Jasper County Democrat, Volume 15, Number 60, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 October 1912 — AMERICANS TAXED FOR ENGLISH PROFIT. [ARTICLE]

AMERICANS TAXED FOR ENGLISH PROFIT.

Enormous Dividends of Thread Trust Go Abroad. Cotton thread pays an import dutv equivalent to 47 per cent. This tariff was levied originally to build up an infant industry' in America and pro tect American capital? It happens however, that practically ail the < api tai in the thread industry in the Unit ed States is foreign capital, and that the dividends of tlie thread trust are nearly all sent abroad. The American Thread company, in corporated in New Jersey in 189.8. has $16,290,473 of capital, and its net prof its in 1910 were $2.4-11.844. Lyman R. Hopkins, president, i testifying in 1901 before the United States indus trial commission, said that the money to bin up the fourteen concerns included in the New Jersey consolidation was furnished by the English Sewing Cotton company. Tlie thread trust’s principal competitor in this country is the J. & I’. Coates concern, which maintains'jts English organization and English factories to manufacture thread for the world, and its American factories to manufacture thread for Amer leans In order to reap the extra profits from manufacturing within the Amer ican tariff wait As far back as 1901 the thread trust according to its president, was employ Ing “one-quarter to one-third” of foreign labor. Recent industrial investigations have disclosed that the proportion in New England textile industries is now nearer four foreigners to one American. Here we have “protection” for for eign capital and for foreign labor at the expense of every sewing woman, every householder, every man. woman and child in the United States.