric old Nuremberg whence comes over a
third of all the toys that are causing young
hearts to glow all over America, not over
5000 people find employment in the great
doll factories, tin soldier arsenals and me-
chanical toy shops that are famous the
world over and whose annual products are
valued at about $S,OOO,OOO.
Years ago by far the greater portion of
old Nuremberg's population-it is now no.,
OOO-found its rye bread and lager beer in
toys. mat was IN the SOOu Ola Gays Wien
the home was the factory and the myriads
of wooden trinkets were carved by hand.
By and by there came revolution in the
industry; machinery for manufacturing
dolls doll houses, soldiers, hobby horses,
pianos and what not, was invented, big
factories sprang up in the city itself and
the suburbs and the tens Of thousands of
home workers disappeared to give place to
thousands of factory hands. Since then
newer and better labor saving inventions
have further cut down the demand for
manual labor until the goodly thousands of
a decade or SO ago have become much
fewer in number.
Thus, it is merry Christmas-a very, very
merry Christmas indeed-to merely a
handful of all-the-year-round toy-makers
in Nuremberg and Furth and the other
towns in their vicinity, all having followed
Nuremberg's lead in adopting up-to-date
methods to produce that which goes to
make glad the American youngsters heart
at this festival season.
Cling to Old Methods.
But, If you were personally going to wish
every toy-maker in the second largest toy
center of the world a merry Christmas, the
pleasant task would take considerably
more time than in the case Of Nuremberg.
Sonneberg and the numerous hamlets with
In its sphere of influence still cling to the
old methods; Sonneberg, the doll city,
largely so; while Eisfeld, hobby-horse town
Haemmern, sail boat town; Schalkau,
wooden gun town; Neufang, Noah's ark
town; Fichtach, trumpet town, and all the
rest of the peaceful settlements scattered
throughout the Thuringian forest know not
the whirr of factory wheel or the clank
of cutting machine. All told, some thirty
thousand persons are directly employed the
year through, and, excepting thousand Or
two who work in doll factories in Some
berg, the rest of this toy fashioning multi
tude do their work in their own homes,
either for themselves and afterward SELL
ing their handiwork to buyers, or else as
employees for wholesale toy dealers in Son.
neberg where all the toys made in Thur
ingian forests finally find their way, thence
to be shipped at the psychological moment
to England and America, and to the parts
of the fatherland where toy-makers are
unknown in the flesh.
These two centers-Nuremberg and Some
berg-together with the third and last Ger
man toy center, the villages in the Err
Gebirge, OF Ore mountains, which form the
Bohemian boundary line, furnish to the
world so per- cent of all the toys exported
from Europe; and Europe furnishes the out
side world with all but an Insignificant per-
centage of its playthings. Therefore, it were
we'll when you wishing the German toy
workers in Nuremberg and Sonneberg
merry Christmas, not to forget their ten
thousand brethren of the Err Gebirge. who.
~, Caif