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Show SANTA CLAUS IS LIVING IN AMERICA THIS YEAR Foreign Toys Being Quickly Replaced by Better Ones of American Make, Many Labor Difficulties Are Overcome GOOD old Santa Claus th s year is mak ng his headquarters right here n the Un ted States Not that he ha forgotten the children ot othe nat ons b t h s manufactur ing operat ons heretofore conducted ch efly n Germany France England and S itzerland ha e been greatly dis turbed by the activ t es of the d sc pies of Mara Not so very long ago th s Co ntrv was almost wholl dependent for ts supply of Chr stmas toys upon fo e gn raanu facturers But th s s not the ease to da-v Our own tovmakers are now fur n sh ng fullv one third of the tos sold n the Un ted States By some hook or crook the greater part of the fore gn made toys ordered by Salt Lake dealers came thro gh in good shape although some arrived a lit tie late But at that the toy counters are more nearly f lied with American made toys than ever before And there is a very not ceable difference between the American made toys and those of foreign manufacture There also s a verv not ceable difference in price The fore crn made toys are much cheaper and they show it also they are of an ent rely different character as a Tule Made More Durable The toys of European manufacture outside of the dolls are largely of a raechan cal nature, and of tin and very frail also low in pr ce Where the Amer can manufacturers have invaded the f eld of mechanical toys the toys are much heavier more durable and h gher in price The American manu facturers have not yet been able to meet the pr ees of the Europeans on ac count of the vast differences in scales of wages but thev more than make up for the difference n price with quality Another very not ceable thing s that Amer can to s are more on the educa t onal as wellias amus ng character Americans nave made extensive n vas. ons in the doll market Here also they are hand capped n the matter of pr ce but that s all They cannot make dolls like the German and French at all events not so cheaply But our toy makers are trving and not without con siderable measure of success to make a market for sham babies that are differ ent They are making what are termed character dolls which represent d s t net types The imported doll may be beautiful but it is ns p d and characterless Re cent experiences seem to show that American little girls appreciate a doll that stands for something definite If t s an Ind an doll t looks 1 ke an Indian f a Ch caman doll it bears the proper aspect of a Ch naman The Yankee made doll means something Indestructible Dolls. In Ph ladelphia there is a big fac tory that is spec al z ng n the pTodne tion of a new kind of doll that is rapid ly ga n ng popularity It s made of basswood so art st cally carved and enameled in color that a casual obserr er would hardly guess its material The arms and legs are 10 nted and jo ned to the body with 6teel bands n such a way as to give the utmost flex bil tv and freedom of movement and in add tion th s doll is guaranteed to be as nearly indestrnct ble as any doll can be Few persons Teal re what the toy in dustry means To bring the matter down to exact f gnres we imported from Germany n the year before the war bean 8 860 000 worth of toys. .From France and England the imports especiaflv dolls were much smaller yet of a considerable quant ty We our selves rn that year manufactured about $4 000 000 worth of playthings But s nee the var began our toymaking has gone ahead bT leaps and bounds If the embargo on German toys con t n es in other words if the war goes on for another year or two the nd ca t ons are that the jner can market de mand for playth ngs w 11 be met ma niy. by our o n output And it is doubt ful whether the German toymakers ever get much of the bus ness back aga n Even before the outbreak of the war the t n toys of German manufacture had been driven, to a great extent out of our market by better ones of Amer can manufacture Competition (hercome It was bel eved formerly that we could never compete w th the Germans n the toymak ng industry because of the extremely low cost of labor in the r country But th s being overcome Machinery of Amer can invention has reduced the cost of production to such an extent that today in some instances we are actually able to undersell the Germans in the market for metal toyB and we are beginning to rival them in playth ngs of wood Our t vo princ pal factories for t u toys are located in biew "iork These establ shments turn out everything maginable in that 1 ne from tin trum pets to t n doll s bath rooms doll s kitchens doll s tableware and even t n animals They make sets of tin d shes five or six p eces packed n a paste board box wh ch sell at retail for about 0 cent" The manufacturer gets about 2 cents for them In another part of .ew York is a factory devoted to the product on of po vter toys It employs sixty five per sons the year round w th extra hands for the rush season before Chr stmas Pewter dolls furn ture toy baby car nages doll swings tov table service and many other art cles all of the same material are turned out in large qnan 1 1 es Some day it is possible that we will have n th s country toymakers towns like those of Germany Already there is the beginning of one at 'Winchendon Mass where a gigantic rocking horse erected close by the ra lroad stat on tells the traveler that the manufacture of playth ngs is the pr ncipal industry of the place Winchendon s cred ted with having the largest tov factory in the United States an establ shmest de voted chiefly to the production of wood en toys nclnding Noah s arks Plants Are Enlarged On the very day that Germany de clared war aga nst Buss a the owners of the Winchendon factory ordered the enlargement of their plant. Other American toymakers have s nee fol lowed their lead Winchendon sends to market enormous quantit es of tov drums dolls trunks and furniture toy pianos and rocking horses Blocks dolls furn ture and toy vehicles are usually made of wb te pine Bock ng horses are usually made of wh te ash A.ccordlng to a statement ssued by the United States forest service eehteen months ago the total quant ty of wood consumed in the United States n the manufacture of toys is nearly 30 000 000 board feet annually In the factories that make wooden toys nearly all of the work s done by machinerv The toy washstands, beds and bureaus, for example are cut out by machinery from b1 ces of wood scarcely thicker than veneer and pot together by hand There is a factory n Connecticut that, incidental to other tovmak ne business turns out in a year 1 600 000 toy drums of all s zes They are made almost en t rely by machinery operated by women only the string ng of the drums be ng done by male labor A cons derable fraction of the output bv the way is sold in South America, where 1 ttle boys like a drum as much as any Yankee voungster does Iron Tojs Better Onr t n toys and in particular our tovs made or ron have beg n to n -ade he Fnropean market They are more urable and better f n shed than tfcp German product n th s 1 ne which, n former das pract callv monopol tea the trade Our toy locomot vea and trains of cars have a recognized superi or tv In the manufacture of ron toys guaranteed indestructible as compared with the flimsy imported tovs of 1 ke character, Connecticnt and Rhode Is land are foremost Americans have tr ed to ntroduce the manufa ture of woolly an mals, but witho t success up to date The raw mater als are as cheap as n Europe b t labor costs too mnch Also our toy makers after many exper ments have abandoned the dea of try ng to r val the Germans in the product on of g1ass and t nsel Chr stmas tree ornaments for the same reason T nt qu te recently it was the ens torn of Amen an manufacturers of toys to shut lown mmed ateK after Christ mas and there was noth ng doing nt 1 the next Chr tmas season ap-proachel ap-proachel Nowalaysit s d derent The p to date Amer can manufacturer as noon as the hoi lay r h s over starts to get rea ly for the following Christ mas lie puts h s expert des gnors to work to contr ve new toys always an anx o s bus ness nasmuch as there s no tell ng how any novelty w 11 please the small boys and girls who after all ompose thp court of Inst resort in su h matters and from whose cr t cal judg ment there s no appeal Army of Toymakers The bulk of the toy factory output must be ready before mllsummer Drummers take the road about the oi d die of Apr 1 carrying samples with them The goods are expected to bo de 1 vere 1 n fly ot August fn Septem ber bowe er a great rush of emergen orders beg n to roll n and by the en 1 of October the factories are runn og n ght and day to fill them From a mere handful of workers twenty five yean ago the Ameri an army of toymakers h is grown to 400 000 But in the meantime the toy store, so dear to the hearts of Yankee rb ldbood hns well nigb vansbcl from the scene The department stores have lr e the toy dealers almost entirely o t of holiness They have pract cally ottained a monopoly on the business of sell ng tovs an 1 toda he local head quarters of Santa Claus n apy city or gools7d town s to he found in the iwtabl shme-nt where all the wants of tho comm n ty n the way of generil mer han Use are met |