40 
January  10,  1028 
gency  tariff  averaged  about  55  cents  per  clean 
pound,  and  the  importers  were  confident  that  the 
Fordney-McCumber  duty  would  be  far  less  than  that 
ligure.  At  the  end  of  March,  3922,  nearly  50,000,000 
lbs.  of  Class  1  and  2  wools  were  in  bonded  ware¬ 
houses,  and  total  imports  for  consumption  amounted 
to  only  3,991,381  lbs.  When  the  Fordney-McCumber 
tariff  went  into  effect  approximately  120,000,000  lbs. 
of  Class  1  and  2  wools  were  yet  in  bonded  ware¬ 
houses.  Imports  for  consumption  during  these  nine 
months  totaled  only  about  10  per  cent  of  the  amount 
left  in  bonded  warehouses  at  midnight,  September 
22,  1922,  when  the  Fordney-MIcCumber  bill  became 
a  law. 
In  other  words,  American  importers  scoured  the 
world  for  unskirted  Class  1  and  2  wools,  which 
could  be  imported  at  a  duty  of  15  cents  per  grease 
pound,  and  were  able  to  secure  an  amount  equiva¬ 
lent  to  one  week’s  consumption  of  domestic  mills. 
The  effective  duty  on  skirted  wools  was  55  cents 
per  clean  pound ;  these  were  virtually  the  only  wools 
available  on  the  foreign  markets.  Therefore  they 
were  held  in  bonded  warehouses  until  the  Fordney- 
McCumber  duty  of  31  cents  per  clean  pound,  or  only 
<»U  per  cent  as  high  as  the  foregoing,  went  into  ef¬ 
fect.  No  amount  of  misstatement,  innuendo  or  argu¬ 
ment  can  cloud  this  fact,  and  no  statements  to  the 
contrary  can  do  other  than  rouse  serious  doubts 
either  as  to  the  accuracy  of  information  or  of  the 
good  faith  of  those  who  make  them. 
The  rates  of  duty  in  the  existing  law  are  lower 
than  the  rates  of  duty  in  the  emergency  tariff  act, 
tile  law  preceding  the  Fordney-McCumber  act.  and 
therefore  clothing  should  be  less  rather  than  greater 
ill  price.  REED  SMOOT. 
A  Presentment  of  the  Other  Side 
When  the  emergency  act  was  enacted  in  May.  1921. 
it.  was  as  a  result  of  the  fact  that  wool  had.  through 
enforced  deflation  by  the  Federal  Reserve  Hanks, 
and  as  the  result  of  the  liquidation  generally  in  all 
business  at  the  end  of  1920.  been  depressed  to  an 
exceedingly  low  price.  It  is  also  true  that  at  that  time 
there  was  a  glut  of  wool  in  this  country,  a  tremen¬ 
dous  accumulation,  and  it  was  to  give,  relief  to  the 
wool  grower  that  this  emergency  legislation  was 
proposed. 
But  what  was  here  sought  was  not  to  lix  a  tariff 
on  wool  so  much  as  to  keep  wool  out  of  the  country 
for  a  time.  Therefore  a  joker  was  inserted  in  the 
bill  to  the  effect  that  the  proposed  duty  of  15  cents 
on  grease  wool  should  be  doubled  if  that  wool  was 
taken  from  a  fleece  a  part  of  which  had  been  re¬ 
jected.  Now  there  wasn’t  a  pound  of  wool  shipped 
into  this  country  from  which  a  part  of  the  fleece 
had  not  been  rejected ;  in  fact,  that  is  the  common 
and  ordinary  method  of  packing  wool  for  shipment 
all  over  the  world.  This  is  what  is  known  as  the 
“skirting”  provision  of  the  tariff.  The  sheep  picks 
up  on  its  under  body  the  refuse  of  the  range.  That 
wool  is  loss  valuable  than  the  other,  and  depreciates 
an  entire  shipment  by  5  per  cent  if  it  is  in¬ 
cluded.  So  instead  of  adding  5  per  cent  to  the  duty 
they  actually  doubled  it  under  the  guise  of  this 
joker  for  the  purpose  of  creating  an  embargo  so  that 
no  wool  would  come  in  during  the  life  of  the  emer¬ 
gency  act,  which  was  originally  passed  for  six 
months  and  subsequently  prolonged  until  the  perma¬ 
nent  tariff  was  enacted. 
It  so  happened  that  excepting  in  the  very  finest 
varieties,  where  price  does  not  count  much,  we  had 
all  the  wool  in  this  country  that  we  needed  up  to  the 
time  that  the  permanent  tariff  was  enacted,  and  the 
embargo  actually  did  exist  right  up  to  the  time  that 
this  tariff  was  enacted,  excepting  for  a  moderate 
quantity  of  fine  wools  which  were  brought  in  in  the 
scoured  state  where  this  "skirting”  provision  did 
not  come  into  play,  at  45  cents  per  scoured  pound. 
The  woolen  manufacturers  in  1921  bought  wool  at 
or  near  the  low  point  for  most  of  the  year,  because 
in  spite  of  the  enactment  of  the  emergency  act  wool 
actually  declined  for  four  months  after  that  bill 
went  into  effect,  so  great  was  the  pressure  for  sale 
of  the  vast  quantity  that  was  here  and  the  large 
quantity  that  we  imported  just  before  the  emergency 
act  went  into  effect  to  avoid  duty. 
Woolen  manufacturers  therefore  provided  them¬ 
selves  with  all  of  the  wool  that  they  needed  to 
make  this  Fall  and  Winter’s  goods,  which  they  sold 
to  the  cutting-up  trades  last  January  at  the  low 
point.  And  therefore  up  to  now  the  consumer  hat 
bought  his  clothing  on  a  basis  of  free  wool.  Even 
for  the  coming  Spring  season  manufacturers  still 
had  a  considerable  volume  of  low-cost  wools  left 
which  they  averaged  with  the  higher  prices  prevail¬ 
ing  in  April  and  May  of  this  year,  when  they  had 
to  make  their  purchases  for  next  Spring,  and  only 
a  very  moderate  advance  in  the  cost  of  clothing  will 
The  RURAL.  NEW-YORKER 
be  reflected  for  next  Spring.  It  will  not  be  finally 
until  next  Fall  that  the  full  effect,  of  the  tariff  will 
be  felt,  and  next  Fall's  goods  will  be  opened  by  the 
woolen  mills  after  the  first  of  the  year  and  offered 
on  this  higher  basis,  which  the  clothing  manufac¬ 
turers  will  have  to  pay,  and  pass  the  increased  cost 
on  to  the  retailers,  who  in  turn  will  pass  it  on  to  the 
consumer.  In  other  words,  there  isn't  ever  an  im¬ 
mediate  response  to  a  tariff  increase,  as  competition 
keeps  the  price  down  to  the  basis  of  the  cost  of  the 
material,  regardless  of  what  the  existing  market  is. 
If  we  reduce  the  tariff,  however,  the  situation  is 
different.  Prices  are  immediately  brought  to  the 
level  of  the  prevailing  market. 
Inasmuch  as  the  'emergency  tariff  was  what  its 
name  implies,  and  it  had  the  effect  of  creating  an 
embargo,  nobody  could  ascribe  the  increased  prices 
that  we  are  going  to  pay  next  Fall  to  the  emergency 
act,  but  rather  to  what  was  finally  determined  upon 
as  the  duty  on  raw  wool.  It  is  therefore  perfectly 
proper  to  maintain  that  the  tariff  just  enacted  is 
responsible  for  the  increased  cost  of  clothing  that 
the  American  people  will  have  to  pay,  rather  than 
the  emergency  act.  which  simply  provided  the  oppor¬ 
tunity  for  the  American  wool  growers  to  dispose  of 
their  large  accumulation  of  wool. 
We  have  added  to  the  worldwide  price  of  wool  31 
cents  because  our  domestic  wool  is  selling  on  a  full 
parity  with  foreign  wool  plus  the  duty.  The  reason 
why  a  duty  of  31  cents  a  pound  will  increase  the 
cost  of  a  suit  of  clothes  from  $3  to  $4  and  an  ulster 
type  overcoat  from  $<>  to  $7.50  is  because  there  is 
added  to  the  duty  itself  a  percentage  to  cover  over¬ 
heads  and  profits  of  the  different  factors  that  enter 
into  the  finished  garment  ready  for  the  consumer’s 
use.  These  are,  respectively,  the  wool  dealer,  the 
spinner,  the  cloth  manufacturer,  the  clothing  manu¬ 
facturer  and  the  retailer.  Experience  has  taught  us, 
and  the  Tariff  Commission  is  on  record  in  confirming 
it.  that  the  duty  pyramids  to  almost  three  times  the 
amount  of  the  duty  by  the  time  it  reaches  the  con¬ 
sumer. 
A  tariff  on  a  raw  material  like  wool  differs  from 
a  tariff  on  goods.  The  one  is  a  definite  addition  to 
cost,  not  only  for  the  amount  of  the  duty,  but  for 
almost  three  times  its  amount,  as  I  have  just  shown, 
whereas  a  tariff  on  goods  may  not  mean  any  added 
cost  to  the  consumer  at  all,  because  if  the  domestic 
manufacturers  supply  the  goods  competition  regu¬ 
lates  their  price,  and  the  tariff  acts  simply  as  a  wall 
to  keep  importations  out. 
This  is  true  of  anything  of  which  we  make  the 
bulk  of  our  country’s  requirements  here  at  home. 
The  reason  it  isn't  true  of  raw  wool  is  that  we  im¬ 
port  of  necessity  50  per  cent  of  our  requirements, 
and  we  therefore  not  only  pay  the  duty  on  what  we 
bring  in,  but  on  account  of  our  large  importations 
we  make  secure  to  the  domestic  grower  of  wool  a 
price  equivalent  to  the  importation  level. 
New  York.  william  Goldman. 
Sensible  Advice  From  an  Actor 
N  your  issue  of  November  25,  page  1393,  under 
caption  "Human  Interest  Notes,”  O.  B.  writes 
from  Canada  relative  to  the  possibilities  in  vaude¬ 
ville.  In  answering  O.  B.’s  query  you  admit  igno¬ 
rance  on  the  subject,  so  allow  me  to  enlighten  both 
you  and  your  inquirer  ou  all  questions  asked.  I 
have  spent  20  years  in  the  profession,  taking  in 
nearly  every  branch  except  circus,  carnival  and 
movies,  and  of  the  three  mentioned  I  have  a  work¬ 
ing  knowledge  by  coming  in  contact  with  people  who 
follow  those  lines.  I  have  been  a  subscriber  to  our 
valuable  paper,  and  the  same  follows  me  wherever  I 
go.  being  forwarded  on  to  me  from  home,  so  1  keep 
in  touch  with  it  and  what  it  stands  for. 
Now  to  answer  the  questions  as  they  come.  Peo¬ 
ple  who  advertise  for  amateurs  for  the  vaudeville 
stage  have  nothing  to  offer  that  will  benefit  you  if 
you  have  not  got  the  ability  to  entertain  an  audience 
for  from  30  to  15  minutes  by  yourself.  They  might 
have  a  book  to  sell  you  for  from  uO  cents  to  $o  that 
means  nothing,  and  cannot  help  you  attain  your  de¬ 
sire  to  become  an  actor. 
Relative  to  the  demand  for  actors  and  actresses, 
will  say  that  the  market  is  flooded  with  vaudevil- 
lians  now,  and  has  been  for  several  years.  One  of 
the  theatrical  trade  papers  mentions  the  fact  that 
4.000  have  been  dropped  from  their  organization 
because  of  failure  to  keep  their  dues  paid  in  ad¬ 
vance,  which  they  could  not  do  owing  to  lack  of 
employment. 
You  cannot  learn  from  a  book  how  to  act.  If  you 
have  it  in  you,  it  is  bound  to  crop  out.  but  you 
could  read  all  the  books  printed  on  the  subject  and 
know  less  after  you  finished.  Enormous  salaries  are 
paid  some  vaudevillians.  but  those  are  only  received 
by  people  who  have  been  before  the  footlights  for 
years.  I  know  of  some  who  have  spent  40  years  on 
the  vaudeville  stage  and  other  branches  of  the  pro¬ 
fession  who  never  reach  the  top  of  the  high-salaried 
ladder,  but  are  thankful  to  earn  enough  to  live  on. 
Few  ever  reach  the  top ;  those  who  do  pay  such  a 
price  that,  in  the  end.  they  would  have  been  better 
off  working  at  anything  else. 
Work  in  show  business  is  not  steady.  Seasons  run 
from  20  to  35,  and  at  the  most  40  weeks;  then  you 
must  live  on  what  you  managed  to  save  during  the 
time  you  were  employed.  If  you  are  lucky  you  will 
get  a  job  the  following  season,  if  what  you  have  to 
offer  is  in  demand ;  otherwise  you  lie  around  until 
something  shows  up. 
Supposing  you  had  an  act;  singing  songs,  telling 
stories,  playing  musical  instruments,  doing  acrobatic 
stunts,  magic,  ventriloquism,  feats  of  strength,  or 
anything  else  that  would  lie  entertaining.  The  first 
thing  you  would  have  to  do  would  be  to  dress  your 
act  with  the  desired  wardrobe,  and  have  all  your 
paraphernalia  ready  to  go  to  work.  Then  you  must 
find  an  agent  who  will  be  your  representative,  as 
you  cannot  go  to  a  theater  and  ask  a  manager  to 
play  your  act.  He  has  signed  a  contract  with  a  cir¬ 
cuit  to  play  no  one  except  those  that  are  given  him 
through  the  office.  Now,  in  order  to  see  the  agent, 
you  must  pay  graft ;  your  card  with  a  $20  bill  may 
admit  you  to  an  interview.  If  successful,  you  show 
him  what  you  have;  in  other  words,  you  try  to  sell 
him  your  act.  or  have  him  handle  it.  He  in  return 
offers  it  to  the  booking  managers  for  a  price.  They 
want  to  see  what  they  buy,  so  arrangement  is  made 
where  you  will  show  yotir  wares  at  some  theater  close 
by  for  barely  expenses.  If  it  is  what  they  want  you 
might  be  engaged ;  if  not.  you  are  out  of  luck  and 
must  try  again,  possibly  some  other  agent  who  books 
some  other  circuit,  but  all  the  time  you  are  an  under 
dog. 
There  are  a  lot  of  things  unexplainable  to  the  lay¬ 
man  that  have  a  bearing  on  things  theatrical;  viz., 
breaks,  luck,  the  opportune  moment,  etc.  But  it’s  a 
gamble  any  way  you  take  it. 
My  advice  to  anyone  who  has  never  been  in  the 
theatrical  profession  is  to  leave  it  alone.  It’s  a 
tough  proposition ;  when  you  are  working  you  live 
well  and  eat  well;  when  you  are  not  working  you 
live  accordingly.  Traveling  expenses,  hotels,  rail¬ 
roads,  baggage  hauls,  etc.,  are  all  out  of  proportion 
to  the  salaries  (wages)  performers  receive.  You 
would  have  to  start  at  the  bottom  of  the  ladder,  at 
a  salary  that  the  ordinary  mechanic  receives  today. 
Out  of  that  you  would  have  to  pay  hotel  expenses, 
about  $3  to  $3.50  per  day ;  next,  your  railroad  fare, 
not  less  than  $5,  average;  baggage,  75  cents  to  $1 
each  way,  per  piece ;  commission,  10  per  cent  and 
sometimes  15  per  cent  of  your  weekly  salary,  which 
will  be  from  $50  to  possibly  $75  a  week.  What  have 
you  left?  Now,  say  you  lose  three  days  one  week, 
then  work  two  weeks  and  lose  another  week.  At 
top  salary,  working  three  and  one-half  weeks  out  of 
five,  you  would  have  about  $02  left  after  necessary 
expenses  are  deducted.  There  are  incidental  ex¬ 
penses  that  cannot  be  cited  until  they  have  been  in¬ 
curred.  c.  J.  M. 
We  commend  the  above  sensible  letter  to  any  of 
our  readers  who  may  happen  to  be  “stage  struck.” 
They  may  well  stage  a  strike  against  entertaining 
the  idea  of  wonderful  success  on  the  stage.  It  is 
additional  proof  of  the  wide  range  of  occupations 
filled  by  our  readers,  that  among  them  may  be  found 
some  one  to  answer  any  honest  question  from  experi¬ 
ence.  Among  the  million  and  more  readers  who 
study  the  paper  each  week  may  be  found  someone 
to  answer  any  answerable  question,  to  buy  any  use¬ 
ful  thing  you  have  to  sell,  or  to  provide  any  ordinary 
article  you  want  to  purchase. 
Keeping  Cider  Sweet 
E  have  had  a  lively  procession  of  homemade 
suggestions  for  keeping  eider  sweet.  Promi¬ 
nent  among  the  things  suggested  are  sweet  oil, 
horseradish,  mustard,  etc.  The  oil  acts  by  excluding 
air,  and  so  slowing  down  the  action  of  the  yeast. 
Mustard  seed  and  horseradish,  especially  the  latter, 
really  do  have  a  restraining  action  on  germ  activi¬ 
ties,  but  enough  to  help  much  would  make  the  cider 
into  a  relish  rather  than  a  beverage.  Better  drink 
it  while  it  is  sweet  or  can  it  as  any  other  fruit  juice. 
We  have  mentioned  several  chemicals  which  retard 
fermentation.  They  do  not  “take  the  alcohol  out 
of  the  cider,”  as  some  readers  put  it,  but  they  delay 
alcohol  formation.  We  do  not  advise  the  use  of 
such  chemicals,  though  we  know  they  are  frequently 
used. 
