The Evening standard. [volume] (Ogden City, Utah) 1910-1913, 1910-12-02
a DEFENSE OF SCHEDULE "k.n


A DEFENSE OF SCHEDULE "k,
Il have hesitated u speal, on tho
question OF the tariff and scheJule
lest the fact OF my being president
oil the American Wooden comnany
might be used by ignorant or disbon
est men against the industry. So
would say at the outset with all en-.
phasiS that the American Wooden
company is simply large corporation
and not trust 1t owns all OF its
plants In Zee simple. with the eX.
cepuon OF one In which IT owns all
the shares, and II does not own any
fractional shares In any other wool
manufacturing corporation. The
American Woolcn company lives In
constant competition and thriyes by
competition. and the Industry of wool
manufacturers is not dominated by
any combination or monopoly.
In all the numerous articles In
newspapers and magazines attacking
schedulo X, | have not been able to
discover in single instance the work
OF any man who was honest and dis
interested and really knew what he
vas writing about These articles
have been chiefly from mere amateur
theorists or from politicians whose
knowledge Of manufacturing is con
fined to political capital. In one or
Two cases these adverse articles have
been written by former wooden manu-.
iaoturerS, who were utter failures in
ire trade and yet now presume TO ad-
Nse strong and successful men how
10 conduct their business,
The American people want fair
play They will not be mlsleG by muck.
rlhug articles in the newspapers and
magazines IL they know that these arc
the work of either ignorance or
prejudice. The history of wool man.
uIaCturo In America has been one of
bitter struggle. and. excepting later
years, of disappointment and disaster
Take the American Wooden company.
for Instance with the exception oi
the three new bills built under the
D'ngley tariff, every one of our thir-
ty odd concerns had been through
financial torture of one kind and an
ether; every single one of them had
been readjusted or gone through bank
ruptcy. Indeed, 1t was the very eXi.
they had endured that forced them to
combine for self-preservation. Excess
slye competition under 4 shifting tar
Itl policy had nearly ruined these
mills before the american Wooden
company was organized. Not one new
Important wooden mill had been built
IN Massachusetts for a period of over
1Orty years until the Mckinley law
WAS introduced Under that law the
industry got upon its feet, only to be
struck down again in 1894. by the III
starred German. Wilson tariff
That Sorman-Wilson law gave the
wool manufacturers yTee wool and a
protection OF 40 and 80 Per cent nd
valorem- The law, as is we'll known.
was disastrous TO the industry. Ii
closed and ruined scores of small, in
dependent mills. the mainstayS of
thriving communities in nearly every
state in the Union, Yet the present
Aldrich-Payne law, like the Dlngley
law before It. though sayagely de.
nounced as excessive, gives the wool
manufacturer a protection of 80 to 90
per cent advalorem above and be-
yond the duty intended to compensate
Allll III Nh' bhNg Il ~ IIA
cent protection with free wool proved
Ineffective and disastrous. can so and
30 per cent be rightly regarded as eX-
cessive2 A margin OF 3 or 10 per cent
is surely not great one between dis
aGter and moderate success.
III II be urged that in some cases
the compensatory duty itself IS eXces-
sive. 1t NAV be replied that in those
fabrics where competition with Eu.
rope is most keen and difficult. as
every man in the trade knows, the
compensatory duty is no more than
adequate This the large and con
stant volume of imports attests.
so long as the greed OF Europe con.
t!nues ior the great American mar
ket, the richest In the world, so long
will the American wool manufacture
CTS be assailcd by violent misrepre-
sontation. Nearly every false state.
ment about schedule K can be traced
directly back 10 INSCRIPTIONS foreign
manufacturers OF their representa-
tives 1t is painful to see how eager
Is these mlsstAtements are caught up
and exploited for political purposes in
this country. A fcw years age eX-
Monet OF Ohio re-
pcatedly asserted on the stump that
the American Woolen company fixed
the price ON the entire wool clip OF
The United States, and that every one
WAS at the mercy of that monopoly.
Now at that time there were fully
a thousand woolen mills in the United
States. of which about thirty were
owned by the American Woolen
company. In no ono OF the other
mills did this company have the
slightest interest directly or indirect
~ IN any way whatsoever. This state
ment by Mr Monett was grotcsquely
false from beginning TO end, and yet
Is was echoed and rc-echoed all over
the United States by newspapers and
men that were hostile To this Amcri-
cnn industry and hostile to the Amerl-
can system OF protection.
AN oven more regrettable case is
that OF Senator BeVeridge OF Indiana,
a Republican who. in recent maya
zine article. attacked the American
Wooden company for undue influence
over the tariff reyisions OF 1894 and
1897. AS a matter of fact. the Ameri-
can Wooden company was not organ
lied or even thought of for several
wears aftcrward IL did not come into
existence until 1899
1T may interest tho people to know
that in our great business. where the