The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1909-05-25

SlOCh II Ne" OIh, BOSTON,, chicago,
st. Louis, and San Francisco, and each
had travelling men going over the ter
ritOry. But with the advent of the
combination all the stores in the va
rious cities were turned into one, and
a much smaller force is used to sell
the products of the various mills"
Now Of course if the theory of the
trust is sound, we ShOuld be getting
some benefi from this combination on
shoe thread, the only one Of it's pro-
ducts which we consider here. But
what has happened to hoe thread?
In the last two years every variety has
advanced rapidly. Increase in cost Of
observation-disclosures in rents-rapac-
iOus dealers-the trust people tell you.
But the facts are these according to
an expert authority: the linen thread
trust are selling their shoe threads to-
day for at least 80 per cent more
on an average han they cost them,
and they are able to do this almost
entirely because Of the duty which pro
tectS them from foreign competition.
The cost of producing in Ireland a
shoe thread known in the trade as
NO. l is 40 cents a pound. In the
United States it is AZ cents. (This price
includes a 10 per cent mill profit.
These are the figures given in Deem
Der to the Ways and Means Commit
, tee by the Rochester Thead Company,
independently. The duty on this thread
is 10 "a cents a Dound-12 "a cents
more than is necessary to cover differ
ence in cost-and the trust sells the
thread Il cents net a pound. No. 4
shoe thread costs SO cents to make in
Ireland. 1t costs GA cents here. There
is a. duty of 25 cents a pound on it,
and it sells at $1.2O a pound, nearly
twice what it costs! In the last two
years it's price has jumped three times.
And What is the attitude of the Lin
en- Thread Trust toward the protective
tariff? It's members signed a petition
to the Ways and Means committee last
winter in which they prayed that the
duty be kept on flax. They wished
to encourage the fibre-producing in
dustry,' they Saskatchewan the
knew, nobody better, that no flax fibre
for thread has ever been grown here
in spite of more thar thirty years of
taNpaying. OF curse they asked that
the duty on thread be untouched,
But a high protection tariff and a
trust agreement are not the only ad-
Vantages the Linen Thread Company
enjoys. 1t has an alliance which gives
1t a commanding strategic position in
the business. A little glance at those
bulky and uninViting but really fruit
full volumes, the manuals of industrials
and corporations, will show how this
comes about. Among the most pros
porous OF the many prosperous con-
Germs whose official histories are re-
corded in these VOlumes is n known
popularity as the Shoe Machinery
TRUST 1t began its life ten years
8 in New Jersey like so many of
it's kind. At that time. 1899. it was
capitalized at $25, 600, 900, divided into
preferred and common stock, the first
at six per cent. the second at eight
per cent. Six years after its ~organiza-
ton the underwent a reor-
go ~ S-A . H.
to have been q way of getting rid of
its extra earnings, for it presented it's
stockholders with comfortable extra
cash dividends as we'll as a fifty per
cent common stock dividend. Accord
ing to The last repOrt to which the
writer has had access, 1907-19OS, the
capital of the company had in eight
years increased from $780,, 600 to
nearly $32,0 900, 600, its surplus from
81, 355,914 to over $13.500, 900, and the
net earnings from 81, 110,110 to over
4 1900, 900. This is certainly doing
we'll,
one may fairly ask how they have
done it. 1t is clear enough when one
looks at what they have had to so
on. In the first place, as everybody
knows, the shoes of this country are
now made almost entirely by machines.
The first practical machine invented
was the famous Mckay sewing ma
chine. 1t was followed rapidly by t n
erS: machines for Welting, lasting, I
heeling, pegging, more than a score for
performing the many complicated OPP
erations by which the modern ready
made shoe is built up. Up to 1899
these various machines were handled
by different companies. But in that
year the twelve most important con-
Germs were combined into the trust
named above, officially the United
Shoe Machinery Company.
Now there prevails and has since
the days of McKay-Who, by the way.
was not the inventor buts the promo
ter of the first shoe machine-a SyS-
of handling it's output peculiar
:. onf,ninn indnctriac IL naNar