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Show United States should be conclusive proof to every owner of sheep in this country that free trade means the use of foreign wool in American factsrles, while protection means the use of American wool. Study the following figures: WOOL IMPORTED. Fiscal year. Pounds. Tariff period. 1893.. 172,433,838 McKlnley tariff. 1894.. 55,152,585 Waiting for free wool 1895. .206,033,906 Cleveland 1896.. 230,911.473 and 1897.. 350,852,026 free trade. 1898.. 132.795.202 McKlnley and pro-1899.. pro-1899.. 76.736,209 tection to farmers. Under the McKlnley tariff In 1893 we Imported 172,433,838 pounds of foreign for-eign wool. In 1894, while buyers were waiting for the free trade Wilson bill to become law, we Imported only 55,152,585 pounds. In the free trade years, when American Ameri-can sheep were being slaughtered because be-cause it didn't pay our farmers to cell their wool for a few cents a pound, the foreign wool came flooding lntc our markets by the shiploads mor and more of It each year. In 1897 we bought, under the free trade Wilson bill. 350,852,026 pounds oi foreign wool. This was 175,425 tons of it enough to load 58 Eritish merchant vessels, each carrying 3,000 tons oi wool grown mostly In British colonies. This Is the sort of pro-British treaty that the Democrats make. A Powerful Argnmen t. And finally comes the value of the wool clip. For illustration we take, the price of Ohio fleece wool as a basis as minted bv Maneer & Averv of Boston for a series of years. Year. Fine. Medium. Coarse. January. Cents. Cents. Cents. 1890 33 37 29 1891 33 37 31 1892 30 35 31 1893 29 33 29 1894 ..23 24 21 1895 17H 20 19 1896 19 21 19 1897 19 21 19 1898 29 30 26 1899 26V6 29 24 1900 35 36 92 These figures are very interesting. Note the high prices paid for Ohio wool during the Republican administration of President Harrison from 180 to 1893. ' Then note the decline of 10 to 12 cent.; per pound between 1893 and 1897 January prices during the free trade administration of Grover Cleveland. Note once more the sharp advance in wool values in 1898 to 1900. It is needless to say that this was. under a protective tariff and a Republican administration ad-ministration during McKinley prosperity. pros-perity. Western farmers will see to it tl'' the high price of wool is maintained for another four years by voting for McKinley and electing only Republican congressmen. Every farmer should cut this out and paste it up by his fireside for reference in the first few days of November. Prosperity Extraordlnpg-y. It Is only fair to say that "the extraordinary extra-ordinary increase of prosperity, which has come to pass since the country repudiated free-trade and cheap dollars dol-lars has in some measure acted as a bar to the more rapid increase of American flocks of sheep. Having more money to spend our people have eaten sheep at an unprecedented rate in the past two years. For this reason rea-son the consumption of lambs has Increased In-creased enormously. Lamb is a gastronomic gas-tronomic luxury, and so great ha3 been the demand and so high the price in the early months of this year that sheep raisers have yielded to tfce temptation and sent to market vam numbers of lambs which should have been kept at home for breeding purposes. pur-poses. Only a few days ago I was told of a sheep owner in one of the western states who sold to a Chicago packing company 40,000 lambs of this year's produce. "Why did you do it?" he was asked; "how could you afford to so curtail your increase?" Because the offer of $7 per head in spot cash was too tempting to resist," was the reply. Four years ago, with tariff reform in the saddle, mutton sheep sold in Omaha and Kansas City at $2 to $3.50 per head, and lambs sold at $3.50 to $4.30 per head. In March of this year, with McKinely and protection, sheep for mutton sold in Omaha and Kansas Kan-sas City at $3.50 to $6.25 and lambs at $5 to $7.10 per head. But this is not all of the story. Under Un-der the action of the McKinley law the imports of foreign wools have fallen fall-en oft enormously. Here is a statement of the wool imports im-ports into this country for the various years, showing first that after the accession ac-cession of Cleveland to power in 1893 but 55,000,000 pounds of wool were Imported Im-ported into this country, but that under un-der the Cleveland and Wilson free trade bill we imported nearly 800,000,-000 800,000,-000 pounds, and so utterly overstocked the market that no such Impression was made by the Dingley bill at first as ws bad a right to have expected. Wool Imports. The history of wool imports Into the |
