Music Trade Review

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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW.
FORCIBLE TRUTHS.
Alfred Dolge Reviews the Busi=
ness Situation at the Twenty=
Fifth Reunion of His
Employees.
MR. DOLGE'S SPEECH.
When we had to close our mills on the fifteenth of
December, a man who had received nothing but favors
from me caused a telegram to be published in a New
York newspaper stating that we had never employed
more than sixty men in our factories. If that man
were here to-night he could count a great many more
than that.
I thank you for your welcome, and in return I wel-
come you to our twenty-fifth annual reunion.
For years we have all looked forward to this re-
union as one to be specially celebrated. Some of you
had even planned an exhibition of the goods we manu-
facture in order to show the progress we have made
during this quarter of a century. Programs had been
sketched for festivities which were to outshine any-
thing Dolgevillehad ever seen.
This celebration was to have been an Object Lesson,
showing what labor and capital can accomplish when
under a government whose economic policy aims con-
tinually to increase the prosperity of the masses, un-
molested by partisan politics.
The party now in power, true to its old-time hatred
of industry and thrift, has inaugurated a policy so
antagonistic to the welfare of both wage-earners and
manufacturers that conditions have been created which
impel me not to spend any money this year for festi-
vities, or even for our customary dinner. Therefore I
invited you to sit with me round these empty tables
and ask you to accept my check for $500 with the sug-
gestion that you entrust it to a committee of three
from your number, who shall use it to assist such of
our co-workers as may need aid during the winter.
THOSE PROSPEROUS YEARS.
In reviewing our business for the years 1891 and
1892, I was able to report to you that they were the
most successful years we have had. Each year I could
announce a rise in wages, and never have you enjoyed
steadier employment than in those years. They will
be known in the history of our country as the two
years of sound economic policy (embodied in the
McKinley Tariff Law) by which the purchasing power
of the masses was increased to such an extent that all
the factories throughout the land were busy every work-
ing day in the year. Although we did not enjoy the
much lauded privilege of supplying ihe Kaffirs of Zulu-
land, the Bushnackers of Australia, the Hindoos of
East India, or the Coolies of China with the products
of our factories, our home markets consumed all that
America could make.
And now all this is reversed, and at this our Twenty-
fifth Reunion, I am compelled to offer aid to men who
have worked with us, who can and are willing to work,
and yet are forced to the level of mendicants merely
because supreme ignorance and coriceit reign at Wash-
ington.
CLOSED FOR THE FIRST TIME.
For the first time in twenty-five years our factories
are closed for want of orders ; for the first time in
twenty-five years I stand before you to state what you
all know, that in spite of our earnest efforts, in spite of
our many advantages, in spite of our acknowledged
position as leaders in our lines of business, in spite of
all this and more, we have not made any progress dur-
ing 1893.
THE DARKEST PAGE.
The first year of the " Reform Era" is the darkest
page in the records of our business, but not by any
fault of ours. We have done our duty and more, by
almost Herculean efforts we managed to keep our
factories running until December fifteenth, while
thousands of factories were forced to shut down en-
tirely or partialiy as soon as the Secretary of the
Treasury fired his bomb into the business community
last June, threatening to pay Government obligations
in silver. This bomb shattered the entire commercial
structure, confidence was destroyed, values decreased,
and our industries received such a staggering blow
that the repeal of the silver bill, which the Free
Traders claimed would set the wheels of industry
agoing, did not make any impression upon the situ-
ation.
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A TIMELY WARNING HEEDED.
Thanks to the lesson which we received under the
first Cleveland regime, we do not carry all our eggs in
one basket. We observed in time that a powerful ele-
ment was persistently at work to destroy American
industries, and that its policy was first to attack the
woolen industry, that corner-stone of our industrial
system.
They very properly reasoned that our industrial
structure would fall if they succeeded in demolishing
the corner-stone, hence their combined, never-ceasing
attacks, their ruthless and reckless attempts, from Mills
to Wilson, to annihilate the woolen industry.
Knowing this, I have ever since 1883, when the first
onslaught was made, studied to so arrange our busi-
ness that in case the people should ever be misled into
putting a Free Trade party in power, the prosperity of
Dolgeville should not depend upon the success of
woolen mills alone. The diversity of our industries
will always give sufficient employment to a majority
of our people to at least keep the wolf from the door.
WHAT FELT MAKERS MAY EXPECT.
I have not much to say to you felt makers ; on the
whole you have done well during the year, and if it
were not for the reasons given, you would have earned
good wages. But, unfortunately, some of you who
earn $2.25 per day in the factory have been compelled
to work part of the year alongside Italians shoveling
dirt for $1.25 per day.
I fear that the majority of our felt makers will
henceforth have to work in the factory for the same
wages Italians get shoveling dirt. The Wilson bill will
compel it.
THE FREE RAW MATERIAL HUMBUG.
Many of my friends are astonished that I oppose the
Wilson bill, because they think free wool, free raw ma-
terial, must benefit manufacturers.
Let me show you how adroitly the Free Traders try
to humbug people with their free raw material. The
Woolen Schedule of the proposed Wilson Tariff ad-
mits the so-called raw material free of duty and re-
duces the duty on foreign hammerfelt about eighty
cents ($.80) per pound. If we investigate we find that
American manufacturers, and through them the con-
sumers of American made woolen goods, never paid
the duty on wool, except a small fraction thereof. The
foreign wool growers pa : d the larger share of it for the
privilege of selling in our markets, just as the Ber-
muda potato growers, who appeared before the Wil-
son Committee, admitted that they pay the duties on
potatoes which they send here, and not our consurr.ers.
Statistics of the prices of wool in the various markets
of the world for the past thirty (30) years prove con-
clusively that the'duty is chiefly paid by the foreigner,
not by the American consumers.
But granting even that American manufacturers did
pay the entire duty on wool, do you suppose for a
moment that foreign wool growers will sell their wool
at the same price if the demand for their wool is in-
creased by three to four hundred million pounds per
year, an amount equal to the total American product ?
Certainly not ! We may, perhaps, get our wool two
to three cents cheaper than now with a duty of eleven
(11) cents per pound, but the reduction will not be
more than that. This will make a difference of about
ten rents on a pound of felt, while the duty on foreign
felts is reduced eigh'y cents ($80) per pound, a differ-
ence of seventy cents ($.70) per pound in favor of
foreign as against American manufacturers.
THE EFFECT OF FREE WOOL.
If the duty on wool is removed, our American wool
grower must stop raising sheep, and thousands of
American farmers will be deprived of their income
which ihis by-industry yields them.
After losing their home supply, American manufac-
turers will have to bid up the price of foreign wool in
order to induce foreign wool growers to increase their
herds. Our Government will lose the revenue from
the duty on wool ; American farmers will lose their in-
come ; American manufacturers will have to pay nearly
as much for wool, while foreign manufacturers will be
able to flood our market with the products of cheap
labor.
t5
But there is another cry with which Free Traders try
to befog the public mind. They claim that with free
raw materials "The Markets of the World" will be
open to American manufacturers, and insist that we
cannot sell our products in foreign markets because of
the duty on raw materials. They dare not admit that
it is a QUESTION OF WAGES. Aside from the
fact that no one has as yet succeeded in pointing out
those great markets in which American manufacturers
can compete against the low wages of foreign factories
(all civilized nations of Europe produce more than they
consume), every school boy knows that as far as ex-
port trade is concerned American manufacturers enjoy
free raw materials.
We have exported our piano felts to Europe ever
since we demonstrated at the Vienna World's Exposi-
tion, 1873, t n a t w e make the best piano felt.
UNDER THE M'KINLEY BILL FOREIGN MANUFACTURERS
PAY THE DUTY.
Again Free Traders are ready with the alarming cry
that American manufacturers rob their home customers
because they sell their products in foreign markets for
less than at home. Of course they sell to foreign
buyers cheaper ! because the framers of the McKinley
Tariff Law were wise enough to refund the duty on
raw material used in goods used for export. Again
Free Traders ask us how it is that American manufac-
turers can compete in foreign countries, with free raw
material, and ask for protection at home! WHY?
Because foreign manufacturers will sell to the Ameri-
can importer so much below the price which they
charge at home, as is necessary to obtain our market,
exactly as the Bermuda potato grower does.
The records of the Appraiser's Office show this
beyond dispute. Our Free Trade Theorists can con-
vince themselves by studying Custom House reports
that the invoice prices for foreign made goods decline in
the same ratio that the duties are increased, and in-
crease as duties decrease.
It is a fact known to the commercial world that
manufacturers will always sell at less prices for export
than for home consumption. They will often be satis-
fied to obtain the bare cost of labor and material be-
cause the expense of running their factories is the same
whether they work for export or not. Every importer
and exporter will admit the truth of this statement,
which applies as well to American as to European
manufacturers.
During the past four months I have been repeatedly
called to the Appraiser's Office at the New York Cus-
tom House to testify as to the market value of im-
ported piano felt, I found the same grade of felt which
we sell regularly in Europe invoiced by European
manufacturers for less than one-half our selling price
and away below the price which he charges in his home
market. Sufficient reason against an ad valorem duty !
Is it not clear that the Wilson Tariff means that
American workingmen must work for wages as low as
European workingmen get, which means a great reduc-
tion here ?
We can sell our felts in Europe, because there Euro-
pean manufacturers charge their regular price, but
when they ship to America they sell for just so much
less as the importer has to pay our Government for
the privilege of selling in our markets.
UNDER THE WILSON BILL CONSUMERS MUST PAY THE
DUTY.
Reduce the duty as the Wilson bill proposes, destroy
the American industry, so that foreign manufacturers
have no competition here, and they will raise their
prices and make American consumers pay the duty.
We must meet this competition of cheap foreign
labor as best we can and American manufacturers and
workmen must both pay tribute to the idiosyncracies
of Free Trade theorists.
I have some hope that the new machines, construct-
ed by our inventors, will assist us in some degree to
produce our felt cheaper. Just to the extent Mr. Mil-
lett's inventions cheapen the cost of production will
the scale of wages be benefitted, as it always has from
the day the first labor-saving machine was started in
our mills. I have nothing further to say to you felt-
makers ; we must await the attack of the enemy and
defend ourselves as best we can.
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Mr. Dolge here referred to their new quarters in
New York.
I can assure you, however, that the men in the New
York establishment, as good Americans, are honest