Speech #600050159

There is a leather trust which is an adjunct of the beef trust. and somebody complains that the hide duty puts $1 into the United States Treasury and $4 into the fat coffers of the beef trust. Massachusetts manufacturers have a machine with which one man sews 250 pairs of shoes in a day. another which enables a single operative. at one stage. to handle 300 pairs daily. against 5 pairs by hand. Some of the manufacturers have concluded. therefore. that with free hides they would take their chances against the pauper labor of Europe. They might then get a chance at the export trade which they are now completely shut out of. Of all manufactures of leather we export $50.000 worth a year. of leather itself and all its -manufactures about a hundred thousand dollars worth. while of leather and its manufactures we import from fifteen to twenty million dollars worth a year. all paying duty.