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The Commoner.
APKIL 8, 1910
7
Where Tariff Extremes
Meet
L. 6. Brandon, Toledo, O. I herewith en
closo clipping from the Toledo News-Bee rela
tive to the tariff and increased living expense,
vhlch by the way WAS" not1 taken from across
the ocean but from either shore of the Detroit
river. This should be interesting reading to
the tariff burdened supporters of the Taft-Ald-rich-Cannon
administration and will no doubt
recall to memory the predictions made by Mr.
Bryan during his last famous battle for the
common, people against the privileged interests.
In the early history of this country Charles C.
Plckney, one of the envoys to France made this
famous utterance when approached by one of
the foreign representatives asking tribute of the
United States: "Millions for defense but not
one cent for tribute." However, things have
changed since then- and there are now in this
great United States of ours which was once
freed from tyranny by our forefathers, millions
paying tribute (to the trusts) with not a cent
for defense after the expense of their meager
existenco has been met:
(Written by J. V. Knight, Special Investigator
of the Toledo News-Bee)
Windsor, Ont., January 18. This Canadian
city is separated from Detroit by 2,561 feet of
water and the Payne-Aldrich tariff wall. Fer
ries cross the water every three minutes, but
the wall is insurmountable.
Detroit is the typical American city. Time
0
PRICES OF FOOD AT DETROIT AND
WINDSOR
In the following parallel the figures
are retail prices on the same quality of
goods injwhat is practically one city, the
division being a river less than half a
mile wide and a tariff wall: .
Price in ' Price in
Windsor. Commodity. Detroit.
28c .Butter, best, lb 3Gc
34c. v.'. Eggs, dozen 42c
6c. . . .Beef, cheapest cut,lb. . .'. .10c
'13c Pork, mess,-lb 20c
lie Lard, prime, lb 13c
19c Bacon, breakfast, lb 24c
$1.00. . .Wheat, No. 2 red, bu...$l.ll
60c Corn, No. 2 mixed, bu 78c
70c Potatoes, bu $1.10
57c Cabbage, head 815c
40c Turnips, bu 60c
50c CaTrots, bu 60c
25c Beets, bu 60c
85c. ...... .Rutabagas, bu 40c
50c Parsnips, bu 60c
20c Turkeys, dressed, lb. .... .25c
lie Chickens, dressed, lb. .'... .15c
7c Milk, qt 89c
0 llc Cheese, lb 16
$1.00 Plug tobacco,lb.$2. 00 3.00
and again civic investigators have taken it as
their model. Windsor, except for the tariff
wall, Is for all the world as much of Detroit
as any part of Detroit itself.
It exists by the grace of Detroit. Its citizens
gain their livelihood in Detroit. It finds all its
amusements and much of its recreation In De
troit. But the Invisible barrier is there the
high Payne-Aldrich tariff wall, monumental and
menacing.
Confronting the American people is a situa
tion the increased cost of living that has fol
lowed the strengthening of this tariff barrier.
The situation is a direct result, as has been
charged by the people, of this barrier.
The difference between the cost of living here
and in Detroit shows it. The tariff alone is
lifting Its power against the people's .pocket
books in their struggle to make both ends meet.
Take the man with the goose, for instance.
He was an elderly German workingman, and
her crossed to Detroit in the ferry that I took
back over here. J. W. Lewis deputy customs
collector, signaled man and goose inside his
office.
"Feefty cent! Feefty cent! That's all I pay
for him!" the owner, of the goose protested,
.waving it above his head in emphasis.
Flop! Lewis threw the goose into a scales
hopper. The dial showed seven pounds.
"Thirty-five cents duty," Lewis commanded.
"But meester! Feefty cent! That's all I
give for him. Thlrty-flvo cent more? It's too
much!"
The thirty-five cents was paid, Lewis grasp
ing tho goose polltoly but firmly In one hand
and holding out a tariff manifest for the Ger
man's signature, in tho other.
. "Do people buy anything but. produce in
Canada and bring it over?" I asked Lewis.
"Oh, yes. Hero in Detroit they go over and
buy English clothes. Here's an ad I noticed tho
other day.
"They can buy an English-made $5 hat in
Windsor for $3. They wear old hata over on
tho ferry, arid throw them away when they
wear the new ones back."
Farmers in southern Michigan and farmers
in western Ontario are tho most prosperous in
the world. Both can produce food at the same
arbitrary cost. Why, then, should tho prices
of farm products be from 15 to 100 per cent
higher in Detroit than hero?
This was the natural question after I visited
tho Windsor market house and priced every
thing for sale there. W. J. Cherney, who runs
tho biggest grocery in Windsor said:
"My candid opinion, after twenty-eight years
in the grocery business on both sides of the
river, is that it is 25 per cent cheaper to live
in Canada than in the United States. You can
buy first quality groceries and produce here for
less money than you can get second-rato goods
in Detroit.
"Hundreds of Detroit people live over hero
in summer and rent homes. It's cheaper for
them to go to work in Detroit and pay the ferry
rate than to stay in Detroit and pay Detroit
prices."
"How does the tariff come In on that?"
"Here, I'll show you. See this plug of to
bacco? It's made in England, and this is a
quarter's worth. The leaf in that plug was
raised in the. United States, shipped to England,
made into plugs and shipped back here into
Canada. And yet it Is better than other brands
that sell for lots more money in Detroit. If
it wasn't, why would people from Detroit come
to my store and go out with their pockets full
of it?
"The-duty on the tobacco, if exported 2,561
feet across to Detroit, would be $1.65 on each
pound plug. The retail price in Windsor is
$1 a pound. In Detroit it Is $3 a pound. Tho
brand is a well-known world standard."
"Cherney is right," said J. G. Gangnior, the
biggest real estate operator in Windsor. "House
. rents here are as high as in Toronto tho high
est in Canada. Yet I rent all the houses I have
on my list every summer to people from De
troit, who say they save money by living here.
They save it on what they eat and wear.
"Their house rents and food bills here don't
equal the rent of a good fiat in Detroit."
The,D. & B. I. Ferry company, operating tho
boats over the 2,561 feet of river, carries thou
sands of workingmen every morning from here
to Detroit. They pay the boat fare and street
car fare additional to get to work in Detroit.
They are Americans, most of them.
So great is the workingmen's traffic on tho
ferryboats that the company sells 100 "working
men's tickets" for $1.50, good only mornings
and evenings. The regular fare is five cents.
Walter Boug, who owns Windsor's biggest
-clothing store, is the man who sells Christy's
London hats for $3 here. They cost $5 in De
troit, 2,561 feet away.
"Of course the duty Is the only reason why I
can sell a Christy hat for $2 less than they do
in Detroit," he told me. "They invoice to me
$24 a dozen. I sell them for $3. The Detroit
merchant would pay about $1.50 duty on each
hat.
"There must be a lot of money for somebody
in American-made $5 hats. It's the same way
with clothes. The duty on good all-wool clothes
is 44 cents a pound and 60 per cent of their
value. That would be $12.50 on that $15 suit
hanging there. It's as good a suit as you can
buy in Detroit for $25. It would have to be
sold there for more.
Butter, the best and purest country butter
in the world, the pride of western Ontario's fine
dairies, sells here retail for 28 cents a pound.
The same grade of butter sells in Detroit for
36 cents, an increase of just 28 per cent. I
called up Lawrence W. Snell, who owns the
most select creamery in Detroit. His products
are on the tables of the Pontchartrain and
Cadillac hotels there.
"The whole trouble now," said Mr. Snell, "is
under production."
That same day the Western Dairymen's Asso
ciation of Canada was meeting at St. Thomas,
Ont., fifty miles from here. I called up the
secretary, J. J. Parsons of Jarvis, Ont., to see if
the Payne-Aldrich tariff really protected these
under-producing Michigan dairymen.
Ho informed mo that tho value of cheese ex
ported sinco May 1, 1909, was $17,633,363, and
that tho value of tho 1909 buttor exports from
Ontario to tho United States was $508,025.
Total value of buttor for year and chceso sinco
May 1, 1909, $18,141,988.
Thero was paid by tho American people as
duty on this cheese and buttor ovor $2,000,000.
Yet tho farmers of southorn Michigan got no
moro for their butter and cheoso than do tho
farmers of western Ontario. Why, then, tho
high prices only 2,561 feet away? And who
gets tho extra profit on tho Michigan produced
buttor and cheese?
Tho Central llvory stable rents a' horse and
sleigh all afternoon for $2. In Detroit the samo
rig rents for $1.50 an hour.
Horses livo on hay. If they eat Ontario hay
it costs the liveryman hero $11 a ton. If they
eat tho samo hay in Dotroit, 2,561 foot away. It
costs tho Dotroit liveryman $14.50 a ton. But
tho Detroit horses don't eat Canada hay. They
eat Michigan hay. But it costs $14.50 a ton,
too. Tho tariff on hay is $4 a ton.
Tho farmers around hero and around Dotroit
sell their hay for tho same prico to tho Jobber.
Who gets tho extra profit that tho tariff wall
extorts from tho horso-ownor?
On any snowy Sunday afternoon dozens of
Dotroit young men cross tho ferry, rent a sleigh,
and cross back to Detroit, paying 10 cents ferry
age each way. They take their girlfriends rid
ing for less than a third what they would havo
to pay if tho ferry didn't help them across that
2,561 feet of water.
THE FALL 1000
Genuine English Featherweight
HATS ARE HERE
At the n United
same old $3.00 States
price price 5
See us also for British Gloves, Under-
wear, Hosiery, Sweaters and Raincoats
there's money in it.
W. BOUG
Direct ImiiOrter of British Wearables
, for Men
7-9 Sandwish St., W. Windsor.
0
An advertisement in a Detroit paper. But
we can't all go to Windsor.
IN TIIJE EGRET'S NEST
The angel who numbers tho birds for tho God
of all things that be
Had come afar from his journeying ovor tho
land and tho sea,
And he spake to the Lord of tho Sparrows:
"True was my count today,
Them that were slain I numbered, and tho
sparrows that fell by 'the way;
And down in the reeds and water-grass of an
island in the west,
I counted tho young of an egret, that starved
in the egret's nest.
"And some they were slain that man might live,
for so hast Thou made the law;
And some for the lust of their shining plumes,
.and all of them I saw;
And counted all whose songs were hushed within
their little throats
The slain for the law of living, and the slain
for their shining coats.
True have I numbered them all, and the smallest
along with the rest
The young that starved in the rushes, alone In
the egret's nest!"
And the Lord of the Little Creatures, who marks
where His sparrows fall,
And in the hollow of His hand makes room for
the weak and the small;
The Father of the fatherless gave ear, and He
listened and heard,
And behold, He has asked a question: "And
what of the mother-bird?"
Now answer, you who wear the plumes that
were stripped from the mother-breast;
Tell why the young of the egret starved, alone
in the egret's nest!
Anne McQueen, Tallahassee, Fla.
Tho meat boycott has petered out, as might
have been expected. Men who pinch their
bellies in order to make up for their own politi
cal Ignorance are not expected to stick to the
pinching process long.
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