The silver state. [volume] (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1909-1925, 1910-12-13

iy asserted on the stump That the
American Wooden company fixed the
price on the entire wool clip Of the
United States, and that every one was
at the mercy of that monopoly.
tNow at that time there were fully
thousand wooden mills in the United
States, of which about thirty were
owned by the American Wooden com
pany. In not one of the other mills
did this company have the slightest
interest directly or indirectly in any
way whatsoever. This statement by
Mr.. Monett was grotesequely false
from beginning to end, and yet it was
echoed and re-echoed all over the
United States by newspapers and men
that were hostile to this American in
dustry and hostile to the American
system of protection.
An even more regrettable case is
that of Senator Beveridge, of Indiana,
a Republican who, in recent maga-
zine article, attacked the American
Woolen company for undue influence
over the tariff revisions of 1894 and
1897. As matter of fact the Ameri-
can Woolen cmpany was not organic
ed or even thought of for several
years afterward. 1t did not come into
existence until 1899.
cit may interest the people to know
that in our great business, where the
cost of production is at the lowest
point possible and in favor of the
community at large, the average profit
which we manufacturers secure on the
cloth entering into suit of clothes
does not exceed thirty eight cents on
an average suit of clothing. / read
recently that the president of the
United States was wearing a suit of
clothes for which he paid fifty dollars.
The American people may like to know
that if that cloth were purchased from
our company, our share of the profit
in that suit of clothes would be less
than fifty cents, or less than one per
cent of the entire suit. Does this
sound as if schedule K was so very
iniquitiousf
"I have heard it stated and I am
willing to endorse it, that as a matter
of fact, the tariff on wool and woolens
does not actually cost the American
people a single cent. The tariff on
wool vitally affects not only the raw
material of clothing, but the food sup
ply of the United States. Theodore
Justice, of Philadelphia, an able and
exact student of the wool question, re-
minds us that during the free wool
period of the Gorman-Wi law, we
lost one fourth of all the sheep in
America in a few years, and that If
there had not been quick change IN
the tariff, sheep before long would
have vanished from the country. We
hear much complaint today of the high
price of mutton and lamb, but can you
imagine what the price would be if
the great American flocks were entire
" destroyed and our lamb and mutton
supply had to be brought in refriger-
ator ships from the other side of the
equatorial line-from South America,
South Africa and Australian
.'The United States is by far the
greatest meat-eating and Woodworking
country in the world. Our own sheep
are, on the whole, increasing in num-
bers in this country, while in the
world as a whole, they are decreasing
Last year our farmers and ranchers
furnished 32S,0O0,000 rounds of wool
and in addition, 263,000,000 pounds
were imported. Yet you will read in
the newspapers and magazines, heated
assertions by men who do not know
or care what they are talking about
that the American protective tariff is
| prohibitive.' 1t is not prohibitive IN
our industry on either wool or goods
"In the last fiscal year ending June
30, 1910, covering eleven months of the
Aldrich-Payne law, our gross imports
of manufactures of wool were $23,
432, ,175-a large increase over the $18,-
100, 400 of the year before. These
figures,it should be borne in mind, are
the low foreign prices, made low often
for deliberate undervaluation. The i'm
ports of 1910 represents total actual
duty-paid American value not far from
the total average value of the entire
output of the American Woolen com
pany. A tariff which allows such ar
import as this cannot rightfully be
denounced as either prohibitive or ex
cessive.
"Schedule K may have defects OF
detail--no tariff law whether congress
made or commission made ever has
been or ever will be perfect. But the
present schedule as it stood in the
Dingley law and stands now has wit
messed the most marked healthy anc
vigorous growth of wool manufactur
| ing in the history of America. Five
hundred thousand people depend upor
this industry for sustenance, anc
there are hundreds of thousands OF
Others dependent on the growing OF
wool, The wages in American WOODEN
mills are more than twice the wages
in England and three times the wages
in Germany or France. These Ameri
can mills can supply the entire domes
tic demand for clothing. If the protec
tive tariff is destroyed, we manufae
turers, with our command of capital
can go elsewhere and build our fac
tories wherever labor is cheapest, but
the American work people cannot dc
this. They cannot go to England OF
Germany or France or China or Japan