Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 February 1891 — McKinley Prices Again. [ARTICLE]

McKinley Prices Again.

The talk about higher prices has broken out again. Some prices, after rising when the McKinley law was first imposed, have fallen to the old figure, and the protectionist organs are quick to point out this fact and to claim it as our first benefits of the McKinley law. But there is another side to the matter. The New York Dry Goods Economist, itself a supporter of a mild form of protection, now points out how some of these lower prices have been brought about. It says it is by lowering the quality of the goods. “So in imported hosiery,” says the Economist, “we still have what is known in the trade as the ‘25-ccnt stocking,' but in quality and workmanship it is slightly inferior. It has been adroitly cheapened. The customer gets the article at the old price, but it is not as good, and nb advertising lies can make it as good. ” The cheapening of the stocking is not the only case of the kind. The Economist says that the same thing “has been done in many cases. ” And so under the reign of McKinleyism cheap and nasty go together.