Jasper County Democrat, Volume 9, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 October 1906 — DO YOU CARRY A WATCH [ARTICLE]

DO YOU CARRY A WATCH

Most men and many women, for that matter, carry watches. To nearly all who use them they are a necessity and not a luxury. The business of hundreds of thousands of persons compels them to buy watches. All such will be interestd in the following from the St. Louis Republic: “The consignment of watches received at headquarters of the Democratic congressional campaign committee in Washington will be an instructive object lesson in the methods by which the American consumer is robbed under the benign protection of the Dingley act "These watches were made in the United States, but they were not bought in this country. They were bought in Europe at $7.98 each, whereas the lowest price at which the watch trust would sell them to Amer--1( in dealers is |10.58 apiece. The difference is $2.60 on each watch. “The Dingley tariff, therefore, enables the watch trust to charge the American dealers exactly one-third more for the watches it makes than it is .willing to take for the same articles in countries where the tariff does not give it the power to levy tribute upon people who want to know the time of day.

"By the time the retailer’s profit In counted in, this tribute of $2.60 amounts to $3.50 or $4 on each watch of this grade carried in an American pocket. It Is paid by railroad conductors, engineers and other train hands, by railroad station agents and telegraphers, by streetcar conductors and motormen and by hundreds of thousands of others whose business requires them to carry a serviceable but not too costly timepiece.” When Governor Hanly was a member of the state senate in 189 J he voted agslnst the general fee and sal-

ary law, the tax law and all of the. other reform laws proposed by the Democrats. But the Democrats had a majority in the legislature and pdssed these laws, notwithstanding the opiosition of Mr. Hanly and the other Republicans. Mr. Manly’s entire legislative conduct showed him to be anything but a reformer. The Democrat carries at all times a fine line of linen and typewriter papers, abstracts and complaint backs, etc.