Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 August 1891 — HURT BY M'KINLEY. [ARTICLE]

HURT BY M'KINLEY.

WHY A MANUFACTURER HAS CHANGED HIS BUSINESS. • Knitting-Machine Maker Tarns Bicycle Maker—How McKinley Put In His Litt** BUI —An Export Trade Spoiled. It must not be supposed that the tariff is an unmixed good for the manufacturers. There are frequent cases where the manufacturers are not only hurt by the tariff but are actually driven out of business And it is to be noted that whenever such is the case they do not let their modesty keep them siicnt. The case has recently been reported of a manufacturer of knitting machines who has been hurt by the McKinley law. A representative of the Amir icon Wool Il:vortet\ a leading protectionist trade paper, has had an interv ew with this manufacturer. Here is a part of what was said: “So you are making bicycles. Is not that a novel line of goods for a knitting machine factory?” “Oh, jos,” replied the manager, “but our export trade is destroyed. Twentyfive ]er cent, of our force can produce enough goods for the home market, and we have as large a domestic demand for machines as any work* in the country, to state it mildly; so happily, circumstances being favorable, we are able to keep 75 per.cent. of our men at work in a totally different field, which for their sakes we are glad to do. ” “What is the cause of this great falling off from your export trade?" “The reason is very simple. When the tariff on German knit goods is so high as to exclude them from the American market, the Germans will not buy American knitting machines. You may say that, so far as the export trade is concerned, the manufacture of American knitting machines is paralyzed. We have been in business since 1867. manufacturing machines, both for making seamless hosiery and for making underwear; also topping machines, looping machines, and machines for making ‘union suits.’ Ours are distinctive y hand labor-saving tvachines. Our factory, in the aggregate, is 305 feet long, forty feet wide and three stories high. We have adejuate water power, nine months in the year; employing steam power for the remainder of that period; giving labor to 300 men. We have sold 100 machines a year to go to Germany. We se I none now in that direction. You may say: ‘The latest tariff legislation has destroyed that part of our business.’ * An ounce of fact is worth a ton of theory. A New England protectionist manufacturer gives the foregoing incontrovertible testimony to the ruinous effect of the McKinley tariff upon a legitimate American industry.