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Show POLITICAL DEMOCRATS DISCOURAGE "MADE-IN-AMERICA" POLICY Washington, Aug. 24. (Special Correspondence.) Correspond-ence.) How one Industry In this country has been walloped, due to the lack of plain Amer- v lean horse sense on the part of those gentlemen whom the country, in 1912, inadvertently empowered em-powered to dynamite our protective tariff wall, is aptly illustrated in an article appearing in a report re-port published by the Department of Commerce. It is the tartaric acid and cream of tartar in- dustry products extensively used in the manufacture manu-facture of baking powders, effervescent drinks, Seidlitz powders, etc. New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and California are largely interested in that industry. Quoting from this article: "Imports of tar-tarlc tar-tarlc acid for the fiscal year 1914, amounted to Hrr 848575 pounds, an dof cream of tartar to 812,857 pounds, figures that reveal a remarkable increase over the 78,942 pounds and C6,718 pounds, respectively, re-spectively, recorded for the previous year. This increased importation followed the ' riff reduction reduc-tion that became effective in Octc J13." Those figures may not look ver. to the layman, lay-man, but a pound of such material goes a long ways, and when it is said that the estimated manufacture in this country of tartaric acid is 3,000,000 pounds, the ratio of importation can be appreciated. This is what Mr. Underwood would call a "competing article." The Harshaw Fuller & Goodwin Co., Cleveland, Cleve-land, Ohio, testified that, according to their report, re-port, Avho for fifteen years was superintendent of the largest factory in Europe, the cost of building and equipping their factory was almost double that of a similar plant in Prance. And, further: "Our minimum wage is $2 per day, and the average aver-age wage paid is $2.80 per day. In the French factory, of which our superintendent had charge, the minimum wage paid was 3 francs per day; the average was 4 francs, or a little less than 80 cents per day American money. In other words, the average daily wage In the French factory is less than one-third of the average wage in our factory. We would not object to a reduction of the present tariff on the finished goods, provided a corresponding reduction wero made on the raw materials, but the parity between the two must be maintained." A pertinent suggestion was offered by several California firms, who said: "No doubt you will agree with us that tariff provisions should nol be enacted which, at best, can procure but a very slight reduction in cost for the ultimate consumer by destroying a domestic manufacturing industry, indus-try, and with it the market for a domestic raw material, with consequent loss to American labor interested in both." Did the ways and means committee heed this v5, advice? Nary a heed. A bunch of Italian import ers from New York City, subsidized by the Italian Ital-ian government and designed to promote the industries in-dustries of Italy, called the Italian Chamber ot I Commerce, got in their good work, and the thir teen Democratic legal lights, whose oil came from the White House and whose wicks wero trimmed by Oscar Underwood, adopted practically all the recommendations of this chamber. Our manufacturers were required to pay the old duty, 5 per cent, on the crude product, argol, the duty on cream of tartar was cut 50 per cent, tartaric acid, 30 per cent, and Rochelle salts, 17 per cent - the Democratic idea of a duty on crude materials 'W for manufacture, nd a tariff for revenue only, 1 with resultant competition, on the manufactured product. But the man who cuddles his Red Raven split the next morning, and the housewife who tempts his appetite with a batch of baking powder bis- cult, reap no benefit from the tariff law which handicapped a legitimate industry. |