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THE DEMOCRATIC ASSAULT UPON MAIi^E'S INDUSTRIES.
REMARKS
OF
HON. CHARLES A. BOUTELLE,
OF MAINE, ^^^ ^-T-. ^
IX THE
\P^.
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, '
May 31, June 1 and 2, and M7 9, 1888.
*<Iffoi7 the Democratic ITIilla tariff-reduction bill proposes to strike dovrn the protectire duties that under Republican latvs hare stimulated American industries, increased the fragfcs of American labor, furnished a profitable home market for our farmers, and giren to American ^vorkingmen the moat comfort* ■able and happy homes in the ^vorld."
WASHINGTON. 1888.
f'
The Democratic Assault npon Maine's Industries.
OF
HON. CHAllLES A. BOUTELLE.
Thursday, 3Iay 31, 1888.
THE ATTACK ON THE LUMBER INDUSTRY.
The House being in Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union, and having under consideration the bill (H. R. 9051) to reduce taxation and simplify the laws in relation to the collection of the revenue- Mr. PARKER. I ask that the paragraph be read as it will stand if amended.
The Clerk read as follows:
Be it enacted, etc.. That on and alter the 1st day of November. 1889, the follow- ing articles mentioned in this section, when imported, shall be exempt from duty.
The question being taken on the amendment of Sir. Parker to the amendment, it was not agreed to; there being — ayes 89, noes 134.
[Applause on the Democratic side.]
Mr. BOUTELLE. I move to amend hv striking out "1888" and inserting "1890."
[Cries of "Vote!" "Vote!"] ' Mr. BOUTELLE. No; we will have some conversation before we vote, if the Chair pleases.
Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Mills] has just stated to us with that positiveness of assertion which has characterized most of his deliverances upon the tarifif question that the only possible effect of putting lumber on the free-list will be to lessen the price to the consumer, and that the only object in keeping the tariff on lumber is to increase the profit of the manufacturer.
Mr. MILLS. I trust that we shall have order. I desire to hear the gentleman.
The CHAIRMAN. The House will be in order.
Mr. BOUTELLE. Mr. Chairman, as I was remarking, the gentle- man from Texas has asserted with that directness and positiveness which have characterized his utterances upon this question that the tariff on lumber has only the effect of increasing the profits of the manufacturer without increasing the wages of the laborer. That statement was re- iterated several times, and certainly I can not be mistaken in under- standing its purport.
Now, it would be important to know, Mr, Chairman, with what stand- fu:d the gentleman from Texas was making a comparison. He certainly
3
could not have intended to make his comparison with the prices paid to Chinese labor, whose competition with the lumber mills of California this bill would invite ; and if he intended to make his comparison with the prices paid lumbermen in New Brunswick and other portions of Canada, he is mistaken to a degree that can hardly be comprehended. Nothing is more thoroughly known among those who are familiar to- day with the lumber interests of the New England States than the fact that for years there has existed and to-day still exists a very wide disparity between the wages paid to labor on the one side and on the other of the Canadian line. I have the honor to represent a district \\rith several hundred miles of frontier, largely devoted to lumber inter- ests, and this bill strikes a destructive blow at the most important in- dustrial pursuits of my constituency.
The effect of the free-lumber feature of this bill is to strike down a business in which to-day we are paying to those brawny-armed sons of toil who are professed to be the special proteges of the champions of this bill all the way from 20 to 45 per cent, more than they receive across the line in Canada. And I would say to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Mills] that the most cursory examination of this subject ought to convince him that removing the duty on lumber and allowing free importation from the British provinces can not fail to have the effect of striking down the rate of wages paid on our side of the line.
The point sought to be made by the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Wii^on] in regard to the effect of the proposed action on the price of lumber involved the exact fallacy which runs all along the line of these tariff reductions. He says if it will cheapen the cost to the consumer it will do no harm.
Mr. Chairman, everybody understands that the immediate effect of the removal of this duty may temporarily reduce the cost. It is a question, as my colleague has said, of the period of time you consider. You pass this bill putting lumber on the free-list, opening wide the door to the entry of Canadian and other foreign lumber, and undoubt- edly it will temporarily reduce the price for the purpose of breaking down the industries in this country, of closing up the mills in the United States, and getting rid of competition here. But when the competition in this country is destroyed or greatly lessened, I ask my friend from Minnesota where he thinks the price would then go?
Mr. WILSON, of Minnesota. Let me answer that by asking a ques- tion: Which is the richest, the manufacturer of lumber in the United States or in Canada ?
Mr. BOUTELLE. I do not know what bearing that has on this sub- ject.
The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. WILSON, of Minnesota. The richest men will not be overrun by the poorest.
[Here the hammer fell.]
Thursday, May 31, 1888.
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RELIEVINQ SOUTHERN AND NORTHERN COMMUNITIES.
Mr. WEAVER. I wish to submit a few remarks in reply to the three gentlemen from Maine. I have before me report No. 4173, second session Forty-ninth Congress, made by the Committee on Ways and Means, upon a bill introduced by the gentleman from Maine [Mr. Bou-
telle] to allow a drawback upon imports of lumber and building ma- terial used by persons in the city of Eastport, Me., who bad suffere I from fire. I will read the bill; it is very short:
Be it enacted, etc.. That there shall be allowed and paid, under such regulations as the Secretary of the Treasury shall prescribe, on all materials actually used in buildinpTS erected on the grounds burned over by the fire which occurred at Eastport, Me., October 14, 1886, a drawback on the import duties paid on the same : Provided, That such materials shall have been imported and used during the term of two years from and after the said 14th day of October, 1886.
This bill was introduced by the gentleman from Maine, and its pas- sage was urged by him, both before the committee and in the House. It establishes this fact that there was a conviction in his mind at that time that the duty upon lumber enhanced the price to the consumer.
Mr. HATCH. There can be no doubt about that.
Mr. WEAVER. It establishes, secondly, that he considered it was a good thing for poor people who were in trouble financially to have lumber on the free-list. [Applause.]
Now there are a great many people all over my State who would like to have cheap lumber as well as the people of Eastport, Me.
* -X- * * * -Sfr *
Mr. BOUTELLE. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike out four or five words. [Laughter.] We have had to-day, sir, three or four very striking illustrations of the character of the so-called arguments upon which the Democratic party of the nation, as represented in this House, depends in its advocacy of legislation which threatens destruction to extensive and important industries of our country. One of the argu- ments is that adopted by the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Beeck- inridge]. It is one of the favorite expedients of gentlemen who seem to have a lack of familiarity with the subject they are trying to handle. [Derisive laughter on the Democratic side.]
It is a resort to the old trick of attempting to show that somebody, somewhere, at some time, said something which could be tortured or twisted into inconsistency with the attitude or the utterance of some- body else at some other time and in some other place; and so eager are these gentlemen to raise a cloud of dust to conceal their inability to deal with these important industrial questions, that they are not at all careful or accurate as to the manner in which they make use of this kind of attempted argument.
The gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Breckinridge] comes in here and undertakes to make a point in the guise of an arraignment of Mr. Blaine, by representing him as declaring against a tariff on foreign lumber — for that was the impression sought to be conveyed by the in- troduction of that extract from a speech of Mr. Blaine's — when, upon inquiry, the fact proves to be that the gentleman from Kentucky, if not purposely misusing that quotation from Mr. Blaine, was using it with an ignorance of its true application quite in keeping with the general treatment of this tariff question by gentlemen on the other Bide. The record demonstrates that Mr. Blaine stood at the time of that debate just where the Republican party stands to-day — in favor of raising the revenues of this Government by taxing the foreign man- ufacturer who desires to come into our market to compete with the American producer, and by removing as fast and as far as practicable the taxation placed by the internal-revenue laws, during a period of civil war, upon the industries of our own people. [Applause on the Kepublican side. ]
That is one kind of ' ' tariff-reform ' ' argument.
Another is the very much worn and very threadbare, and, if it is
6
parliamentary, I will say the very cheap and very small attempt to make a bill which I introduced here in behalf of a community that had been stricken by a calamity of fire a means of casting discredit upon the sincerity of my views and upon the strength of the position maintained upon this side of the House on the tariff quovstiou. There is not a gentleman on that side of the House of average intelligence — and I think there are some of them that would come within that cate- gory— who does not know that that bill was introduced as a request to the Government of this country to exercise an act of customary benefi- cence and kindliness to the people of a community who had seen their home-i, their churches, their stores, their wharves, the entire business of their community swept away by a devouring conflagration.
There is not a gentleman in the valley of the Mississippi, or the Ar- kansas, or the Missouri, or the Ohio who does not know that the bill was simply a very modest request that this Government would extend to an afflicted community on the coast of Maine a slight measure of the same kindness and generosity that had been extended time and time again, partly by my vote in this House, to the people in those sec- tions of the country who had been afflicted with disaster by floods and otherwise; audit is pretty small business for ambitious statesmen of the region that has so frequently been the recipient of national bounty to focus their intellects in assault upon a bill to allow the people of the town of Eastport, in the State of Maine, to bring across from the adja- cent shores of New Brunswick, without the payment of duty, some of the brick aud other materials required for the rebuilding of their stricken town — it is pretty small business, I say, to parade that bill as the peg upon which to hang speeches and reports from five or six differ- eat members on that side of the House who count themselves among the srreat exponents or" tariff retbrm.
[Here the hammer fell.]
Mr. BOUTELLE. I ask to have my time ex tended.
A Member. I object.
Mr. WEAVER. Mr. Chairman
Mr. ANDERSON, of Iowa, obtained the floor.
Mr. BOUTELLE. Mr. Chairman, at the time when that bill was introduced by me
The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman from Maine has ex- pired. The Chair recognized the gent^leman from Iowa [Mr. Ander- son], in front of the Chair, and understood he desired to yield a portion of his time to the gentleman from Maine.
Mr. ANDERSON, of Iowa. I will yield if it does not interfere with my time.
Several Members (to Mr. Anderson, of Iowa). You will get time.
The CHAIRMAN. If there be no objection, the gentleman from Iowa will yield his time to the gentleman from Maine.
Mr. BOUTELLE. I desire to state as a matter of justice to some gentlemen on the Democratic side of the House, some of whom are not present now — some who, I believe have more than a faint and glimmer- ing comprehension of the great principles underlying this discussion — that when that bill was introduced by me I conferred in regard to it with a number of the leaders of the Democratic side of the House— the giants of the Democracy in this tariff discussion — and said to them that if it was thought there would be a man on that side of the House who would attempt to make that bill the excuse or vehicle for a tariff discussion I would not introduce it, and I had the assurance of every
one of those gentlemen that in their belief no one would think of at- tempting to do such a thing.
That bill asked that the same spirit of kindness be manifested toward Eastport that had been extended to Chicago, to Portland, and to other communities that had suffered from similar calamities. It followed almost immediately after the direct donations that had been made in this body to build houses over the heads of the houseless sufferers by lihe floods of the Arkansas, Missouri, and Mississippi Rivers. It fol- lowed directly in the line of the appropriations which had my vote and my voice to send food to the foodless of the Mississippi Valley, wlio had suffered from a similar dispensation of Providence. The gentle- man from Arkansas [Mr. Breckinridge] who ran before he was sent to make a report upon the bill for the relief of Eastport, Me., as one of his intellectual efforts on the tariff question, is on record upon the files of this House in the preceding Congress as introducing and hav- ing referred to the Committee on Appropriations a request from the governor of his own State for a donation of the public funds from the public Treasury in behalf of the people who were suffering from disas- ter by a flood in Arkansas. I will include in my remarks the letter, with the governor's indorsement, introduced by the gentleman from Arkan- sas, as follows:
SwAV Lake, Arkansas County, Arkansas, March 3, 1884, Dear Sir : We have had one of the most destructive overflows here that has ever occurred in this county. Mil^ of fences, houses, gin-houses, store-houses washed away, and caused general min to this part of the county. Great many left homeless. The people do not ask any aid to repair their buildings or fences. But their levees are broken badly and must be repaired immediately or we can not make a crop this year. We are not in the habit of asking aid, but this is a case of extreme necessity. The people here in this district are perfectly willing to be taxed to pay for any aid extended. We are not able to repair the levees in time to make a crop.
* « * « « 4: *
If you have no power to help us and yon think we could get any aid from the General Government, then please send this to Messrs. Rogers, Breckinridge, and Garland. We are aware that there is a great deal of money expended on the Arkansas River, but the producing populace never reap any of its benefits, The most or a greater portion of the money expended at Pine Bluff, which was a failure, etc.
To his Excellency James Berry,
Governor of Arkansas.
This was signed by W. R. Groceo, J. S. Anderson, J. "W. Rosey, T. J. Stokes, and G. E. Crutchfield, and bore the following indorsement by the governor of Arkansas:
Dear Sir : The statements above made are true. There is great distress, as the levee at Arkansas City is broken ; I fear much more. If it is possible to ob- tain relief, I know that all our members will do so. Very truly,
JAMES H. BERRY. Maj. C. R. Breckinridge.
The request was for pecuniary aid from the Government. Mr. Chair- man, that aid was given. Similar aid had been voted — not by thousands or tens of thousands, but by hundreds of thousands of dollars at a clip, repeated again and again for the sufferers in that part of the country from those disasters. Only a few days previous the House voted, on February 12, 1884, $300,000 for the sufferers by the floods on the Ohio and Mississippi and their tributaries; on February 15 another appropri- ation carrying $200,000 additional was passed. On March 27, 1884, a resolution reappropriating $125,000 for the suffererson these rivers was approved, and May 27, 1884, the House passed a further appropriation of $100,000 for the same purpose.
8
I say, ;Mr. Chairman, with all seriousness, that it comes with a poor grace from gentlemen belonging to that part of our common country, thus generously treated, to undertake to cast reflection upon me ox my people as mendicants, when Maine, by her representatives here, on every occasion when there has been a demand for this Government to mani- fest its sympathy and generosity toward their people in affliction, has voted freely and liberally for their relief. In the face of such a record it is a small business for j-^ou to undertake to. fling back at me the bill to remit a few thousand dollars, of duties on materials for rebuilding Eastport, Me, We have asked no alms at your hands. One per cent, of Maine's share of the sums voted as gifts to your people in distress would more than have covered all the redundant revenue that could have been remitted under that bill. [Applause on the Republican side. ]
CANADIANS SEEKING AMERICA FOR HIGHER WAGES.
Thursday, May 31, 1888.
Mr. McMILLTN. * * * Let us away with this hollow pretense. The gentleman from Kansas [Mr. Peters] undertook to prove that the reduction proposed by the bill would not benefit the people of Kansas. That is a matter I leave Ijim to settle at the election. He will find, 1 think, that his people have greater intelligence than he gives them credit for. He says it will reduce the wages of labor. But how on earth is it going to reduce the wages of labor if it is not going to reduce the price of lumber?
Mr. BOUTELLE. Does the gentleman want an answer now to his question?
Mr. McMILLIN. The gentleman from Maine has been on the floor to-day for the greater part of the time.
Mr. BOUTELLE. The gentlemaai asked a question, and I propose to answer it.
Mr. McMILLIN. I will ask the gentleman another question. Is it a fact that the lumbermen of Maine bring over Canadians to do their work? Is that a fact?
Mr. BouTELLE rose.
The CHAIRMAN. Does the gentleman from Pennsylvania with- draw the pro forma amendment ?
Mr. BAYNE. I do.
Mr. BOUTELLE. I renew it for the purpose of answering the gen- tleman from Tennessee in the good old Yankee fashion, by asking him another question. Does the gentleman from Tennessee assert that the Maine lumbermen do employ Canadian laborers ?
Mr. McMILLIN. I do; I have been so informed on credible au- thority.
Mr. BOUTELLE. I want the gentleman from Tennessee to tell me tchy the Canadian laborers can be induced by the American lumber manufacturers to come over to work for them.
Mr. McMILLIN. There are climatic influences. [Laughter on the Republican side.]
Mr. BOUTELLE. Let me hear about the climatic influences.
Mr. McMILLIN. This is the explanation of it. During the severe rigors of their more northern climate there is a period of time when these Canadians can go down to the State of Maine and work more sue-
9
cessfully in the United States than in their own country, and then ■when that period is over they can go back and resume their regular avoca- tions. I understiind that as a matter of fact they do go back at a cer- tain season.
Mr. BOUTELLE. They do ! Now let me give the gentleman a little lesson in geoo;raphy. People in Canada do not go down to the State of Maine. [Laughter.]
Mr. McMILLIN. There is a part of Canada from which they go and a part of the State of Maine to which they go.
Mr. BOUTELLE. Maine and Canada run pretty nearly upon tl\e same parallel of latitude.
Mr. McMILLIN. They do in part.
Mr. BOUTELLE. And if the gentleman from Tennessee will come down to my district
Mr. McMILLIN. "Down" from here? "Down?" [Laughter.]
Mr. BOUTELLE. Down or up, whichever way the gentleman likes.
Mr. McMILLIN. The gentleman himself needs a lesson in geog- raphy.
"Mr. BOUTELLE. Well, if the gentleman will come to my dis- trict
Mr. McMILLIN. Up, you mean.
Mr. BOUTELLE. Either np or down, as you prefer. We are not discussing the climatic or geographical relations of Washington and Maine, but those of Canada and Maine. If the gentleman will come to my district in the month of January I shall be glad to furnish him with a thermometer and let him make observations, and then I shall be glad to have him come here and tell us all about the climatic differ- ences between Canada and Maine, all about the climatic advantages and disadvantages of men who live on one side of the St. John River, in the State of Maine, as compared with those who live on the other side of the river. Of course there is nothing in that.
Mr. McMILLIN. If the gentleman restricts his statement to that part of Canada and that part of Maine, of course he is correct; but I have been informed that those who follow lumbering along the Cana- dian border — not confining the statement to Maine, but extending away out West — do go back and forth across the line in the manner I have stated.
Mr. BOUTELLE. Mr. Chairman, the difference in climate all along the Canadian border between the localities from which Canadians are said to come and those on this side in which they are employed in lum- bering would not be obvious to the ordinary observer, but of course it furnishes a convenient refuge for the gentleman from Tennessee. I be- lieve that in the privacy of his closet and in the seclusion of his cham- ber, when he is by himself and is not obliged to grapple with the exigencies of the Mills tariff bill, the gentleman from Tennessee really believes that the Canadians come over to Maine to work because they get better wages.
Mr. McMILLIN. And the Maine employers turn out their Maine laborers and employ the cheaper Canadian labor.
Mr. BOUTELLE. And if the gentleman does not believe it, then I want to inform him now that the man who comes from Canada to Maine gets from 20 to 45 per cent, more wages than he can get at home. It is simply a question of supply and demand.
[Here the hammer fell].
Mr. BOUTELLE. Hereafter I shall take time to show that all this talk about the employment of Canadian cheap labor does not affect the
10
s^ist of this question. It is only the cheapest class of labor that comes fi-ora across the line. The skilled labor in the business is that of American workingraen.
Mr. ANDETl^SOX, of Iowa, If there is the difference in wages be- tween Canada and JNIaine which the gentleman states, will he tell us why it is that IMaine has not depopulated Canada ?
Mr. BOUTELLE. She is doing it as fast as the law of natural se- lection allows.
Mr. ANDERSON, of Iowa. Statistics do not show it.
Mr. BOUTELLE. Yes, they do show it. They show that Maine is not only drawing population from Canada year by year, but that she has also furnished population to build up Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, and those other magnificent commonwealths of the West, some of which are most ably represented to-day in this and the other branch of Congress by men who went out from Maine.
Friday, Junel, 1888. WAGES PAID IN THE LUMBER INDUSTRY IN MAINE AND CANADA.
Mr. BOUTELLE said:
Mr. Chairman: The gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Outhwaite] on two occasions has undertaken to enlighten the House in regard to the enor- mous and exorbitant profits upon the manufacture of lumber. In order to do so he in the first place paraded yesterday figures from the census, in regard to which he assumed that the aggregate amount paid to the laborers in theiumbering business in certain States indicated the amount of earnings of those laborers for the year. Of course the fallacy of that assumption is obvious to any one at all acquainted with the sub- ject; and the fact that the gentleman's statement was due to unfiimil- iarity with the subject rather than to an intention to misrepresent has been demonstrated by his expressing a little while ago his belief that the saw-mills of the country run throughout the entire year. Now, Mr. 'Chairman, in my section of the country the saw-mills can not run throughout the year. They are largely water-mills, and can not run more than six months in the year. Suppose you were undertaking to make a computation of the amount of money paid to men engaged in cutting ice on any of our great rivers. Would it be a fair computation to take the aggregate amount paid in a year for cutting ice, divide it by the number of men, and then say "that is what those men earn iu a year," the fact being that the cutting of ice is merely an exceptional employment for a short period? In my district and in my State, Mr. Chairman, lumbering operations are largely carried on by the farmers. The cutting of timber in the winter is done by men who till the farms in the summer. There is an alternation of employment.
The gentleman from Ohio and other members, if they desire to get an exact understanding of the relative profit of the manufacturer and the workingman, could better find it by consulting the actual facts and figures. Is it true that the men who work in lumber in the State of Maine and other parts of New England are paid at a rate equivalent to only $170 a year ? The statement is absurd.
I hold in my hand a comparative statement, very carefully made up from what I believe to be reliable sources, of the relative wages paid in the lumber industry in the State of Maine and in Canada. Before reading this statement I will say that, in addition to the amounts which
11
these men are paid by the month and by the day, it costs a large per- centage more to supply the men in the lumber eainps of Maine than it does the men in the provinces, because our men insist upon better food and more liberal provision.
The following rates of wages have been furnished me as a fair aver- age of the pay of workingmen in the woods and in the lumber mills in New Brunswick and in the State of Maine:
Woodsmen.
Sled tenders
Chopper.s
Teamsters
Swampers
Cooks
Two horses, teamster, sleds, and chains
New Bruns- wick.
Per month. §18.00 18.00 18.00 15.00 26.00 30.00
State of Maine.
Per month.
$22. 00 26. (10 ?6. CO 18.00 30.00 45.00
Millmen.
Head edger
Second edger
First gang sawyer
Second gang sawyer ^
First rotary sawj'er
Second rotary sawyer ,
Filers
Common laborers ,
The gentleman from Ohio undertakes to say that the men who are get- ting $2.50 a day in Maiue as against $1.40 a day in Canada are receiv- ing none of the benefits of the legislation which seeks to protect the lum- ber business in Maine and other parts of the United States.
Mr. Chairman, I presume that in my State the fiiir average stumpage of spruce would be from $2 to $2.25. A fair estimate of the value of the log when it has been chopped and hauled to water, and driven down the stream and brought to the tail of the mill, is about $9 per thousand ; and of the $9 in value per thousand represented by the log at the mill about seven-ninths stands for wages paid to labor.
[Here the hammer fell.]
"JUGGLING WITH FIGURES." Tuesday, June 5, 1888. Mr. BYNUM. A mill-owner in East Saginaw gives a list of the wages there, showing an average of only $2 a day.
Mr. OUTHWAITE. If two thou.sand men get an average of $2 a day the year round, whether you compute their wages by the day or the month or any other period, and one thousand of these men get the whole
12
amount paid in wages, does it not follow that the other one thousand could get nothiKg?
Mr. BOUTELLE. Then you believe that, do you?
Mr. OUTHWAITE. Believe it ! Do you ask me whether I believe that twice two are four?
Mr. BOUTELLE. Then you believe that half those men work for nothing?
Mr. OUTHWAITE. I have not said so.
Mr. BOUTELLE. That is what you are telling the House.
Mr. OUTHWAITE. I have said that, if your claim that one-half of them get $2 a day is correct, and the average is only $1, then the other half get nothing.
Mr. BOUTELLE. And if the facts do not square with your per- centage, I suppose you think it is so much the worse for the facts.
Mr." OUTHWAITE. 1 have not undertaken to state the facts; but I do say that if your claim is correct, that the average is $1 a day, then for every man who gets more than $1 a day there must be some other one who gets less than $1 per day.
Mr. BOUTELLE. The trouble with the' gentleman from Ohio is that he is dealing with generalizations and percentages without regard to the actual facts of the case.
Mr. OUTHWAITE. I am dealing with figures that you can not answer.
Mr. BOUTELLE. I told you the other day what the actual rates of wages were, and the statement which I then made can be substan- tiated.
Mr. OUTHWAITE. That was the actual wages of some individuals.
[Here the hammer fell.]
Mr. OUTHWAITE. Mr.^hairman, I will ask the committee to in- dulge me for five minutes longer, because other gentlemen have occu- pied so much of my time. ,
There was no objection, and it was so ordered.
Now, Mr. Chairman, I want to call attention to a portion of the re- marks of the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Guenther] the other day.
Mr. BOUTELLE. I hope that in this second five minutes the gen- tleman Irom Ohio [Mr. Outhwaite] will proceed to demonstrate that the other half of those men work for nothing. [Laughter on the Re- publican side.]
****** *
Mr. BOUTELLE. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Outhwaite] very felicitously suggested to the House awhile ago that he proposed to show how figures could be juggled with. I have no idea that the gentleman intended to deceive the House-or to misrepresent facts. I know that he has great zeal in this matter, and that he prob- ably searches the census reports with a very earnest desire to find there things that will make arguments for the side which he advocates, but he ought to know, and I think he does know, that there is nothing more unsafe than to take figures relating in a general way to any tech- nical occupation and make deductions from them, without some famil- iarity with the business itself. I do not know how I could illustrate this more forcibly than by calling attention to the figures which the gentleman gave us of the aggregate amounts in the business of sawed lumber as divided between the manufacturers and the workingmen.
The gentleman from Ohio takes the proceeds of the product of the mill and subtracts from that the amount he finds sets forth in this book
13
as paid for labor, and then, making what he calls a liberal allowance for interest and insurance, he deduces therefrom tlie inference that a very small percentage of that product is paid to the laboring man. I want to say to the gentleman and to the House that these census tables, except as to certain lines of statistics in which there is little opportu- nity tor error, are liable to be very misleading, and if the gentleman had examined this statement with a little more care I think he would have escaped some of the errors into which he has fallen.
But even these figures here do not purport to be what I understand the gentleman takes them for. They purport to be reports of statistics ' upon the sawed-lumber interest. The heading is, ''Lumber sawed;" and th^ different columns embrace a list of the establishments, the amount of capital, the number of males, females, and children em- ployed, and the wages paid during the year. I undertook to fasten my friend down at that point to find out for what the wages to which these statistics refer were paid. I find upon examination that the sta- tistics refer entirely to just what the caption shows — to the sawed-lum- ber interest. The amount of wages paid is the amount paid for sawing lumber in the saw-mill^. ,
Now, how do I know that? I know it in the first place in a general way, and I have the absolute proof of it on this printed page, which proof would have made itself obvious to the gentleman from Ohio if he had been familiar with the lumber business ; because immediately after the column showing amount of wages paid during the year I find a column devoted to the value of logs. What does that mean ? Why, sir, it means the greater part of this entire problem. It means that in the figures given by the gentleman from Ohio he made no allowance for the great item of cost in producing lumber.
Mr. OUTHWAITE. My friend will excuse me. In my figures I deducted the cost of the logs, in order to get the wages of the men en- gaged in the sawed-lumber industry.
Mr. BOUTELLE. How could you get the rate of wages ?
Mr. OUTHWAITE. After taking from the value of the whole prod- uct, first, the cost of the logs, some $133,000,000; second, the mill sup- plies, and, third, the interest, insurance, and taxes
Mr. BOUTELLE. How did you arrive at the cost of the logs ?
Mr. OUTHWAITE. That is a separate thing. I am getting at the sawed-lumber industry. Those are the wages paid in that industry. The item of wages must have been included in the value of the logs.
Mr. BOUTELLE. How much do you allow for the wages paid?
Mr. OUTHWAITE. I do not allow anything, because in my calcu- lation I have included the value of the logs.
[Here the hammer fell.]
Mr. BOUTELLE. The gentleman must certainly have made a mis- take in his figures, because the first item in the cost of the lumber is the value of the tree as it stands in the forest. That varies according to locality. In my part of the country stumpage for spruce would be, I should say, from |2 to $2.25 per thousand; that is what the operator pays for the standing tree. When that has been paid men are sent into the woods; they cut the tree down; they trim it; they haul it to the water. I am not going into the minutiae, but simply state the princi- pal operations. They put it in the stream; they make rafts, which they drive down the river to the mill. The logs, when they reach the mill in my country, will average a value of $9 per thousand. Subtract the cost of stumpage and you have something like $7 or $7.50, every
14
penny of which has been paid to labor — the labor put upon the log up to the time it reaches the mill.
Mr. McSHANE. Does the gentleman know how many men are em- ployed in logging in this country?
Mr. BOUTELLE. Enough to supply all the mills with logs.
Mr. McSHANE. Does the gentleman know how many?
Mr. BOUTELLE. Forty to titty thousand, I should say. I do not know what bearing that question has upon the matter I am discussing. I am trying to find out who gets the money that comes from the sale of lumber in the market.
We have now carried the log to the mill, where it has assumed a value of about $9 per thousand. To-day spruce sawed boards are worth at the mills in my State, I should say, from $10 to $11. Of course the value varies somewhat with the fluctuations of the market. The difference between the cost of the log at the mill and the value of the lumber per thousand as it lies at the mill ready for shipping rep- resents the cost of milling, which is a very small part of the aggregate cost of taking the tree from the forest, carrying it to the mill, and making it into lumber. A thoisaiid feet of lumber, valued at $10 to $11 or $11.50, represents to the extent of eight-tenths or nine-tenths what has been paid to labor to produce it.
As to this fabulous amount of profit which gentlemen here have fig- ured up as b3ing realized in the lumber business, it is a very easy thing, as has been said here, to "juggle with figures; " but I suppose among practical lumbermen in this country, especiall}'^ those in the Eastern States, and more particularly those in my own State, where we are subjected to close and sharp cojupetition with Canadian labor — paid, as I said the other day, from 25 to 50 per cent, less than we pay our laborers — nothing is better known than that the lumber business has been carried on upon the closest possible margin for years, and that men engaged in this business are only able to get out of it with- out loss b}^ reason of the advantage which they get in the manulacture of what is known as short lumber, working up the refuse with a care and economy unknown in former years — working slabs into pickets, palings, laths, and every conceivable ibrm in which this class of lum- ber can be fitted for the market.
I have been told by an old lumberman, within the last six months, that within the past five years he has been simply saved from absolute loss by wo king up all the refuse into this class of what is known as short lumber.
Monday, July 9, 1888. rOTATO STARCH.
On the motion to strike out the paragraph reducing the duty on po- tato starch Irom 2 cents to 1 cent per pound —
Mr. BOUTELLE said:
Mr. Chairman: This item of the pending tariff bill is one which af- fords our friends on both sides of the Honse an opportunity to attest the sincerity of the protestations they have made, that they seek to pro- mote the interests of the farmer. This article of potato starch is one in which the farming interests in certain sections of our country are directly concerned to a very important degree. In Maine, New Hamp-
15
shire, Vermont, ond New York, where the largest portion of our potato- starch is manulactured, the stiirch factories furnish the principal home market for the larmer's potatoes. In a large portion of the agricult'- ural regions of those States the starch iactories form one of the essen- tial sources of reliance for the farmer.
In the northern part of my State — the most fertile region of Ma'ne — the potato starch industry is a most important factor with regard to the interests of the farmer. During some years past the starch factories of this country have probably consumed annually something like 3,000,- 000 or 4,000,000 bushels of potatoes; and the production of starch has been 25,000,000 or 80,000,000 pounds. The starch factories are located in the immediate vicinity of the potato fields. The farmer digs his pota- toes and sells them almost at his very door. During a number of years past the farmers in Aroostook County, Maine, where this industry is very largely carried on, have been enabled to sell their potatoes with- out assortment, large and small, just as taken from the field, at prices varying from 25 to 30 cents a bushel, to the starch factories. Without these factories those farmers would have no market for that class of their potato product that is not adapted for table use.
By reducing the duty 50 per cent., as proposed in this bill, you will simply permit the potatoes raised in the British provinces to come across the line and compete ruinously with the product of the farmers of my State and of the other States bordering on Canada which are in- terested in this business.
In that portion of my own district to which I have alluded there are some forty of these starch fiactories scattered through the potato region^ producing thousands of tons of starch annually and providing the farm- ers with a reliable cash market at home for hundreds of thousands of bushels of potatoes.
In a recent interview on the subject, Mr. Alba Holmes, one of the leading starch manufacturers of Aroostook County, Maine, stated em- phatically that the removal of the duty on starch would close every factory in that county. The reduction of the duty to 1 cent per i)ouiid would probably be quite as disastrous. Mr. Holmes said:
The average price of starch for some time past has been 4 cents per pound. Owing to the prices we pay for potatoes and labor, there is only a very small margin for profit In fact we could not continue the business and sell at a less price. We tind formidable competitors in Germany and Holland, who, owing to their starvation labor prices and tlie low prices paid for potatoes, are enabled to export large quantities of starch, pay a duty of 2 cetits per pound, and sell for 4 cents and make a profit. Take off the duty and we could not, nor Avould we try to compete with theni. I shall close my factories that moment the duty is taken off.
Take the matter of dextrine or burnt starch. It was formerly manufactured in Providence, li. I., and in New York, the two factories using about J,4(.K) tons of starch annually. At that time it was protected by a fair duty and the business flourished. The duty was unjustly reduced to 1 cent per pound. We say un- justly, because it takes li pounds of starch to make a pound of dextrine, and at the present rate of duty on starch it should now be 3 cents instead of one. The result -was what might have been expected, the American manufacturers of dextrine were driven to the wall, and to-day there is not a pound manufactured in the United States.
Hon. Thomas H. Phair, State senator from the same county, and the owner of seven starch factories, declares that without the protective tariff not a pound of starch could be made in Aroostook until the farm- ers should be ready to furnish potatoes for 10 cents a bushel. He says:
Last year Canadian factories paid from 10 to 13 cents per bushel for their pota- toes, while the factories on the American side paid from 20 to 30 cents. Take off the duty and our farmers must sell their potatoes for 2 or 3 cents a bushel less than the province farmers, on account of difference of freight, or not sell any.
16
A few days ago, while in Boston, I metaPrinee Edward's Island man wliohad several tons of starch to sell, and he sold it for 4^^ cents, less the duty of 2 cents and 2i per cent, commission — that is, he sold for 2j cents, less the 2^ per cent, commission, and paid the freight, 82.50 per ton. At the prices paid for potatoes last year by our factories the cost of starch here was about 4i cents a pound. ^Vhile the Prince Edward man paid $^2.50 a ton for transportation, we have to pay 87.50.
Not only must the free-trade policy, if adopted by the people, shut up every starch factory in Aroostook, but it must ab.solutely stop shipments of potatoes, unless our farmers are ready and willing to produce them for less price than the province farmers now realize.
Hon. C. F. A. Johnson, a pioneer in this industry, and one of the most highly-respected citizens of his section, stated before the Com- mittee on Ways and Means a few years ago, when this interest was similarly threatened, that the interests of more than ten thousand farm- ers were involved. He said:
Protection to the starch-maker is protection of the utmost importance to the farmer. It really means to him home comforts, the education of his children, and the support in his community of religious and charitable institutions, with a 1 that those advantages imply.
If any gentleman of this committee has ever had the good fortune to be a p'anter and hoer and digger of potatoes he will readily assent to the proposi- tion that_25 cents per bushel is as low as he or any other man ought to do it. At this price, which is the usual one paid by starch-makers, starch costs from i i- to 4i^ cents per pound, to which must be added from one-half to five-eighths « f a cent per pound for transportation, storage, and commission. This brings up the cost when it is sold to 4^ to 4f cents per pound. This variation in cost is explained chiefly by variation in quality of potatoes in different years. I have known years when they yielded but 6 pounds per bushel.
There is in the communities in which these mills are located in my own State (Maine) a large amount of capital invested ; the business is one involving large risks; my own firm lost in this business in 1881 over $12,000.
The present tariff of 2 cents per pound is as small as we can possibly work under. A reduction would demolish the industry in the United States. The farmers of the neighboring maritime provinces (contentedly or otherwise) pro- duce potatoes at much less price than ours can, and the Canadian starch-makers have a very material advantage over us in the matter of transportation.
We can not take a pound of starch to their country without paying their gov- ernment a duty of 2 cents. Why should not American citizens have the advan- tage of their own markets?
Last year the starch factories in the province of New Brunswick paid from 10 to 13 cents a bushel for their potatoes right across the St. John Kiver at the very time when the farmers of my State were re- ceiving 25 and 30 cents for every bushel they could lay down at the starch iiactory. If you agree to this proposed reduction of one-half of the present duty, making it but 1 cent per pound, the result is to be the destruction of this industry on the American side of the line. You are going to take away from the farmers of New England, New York, and the other States interested this chief market for the sale of one of their important products; and you are going to do this, very strangely, as it seems to me. directly in the face of the fact that the Canadian tariff to-day puts a duty of 2 cents upon every pound of starch that goes from the United States to the British provinces.
Our present duty on starch is in no sense a burden upon the Ameri- can people. The additional cost that is imparted to a yard of cloth by reason of the starch used in its manufacture is infinitesimal, and this potato starch is used almost entirely for the purpose of starching yarns and fabrics of cotton cloth and cloth for prints. Yet by this legisla- tion cutting down the duty one-half you propase to say to the farmers of Maine, of New York, New Hampshire, Vermont, and elsewhere, who have been engaged in raising potatoes upon land better adapted for that than for other purposes, "The American Congress has decreed that you shall sell no more of your potatoes at the prices they now
17
bring, but you must raise and sell them to compete with the low prices of the Canadian farmers."
Everybody knows that in Canada labor is cheaper, land is cheaper, and that the people live in a less comfortable way than we are willing that our American farmers should live; so that the competition in- volved in the proposed reduction of duty, so far as the potato industry is concerned, would be to our farmers simply destructive.
I can not see why we are called upon to show to Canada a liberality which Canada refuses to show to us. I can not see why we are called upon to allow the products of the starch factories of Canada to come over into the United States at one-half the duty which the Canadiap Government exacts from the American manufacturer if he tries to sell starch in the British provinces. There is no logic in this; there is no patriotism in it; there is no common sense in it; there is no justice in it to our farmers. On the contrary, so liar as my section of the country is con- cerned, it is one of the most direct and serious blows that this Mills bill proposes to strike at the agricultural interests.
Mr. Chairman, this reduction of the tariff on potato-starch and the failure to put the rate on dextrine and similar starch products at a rate that will protect the American producer form part of what seems a systematic assault upon all the leading industries of my State, as evi- dence of which I have compiled from the figures published by the Ways and Means Committee the following comparative statement:
THE DEMOCRATIC ASSAULT UPON MAINE'S INDUSTRIES— HOW THE MILLS BILI» STRIKES AT NEW ENGLAND LUMBERING, MANUFACTURING, AND FARMING IN- TERESTS FOR THE BENEFIT OP EUROPE AND CANADA — F'ACTS THAT SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS.
The following table shows exactly how the Democratic Mills tariff-re- duction bill proposes to strike down the protective duties that under Re- publican laws have stimulated American industries, increased the wages of American labor, furnished a profitable home market for our farmers, and given to American workingmen the most comfortable and happy homes in the world. Although a few items cited below have been dropped out of this bill since it was reported, the following list repre- sents the changes of the existing tariff most directly affecting the in- terests of Maine, proposed by the Mills bill as it was indorsed by the Democratic national convention at St. Louis and the Democratic State convention of Maine:
Protective duties under the Republican tariff.
Proposed rates under the Democratic Mills tariflf.
Timber :
Hewn and sawed and timber used for spars and in building wharves.
Square or sided
"Wood, unmanufactured
Sawed boards, planks, and deals, and all other arti- cles of sawed lumber. Hubs, for wheels, posts, last- blocks, wagon-blocks, car- blocks, gun-blocks, head- ing-blocks, and ail like blocks or sticks, rough, hewn, or sawed only.
BOUTELLE 2
20 per cent, ad valorem .
1 cent per cubic foot
20 per cent, ad valorem . «1 and $2 per 1,000 feet. .
20 per cent, ad valorem...
Free-list.
Do. Do. Do.
Do.
18
Protective duties under the Republican tarifl'.
Proposed rates under the Democratic Mills tariff.
Staves of wood ,
Pickets and palings
Laths
Shingles
Clapboards, pine or spruce..
Fish-glue, or isinglass
Soap, hard and soft
Hemlock extract, for tan- ning.
Barytes
All earths or chiys, un- wrought or unmanufact- ured.
China clay, or kaolin
Brick
Vegetables, fresh or in brine (cucumbers, pickles, cab- bages, turnips, carrots, beets,tomHtoes, squashes, pumpkins etc.).
Meats, game, and poultry....
Milk, fresh
Egg yolks
Beans,pea9e,and split pease
Pulp, for paper-makers' use,
Bristles
Bulbs and bulbous roots, not medicinal.
Feathers of all kinds ,
Grease ,
Lime ,
Garden seeds
Marble of all kinds
Plaster of Paris, ground or calcined.
Brown eartlienware, etc
Granite, freestone, sand- stone, and all building or monumental stone un- manufactured.
Tallow
Wools: Clothing wools of various grades.
Woolen rags, shoddy, etc. ..
SlHte. and manufactures of slate.
Anvils, anchors or parts thereof; mill-irons and mill-cranks of wrought- iron. and wrought-iron for shijw.and forgiiigs of iron and steel for ve.'ssels, steam-engines, and loco- motives, or i>arts thereof, weighing each 25 pounds or more.
Saws
Cabinet and house furni- ture, finished.
Lumber :
Boards, planks, deals, and other sawed I um- ber of hemlock, white- wood, sycamore, and basMWood — Planed or finished on one side.
|
10 per cent, ad valorem... 20per cent, ad valorem... |
Free-list. Do. Do |
|
35 cents per 1,0()0 $1 'SCI to $2 per 10' |
Do. Do |
|
'25 per cent, ad valorem... 20 per cent, ad valorem... do |
Do. Do. Do. |
|
1 0 per cent, ad valorem ... |
Do. Do. |
|
Do. |
|
|
20 per cent, ad valorem... 10 per cent, ad valorem... |
Do. Do. |
.do. .do. .do.
10 and 20 per cent, ad valorem. 10 per cent ad valorem....
15 cents per pound
20 per cent, ad valorem...
25 per cent, ad valorem.. 10 per cent, ad valorem...
do
20 per cent, ad valorem... 65 cents per cubic foot.... 20 per cent, ad valorem...
Do. Do. Do. Do.
Do. Do. Do.
Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do.
25 per cent, ad valorem... 20 per cent, ad valorem $1 per ton ! Free-list.
1 cent per pound
12 and 10 cents per pound I
lOcents per pound I
30 per cent, ad valorem..i
Do. Do.
Do. per cent, ad valorem
2 cents per pound ' li cents per pound.
40 per cent, ad valorem. 35 per cent, ad valorem.
S1.50 per 1,000 feet 60 cents per 1.000 fe«i
30 per cent, ad valorem Do.
19
Protective duties under the Republican tariff.
Proposed rate under the Democratic Mills tariff.
Lumber— Continued.
Planed or finished
on two sides. Planed on two sides, tongued and grooved. All other articles of sawed lumber notelse- where specified — Planed or finished
on one side. Planed or finished
on two sides. Planed one side, tongued and grooved. Planed on two sides, tongued and grooved. All other manufactures of wood.
Potato-starch
Oil-cloths for floors
Printing paper, unsized, for
books and newspapers. Sized or glued for printing..
Paper boxes
Brushes of all kinds
■Card-clothing for factories
Carriages and parts of
Friction matches
Inks and ink powders
Marble, sawed, dressed, and
tiles. Marble manufactures.
S2per 1,000 feet
$2.50 per 1,000 feet.
62.50 per 1.000 feet.
$3 per 1.000 feet
do
$3.50 per 1,000 feet.,
35 per cent, ad valorem..
2 cents per pound
40 per cent, ad valorem. 15 per cent, ad valorem.
20 per cent, ad valorem. 35 per cent, ad valorem., 30 i)er cent, ad valorem.. 25 to 45 cents per square foot. 35 per cent, ad valorem..
do.
30 v>er cent, ad valorem. $1.10 per cubic foot.
$1 per 1,000 feet. $1.50 per 1,000 feet.
50 cents per 1,000 feet. $1 per 1,000 feet. Do.
$1.50 per 1,000 feet.
30 per cent, ad valorem.
1 cent per pound.
25 percent, ad valorem.
12 per cent, ad valorem.
15 per cent, ad valorem. '!■'> per itMit. ad valorem. 20 \'QV ct*nl. .•\d valorem 15 Lo 2.J cents per square
foot. 30 per cent, ad valorem. 25 per cent, ad valorem. 20 per cent, ad valorem. (i5 cents per cubic foot.
30 per cent, ad valorem.
COTTON AND WOOI.EN MANUFACTURES.
Cotton goods.— TJnder the existing tariff all cotton manufactures are protected by a specific duty equivalent to about 40 per cent, on the average— the common grades less, and the fine grades more.
The Mills bill abolishes all specific duties and substitutes a sweeping ad valo- rem duty of 40 per cent for all kinds of goods. As tiie ad valorem duties invite fraudulent undervaluations, which practically reduce duties 8 to 10 per cent., the practical effect of such a change in the tariff would be to reduce the protec- tion on fine goods so as to prevent their manufacture in this country.
Woolen goods.— The present tariff imposes a duty of about 35 cents per pound (as an equivalent for the duty on wool, of which the wool-grower receives the benefit), and 35 per cent, ad valorem on coarse and 40 per cent, ad valorem on fine goods. As the pound duty is intended to be made a little more than the average duty on the wool, to guard against errors, that is also a slight protec- tion to those engaged in woolen manufacturing.
The Mills bill abolishes the pound duty (because of free wool) and imposes an ad valorem duty of 35 per cent, and 40 per cent, on imported woolens. The farmer loses the advantage of the duty on wool, and the manufacturer is left ■with nothing but the ad valorem duty on Imported woolens, the effect of which must be to increase importations and thus injure the home manufacturers.
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