Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 April 1888 — PLATE GLASS. [ARTICLE]

PLATE GLASS.

An Indiana Manufacturer Who is Opposed to a Reduc- * tlon off the Tariff. N. T. Del’auw, in North Aincrieari Review. - Our industry, the manufacture of plate glass, is a peculiar one. j The capital required is Jargp, the I process of manufacture extremely I hazardous and the skill demanded ;is very great. Every attempt to manufacture plate glass in America was a failure, resulting in financial disaster, and ruin to the undertakers, until we took hold of |it at this place. In fact every dollar (aggregating millions) invested. j,n it. before 1879 was Jost. -My father was a retired' banker, worth several millions. Persuaded by friends, he invested $200,000 in the business. The company borrowed freely from his banks, until in 1872, finding 8500,000 of money involved, he left his retirement and took personal charge of the works, putting in nearly a million dollars more* In 187-9, when the business first reached a paying basis, his actual losses were $619,790.40. Since then we have not made up this rosy, without counting the interest. If the money put into this business had been invested in government bonds, and the interest re-invested, his estate would have been half a million dollars larger, and his life prolonged for y_£ars —for he died from overwork. It is therefore patent that the profits cannot meat the reduction. [proposed in the tariff.] If it comes, we must either stop our works or our labor must stand it. Seventy-five per cent. of the cost of production is labor. Our skilled workmen average 817.04 per week, against $7.05 in England $6.35 in France, and $6.60 in Belgium. The only labor we have ever imported was skilled men, whose knowledge was necessary to start the new industry. In Europe, father, mother aud children were barely able by their united earnings to keep body and soul together. Our men earn enough to support their families and educate their children. Before we made plate glass, the foreignerhaving a monopoly, charged exorbitant prices. The records of the Treasury Department show that the average cost of large unsilvered plate glass imported Tn 1875 (our first year of active competition) was 98.7 cents per square foot, while in 1887 the average was 32,7 cents, a reduction of 66j per cent. Silvered plate glass averaged in 1875 $1.26 per square foot, in 1887 it averaged $1,097 per square foot, a reduction of 12.93 per cent. Why is the reduction in one five times larger than the other? Solely because unsilvered plate is made in America, while silvered plate is not, the higher prices are exacted and will be forever, unless the present tariff is maintained until factories can be established. A plate of glass costing $lO5 when our works were established sells to-day ior $31.50, and bear in mind that no part of this great reduction is due either to improved methods or improved machinery, but solely to sharp competition of American manufacturers. Americans can do what any people can; but they cannot in fifteen years reach the same condition that France attained under an absolutely prohibitory tariff in two hundred years and England reached under a tariff eight to twelve times as large as burs in one hundred and sixty years. I have faith to believe that, when we are old enough to have full crews of Americans, their “genius” will make improvements and discoveries that will revolutionize our business and enable us to compete on equal grounds with foreign makers and still pay living wages, but that day has not yet come.

The Democratic papers have recently become very much interested iu Judge Walter Q. Gresham. They want him nominated by the Republicans for the Presidency, and as he is a very good man he may get the nomination. If he should be nominated, in less than one week from the time he is proclaimed the nominee every democratic paper in the union will denouncejjhim as aiTuDjust Judge and declare that he always decided in favor of monopolies.—Crown Point Register. Under the administration of the Jiew high-license law but 597 saoons will be open in twelve wards of Philadelphia, where 2,163 formerly flourished. The restriction of the traffic is regarded by the great majority of intelligent citizens as a. long step toward the improvment of the community. The political Prohibitionists, however, join the lower classes of society in preferring free whisky.— Indianapolis Journal,

A Rensselaer correspondent of the Remington News thus accounts for the early demise of a late Temperance organization in this-town: The “Rensselaer Temperance Union,” a society organized for the purpose of promoting temperance on the line of moral suasion has disbanded. The cause being the persistant effort of the “Third Party” prohibition itts to force .upon the society such hypocritical temperance i workers as McKelvy and ethers, insisting that political temperance work and none other was legitimate and honest. Such work in the past four years has totally destroyed the temperance organizations and work of this community and instead of gaining ground the good work has receded. The Indianapolis Sentinel, the State organ of the Democracy, has been reduced in size to a seven column four page paper, and its price reduced ■to six dollars per year and two cents per copy.