Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 April 1892 — THEY WANT FREE WOOL [ARTICLE]

THEY WANT FREE WOOL

TEXTILE WORKERS PETITION TO THAT EFFECT. The McKinley Tariff Shown to Be Positively Harmful—Protection in England— The People and the Sugar Trust—Oat Meal and the Tariff. Want the Duty Removed. The following is a portion of the petition In favor of free wool, aud lower duties on woolens, sent to the Committee on Ways and Means by the Kensington Reform Club of Philadelphia. The olub is composed of workmen in the large woolen factories of that city: “Although labor is most directly interested in the arrangment of tariff schedules It has been customary for those who favor high protective duties to turn a deaf ear to its appeals, despite their protestations of solicitude for the welfare of the toilers, while the clamors of those who find a special interest in high duties, having the time and means to besiege the doors of Congress, have not been unheeded. The fat that is being fried out of the workingmen enables them to render special service to the partisan machine, and thus they can make their weight felt far better than the fleeced workingmen. “Now, however, that there is once more an opportunity for labor to be heard upon an equal footing with the capitalists, we, the Kensington Reform Club, an organization composed of workingmen in every branch ot the textile industries, send greeting to the friends of fair play and honest government, with a prayer for the immediate passage of the free-wool bill now under consideration in the House, which, while it may not fully meet our desires, is yet a measure offering great relief to the whole people. “The labor in the woolen mills has never been in so depressed a condition as in the past year. The carpet industry was never so demoralized. Wages have been reduced both in a direct way aud by the various subterfuges called adjustments, readjustments and tin ‘s, and yet the cost of living has been perceptibly increased until the condition of labor is well nigh unbearable. Employment has grown more unsteady, many mills working but partial time, some closed entirely, while in others the waiting for warp and filling amounts to a loss of from one-quarter to one-half time. “This is no idle talk, but the result of investigation, as it is one of the missions of our organization to intelligently watch the effect of legislation upon labor; and we here add that there has never been an increase of tariff rates that was not almost immediately followed by reductions of wages. This ie surely contrary to what was promised as a result of the tariff law passed by the last Congress, and it is therefore not surprising to find workingmen realizing that the.V have been fooled once too often. “If, as has been asserted in Congress recently, the maiiufaeturers do not need or want a high tariff, and that it ie solely for the benefits of labor, which never gets any of them, then there is not the slightest impediment to a mutual agreement for its abolition. But since the gentlemen who make this assertion etill oppose a reduction, the workmen, who do not want it either, are certainly justified in praying that these kindly souls may stop their benevolent endeavors to raise wages by laws, which they cannot do, and set about raising them in the mills, which they can do, and if they will only divide with their workmen that which they usually give to the partymachine it will make a perceptible difference in the workers’ pay-rolls. “We here reiterate the fact that the greater cause for the inability of American manufacturers to compete with their foreign rivals is because ot the unjustifiable tax on the raw materials, and not the difference in wages; and that this tax amounts to from three to five times more than the entire wage account in the product. It is needless for gentlemen to imagine that they can forever fool the workingmen by their expressions of solicitude for wages, while yet willing and even anxious to bear the enormous burden of this unnecessary taMlff on the raw materials. “To the workingman ot ordinary intelligence this looks like trying to find excuses for the further reduction of wages; for so long as they can be made to believe that their wages are princely As compared with the wages of the workmen on the other side of the water, the more ignorant of them may be induced to submit to reductions without knowing that they are rapidly- nearing the level of the so-called ‘pauper labor’ of Europe. Intelligent workmen, however, are praying deeply just now that their protectionist friends may cease their hard labors to raise the wind by tariff laws so as to take time to give their professions a practical turn by raising wages in fact. But if we may judge men by their actions we are justified in asserting that if these professional friends of labor thought that a tariff would raise wages they would drop it quickly. “In a recent number of the Manufacturer, the organ of the protectionist manufacturers, its editor, in a labored article, tried to show that the English manufacturers were selling their goods here as cheaply as they did before the present law went into effect, and that this made it evident that the foreign manufacturers were paying the tax for the privilege of selling in our markets. In another article of the same number, the fact is stated that botany tops have declined in price in the London market 16 cents per pound, and this is given as a partial reason for their ability to sell at the old rates, but when we consider that this decline ir wool prices is equivalent to a saving of 32 cents and upward on every pound of manufactured cloth, we may find it to be the whole reason. Here is a pretty mixture of fact and fancy; but then if the tariff advocates’ facts were given without a mixture of fancies their cause would suffer badly. “On a par with this is their averment that the materials of manufacture are not deteriorating. They dare not put their workingmen on the stand to testify to this under oath, for then there would be a full corroboration of the statements made to your honorable Committee of Ways and Means by the committee of the Wool Consumers’ Association that the McKinley law has largely promoted the adulteration of woolen manufactures. It is only necessary to state one fact to expose the falsity of their claim. If all the wool in the country, domestic and imported, outside ot that used in carpets, were made into pure woolen goods, we would not have over 80,000,000 pounds of clothe», dress goods, hate, blankets, underwear, etc., for our 62,000,000 people, or a little over 1$ pounds for each individual. “Who dares to say that this is sufficient to keep us from becoming a nation of shakers at the slightest blast of cold, and who dares to say that 80,000,000 pounds will cover all the goods that are sold to the American public as all-wool manufactures in a year? One must be silly indeed to believe this. But we must not forget that they hat •) learned to manufacture wool by putting old castoff clothing through a chemical process which eats out all but the wool in them, and this residue is recarded and used to mix with other wool, but as the life is out of it it is no better than cotton, and thus between the cold and diseases transmitted through the old clothes there

is at least one infant Industry well protected —that of the doctors. “With reference to the difference between American and foreign wages we are prepared to show that in many branches our rates are even below the English rates, and the same is true even of actual earnings. The rate paid for woolen weaving in the Huddersfield (England) district varies from 1 cent for eight picks to 1 cent for six picks, according to the rate of work, with extra pay for extra heddles, extra colors, and extra beams, while ours is from 1 cent for nine picks to 1 cent for five picks, with no extras. Thus for sixty pick work the English rate is 7J cents to 10 cents per yard, extras to bo added, while our rate is from 6 cents to 12 cents per yard and no extras. “if the American weaver earns more money in a week, it is simply because ho works faster and turns off more product. “Now we declare, without fear of contradiction, that there is not now a woolen manufacturer in Philadelphia who does not privately long for free wool, and those who openly advocate taxed wool are actuated by partisan rancor, and we a’.e still more emphatic in the declaration, that is not in Philadelphia ope woolen worker In a hundred who would not openly ask for free wool if he were free from the sinister influences of the bosses. As we prefer our own prosperity and bread and butter to party success, we ask for free wool without reference to its effects Upon party. “The stubborn perversity and dishonesty of the protectionists Is nowhere better shown than in their steady refusal to correct the glaring inconsistencies and mischievous discriminations of the tariff laws even after their attention had been called to them repeatedly. One is the discrimination against American manufactures involved In the adjustment of duties between the r.iw materials and the finished products, and the other the placing of a heavier tux upon the poor man’s necessities than upon the rich man’s luxuries. We called their attention to these points as far back as the spring of 1886, and the protectionist National Association of Woolen Manufacturers pointed out substant’ally the same errors in their letter to the Secretary of the Treasury in the fall of 1885, and hence they could not consistently overlook it, and yet in the make-up of the McKinley act this infernal piece of injustice was not only retained but made worse than ever. “This shows that in a vicious and determined purpose to serve a few masters they lost sight entirely of their duty to do justice to the people. In fact it appeared to be a pleasure to them to shift the burdens of taxation off the shoulders of the<ich to those of the poor—to make labor the pack-mule of the rich. The unanimous cry of the protectionist manufacturers now is that the McKinley law be let alone because It is doing the manufacturers n great deal of good. Yet In the face of this there is yet to be recorded one important instance of a raise of wages, while instances of the paring down of wages are numerous.”