"THE INDEFENSIBLE WOOLEN SCHEDULE"
Cossitt, Winifred B.
"The Indefensible Woolen Schedule" Tariff Extortion and the Baby's Flannels By WINIFRED B. COSSITT (President Tuft, echoing the indignation of the people, pronounced the Woolen Schedule of the...
...She knows how such duties as are found in Schedule K enter into the homes of the workers...
...She knew that many operatives in the textile industry did not receive 87 cents per day...
...Let me take your samples and I will go down town tomorrow— you have had no experience in this line of buying...
...We have a flannel at 55 cents and one grade at 25 cents per yard...
...She made a tour of the stores and at one which made a specialty of furnishing the poor the most for their money, found a "flannel" consisting of cotton warp with a covering of short wool skillfully "thrown up" on the outside, at 49 cents, the same article selling for 55 cents at the more fashionable stores...
...said the exhalted Matron...
...In view of the fact that a lecture on pure v/ool and infant hygiene might be of practical use to the young woman some day, the Matron was tempted to open her mind, but she refrained and thanking her for the sample started homeward...
...So she said to her pretty young woman caller, "Leave it all to me, Alice, I have nothing of importance on hand at present...
...Alice's baby should have the best outfit to be obtained, she decided, as she softly turned the key in the fragrant cedar chest...
...it does not shrink so much, and it is not so irritating to the infant...
...had been wedded in her parlor with all the display that the Pater would "stand for," taking into consideration the fact that Alice was a mere dependent, as he phrased it...
...IN THE FORENOON of the following day the Matron sat at the woolen counter inspecting foreign and domestic "baby flannel...
...Cossitt in the following article...
...We have also this silk and wool, very fine domestic for $1.25 per yard," said the clerk, displaying the soft folds to best advantage, for he had "sized up" his customer's financial standing...
...The Matron came out of her study, much to the relief of the salesman, gave her order and then asked about other grades such as poor people buy for infant wear...
...but that business acumen had also laid a chilling hand on "baby flannel" was a shock— was nothing sacred...
...Now the way is open to give the Consumer relief from its unjust burdens...
...The Pater and the two handsome sons are direct beneficiaries of the "indefensible woolen schedule" and how to use her "womanly' persuasion" and'"indirect feminine influence" upon them effectively is the perplexing question for her now...
...The Matron was thinking along unaccustomed lines...
...she questioned herself...
...The Indefensible Woolen Schedule" Tariff Extortion and the Baby's Flannels By WINIFRED B. COSSITT (President Tuft, echoing the indignation of the people, pronounced the Woolen Schedule of the Payne-Aldrieh tariff law "indefensible...
...That they had so far seemed to have no proper sense of the necessity for keeping up the "Mayflower strain" was an unadmitted grief of their adoring mother, but at this hour her face was bright and decision rang out in her voice as the prospect of having something to "mot er" appeared in the near future...
...Mothers are interested in this...
...THE MATRON'S two handsome sons were bachelors, living in a distant city...
...The matron thanked him and went her way thoroughly aroused...
...The pretty young woman thanked her gratefully, as the Matron ushered her to the street door herself, and tenderly kissed her good-bye...
...How the rough hand of Greed has touched even the flannels that are to clothe the tiny baby is vividly told by Mrs...
...I wonder," she said musingly, "if Alice will name it for me, or for the Pater...
...The Dear Little Thing...
...Cossitt is one of the leaders in New England in the labor movement...
...THE MATRON is making the little petticoats by hand...
...She had always been an expert shopper and her memory ran back to the steady deterioration in men's woolens and fine dress goods, the steady increase in price being in an inverse ratio to the quality, that had its beginning with the passage of the McKinley Bill...
...We sell a whole lot of this," said the salesgirl, "some prefer the mixed cotton and wool...
...At last I shall have something to make a fuss over...
...She thought of her mother's flannels, like swansdowr% handed down, still retaining their soft texture by careful cleansing, for the next comer...
...Alice had been a companion of the Matron, —the only child of a school friend whom business reverses and death had left unprotected—since early girlhood...
...Then there is flanellettes, and we carry a real good value at ten and twelve cents per yard...
...Where did I hear something about 'the indefensible woolen schedule.' Fancy Alice paying such a price for lfliannels alone...
...A domestic sample which seemed somewhat near the required material, pr ced at 871/2 cents per yard, was shown her, also the English and German importations, higher in price and superior in quality...
...and she laughed at herself in the mirror for a near-grandmother ! IT WAS twenty-five years since she had done this particular kind of shopping, and her eyes were misty as she opened her treasure chest and made an inventory of the dainty outgrown garments, every stitch laid by her own needle, the flannel petticoats deeply embroidered and the sheqr linens hemstitched beautifully...
...The great, impersonal, social law of love for her kind has taken the listlessness from her days...
...As she sews she thinks of new born babies of the tenements during New England winter nights lying in wet flannelette and cotton crib blankets...
...Editor's Note...
...What do their babies wear...
...Here is a view of Schedule K not usually presented...
Vol. 3 • August 1911 • No. 31
