Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1909-03-23
HEAVIER YOUR SHOES
CHEAPER THEY ARE
NEW TARIFF WILL MAKE CHEAP
SHOES, HARNESS AND HEAVY
LEATHER GOODS--BEEF TRUST
RESPONSIBLE FOR OLD DUTY.

LEATHER GOODS--BEEF TRUST
RESPONSIBLE FOR OLD DUTY.
The soles of your shoes, if their up
pers be of anything but cowhide; whole
shoe II II be a 'brogan'; your satchel,
your suit case, your saddle, your har-
ness, your machinery belting-all those
are among the score of heavy leather ar
ticles that the reduction of imported hides
to the free list will make Is cents cheap
err on every dollars worth of raw hide
that is used in their manufacture.
Not tomorrow will you who buy shoes.
suit cases and saddles feel the effect of
the reduction, however. Nor next week,
for that matter. Possibly within six or
eight months the Is per cent reduction on
imported raw hides will have reached
the end of the string that the public
holds. Possibly by then will the market
show cheaper prices.
How much is it going TO mean? 1t will
mean 81 or IS a year to the head of the
average family, says the combined au-
thority Of all the leather interests. This
was one of the arguments they present.
ed before congress recently when they
fought for the reduction. 1t will mean
that much TO the average father, who
will pay less for the same quality of
shoes his family has been wearing or
who will pay the same price for shoes of
better quality.
That's in the mater OF shoes. To what
extent the reduction will be felt in 9TH
er lines of leather goods, no computation
has yet been made to show.
But the reduction in shoes is the one
that interests the great mass of people,
for everybody must wear shoes or be
looked on as peculiar.
Will Help Farmer
The difference will go to the farmer,
to the man who wears a laborers heavy
shoe. In the shoes that he buys
the reduction will show more than
1t will in the higher-priced soes; for in
the brogan and heavy shoe the margin
Of profit is smaller, and any difference
in price effects a larger number of peo-
pie.
How much will the difference be? It's
an elaborate problem. Probably ii will
average as much as cents per pair
among the cheaper grades of shoes
That's the difference that will be passed
up by the wholesaler to the retailer. How
he will distribute it among his stock
for odd prices, such as $1.30 instead of
N5 or $3.50, don't go over the retail
counter-must be left to him. But the
average, If it be fair, will be a difference
of something like cents per pair, on a
dollar shoe, among all his customers
In 81 brogans, If he carry such in stock
the difference ought to average 10 cents
But on the higher grades of shoes,
whose uppers are of calf or kid. the re-
duction won't amount to so much. for
only the soles of such shoes-the only
cowhide about them-will be affected.
Calf and kid have been on the free list
all along. The beef trust was not in
terested in them.
Beef Trust Back of Duty
That the beef trust stood behind the Is
per cent duty was the direct charge of the
leather men who have fought for the re-
duction. They said to the members of
congress that the beef trust alone was
responsible for the Is per cent tax being
inser1uu into the Dingley tariff, in 1897
after COW hides had been on the free list
for 20 years and had never been taxed at
all except for emergency revenue Russia
and Spain, argued the leather men, are
the only countries that collected duty on
raw hides, and their duty was about half
as heavy as the United States tax.
The leather men further argued that the
domestic supply of hides is inadequate
and that they are forced to- buy abroad.
There is no civilized country on the
face of the earth, they said, that raises
enough cattle to meet its own demand for
leather.
They charged further that foreign mer-
chants could actually buy American hides
cheaper in America than our own home
leather manufacturers could, because the
American hide men. if they bid for the
European market at all, were forced to
knock off the Is per cent of the Dingley
tariff or not sell their hides.
The packers, moreover, urged the leather
manufacturers, held a monopoly on the
American hide business, so far as shoe
manufacturers We're concerned for the
reason that only their hides, stripped by
machinery, could be used for shoes. The
hides gathered over the country at large
were too crudely handled to be fit for
manufacture into shoes.
To all of this the answer Of the beef
trust is quoted to have BEEN
Will Make Farmer Pay
1T makes no difference to us if you
remove the duty on hides. We will make
the farmer pay for it. We will make the
cattle raiser pay for 1t. We will simply
give him the less for his cattle-enough
less to give us still as much profit as we
are now making.
"Only two millions of revenue were add
ed by the former tariff" said Mr.. Kirk
land Friday morning, land to offset this
was the loss of untold millions by the peo-
pie of this country.
Probably no small part of that loss
was in wages to workingmen. There has
been no duty on calf skins goat skins
or kids, because the beef trust was not in
terested in them. Therefore the Ameri-
can manufacturers who sell shoes abroad
have imported the lighter leather for their
uppers and have made the upper here in
this country; but they have been forced
TO ship the completed uppers to the for
eign countries where they sell, that the
soles might be added there, because the
sole hides couldn't be imported here with
out paying the tax. In that one respect
alone there is no telling how much has
gone to Englishmen and Germans and
Frenchmen and italians in wages for sew
ing uppers TO soles And they were wages
that this country ought to have gotten"
Mr. kirkland illustrates how the differ
ence will be computed on shoes:
"A shoe now selling for a dollar whole
sale will hold about IS cents actual worth
of leather. The % cents difference is the
cost Of making 1t. That rs cents worth
of finished leather represents a raw hide
value of about half, or 81 1-2 cents. On
that figure will the Is per cent reduction
apply. Fifteen per cent of 81 1-2 cents is