SENATE 63d Congress'! 1st Session } j Document \ No. 3 SILK INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES ARTICLE FROM THE NEW YORK COMMERCIAL RELATIVE TO THE SILK INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES V PRESENTED BY MR. GALLINGER APRIL 12, 1913. — Ordered to be printed WASHINGTON GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 1913 V SILK INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES. AMERICAN PRODUCTS COMPARE WITH BEST FOREIGN WEAVES DEVEL- OPMENT IN 30 YEARS RESTS UPON ADEQUATE AND SUSTAINED TARIFF PROTECTION GREAT MACHINERY PLANTS AND FINISHING WORKS DEPEND UPON DOMESTIC SILK TRADE. [From the New York Commercial, April 10, 1913.] There is no example showing more pointedly the benefits to be derived from continued tariff protection in the upbuilding of an in- dustry than that relating to the silk manufactures of America. In a little less than 30 years the weavers of silk piece goods have developed their trade in this country from an experimental stage to a position where an aggregate of over $200,000,000 worth of silk products is W disposed of annually. There are as many variations in lines of manufactured silks in this Jfc country as can be found anywhere else in the world. American ingenuity has contrived machinery which is capable of producing v China silk, fine Japanese silks and products which compete on equal terms with the best products of French looms. The necessity for a constantly increasing output of domestic silks is appreciated by the ! manufacturers and they show a ready willingness to invest their cap- ital in silk mills and machinery. The vogue for silk has increased from year to year until now it is estimated that American women and the American men wear more silk garments and use a greater quan- tity of silk ai tides for household decoration than any other nation in the world. The output of American looms has increased from a paltry total in 1880 until to-day practically 87 to 90 per cent of the goods used in America are of domestic manufacture. The basis of all this substantial development in an industry that is as old as history rests upon the protection afforded by tariff legislation. The policy of the Government toward the silk manufacturer has been one that has immediately encouraged manufacturing enterprises to undertake the production of silks in this country to compete with products from the Orient and from the countries in Europe where . wage scales are low and where all other elements of cost are on a much lower basis than in the United States. ADMIT RAW SILK FREE. As fundamental to the encouragement of the silk industry raw silk is admitted free. There is so little opportunity for production of raw silk in this country that the framers of our tariff schedules have, almost without opposition, agreed to admit silk in its raw state free of duty. Once the raw silk has entered this country it has to pass through successive stages of finishing before it can be worked into 3 4. SILK INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES. broad silks, ribbons, or the many other various articles in which it is the material of chief value. The processes through which raw silk passes before it is ready for weaving include spinning, throwing, twisting, and reeling. Specialists in all of these lines have developed their plants and are now recognized as an integral part of the indus- trial activity of this country. In several of the New England States, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and scattered through a score of other States, are silk plants devoted exclusively to the preparation of the product for the weaver. All these plants are equipped with high-priced modern machinery and a part of it is of American manu- facture. The interests involved in the silk-machinery mills of this country alone represent many millions of dollars and afford steady and remunerative labor to a large force of machinists. The men working in these American mills are paid at a rate of wage which is estimated to be from 150 to 200 per cent more than is paid for cor- responding labor in European textile machinery plants. SILK DYEING INDUSTRY. A feature of the silk industry which deserves most careful attention is that of the dyeing establishments. Many silk weavers feel that the dyeing of their products is a matter which requires special skill, and they derive better results by sending their fabrics to a silk works than in attempting to do the work themselves. This is along the same line as followed in cotton goods, where the weavers send to bleacheries that are centrally located and are equipped with every facility for rapid and perfect finishing of fabrics. Here again the question of the cost of labor is met with, and inquiry develops the fact that the opera- tives in American silk-dyeing works receive more than double the wages that are paid for a similar class of labor abroad. When these considerations are all taken into account, it demonstrates that the finished product in this country must necessarily represent a higher cost than does the product of foreign looms. It is to overcome this and to sustain the scale of living generally recognized in this country that the tariff schedules imposed are regarded as equable. Any inequalities that exist or changes that may be suggested, it is declared by those who are interested in the continued prosperity of the silk industry in America, should be made not with a view to destroying the thriving business, but to correcting mistakes that have developed since the enactment of the Payne- Aldrich tariff bill. From the earliest settlement of this country to the present day it has been a fundamental policy with the American public to encourage the establishment of various lines of industry, so as to make this country as nearly as possible independent for its supplies. The early colo- nists were quick to realize the advantage of encouraging in citizens the spirit to venture into industrial lines, and bounties and tariff regu- lations passed in their favor stand upon the records as testimony of the early fathers’ view of this economic problem. In those days and through the early stages of the Republic there was no talk of ‘‘legis- lating industries out of business,” as is now so frequently advocated by those who seek to put American manufacturers in direct compe- tition with the world’s cheap markets. SILK INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES. 5 STRINGENT LABOR LAWS. In regard to the production of silks in this country it is to be noted that the various stages through which the raw silk passes until it is ready to be worked into a silk dress, or into hosiery, underwear, or use in the upholstery trades, furnishes employment to a greater number of high-class operatives than almost any other branch of trade. These people have for many years been employed in some of the larger cities of this country and have developed an aptitude for this class of work which now places American silks of all classes in a position where they can compete in quality with any made elsewhere. It is the fact that the American looms are now turning out such superlative products that is the reason for legislators to suggest that we compete on even terms with foreigners. This hasty conclusion loses sight of the fact heretofore mentioned and many others that conclusively prove that manufacturing in this country, whether it be silks, steel, or any other line of merchandise, involves a higher cost than elsewhere. One thing that is of vital importance and of determining influence in fixing prices is the strict enforcement of labor regulations in the mills of this country. Unions are practically organized throughout the silk industry, and they have succeeded in having laws passed by State legislatures that cut down the hours of operation per week to a much lower point than in foreign mills. A 54 to 57 hour week in this country would strike the average, while abroad some mills are run on a 64 to 68 hour weekly scale, and in China, Japan, and some European countries where the production of silks is done in a primi- tive fashion and for the most part in homes of weavers no restriction as to hours of labor can be enforced. Getting down to the actual wages paid in American mills, statisticians who are willing to furnish figures to Congress are prepared to prove that the pay envelopes of American operatives, taking in all classes, average from 100 to 125 per cent in excess of the general average of silk operatives in any other country. As most of the competition in silks comes from Japan, China, France, and Italy, where in each instance the labor scale is low as compared with our country, those who have their millions invested in silk plants feel that they are justified in putting their case before the American public and in asking for a fair hearing. When the last generation was considering the question of purchas- ing silks, there was little choice between the makeshift American products and the imported broad silks, whether in blacks or in fancy colors. Our mothers and grandmothers were obliged to depend upon the word of the importer and retailer that the goods offered were the best quality of European silks. Prices on these goods were always high, and to possess a silk dress was considered a sign of luxury. It has been a quick transition from this state of affairs to the present day when women are wearing silk for almost all pur- poses and when the garment trade is establishing itself as the chief distributor of ready-made silk skirts, dresses, and shirt waists, to say nothing of the multitude of outer garments, such as automobile wraps and cloaks either all silk or silk lined. Among men the use of sdk hose, underwear, and silk fancy shirts is becoming almost universal in the class who do not have to work at manual labor. The output from year to year during the past decade has shown an 6 SILK INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES. almost arithmetical progression. The largest manufacturers of hosiery, for example, show that their sales have increased at the rate of a million dollars a year for the past seven years, until their gross sales for 1912 exceeded $9,000,000 and the current year it is expected will put them well over the ten-million-dollar mark. A very large percentage of the product of this organization was in silk underwear and hosiery for men and women. The use of silk underskirts has developed a separate branch of the garment trade in this country, and the output of those factories from year to year runs into enormous figures. The silk manufacturers of wide goods have been quick to adapt their products to this new channel and are manufacturing classes of silk of a specially strong texture which give good service when made up in skirts for street wear. FULL RANGE OF STYLES. The basis of the first American silk weaving in this country was the production of staple black silks, but it was very soon discovered that buyers were determined to have a full range of colored silks and fancy silks shown them if they were to divert their purchasing from importers to domestic producers. Before the American silk manufacturer could branch out into the production of colored and printed silks he had to feel his way and find out, through sampling, whether American dyers could successfully handle silks as they were already handling cottons and woolens. The ready skill of the Amer- ican manufacturer proved itself equal to the task and the dyeing establishments in this country met the full requirements in finishing silks. On the score of printed silks for all purposes it is admitted by experts that in design and in execution the American mills are pro- ducing goods that set a pace for the rest of the world. So far as the per capita consumption of silk ribbons and all other products of silk other than broad silks is concerned the record in this country stands unexcelled. No more startling figures can be shown than those which record the swinging of the pendulum of trade on uphol- stery goods from a point where all the real silk and plush goods were imported, to a point at present where practically only a small percentage of goods enter American ports. There will always be a minor fraction of the people who prefer to pay the duty on imported goods, and this demand is alone keeping life in the import division of the upholstery trade. On the production of novelties in embroid- ery, fringes, tassels, and various other small articles the American manufacturers have not altogether given over the field to foreigners, though competition here is sharp in spite of protective tariff duty in favor of American manufacturers. This is largely because a great deal of hand labor has to go into the production of such articles and the cheaper wage scales of foreign countries can not be overcome by mechanical perfections in American equipment and the greater per diem production of American operatives. It is claimed that on goods of this character a revision of the tariff should be made which would afford a greater measure of protection than at present. On some classes of broad silks in staples it might be possible to have a reduction made in the tariff and still give the American mills a chance to exist. SILK INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES. GREATER FIXED INVESTMENT. To anyone who has inspected a modem American silk mill it will not be hard to realize wherein the plant represents a greater invest- ment than in similar mills in other countries The designers of mills in this country have perfected their plants for sanitation and for effective production and the material out of which the mills are con- structed is selected with a view to permanency of the plant rather than to see how cheap a mill can be built. The cost of the land on which the mill is situated is also a matter which has to be consid- ered for it enters into the fixed investment of the enterprise. Ex- amples can be shown of mills which represent a total investment in mill site, factor}^, and equipment of $500,000 which could be dupli- cated abroad in a center where adequate labor could be procured, for not more than $325,000 On the excess investment the Ameri- can mill operators must figure interest charges, and these must necessarily come out of the sale of their goods Added to this is the constant expense of a higher rate of wage for all operatives employed. These two factors go far toward establishing the final selling price of American-made silks as is the case also in other lines of textiles. The money invested in the mills in this country could not have been procured for this purpose had not the investors counted upon receiv- ing more than the 4 per cent interest that would be assured them in a savings institution. The hazard of manufacture has to be con- sidered and a more attractive rate of interest looked for. It is estimated that in the silk industry since its inception more money has been sunk than has been taken out owing to the speculative temperament of Americans. As the industry stands at the present time there are a number of successful plants and the tendency is for these to increase their capacity. They are making, it is estimated, on an average of more than 8 per cent on the money involved. This, it is declared, is not disproportionate to the profits made in other lines of industry. V O 3 0112 072698217 ■ ' ‘ . ' * -