The RURAL. NEW-VORKER 
l 179 
The Annual Wool Slump—and Shoddy 
T HE PROFITEERS.— “There is an evil that I 
have seen under the sun,” but during the past 
year it lias been pronounced. I refer to profiteering. 
That is a gentle word, but when actions become so 
general and so startling, as we all have seen, if 
means swindling, cheating and robbing. To illus¬ 
trate. sugar sold in the five stores of our village, on 
May 15, at. 20 , 23, 25, 27 and 28 cents, and every 
business, trade and labor has been as unreliable. It 
might be hard to point out the higher-ups or lower 
downs over this whole country who scooped the 
tainted money in all lines, hut the producers, at least, 
are immune. Their prices were set for them, while 
there was go-as-you-please with the pirates. Busi¬ 
ness of necessity must be stable and reliable, and it 
looks noAY, since the limit of gouging has been 
reached, that it must take the back track, although 
while it adjusts itself the producers, the innocent 
bystanders, must suffer. The guilty have fortunes 
of ill-gotten gains, and can sit down on them in 
comfort during the adjustment. 
WOOL DEPRESSION—It looks as though the 
wool-growers would get it the hardest of all pro¬ 
file “35 cents we will pay,” so this year they must 
have the conceit taken out of them. They got from 
$28,000,000 to $118,000,000 more than was intended 
for them, and it must not occur again. I low do they 
do it? Easy—by telling the truth. There are enor¬ 
mous supplies of wool for the amount needed under 
manufacturing conditions That is the truth, for 
the growers, and then there is a virgin “wool shortage” 
for the clothes buyers. We are growing too much 
wool for the demand. If we grew but half as much 
there would be a good price for it to carry shoddy 
out of the mills and stores. Wool is only needed to 
make a foundation to build shoddy on. except for a 
few discriminating buyers. Very few belong in that 
class, and even the ones who have bought worsted, 
thinking they escaped, often get shoddy in it. 
UNPROFITABLE WOOL.—The amount of wool 
grown is unprofitable under present conditions. Not 
one pound of the 1020 clip was grown on a perma¬ 
nent flock, east of the Mississippi, at interest on the 
investment of sheep, land devoted to them, and the 
price of feed and labor, unless it brings more than 
a dollar. This holds for flocks of 50 or more, and 
grow is worth about 20 cents raw. We will not 
stand for it. The French bill hearing was the first 
skirmish, and if there is not an armistice or sur¬ 
render we are ready to battle to the end. Rein¬ 
forcements have come by the million from the pub¬ 
licity. All come who hear. Because it is our duty 
to ourselves, to the public and because this nation 
is disgraced by a shortage of sheep, we will remove 
it. Now let no sheep owner get discouraged in this 
crisis, and by all means sell no sheep unless fat males 
and objectionable ewes. Stick: this question will 
be settled and America will be the home of ample 
flocks of happy sheep. Help bring them by buying 
only virgin wool or nothing, and inducing others to 
do likewise, and in the meantime care for the sheep. 
“SHODDY BETTER THAN WOOL.”—The inter¬ 
ests that have exploited rags commercially were very 
quiet until smoked out by attempted legislation 
against their practices, but have put up many ex¬ 
cuses. arguments and sophistries since. At the 
French hill hearing their strongest claim for shoddy 
was built on the assertion that “some shoddy is better 
than some wool.” and they had dirty dung locks and 
m 
$ 
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A T o Human 
clueers. Food and feed products hold their own 
nearly, but there is only enough trading in wool to 
name a price for publication—25 per cent lower. It 
is a “bear” price to get the 1020 clip, and a lot of 
foolish growers may get half the worth of their 
wool. Then there is quite a fraction of Eastern 
growers, and many large ones in the West who 
operate on borrowed capital, and this means panic 
h>r them. The standard wool depresser during the 
writer’s life has been “enormous supplies,” but in 
addition to it, and the other regular “dope,” we find 
ihe banks and the switchmen's strike. The demand 
tor coarse wool ceased six months ago to get ready 
for May and June, and the buyers sent West to make 
prices were recalled, and we were told of it. At 
any rate, there is no market for wool. Nobody wants 
ii. and the world is glutted with it. Sheepmen hoped 
their industry was getting on a substantial basis, 
hut here is the regular slump, with every appliance 
geared to make it successful. 
I ‘EMAND AND SUPPLY.—Perhaps wool growers 
ueie becoming altogether too obstreperous. They 
hunched last year, and contrary to custom stuck to 
the growers from 10 to 40 cent a pound above 
Shoddy Here. "All Wool and a Full Yard Wide." 
% 
not to little bunches that live on by-products, or 
traders’ operations or “Mary’s lamb.” Wool-growers 
want a change, and are going after it. They want 
good woolens for themselves, to see the public well- 
dressed in their wool, to let everyone get what he 
pays for at a just price, and they want profit on their 
wool. There was none last year, even after getting 
about $1 (X).000,000 more than was intended for them. 
They want all who handle or wear their wool to 
have profit and satisfaction, and the present crisis 
will bring the consummation sooner. To use an 
expression of an Irish wool-grower: “I have always 
noticed that when a man takes the divil for his 
guide, he always leads him too far.” Think of pro¬ 
tection to an infant industry making cloth out of 
shoddy, and wool free. 
THE OUTLAW SHODDY.—It is a question now 
of wool or shoddy They cannot live in the same 
house, because shoddy will kill the sheep. Shoddy 
is a salvaged refuse like bran, tankage, apple 
pomace and other things that go by their right name, 
and not by the name of the genuine. The best shoddy 
is worth about 50 cents a pound when ready to 
attach to wool yarn, which means that wool we 
Fig. 350 
tags there, with some select, clean shoddy samples 
to try to prove it. Their contention was that shoddy 
was infinitely superior, and they made the compari¬ 
son between the filth carried by the wool with the 
clean shoddy. Further they went on. during the 
whole hearing, and showed how these best samples 
of depraved fibers from rags were better in a gar¬ 
ment. keeping in mind the filth attached to the tag 
fibers, and they claimed that dishonest makers would 
put this disreputable material on the public as virgin 
wool, and they were very much concerned about the 
danger from a law that would change present fair¬ 
dealing practices in woolens. This tight has only 
been well begun. There will probably be other hear¬ 
ings. It is unreasonable to suppose that the interests 
making billions on rags will allow any interference 
until they are overpowei*ed. The above is a sample 
of their shrewdness, which some of our growers even 
fell for on cross-questioning, because they had been 
tainted with many statements built up on the wrong 
premise. This line of sophistry is incorporated in 
reading for the people at. present to lull suspicio* . 
and show the superiority of shoddy, how essenti. 1 
the utilize Hou of rags is, and how their expe t 
