Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 October 1890 — The Pearl Button Industry Revived. [ARTICLE]

The Pearl Button Industry Revived.

The new tariff bill has resurrected the pearl button industry In the United States, and the entire supply of pearl buttons for this country Will hereafter come from hom e factories. The decline of this industry in America after the reduction of the tariff in 1883 was sudden and sweeping. Its revival under the new bill promises to be just as sudden, and in a very few months it is predicted that it will be on a firmer .basis than It ever was before. The factories that are now in operation can not begin to get as many workmen as they want, notwithstanding the fact that the firms have been advertising for men for weeks. Several manufacturers have already advanced the wages of their men. One of the first firms in Philadelphia to increase wages was that of Lazarus, Swartz & Lipper, proprietors of the Biddle Button Works. They made a new schedule of wages last Saturday, allowing an increase of from ifteen to twenty per cent., which went nto effect last Monday. Isaac A. nf this firm, inspcakir-g of the iast and future of the industry, said: “The new tariff bill has increased le duty on pearl buttons about 100 r cent., which is practically prohib- 1 <»ry. but places the manufacturers of is* counti y in a better position tha ey have ever been. We have bee obled by the increase of duty to

vace the wages of dur men from 111 to 20 per cent. This means that mem who have been earning from sl2 to sls per week will in the future ©arm' from sls to $25 per week. It means 1 even more than that, for all the pearl: buttons that are used in this country from now on will be trale here, anl: that means the starting of nek facto* ries and the giving of eoiploymant to 2,500 or 8,000 men.” Several thousand workmen were employed some years ago in twenty-ono, pearl button manufactories of Newark, with good wages and steady employment. Congress reduced the duty OB foreign buttons, and the result was that three-fourths of the factories were closed, while wages were redutfed’ in those that remained open. Application so: relief was made to the Milla] Committee in vain. Pearl button* made in Austrian prisons flooded that market. ’ , , - j Ths bill had scarcely been signets before tho Newark factories, that hadl been so long silent, began to st tri up again. Before Christmas a score of factories will be in full operation, with workers receiving the old time wages;, A like Improvement is expected Ao| take place in the Newark thread in-t dustry. The Clark Company alone employs 5,000 hands and pays $60,000 in wages weekly. The Protective' Tariff made a great industry of this in the United States, after it had been] brought from Scotland, and the naw Tariff will give it Protection, increasing the price to the consumer,’ who now gets thread at one-Xourth of the cost which was formerly demanded! for the imported article. - -