WOOLENS AND WORSTEDS
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.