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Mr. VREELAND. Three dollars a dozen.

Mr. COCKRAN. You speak of the difference in the rates of wages paid to labor in Germany and in this country. Have you any figures showing the relative productivity of an American and a foreign producer?

Mr. VREELAND. I have no detailed figures on this particular line, but in the two factories that now exist their workmen are made up, quite a percentage of them, of German workmen who came from German factories, and presumably the difference in the amount of work they did before they came over and have done since they arrived here is not very large, although I think that it would be true if we go into the making of razors, as it has been true in all other lines of American manufacture, that the American manufacturer will be able by better organization, or by means of better wages, or through all of those causes, to obtain a greater output.

Mr. COCKRAN. Exactly so. You state here, if I understand you correctly-I understood you to say-that those razors brought in here from Germany are largely made by boys and men in their own. homes, without the advantage of effective organization and machinery?

Mr. VREELAND. Yes.

Mr. COCKRAN. And with an organization such as would inevitably arise in this country, the productive power of such workmen would be greatly increased by working in a factory?

Mr. VREELAND. I think it would.

Mr. COCKRAN. Under normal conditions?

Mr. VREELAND. Yes.

Mr. COCKRAN. So that your table of wages, not taking into account these different factors, would hardly be reliable?

Mr. VREELAND. If the gentleman from New York will look at the rates of wages, he will see, for instance, that the grinding and the honing of them, and the different operations on the razors, do not require a factory and do not require much power, and can be done. even by hand power at the homes, and it is so done largely in those countries, and we have no means of making them in that cheap method in this country.

Mr. COCKRAN. I suggest that that is the most expensive method of production. If I might express an opinion on it, not knowing any more about it than you, I would say that those articles we see there are articles that essentially have to be polished by machinery. Mr. VREELAND. They have to be polished by machinery.

Mr. COCKRAN. Yes.

Mr. VREELAND. But what I mean to say is that it does not need a factory to do any one of the pieces of work that are done.

Mr. COCKRAN. Those things could be more effectively done in a factory, I should think.

Mr. VREELAND. I agree with you entirely. The history of all industries demonstrates that if they are once firmly established in this country, American ingenuity and power of organization and the better work that they get by reason of better wages invariably make a larger production per unit than they make abroad. That has been my observation.

Mr. COCKRAN. You represent this gentleman. The object of these increases is not so much to improve his production as it is to levy something on the community, is it not?

Mr. VREELAND. My theory is that if we can make the razors for the American market, employing, say, a thousand skilled men in doing so, it will be in accordance with the trend of protection which at present prevails in this country, and that at least in the end will not result in increasing the price to the last consumer.

Mr. COCKRAN. Surely you do not mean to say that such a very radical increase as you suggest here for instance, on razors, or some of them, from $1.75 to $3 a dozen, and from 20 per cent ad valorem to 50 per cent would not have some very serious effect on the price? Mr. VREELAND. There are two or three razors there, one of which pays a duty of $3, and one of those is made in this country. The gentleman can not tell from the looks of them which is made in this country, because I notice that the requirement of the law which would indicate where it is made is not complied with. That is not indicated on the razor. That brings me to another point, and that is that these razors are marked with very light etching in Germany, and after passing the custom-house that is removed, as it has been doubtless in the case of that one which I exhibited.

Mr. HILL. In giving your wage figures, have you given them by the day or by the unit cost of transferring from one condition to the other?

Mr. VREELAND. We have given the unit cost of a dozen razors.

Mr. HILL. So that the question of day wages does not enter into this exhibit?

Mr. VREELAND. No; it is the unit cost of making a dozen razors from the initial step.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. How many are employed in this industry?

Mr. VREELAND. About 200.

Mr. GRIGGS. That is, in the razor part of it?

Mr. VREELAND. In the one with which I am familiar.

Mr. GRIGGS. They are employed strictly in making razors?

Mr. VREELAND. Yes.

Mr. GRIGGS. You can have them employed in those two factories making other things?

Mr. VREELAND. That includes all that they turn out in the factory. Mr. GRIGGS. You say they make other specialties? I see on here "The Geneva Cutlery Company."

Mr. VREELAND. Yes; I mean by specialties such things as, for instance, an antirust razor. They turn out an antirust razor which they claim does not rust. I do not know whether it does or not. At least it does not by the time it gets to the retailer. That gives them something on which they can avoid the competition with the German manufacturers, and that gives them something by which they can keep running, where otherwise they could not afford to.

Mr. GRIGGS. You do not catch my point. Does the Geneva Cutlery Company make other cutlery besides razors?

Mr. VREELAND. No; this company makes exclusively razors and razor specialties. That is all that they make. I have stated that, in my opinion-which is not very valuable, because I am not an expert in the business-the man who ultimately buys a razor will not pay any more for it under the schedule which is proposed here than he does now. Take the retail price of razors to-day. There are a lot of German razors running in price-that is, the price upon which they pay a duty-from $1.50 up to $2, which, I think, is the highest.

Mr. GRIGGS. Is that the Torrey razor which they make?
Mr. VREELAND. Yes.

Mr. GRIGGS. We do not need any duty to compete on that.
Mr. VREELAND. No.

Mr. GRIGGS. Anybody will pay anything you want for that razor to get it.

Mr. VREELAND. That, unfortunately, is not true in western New York.

Mr. COCKRAN. Does Torrey sell his razor in western New York? Mr. GRIGGS. I do not know whether he does or not.

Mr. VREELAND. No; they use Korn razors in western New York. I say that this razor would not be any higher to the ultimate consumer than it is now. I state that because, although we are using imported razors, presumably cheaper-they ought to be cheaper-yet the ultimate consumer to-day is paying all that he can afford to pay or all that he could pay for razors. Take a razor that is sold-valued-at $2; that is, that is what they pay a duty on. That sells at present in the retail stores of the country at a dollar. Occasionally they will have a bargain day and they will sell them at 98 cents. The two razors I have exhibited there, one made here and one in Germany, sell at $2, and on those razors a duty of $2 a dozen is paid. Now, mind you, in our opinion the basis of the duty is too low. They undoubtedly are worth more than that, but they are imported on the basis of being worth $2, and the duty is paid upon that. That razor generally sells in the retail stores of this country at $2.

The CHAIRMAN. Twenty-four dollars a dozen, $2 apiece?

Mr. VREELAND. We are selling them now by the piece to the man who buys the razor outside of the counter. The jobber probably pays from $4 to $6, and he would sell to the retailer at $7.50 to $9, and the retailer would sell that razor at a dollar [exhibiting razor]. Mr. GRIGGS. Can you tell us what it costs to make one of these razors?

Mr. VREELAND. Yes, sir; I will file the labor cost and the details of the cost of making that razor with the committee.

Mr. GRIGGS. Give the entire cost, will you not?

Mr. VREELAND. Yes.

Mr. GRIGGS. The labor cost and all?

Mr. VREELAND. The labor cost and the cost of material.

Mr. GRIGGS. What it costs f. o. b. the factory?

Mr. VREELAND. Yes; razors that have fancy handles, and so forth, sell almost invariably for $2.50. Occasionally some man sells them at $2.75. So a three dollar a dozen razor when it gets to the consumer at present is being sold for all that that consumer would pay under this schedule which is here suggested.

Mr. GRIGGS. Where does all that profit go to?

Mr. VREELAND. It goes to the people who handle the razors.

Mr. GRIGGS. You mean the wholesaler and the retailer?

Mr. VREELAND. The wholesaler and the retailer.

Mr. GRIGGS. They, together, get as much profit out of one razor as a dozen razors cost?

Mr. VREELAND. Of course that is not all profit. You take the jobber, and he will sell a dozen razors to a man, and perhaps he will give him a little show case to put in his window, and the expenses are large in all these matters, and we can not assume that that is all profit.

Mr. GRIGGS. That is something put onto the original cost?

Mr. VREELAND. Yes. What I say is that so far as the ultimate consumer is concerned, he is paying to-day for those razors, presumably cheaper, that come in from Germany all that the market will stand for razors. If we commence making these razors in our own factories, it means not an increase to the last man that buys the razor, but it means a smaller price to the middlemen that are handling the razors.

The CHAIRMAN. Could not an ordinary man go to a manufacturer and buy a dozen of these razors and pay for them and keep a couple himself and give the other ten to his friends and make money by the operation, rather than to buy at retail?

Mr. VREELAND. If he could buy them in that way, I should think it would save a good deal of money. He could give the rest away at Christmas and make a very good transaction of it.

I think, gentlemen, that is all the time I desire to take, unless there is some question to be asked with relation to this matter on some point that I have not covered.

Mr. RANDELL. Is not the middleman unnecessarily costly to the public? Can you devise any way that would meet that situation?

Mr. VREELAND. Well, I think as a result of establishing factories in this country that usually one middleman will be done away with; that is, that they will sell directly to the retailers, the storekeepers, through their agents, instead of selling through the jobbers and importers.

Mr. Pou. Do you not think that if the increase was made that you suggest here it would be practically prohibitory? Would it not shut out foreign razors almost entirely?

Mr. VREELAND. No; I think they can easily compete. I think that upon this schedule that I have proposed, the figures I give showing the detailed cost of making the $3 razor, will show that the American manufacturer must have good organization in his factory and a large output in order to compete with the Germans at the present prices. Mr. HILL. This is not the only industry, you know, where the cost of production and distribution is high.

Mr. VREELAND. Yes.

Mr. HILL. That is true of the oil business and of the sewing-machine business in the cost of distribution. It is not all profit to the middleman and the retailer by any manner of means.

Mr. VREELAND. No; it is expensive. There are a great many items to be covered.

Mr. GRIGGS. You never knew 1 gallon of oil to reach the cost of a barrel, did you?

Mr. VREELAND. I do not know that I have.

Mr. HILL. I think it has been true, in the history of the United States, that a barrel of crude oil has been sold for the price at which a single gallon has been distributed to the final consumer.

Mr. GRIGGS. That is crude oil.

Mr. Pou. If these men get this profit, I would like to know what Gillette makes at $5 apiece.

Mr. HILL. Well, the business is an open one. It is open for anybody to go into that chooses.

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