A factory at about the same time was established in Jeffersonville, Ind., the home of the Hon. Jonas G. Howard. This factory made a more gallant struggle than any I have named, going twice to the wall before it finally succumbed; but two years ago it closed its doors and stopped its wheels and furnaces, having lost $300,000, and leaving effects that paid scarcely 10 cents on the dollar to its unsecured creditors.

The only other of the old factories not named is the Crystal Company, Crystal City, Mo. This factory was built by the celebrated Captain Ward, of Detroit, but its course was not an exception to those already named. It failed, losing nearly $500,000, and was bought by its present owners for $25,000. Notwithstanding preceding failures, they were men of nerve, and putting their hands into their pockets they put up money to make another effort for success. By close application and ability they succeeded in putting their works on a paying basis, but they have never earned an annual dividend of over 7 per cent. on their capital.

Coming now to our own works, which were established before either of the last three named and are therefore the pioneer works of the country, I want briefly to give you our history:

My father was a banker, and before he ever had a dollar's interest in any glass factory was worth about $3,000,000 and had retired from active business. Having a large amount of money idle, he was induced to take stock in the plate-glass factory starting here (The Star Glass Company) and to loan it large sums of money. Loan after loan was made, until he found about $500,000 of his money tied up in the works. Not having the courage to lose this large sum of money, which would have been necessary had he abandoned the project, he left his retirement in 1872 and devoted himself to this business.

Year after year yielded him nothing but losses and discouragements; the syndicate of foreign manufacturers sent him word, through the commissioner from Indiana to the Vienna Exposition, to stop and pocket his losses or they would bankrupt him. He was a man of unyielding will; threats only spurred him to greater exertions, and he continued the fight against the advice of his best friends until nearly half his fortune had been invested in the works.

When January, 1878, came the entire capital stock of the company, $300,000, had been wiped out and the profit and loss account showed an additional loss of $313,120.93. During the year 1878 the business came within $6,669.47 of being self-sustaining, making the profit and loss amount to $319,790.40, which, added to the capital stock, made a total loss up to January 1, 1879, in the business of $619,790.40. He concluded from this that he had about come to the end of losses and could reasonably expect the next year to make a small profit, and, as the company was so hopelessly insolvent, bought it out at just what the books showed it was worth.

I came into the office as manager of the works in the same year. My father made a contract with our two general superintendents and myself that we should operate the works (he supplying the working capital) and pay him as a rental for the same a sum not quite equivalent to 6 per cent. on the amount of money originally invested. The works were operated from January 1, 1879, up to his death, on May 5, 1887, on this contract. Notwithstanding we gave our entire time and best efforts to the business, at the day of his death our profit and loss account showed that we lacked $58,445.31 of having made this rental during the eight years we had operated the works.

These figures are all taken from our books and can be substantiated at any time, and from them you will see that, instead of having made a fortune out of the plate-glass business, my father did not make enough from January 1, 1879, when it first got on a paying basis, up to the time of his death to pay him back the large amount lost in the business prior to the 1st of January, 1879, saying nothing of the interest on his money from January 1, 1879, to the date of his death.

I know and can substantiate beyond any question that, if the money he put into the plate glass business had been invested in Government bonds and the interest re-invested in the same, his estate would have been at least a half million dollars larger at the time of his death than it was, and his life probably prolonged for years, for he really died from overwork.

All that my father ever got out of his investment in the manufacture of plate-glass was the satisfaction of knowing that he had established the industry in America, making possible such factories as are building in Creighton, Tarentum, and Butler, Pa., and had forced the foreign monopoly that controlled the price of plate-glass in this country to so lower prices (and all without any improvement, whatever, in machinery, because the industry has not been established long enough in this country as yet for the factories to be fully manned with trained Americans) that a light of glass costing, before our factory was established, $110, can be bought to-day at not exceeding $30 to $35, enabling persons of moderate means to-day to use this article then so much a luxury that none but the wealthiest could possess it.

Now, you will see from the above that our industry is not in a position to stand a large reduction in duty, if any. You say you have evidently lost heavily; is it worth while to continue the struggle? I say, yes, emphatically; for the struggle is past, we have conquered success. Our loss has been heavy, but it has been the gain of the plate-glass consumers of our country.

Before any factories were established here, the foreign makers, having an exclusive monopoly, charged enormous and arbitrary prices for their product. According to the best data attainable, plate-glass cost the consumers of the United States prior to the establishment of our factory about $2.50 per square foot. The price at present is about 80 cents per square foot, and you will please remember that no part of this large reduction is due either to improved methods, or improved machinery, but solely to sharp competition of American factories.

To go more into details, the treasurer of one of the American factories has in his possession the books of a firm of glass dealers doing business from 1863 to 1870. I compare here prices per square foot then and now:

Please also bear in mind that prices named from 1863 to 1870 were the prices the firm of glass dealers paid for their goods. The prices named

for the present are our prices to consumers, and for comparison, from 20 to 30 per cent., should be added to the prices of 1863 to 1870 to cover freights, insurance, profits, etc.

To individualize: Mr. G. C. Cannon (who Mr. Howard will tell you is one of the most prominent business men of our city) built a large block of buildings the year before our factory was started and bought seven lights of plate glass 564 by 87 in New York and the current price he paid for them was $105 each, f. o. b., New York City. Two years ago he replaced two of them by two lights from our factory 12 inches longer, which we sold him for $35 each and our regular current price for a light of the same size as those he purchased originally would be to-day $31.64 each. This reduction seems and really is enormous.

You ask how can foreign manufacturers afford to sell glass for such ridiculous prices as they do, actually for less than our actual wages are per square foot of glass produced, saying nothing of raw materials, supplies, incidental wages,taxes, insurance, repairs, expense, and the dozens of other items that must enter into the cost of such an article?

The enigma, when like other puzzles the key is given, is easy of solution.

The two gigantic English factories work in unison. The entire French and Belgian product is controlled by two iron-clad syndicates. These four represent a product of probably 20,000,000 feet per annum. If they can sell 80 or 90 per cent. of their product at a good profit at home they can afford to sell the other 10 or 20 per cent. at a loss away from home.

You say: Why make this 10 or 20 per cent.? The answer is, Because they must bring their product up to a certain production to reduce their average cost; a short product in manufacturing costs nearly as much as a full one, because the fixed charges are the same whether your product be large or small. You go to the London warehouse of one of these large factories and ask prices on a bill of plate glass, and the first question is, "where is it to go?" If at home, a good round price is named; if to the United States, the question is where? if to any city on the Atlantic coast a low figure-about half the price charged at home-is named; but if any port on the Pacific coast of the United States, a steep price is asked. Why this difference between the Atlantic and Pacific sea-board? Because the glass on the Atlantic coast must compete with the American product, but high transcontinental freights shut the American manufacturer off from the Pacific slope, and the cold-blooded foreigner adds to his eastern price the full amount of this freight and exacts his full pound of flesh, just as he did in the East before American factories competed, and just as he would here to-day were it not for them.

As a further, and it seems to be a conclusive, proof that the reduction in price of plate-glass to the consumers of our country is a direct result of competition of the American factories, I desire to call your attention to the fact that the duties on cast polished plate-glass unsilvered, such as is made here now, and duties on cast polished plate-glass silvered, were imposed at the same time just as they are to-day. When the duties were first made they, though specific, represented the same ad valorem rate of duty. I find on going over the statistics of the Treasury Department that in 1875, the first year in which we actually came into competition to any extent with the imported article, there were 1,395,028 feet of cast polished plate unsilvered above 24 by 60 imported into the United States, value of which was $1,365,142, or an average value, f. o. b. Liverpool, of 97.9 cents per square foot. I find that the same year of cast

polished plate silvered of the same sizes there was imported into the United States 66,728 feet of avalue of $84,138, or an average cost f. o. b. Liverpool, of $1.26 per square foot.

Now, I find in examining the annual report of the chief of the Bureau of Statistics of the Treasury Department for the year ending June 30, 1887, page 43, that the average value of the cast polished plate unsil vered above 24 by 60 imported for the year into the United States was 32.7 cents per square foot, and that the value of the cast polished plate silvered of the same sizes imported was $1.09.7 per square foot. In other words, the price of plate-glass unsilvered, such as is manufactured in this country, has been reduced from 97.9 cents per square foot to 32.7 cents per square foot, or 663 per cent., while the value of the silvered glass has only been reduced from $1.26 to $1.09.7 or 12.93 per

cent.

The secret of the whole matter is, the unsilvered is manufactured in the United States and comes into competition with the foreign. Silvered glass is simply a higher branch of the same art. Americans have not yet gotten to a position where they can fully supply the demand of unsilvered glass, and, of course, until they do there will be no incentive for them to branch out into the higher art. Foreigners have been practically without competition in this line, and the reduction they have made in these goods is trifling, and there will be no great reduction in these goods to Americans until American manufactures are established, when its cost will be reduced just as it is in the unsilvered.

While this enormous reduction in price and consequent saving to consumers has been made by our competition in unsilvered plate these low prices have stimulated consumption and enlarged imports until the revenue collected by the Government has increased (notwithstanding home production) from $770,371.03 in 1874 to $1,245,304.95 in 1887; but the arbitrary prices demauded by the foreign monopoly on the silvered product has had the contrary effect and the consumption of silvered plate has apparently not increased a foot in all these years. In this connection I wish to call your attention to the following letter addressed by my father in his life-time to

Hon. W. R. MORRISON, Chairman,

Washingtom City, D. C.:

NEW ALBANY, IND., February 14, 1884.

MY DEAR SIR: Inclosed I have the honor of handing you a paper which will give you some facts in relation to the manufacture of plate-glass in this and other lands. Owing to the determined opposition of European manufacturers, every attempt to manufacture plate-glass in America has been a sad failure, resulting in financial ruin and disaster to the undertakers until I took hold of it at this place.

After a fight of nearly ten years, in which the French, Belgian, and English manufacturers combined and did their utmost to crush me, in which struggle I lost more than $600,000 and gave it the most earnest effort of my life, I finally succeeded in 1879 in making plate-glass (equal to any in the world) without loss, since when there has been a small profit, but in no one year exceeding 5 per cent. on the capital invested.

Hence you see that a slight reduction of tariff duties might be disastrous.

I feel confident that if present tariff duties are maintained the push, energy and pluck of Americans are such that before 1900 they will accomplish that which took the Englishmen and Frenchmen three hundred years to accomplish; namely, that we will manufacture all the plate-glass the country requires and furnish it at such rates as to defy competition.

The facts are, before plate-glass was made in America, the foreigner compelled us to pay $2.50 per foot. When American works were being established (to discourage us) they reduced the price to $1.50 per foot. The sharp competition and determined fight that we have made has reduced the price gradually until now the average price of all sizes is about 80 cents per foot, while the English and French and Belgian consumer pays over 60 cents per foot.

Americans can do anything that can be done by men. Hence, I confidently reiterate that we shall, with improved methods and skill, in a few years, produce this article as low as it can be produced anywhere in the world.

Therefore, in addition to national pride, I urge as a question of dollars and cents that it will be wise to maintain present duties. I trust that you will not permit myself and other American plate-glass manufacturers to be crushed. Please stand by us.

I am, with high regard, very respectfully, yours,

W. C. DEPAUW.

P. S.-It is proper to say that owing to the great flood of February, 1883, and sharp competition we did not make a dollar last year, and this flood will so damage us to make profits impossible in 1884. Is it wise to crush us?

D.

The statements he made then are equally true to-day. Americans can do what any people on the earth can do, but they can not in fifteen or sixteen years reach the same condition that France attained under an absolutely prohibitory tariff for two hundred years and England reached under a tariff eight to twelve times as large as ours for one hundred and sixty years. I have faith to believe that when we are old enough to have full crews of native Americans, that their "genius" will make improvements and discoveries that will revolutionize our business and enable us to compete on an equal ground with foreign makers, but that day has not yet come.

In conclusion I want to urge upon you again that we produce essentially a luxury and should be so dealt with.

As I understand the principles of the leading revenue reformers of the country, it is to lessen the taxation on all food and the necessaries of life, and to leave substantially untouched the duties on luxuries or imported articles which are bought by persons of wealth. As far as practicable the rule has been adopted to make the duty low on the cheaper articles and proportionately higher on the more expensive articles, so that the burdens of taxation, which have heretofore fallen upon persons of small means, who are dependent upon their labor, will be, as far as practicable, shifted to those who are more able to bear them.

Not a foot of our product (except small sizes for mirrors on which the duty is only equivalent to 13 per cent. ad valorem) is used by any but the wealthy, who can well afford to pay a fair price for it. We are paying our employés good liberal wages-100 per cent. to 200 per cent. more than abroad-and making no more than a small profit; our losses and trials have been great, but we feel that our home competition has saved millions of dollars to the plate-glass consumers of America and we ask you to spare our lives, for a reduction in duty becomes abso lutely a matter of life and death to us.

STATEMENT OF F. S. TOMLIN.

President Bottle Blowers' League, Brooklyn, N. Y.

The present rate of 1 cent per pound is not high enough, as is shown by the fact that last year (ending June 30, 1888) 140,000 gross of 1 pound bottles were imported, being an increase over the previous year of 75 per cent. The great bulk of this ware comes from Germany, where, as you may be aware, blowers work more hours per day and receive less pay than anywhere else in the world.