

EAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 559 



plying and manipulating the raw material of our woolen-mills, had been gaining 

 strength for fifty years, and had assumed the phase of sectional animosity between 

 the East and West. On the one hand, the West, representing the wool-growing 

 interest, exaggerated the profits of the Eastern manufacturers; claimed that it bore 

 without compensation the burdens of the duties which promoted their profits ; ig- 

 nored the fact that the specific duties on foreign goods competing with our own were 

 but the equivalents for duties on the raw material which the wool-grower received ; 

 and demanded the miscalled equality, so obnoxious to the manufacturing interest, 

 under the horizontal tariif of 1846. The manufacturers, on the other hand, repre- 

 senting a growing sentiment in the East, were becoming more and more disposed to 

 look abroad for the chief supply of raw material. They were not unwilling to avail 

 themselves of such commercial practices as would diminish the duties intended to 

 be given for the protection of the American wool- grower, and were inclined to advo- 

 cate the British policy of free trade in raw material, including wool, as the wisest 

 system of protection to manufacturers. They overlooked the fact, which they have 

 since acknowledged with returning magnanimity, that it has been the experience 

 of all nations that the domestic supply of raw material has been the first and always 

 chief dependence of its manufacturers. They failed also to consider that, while aim- 

 ing at the largest and cheapest supply of foreign wool, they would render American 

 sheep husbandry unprofitable, and inevitably destroy domestic production, thus 

 reducing themselves to a sole dependence upon sources liable to be cut off by foreign 

 wars or political revolutions. The inevitable result of such diverging views must 

 have been perpetual strife and legislative action, which, favoring each interest exclu- 

 sively, as its influence might preponderate, must alternately ruin both. From this 

 explanation of the old differences which formerly distracted the woolen industry, it 

 can hardly be doubted that the disaffection toward the prevailing policy, exhibited 

 by a limited number of the older manufacturers and wool-growers, is but the expres- 

 sion of the traditional hostility in which they were nurtured. 



The convention of 1865 is chiefly memorable for its influence in reconciling this 

 disastrous feud. This influence was the result of the simplest means nothing more 

 than bringing for the first time, face to face, the interests which had been prejudiced 

 and hostile only because they misunderstood each other. A conference of but a day 

 between the rival interests was sufficient to establish a basis of adjustment. This 

 basis was the recognition of mutuality of interest, and a right to equality of protec- 

 tion. The principles upon which harmony might be established were expressed in 

 the resolutions unanimously adopted by the convention, which have an historical 

 value as the first joint expression of the two branches of the wool industry of the 

 country. They are as follows : 



Resolved, That the mutuality of the interests of the wool producers and wool manu- 

 facturers of the United States is established by the closest of commercial bonds, that 

 of demand and supply ; it having been demonstrated that the American grower sup- 

 plies more than 70 per cent of all the wool consumed by American mills, and, with 

 equal encouragement, would soon supply all which is properly adapted to production 

 here; and, further, it is confirmed by the experience of half a century that the periods 

 of prosperity and depression in the two branches of woolen industry have been 

 identical in time and induced by the same general causes. 



Resolved, That as the two branches of agricultural and manufacturing industry 

 represented by the woolen interest involve largely the labor of the country, whose 

 productiveness is the basis of national prosperity, sound policy requires such legis- 

 lative action as shall place them on an equal footing, and give them equal encourage- 

 ment and protection in competing with the accumulated capital and low wages of 

 other countries. 



Upon this as a basis the committees appointed by the two interests after many 

 conferences agreed upon the draft of a bill proposing the duties on wool and woolens, 

 which was substantially adopted in the tarifi' law of 1867. In these conferences it 



