Any one who has traveled abroad or had occasion to compare foreign
prices of cloths and dress-goods with those prevailing in this country
knows that on the average they can be bought in Europe, particularly
in free-trade England, at about half the price usually asked for
similar goods at home. As the investigation of the Tariff Board has
shown, there are many cloths on which the difference in price is not so
great, particularly on the finer grades, while, on the other hand, the
American price is more than double the English on some of the medium
and cheap grades of cloth. But, on the whole, it is safe to state that
our prices on woolen and worsted cloths are about double those in
England. The difference in price represents largely the toll paid by
ninety-odd million Americans for the support of the half-century-old
infant worsted and the century-old woolen industry. We have all been
vaguely aware of that fact, and yet have submitted to it for the
ultimate good of creating a raw-wool supply and a fine woolen and
worsted industry that would make us independent of the rest of the
world and give employment to American labor at American wages. Not
until the two wings of the industry, the woolen and the worsted, fell
out among themselves, and the carded-wool manufacturers showed to an
astonished public that the tariff, as it stood, throttled an important
branch of the industry, instead of building it up, was the layman
given an opportunity of getting a deeper insight into the workings of
Schedule K.
The woolen industry in the United States is as old as the country
itself. Carried on first as a household industry among the early
colonists, it entered the factory stage with the introduction of
mechanical power, first in connection with carding-machines in 1794,
then with its application to spinning between 1810 and 1820, and later
to weaving in the following decade.
Before the Civil War, all woolens were made by what is known as the
carded-woolen process, which produces a cloth with a rough surface.
Such cloths as tweeds, cheviots, cassimeres, meltons, and kerseys are
among the best-known types of woolen cloth. Just before the Civil War
the worsted industry made its appearance in this country. The worsted
fabric differs from the woolen cloth in being made of combed yarn, as
distinguished from the carded yarn which goes into the woolen cloth.
The combing process involves, to a greater or less extent, the use of
finer and longer grades of wool, and yields a fabric with a smooth
surface, on which the weave is plainly visible. Among the best-known
types of these cloths are the serges and the unfinished clay worsteds,
which constitute the plain varieties, and the so-called fancy worsteds,
showing a distinct pattern produced by the weave and the use of colored
yarn.
How different the course of these two branches of the woolen industry
has been, since the adoption of Schedule K substantially in its
present form, is shown very strikingly by the figures of the United
States Census. In 1859, the last census year preceding the adoption of
Schedule K virtually in its present form, the value of the products of
the woolen industry was nearly $62,000,000, while the worsted could
boast of less than three and three quarter millions. In 1909, exactly
half a century later, the woolen industry produced $107,000,000 worth
of cloth, while the value of the worsteds exceeded $312,000,000. Put in
another form, while fifty years ago the worsted industry was only one
twentieth the size of the woolen, to-day it is three times as large as
its older rival. Nor does this tell the whole story. The decline of the
woolen industry has been not only relative, but absolute. Thus, after
increasing from $62,000,000 in 1859 to $161,000,000 in 1879, it dropped
to $134,000,000 in 1889, to $118,000,000 in 1899, and to $107,000,000
in 1909. On the other hand, the worsted industry showed a marked
increase in each succeeding decade, beating all previous records in the
first decade of the present century, when the value of its output rose
from $120,000,000 in 1899 to more than $312,000,000 in 1909.
A large part of the growth of the worsted industry at the expense of
the woolen is said to be due to change in fashion and taste, people
generally preferring the smooth, smart-looking worsteds to the rough
woolens. While this is, no doubt, true, the woolen-goods manufacturers
assert that the change of fashion is only partly responsible for
the decline of their industry. They insist that but for the unfair
discrimination of the tariff against their industry in favor of the
worsted it would continue to increase with the growth of population,
since it alone can turn out an all-wool cloth that is within the means
of poor people.
A feature which goes far to explain the superior advantage which the
worsted industry has over the woolen is that the former is essentially
the big capitalist’s field, while the woolen mills are still run to a
large extent by people of moderate means. According to the last census
report, in 1909 the average output per mill in the worsted industry
was nearly one million dollars, which was more than five times as
large as that of the average woolen mill. The prevailing type in the
former is the large corporation, managed by high-salaried officials; in
the latter, the typical mill is a comparatively small establishment,
personally managed by the owner or owners, who form a partnership which
in many cases has come down from earlier generations in the family and
has not improved much on the old ways.
The great factor in the worsted industry to-day is the American Woolen
Company, popularly known as the Woolen Trust, which was said to control
sixty per cent. of the country’s output at the time of its formation
in 1899, and can boast of the largest and best-equipped mills not
only in the United States, but in the entire world. Outside of the
so-called trust are other large concerns, such as the Arlington Mills,
largely owned by Mr. William Whitman, the most conspicuous figure in
the industry, who has probably had more to do with the shaping of
Schedule K than any other man in the country, and who has amassed a
large fortune in the business, most of the capital invested in his mill
having been built up from the profits of the business.
If the quarrel between the woolen and worsted manufacturers had no
other consequences than to affect our fashions, the rest of us could
well afford to let the rival forces fight it out among themselves.
But it affects the consumer very vitally, and particularly that part
of the consuming public that can ill afford to pay high prices for
its clothes. For woolen is distinctly the poor man’s cloth, while
worsted is the cloth of the well-to-do. As will be shown presently,
our tariff on raw wool is designed to keep out of this country the
cheap, short staple wools which our woolen industry could use to great
advantage. The tariff thus artificially restricts the manufacture of
woolens, while stimulating the production of worsteds, and, as the poor
man cannot afford a genuine worsted cloth, it has to be adulterated
with cotton to the extent of at least one half. Many of the “cotton
worsteds” contain only a small fraction of wool, most of the material
being cotton. It is this aspect of the effect of the tariff on the
consumer that has made the family quarrel between the two branches of
the wool manufacturing industry a matter of national concern.