The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1909-08-06
MAKE The PROTECTION HONEST
Letter Hixon Presnent Mankato Mills Com
pany, ia Hon.. Knute Nelson

IL is HOI pfilH IiIdU d IeNlNdf OF UHe
carded wooden industry will stimulate
the price of domestic woods and cir
cumvent the combers in any attempt
to depress the domestic market for the
purpose of buying such domestic woods
as they can use only after they have
depleted the foreign markets?
Yet strange as it seems the senator's
who appear to be so anxious to pro-
tect their home growers, are playing
into the hands of the very interests
who do not use their products if they
can help it, and we have the amazing
spectacle of the wool growers sup.
porting those who do not use their
woods. To them the entire schedule is
a fraud, delusiOn and snare, and
how the combing interests succeeded
in deluding them, notwithstanding the
maze of phraseoiogy and disingenuous-
ness, | cannot understand.
Imagine if you will, the growers of
domestic cotton encouraging it's impor-
tation by placing a lower duty on eX-
pensive foreign cotton than on their
own class of cotton, yet such action
on their part would parallel the wool
schedule. On its face, no legislator at
Washington could have had the techni-
cal knowledge to have conceived the
present schedule unless years had been
spent in the combing industry. 1t
bears the imprint of the worsted in
terests so exclusively, that to deny
that they practically framed it or
made our legislators believe that it
was just what we all needed, would be
to deny the evidence of ones own
senses.
No serious attempt has been made
to defend it, but reliance has been
placed on the immense influence WELD
ed by its selected benefciaries-the
wOrsted interests, to railroad it through
in public be damned" fashion. The
wool schedule has floated into nearly
every tariff since the war, in a cloud
of technicalities. The worsted indus.
try was an infant in war time, and
the fact that it has
grown lusty and powerful it is still
nursing out of the same big bottle it
nursed from forty years ago.
When it was first suggested, our leg
islatOrs were face to face with a prob.
lem to raise revenue to apply on the
war debt and to run the country with.
1t is safe to say that their knowledge
of war at that time was greater than
their knowledge of tariffs. 1t was a
fine opportunity for the infant worsted
industry to get in it's work, and it
would seem that they have succeeded
in making the majority believe that
their own pet schedule is so sacred
and infallible that it would be impos-
sible to conceive of any basis of revis-
ion that would put the carded wooden
manufacturers on an equality, which
is all they ask, or which would relieve
the consumer of the tremendous bur-
den he has been staggering under for
a generation.
The Wooden Trust.
The American Wooden company, a
trust, said to control over SO per cent
of the wooden goods output, has been
able to see such tremendous profits
in the operation of combing mills sub
sided by schedule X, that it can even
afford gradually to abandon the manu-
facture of woolens by the carded pro-
cess; and that it is getting into the
trror Cd 10 10 e
denced .,y the fact that it has recently
built, and | believe is still building,
enormous mills for the manufacture OF
worsted products, in order to take adj
vantage of and reap the rich reward
offered by schedule especially design
ed in the interests of few.
Taxing Necessities in Excess of Lux
urieS.
1t cannot be denied that woolens
manufactured by the carded process
are consumed mostly by those of mod
crate means or the poorer class of peo-
pie, while worsteds made by the comb
ing process 60 to clothe the Weather
classes. In order to offset the iiasad-
vantage which is against them the
carded manufacturers have been forced
by the wooden schedule to use substi-
tutes against their will, to make goods
at fixed prices within the reach of the
pocketbooks of the consumers they
cater to. How does this help the con
sumner and the wool grower?
The enormous tax on necessity
brings the prices of the carded wooden
goods so high that the worsted manu-
facturer making luXuries in which no
shoddies can be used, can thus success
fully compete even against wooden
goods that otherwise might be cheap
Pr were it not for the outrageous tax
thereon.
The advantage of the tariff given to
the worsted manufacturers forces the
buyer to choose worsteds in spite of
the fact that our worsted friends would
have you believe that their material
has come into vogue strictly on its
merits as to style, finish, etc.; and that
the decline in the carded wooden bust
ness is not caused by the blight of a
prohibitory tariff, but because of the
above alleged facts and because the
carded wool manufacturers are lack
ing in ability to overcome the immense
handicap of the present schedule and
be as successful as the comber.