PARAGRAPH 450-HIDES.

to be specific in its analysis as follows: Jewels or bearings made of precious, semiprecious or synthetic stones or other artificial or natural mineral substances for use in watches, clocks, electric, gas, or water meters, phonographs, talking machines, scales, speedometers, and all other mechanical instruments or appliances, also including phonograph recorders, reproducers, and shaving knives made of the foregoing substances, all of the foregoing to pay the same rate of duty when imported in the loose and unmounted form, whether entirely finished or partly finished. When any of the foregoing are mounted in brass or other metal holders, screws, bushings, and settings to pay a higher rate.

It is our sincere hope that you will consider this and that we might hear from you at your convenience as to what your own personal opinion is of this suggestion. Thanking you in advance, we are, yours, very gratefully,

PARAGRAPH 450.

VALLORBES JEWEL CO.

Hides of cattle, raw or uncured, whether dry, salted, or pickled, shall be admitted free of duty: Provided, That on and after October first, nineteen hundred and nine, grain, buff, and split leather shall pay a duty of seven and one-half per centum ad valorem; that all boots and shoes, made wholly or in chief value of leather made from cattle hides and cattle skins of whatever weight, of cattle of the bovine species, including calfskins, shall pay a duty of ten per centum ad valorem; that harness, saddles and saddlery, in sets or in parts, finished or unfinished, composed wholly or in chief value of leather, shall pay a duty of twenty per centum ad valorem.

HIDES.

BRIEF OF DAVID BRAMER, ALLSTON, MASS.

IMPORT DUTIES ON HIDES, BOOTS, AND SHOES.

ALLSTON, MASS., January 4, 1913.

To the Committee on Ways and Means of the Sixty-second Congress:

A few years ago a Massachusetts Senator, addressing a large and enthusiastic audience of his constituents, made this statement: "You can have protection for all or you can have free trade for all; but you can not have protection for some and free trade for some." This seemed to be a very fair and reasonable sentiment. In practice, however, the Senator worked and voted for free trade in hides for the farmer and protection for the shoe manufacturer. The excuses given for this action were two, neither of which would bear close examination. One was that hides were a "by-product" and that no one raised cattle for this purpose. It was claimed that all money received from the sale of hides was so much clear gain to the farmer. A farm is, of course, run for profit, just the same as any other business, and the farmer is entitled to all he can make legitimately. Hides are as much a source of profit as beef, milk, or tallow. Were the rule of. "by-products" to be put in force many things besides hides would go to the free list. In fact, it would be impossible to draw the line. No manufacturer would be willing to have this rule of "by-products" applied to his business. He would insist that each item bear its part of the burden. Why, then, should the farmer be expected to submit to it? It so happens that hides are the one universal product of the farms of this country, and that practically every farmer is directly interested in maintaining prices. A duty would add at once to the income of all farmers in the United States. and who will dispute the proposition that they need this increase as much or more than the manufacturers do? Certainly the farmer and his family work long hours for comparatively small returns, and they need every encouragement. The farm laborers also work for low wages, which should be increased.

The second reason given for free hides was that the duty benefited the so-called Beef Trust. The answer to this is that the price of cattle is directly dependent on the amount which the animal brings to the packers, and this return is from all salable parts. As beef has advanced in price cattle returns have been larger to the grower, proving conclusively that the packers must of necessity divide with the farmer.

It is now a well-known fact that the duties on hides can not be restored. No political party could survive such action. The consumers of boots, shoes, harness, and other leather goods would not tolerate the price increases sure to follow. What, then, can

PARAGRAPH 451-LEATHER.

be done to insure a measure of justice to the farmer? Nothing but the removal of the duty on boots, shoes, and harness. We are exporters of these goods and have demonstrated our ability to compete with the whole world. The loss to the shoe manufacturer would be small, while the loss to the American farmer due to free hides is large and, as already stated, hits practically everyone. The most simple rules of justice demand that hides, boots, shoes, and harness shall be treated alike either free trade for all or protection for all.

PARAGRAPH 451.

DAVID BRAMER.

Band, bend, or belting leather, rough leather, and sole leather, five per centum ad valorem; dressed upper and all other leather, calfskins tanned or tanned and dressed, kangaroo, sheep and goat skins (including lamb and kid skins) dressed and finished, other skins and bookbinders' calfskins, all the foregoing not specially provided for in this section, fifteen per centum ad valorem; chamois skin, twenty per centum ad valorem; skins for morocco, tanned but unfinished, five per centum ad valorem; patent, japanned, varnished, or enameled leather weighing not over ten pounds per dozen hides or skins, twenty-seven cents per pound and fifteen per centum ad valorem; if weighing over ten pounds and not over twenty-five pounds per dozen, twentyseven cents per pound and eight per centum ad valorem; if weighing over twenty-ive pounds per dozen, twenty cents per pound and ten per centum ad valorem; pianoforte leather and pianoforte-action leather, and glove leather, twenty per centum ad valorem; leather shoe laces, finished or unfinished, fifty cents per gross pairs and ten per centum ad valorem; boots and shoes made of leather, fifteen per centum ad valorem: Provided, That leather cut into shoe uppers or vamps or other forms, suitable for conversion into manufactured articles, and gauffre leather, shall pay a duty of ten per centum ad valorem in addition to the duty imposed by this paragraph on leather of the same character as that from which they are cut.

LEATHER.

TESTIMONY OF FREDERICK W. CLARKE, 83 SOUTH STREET, BOSTON, MASS.

The witness was duly sworn by the chairman.

Mr. CLARKE. You have heard to-day a great deal about the manufacture of boots and shoes, but if the shoe manufacturer had to depend on the raw hides I do not think he would get very far in his process. They need the intervention of a very necessary and very ancient artificer known as a tanner.

In listening to the long series of briefs which are filed with you by representatives of different productive industries, you must, consciously or unconsciously, refer the petitioners into two classes: One who confessedly represent industries or great corporations now benefiting under high tariffs which exclude foreign competition, while at the same time they have to a greater or less extent been enabled through combination or otherwise to maintain high prices and secure for themselves swollen profits behind the barrier of protection. This would be one class. The other class would include industries whose protection is already among the lowest on the list, amongst whom competition is keen, who are doing their business at a minimum of profit and who have in no way been able to increase their profits because of any protection which the Government afforded them; businesses which are open to free competition and against whom no charge can be made of monopoly or extortion. All the industries of the country can be referred into one or the other of these two groups.

PARAGRAPH 451-LEATHER.

In common with all ordinary American citizens who are consumers we share with you our desire that those in the first group shall no longer be able to create monopolies in this country, protected in the same by tariffs excluding the products of other countries. It is to them the good of the commonwealth demands your attention.

Regarding those composing the second group, producing industries without monopolies, without exclusive control of the raw material of their trade, and having within them all the elements of keen competition which serves at all times to give the greatest service with the minimum living profit, we would ask your most careful consideration in connection with any legislation involving a disturbance of the present low tariffs on their business which would open the way for destructive competition from the low-cost labor of Europe. I am more especially treating of this manufacture of calf leather, in which I am directly interested.

The time is approaching all over the world when the labor cost will be nearer equivalent one country to another. The universal introduction of machinery will call for a more intelligent laborer and a higher-paid laborer abroad as well as at home, for ignorant hands can not compete with intelligently manned machinery. But that time is not yet here, and until it arrives our home labor, with all the ramifications of its needs for the worker, demands so much protection as shall defend them in their present enjoyment of comforts.

It is not necessary in preparing this short statement for your consideration to frame an argument with an endeavor to conceal any method of transacting our business, past or present, or design to deal unfairly with any individual, or to sell cheaply abroad and at the same time maintain high prices at home, or combine in any method, either secret or public, to raise or lower or monopolize any article, raw or manufactured, in our trade. The prosperity of the shoe and leather business rests on the independent and solid foundation laid years ago by the workmen of our craft with honest thrift, unaided by grant, privilege, subvention, or tariff by Government, and it is to-day one of the solitary few monuments of the individual working and independent effort left standing, a beacon rising above the jumble and débris of combinations and trusts.

I am interested in a manufacturing industry that is located in the Middle West.

We require a tariff no higher than is necessary to maintain our industry on a normal basis of moderate profits.

This is always determined by selling prices resulting from a condition of free competition.

The leather industry never has had to contend with an injurious trust or combination.

Leather manufacturers compete freely with one another and have equal opportunity in the purchase of their raw material.

The prices at which they sell under such conditions of free competition should be the basis of any tariff measure enacted for their protection.

But there are conditions entering into the manufacture of leather so entirely different from other industries that it should have special consideration.

PARAGRAPH 451-LEATHER.

I refer particularly to the sources from which tanners draw their raw material, considering first the domestic supply of raw hides and skins.

In the year 1900 there were in the United States for every 100 inhabitants 83 cattle.

In the year 1912 there were for every 100 inhabitants 61 cattle. In other words, the supply was one-third greater 12 years ago than it is to-day.

The supply of cattle being one-third greater naturally the annual take-off of hides was one-third greater 12 years ago than it it to-day. Meanwhile, the demand for leather has greatly increased and tanners have been obliged to go abroad to meet not only a deficiency but also an increased demand.

In the calfskin business at the present time farmers in this country are raising their cattle to secure economic conditions based upon proper methods of farming, and the slaughter of calves has greatly decreased thereby.

Twenty years ago nearly the entire supply of raw calfskins required by tanners in this country were produced at home.

To-day from 70 to 80 per cent of the raw calfskins required by American tanners must be obtained outside of this country.

The largest calfskin tanneries in the world are located in Germany, two especially, those of Heyl and Freudenberg, greatly exceed in their output the largest of our American calfskin tanneries. Their growth, fostered by the paternal system of the German Government, has been the phenomenon of the last 20 years. Their greatest advantages have been, first, their proximity to the largest source of supply of raw skins, namely, the semicivilized steppes of Russia, and secondly, the cheap labor. With these two advantages, they have invaded every market of the world, except America. They drove American tanners out of the free-trade market of England, are crowding us out of the few places where we have yet more or less desirable business. Our present moderate duty alone prevents their shipping great quantities of finished leather into the United States. When upper leather in America was largely tanned with bark, we had an advantage in the cheapness of our tanning material, but at the present time the volume of upper leather is tanned with bichromate of potash, which is equally accessible to Europe as well as American tanners. This makes a condition so menacing that the American calfskin tanner feels himself at a great disadvantage. But this is only a part, and the least part, of the danger that threatens the American calfskin

tanner.

Consider that the home production of raw calfskins is so inadequate that the American tanner must buy 80 per cent of his raw skins in foreign countries.

And further consider that the greater part of this 80 per cent of the supply of raw skins must pass the doors of the great German tanners before being fairly en route for this country.

Consider also the advantage in purchasing enjoyed by the European tanners and the disadvantage which great distance, brokerage, freights, and all the minor tribute which Europe levies on goods designed for competitors' countries.

PARAGRAPH 451-LEATHER.

Consider carefully what this makes the raw material cost American tanners landed at their tanneries, and then add to this burden the higher wage needed to satisfy the demand of the American workmen, and it will be seen that there is no opportunity for swollen profits for the American tanner.

We are now engaged in a constant struggle with the European tanner to secure in territory which he considers his own sufficient raw skins to satisfy the requirements of our home trade for finished leather. Our only protection in this somewhat unequal struggle is the low tariff which keeps out the European finished product. Internal competition among ourselves keeps the profit at a minimum.

Against the wage scale we make no protest. It is the measure of the cost of living in terms of exchange of services, and the whole fabric must stand together. But it is this great mass of human beings deriving their support from our industry that must be crushed by the pressure of foreign competition, if the small protection our Government now affords us is swept away. German paternalism may maintain the body of German workers in a condition of dull mendicancy, but the American workingman flings aside the proffer of an old-age pittance and asks for space and opportunity to turn his brain and muscle into a just share for himself and his family.

The leather manufacturers of this country are dependent upon imports of raw material from foreign countries to an extent which is now causing most serious consideration of the trade. As many hides are imported from foreign countries as are taken off in the United States by all the Chicago packers combined, and of calfskins 80 per cent of the amount tanned by American tanners are bought in foreign countries and brought to the American tanners to manufacture. This emphatically proves the need of free raw material for the trade uncontrolled by combination of packers and equally accessible to the smallest as well as the largest tanner. This is the condition of the raw material without the addition of American labor to convert it into leather. Consider the present moderate duty swept away and the great market of this country open to the flood of foreignmade leather. The demands of foreign tanners for rawhides would greatly increase in order to enable them to supply this market in addition to the business which they already have, and they will become more determined in their efforts to secure still larger quantities of hides and skins in the world's markets, making it more difficult than now for American tanners to secure their supplies in the world's markets. The fight to secure our share of raw material has forced the market for rawhides and skins beyond all normal records of the past. We may see prices of rawhides and skins and the resulting leather and shoes forced to a still higher and more difficult position. Our supply of raw skins in this country to-day is inadequate and is yearly becoming more and more deficient, and we, therefore, protest against increasing the difficulty of securing such supplies as we require.

The American leather trade is to-day struggling against conditions more difficult and serious than ever before encountered in the history of this country. An increasing home demand for leather in the form of shoes and other products and a gradual but cer