Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 June 1891 — ANOTHER “PRESS” DIAGRAM FRAUD. [ARTICLE]

ANOTHER “PRESS” DIAGRAM FRAUD.

Indianapolis Sentinel. The New York Press’ daily diagram seems to be a daily fraud. A good many of the stories which the Press thinks to make impressive by the uso of diagrams have been shown up, and may safely be assumed as to any of them, in the absence of conclusive evidence te the contrary, ftiat it is either wholly false or one of those half truths which are worse than square lies. Recently the Press published, with a diagram, the foillowing: A “high tariff democrat” sends us word of a firm of large manufacturers of flannels at Laporte, Ind., whose busin ss has been so stimulated by the passage t>f the McKinley bill that the cost of manufacture has been reduced. They are now able to offer, and are offering, flannels which they sold at 60 ents a yard last year, at 47 cents a yard this year. The Sentinel has been at some pains to investigate this matter, and as the results of its inquiries it is able to say: 1. That if there is a single high tariff democrat at Laporte his identity is not known to the people of that city. 2. The bestfflannels made only retail at 40 cents a yard, as everybody can demonstrate by inquiry at any dry goods store. The Press says the Laporte flannels have been reduced from 60 to 47 I "cents. When wool was $1 a pound during the war flannel only sold for 57 cents, and it sold from the Laporte mills as low as 50 cents. We are assured that flannel was never sold as high as 60 cents. 3. There has been no reduction in the prices of the flannels made at Laporte since the McKinley law took effect, and no change except that trade is a little duller than usual an ‘he mills have been shut down for some time. The price of flannels is 30 cents a yard for the best grades, weighing from four to four and a half ounces per yard, and that has been the average price for many years. Wool at Laporte is bringing the same prices as last year—from 20 io 25 cents per pound. The Laporte mill men buy mostly at Chicago, where they have large assortments to select from. The Clear Lake Woolen mills sell entirely to jobbers, Marshall, Field & co. take the bulk of their product. They get 27 to 27| cents a yard instead of 47 cents as stated by the Press, and this is the price they have been getting fer several years. 4. The letter to which the Press refers was evidently not written from Laporte, because spefils of the Fox Brotheis as the proprietor of one of the Laporte woolen mills. There was such a firm, but it was dissolved six years ago, since which time Mr. 8. Fox has been the sole proprietor of the mill. That able journal, the Laporte Argus, reprints the Press story and, among other thin?s, says: This will indeed be news to the people of Laporte. The mills have been standing still and it is understood here to be because of an unusually light demandfor flannels. Besides this, there has been no reduction in the price of flannels made here, and there never was a yard of such flannel as is made here that sold for 60 cents. * * * The whole report is a fake, and the “High Tariff Democrat” is purely au imaginary being, or some “smart Alick” republican, who is “intoxicated by the exuberance of his own verbosity.” Here, where all the facts are known, this story will create a broad?grin, but it is safe to say nobody will expect an increase of wages from the great flannel boom “caused by the McKinley bill.”— Neither will the farmers rush into town with wool to get the increased price, because “the increased price” is not yet visible to the eye of the honest granger. We have gone into some detail in exposing this fraud, because the opportunity to procure ihe exact facts was so good.— We care say that if all the New York Press’ so-called “tariff pictures” were looked into as closely the results would be the same. The Press evidently manufactures its “facts” (?), or else it obtains them from others who do. It is quite probable the “tariff picture” above exploded, which was published in the Rensselaer Republican last week, was intended for localities more remote than this, where there would be less possibility of exposure of the fraud. We venture to say the Republican will not correct the fraud upon its readers of which it was made the innocent vehicle.