Senator SMOOT. Is it not a fact that a great many of the shoes that you sold to England, Germany, Austria, and France, particularly, are sold on the style of the shoes?

Mr. FLORSHEIM. Certainly. They are not competitive so far as shoes are concerned. They are merely sold because certain people prefer the American fashions. There is no doubt about that. Senator SIMMONS. Fashions of America?

Mr. FLORSHEIM. The American fashion or style. You know we have extreme styles here, and some people like them and some do not. Senator SMOOT. Every American, I suppose, in England and France and Germany wears American shoes?

Mr. FLORSHEIM. Generally; and the few rich people over there that want some extreme styles.

Senator MCCUMBER. Tell me why England can not cater to the trade as well as we can.

Mr. FLORSHEIM. That is easily answered. They have not got into the market. If they had a market where they could develop their manufacturing the way we have, and if you will permit them to get their shoes into this country so they can develop their manufacturing as we have developed ours here, then they will do just exactly as much as we do and have the advantage of cheaper labor and other advantages. The manufacturing business has to be developed, and if you can specialize, as American manufacturers can, owing to the very large markets for one particular style of shoe, the manufacturer naturally can do a big business and get his manufacturing costs pretty low.

Senator MCCUMBER. How much do they sell in England?
Mr. FLORSHEIM. About $2,000,000 a year.

Senator MCCUMBER. Is not that a sufficient quantity to justify a department in shoe manufacturing such as would cater to that particular element that desires those shoes?

Mr. FLORSHEIM. I do not think so. Let me analyze that. It consists of men's, women's misses', children's, boys', and youths', shoes, and some other kinds. Now, you subdivide that $2,000,000 into those different kinds of shoes, all extreme styles, that they could not do anything with in England; it would not pay an English manufacturer to make those styles. That follows with the American manufacturer. There are certain styles demanded in England, or, we will say, South America or Cuba, for instance, which I happened to notice when I was over there this season, a certain fancy shape. If we would make them, we could sell more of them in Cuba, but on account of this small demand for them, the expense of putting in the lasts and the shapes and the cappings and the wastes because we could not use them right along, it would hardly pay us to put them in; though the Spanish manufacturer, notwithstanding the 25 per cent preferential we have, is selling those shoes in Cuba.

Senator HEYBURN. Are any of those special classes of shoes made out of hides which were dutiable hides under the Dingley bill; weren't they made of the skins

Mr. FLORSHEIM. No; sole leather-that is used in all kinds of shoes that was dutiable.

Senator HEYBURN. All sole leather?

Mr. FLORSHEIM. Yes; all hides that were used to make sole leather were dutiable.

Senator HEYBURN. The uppers?

Mr. FLORSHEIM. Not entirely; certain kinds of uppers were and some kinds were not.

Senator SIMMONS. Are you making money on your foreign shoe trade that $13,000,000 of export shoes?

Mr. FLORSHEIM. We are, so far as I know, and my observation is reasonably good. We get the same price over there that we get in this country.

Senator SIMMONS. You are making money?

MR FLORSHEIM. Some money, according to the last statistics, I believe.

Senator SIMMONS. Is that a profitable business-the shoes that you sell abroad; do you sell them at a profit?

Mr. FLORSHEIM. We sell them for the same prices precisely that we sell them for in this country, but each house would have to answer for itself whether it has a profit, because the business is not large enough to warrant anybody in making any great profit. If you have $350,000,000 of shoe business, manufacturing and exporting, and a paltry 3 per cent of these different kinds of goods, which is a very small business when analyzed, you know-our export business is magnified on paper, but it does not amount to anything in proportion to the magnitude of the industry. At least it does not appear to me that way.

Senator SIMMONS. You say you sell at the same price?

Mr. FLORSHEIM. Yes.

Senator SIMMONS. You think that the profit is a reasonable profit? Mr. FLORSHEIM. Sure. We would not sell them if we did not think so.

Senator STONE. I understood you to say that no western manufacturer of shoes favored free shoes during the time the PayneAldrich bill was before Congress. Mr. Florsheim seems to be a very well-informed manufacturer of shoes, and I would like at this point to put into the record a few extracts from both eastern and western manufacturers and ask his opinion as to the truth of the statements made. I will put in a letter which appeared in the hearing before the Ways and Means Committee of the House, November 28, 1908, page 6862, dated Lynn, Mass., November 24.

Hon. SERENO E. PAYNE,

Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee,

Washington, D. C.:

As probably the largest manufacturers of women's fine shoes in the world, the Sorosis Shoe Co. desires to go on record as declaring the present tariff on certain shoes that we manufacture wholly unnecessary to our success and a distinct injustice to the consuming public. We favor the complete abolition of this tariff, welcoming the competition of the world. We should be glad, at the convenience of the Ways and Means Committee, to present arguments for the removal of the duty on boots and shoes like those of our own manufacture. A. E. LITTLE & Co.

Here is what Gov. Douglas said when he addressed the President, Mr. Roosevelt, urging free hides, and intended to influence the President in securing free hides. He says:

Take away the duties that prevent us from obtaining leather at the same prices paid by our foreign competitors and we will not only hold our own markets, with or without a duty, but we will invade foreign markets, at good wages to our boot and shoe workers.

Now, here is what Mr. Jones, who has been referred to, said before the Ways and Means Committee, November 28, 1908:

Mr. COCHRAN. Surely if we import hardly any shoes now under these onerous conditions, it is not likely that under better conditions we will import less. Mr. JONES. It is less likely.

Mr. COCHRAN. I assume, then, it is your opinion that the giving of free raw material would enable you to take your chances without protection.

Mr. JONES. I am glad to say that I am on record in a statement made several years ago to the effect that I should be glad to see shoes absolutely free, if all the leather and other materials were free. The New England Shoe and Leather Association was united in that view at that time.

By the way, I received a letter from my friend, Mr. D'Oench, who is now before the committee, dated April 5, 1909, in which he says:

Especially do I want to call your attention to the testimony of Mr. Charles H. Jones, of Boston, Mass., pages 2452 to 2463. Mr. Jones is the president of the Commonwealth Shoe & Leather Co., of Boston, Mass. He has made a thorough study of this subject, and his testimony is, I think, usually concise, clear, and instructive.

Now, so much for the eastern people; a word about the western people.

Senator SIMMONS. What is the date of that letter you just read? Senator STONE. I gave it; April 5, 1909.

I have a letter here-these are some letters that I have taken out of a lot of files that I kept of communications sent to me while the bill of 1909 was pending in the Senate, and when they were trying to get free hides.

Senator GALLINGER. It will be observed that Mr. Jones specifies all articles entering into the manufacture of shoes as well as leather.

Senator STONE. That is the language of his letter. Here is a letter from Hannibal, Mo., April 24, 1909:

Hon. WILLIAM J. STONE,

Washington, D. C.

DEAR SIR: We acknowledge receipt of your favor of the 15th and note your question as to placing shoes on the free list. We see no reason why shoes should not be placed on the free list if hides are, as we are certain that America can compete with any other nation in any line.

Thanking you for the consideration you have given our letter and trusting you will be able to vote as we have suggested, we remain,

Yours, truly,

HANNIBAL SHOE COMPANY.
THOMAS J. COUSINS,

President.

Mr. JOHNSON. I would like to ask who that letter was from?
Senator STONE. The Hannibal Shoe Co.

Mr. JOHNSON. I think they are already out of business.
Senator STONE. Did they go out of business because of free hides?
Mr. JOHNSON. I do not know the special reason. I guess they went
out of business because they did not find it profitable.

Senator STONE. It was a shoe-manufacturing concern.

I have a letter here from the Wolfe Bros. Shoe Co., of Columbus, Ohio, dated March 29, 1909:

Senator WILLIAM J. STONE,

Washington, D. C.

DEAR SIR: As one of the largest manufacturers of shoes in the country, we urge you to lend your influence to place shoes on the free list.

The American manufacturer needs no protection. With free hides and cheap. raw materials the American shoemaker can shoe the world.

Very respectfully,

THE WOLFE BROTHERS SHOE Co.

R. F. WOLFE, President.

Now, while we are on that point, let me call your attention to another thing-not free shoes, but cheaper shoes. Mr. Jackson Johnson [laughter], of Roberts, Johnson & Rand Shoe Co., made a speech before the President of the United States-I have not the exact date, but this speech was filed with the Ways and Means Committee by Mr. Jones, as can be seen at page 6845, as follows. I read this extract from it:

If hides were on the free list, the cost of heavy shoes worn by farmers and wage earners would be greatly decreased and our exportation of such products would be greatly increased. With our great resources for tanning and finishing hides we could place our products into the new markets cheaper than any other country in the world.

And here is what a manufacturer of leather had to say to the Ways and Means Committee:

Elisha W. Cobb, of Boston, manufacturer of leather, said to the committee: Mr. MCCALL. Now, Mr. Cobb, what do you think about the effect on making upper leather in this country of putting upper leather on the free list?

Mr. COвв. Answering your question, I should say that if I can buy my hides on the free list I think the American upper-leather tanner can beat the world out.

Mr. DALZELL. Without a duty?

Mr. CоBв. Without a duty.

Mr.

The Brown Shoe Co. is a St. Louis concern, and a large one. George W. Brown, president of that company, and a very excellent man, addressed a letter to Senator Theodore E. Burton on June 24, 1909, and inclosed to him some resolutions, which he very heartily indorsed or rather it was a telegram-and I will read just a line from it. He says:

Shoes are materially higher to-day in consequence of the increased cost of leather caused by the present tariff on hides.

The high price of shoes, according to Mr. Brown, was due largely to the tariff on hides, which he was urging us here to take off. At that time you shoe manufacturers and tanners and your associations, or two associations acting jointly, established at Washington a bureau in charge of Mr. A. H. Lockwood, to furnish literature and argument to Members of Congress in favor of removing the hide duty.

Senator CLARK. I was wondering where this all came from. Senator STONE. This [indicating] came from that bureau. Here is what I read from one of the printed arguments sent to me:

Granted, for sake of argument, that the farmer gains by the imposition of this duty, the added cost of the shoes worn by his family, to say nothing of the added cost of his harness, buggy, and other leathers, more than offsets any possible gain derived from the high duty.

Mr. FLORSHEIM. That is correct, and we can prove it.

Senator STONE. Mr. D'Oench wrote to me saying that if we average five members to a farmer's family, the extra expense to him by reason of the tariff on shoes, harness, and other leather goods amounted to a good deal more than the $2.25 which the farmer, it was claimed, received from the tariff.

Here is a letter of like effect from Mr. R. B. Price, a banker of Columbia, Mo., who was interested in shoe manufacturing. He says in his letter to me:

Of course the burden ultimately falls on the consumer who buys the shoes. Men who wear shoes would prefer to have the raw material admitted free, so as to enable them to get their shoes at the minimum.

Mr. FLORSHEIM. I can answer that.

Senator BAILEY. Which they did not do when we took the duty off the raw material.

Senator STONE. I wish to read just one additional brief extract from a letter, also from my good friend, Mr. D'Oench, urging me to vote for free hides. He convinced me, and convinced a lot of us, that we ought to have free hides.

We do most sincerely hope you will stand by good, old-fashioned Democratic doctrine [laughter] and vote and work to put hides on the free list.

Senator CLARK. That "Democratic doctrine" appeals to Mr. Stone more than anything else.

Mr. D'OENCH. I am not here to apologize for that, Senator.

Senator STONE. I would like to say that it occurred to me at that time, and it does now, that it was good Democratic doctrine to put hides on the free list, and particularly in the face of all these letters and other statements of like character; that it was a good Democratic policy to put hides on the free list.

Mr. D'OENCH. Would you permit me to say a word?

Senator STONE. I would like to ask if you shoe men and tanners are not rather changing your position?

Mr. FLORSHEIM. Not a bit of it.

Senator STONE. Most people think that the tariff is a bad thing when it is levied on what they buy, and a pretty good thing when it is levied on what they make themselves. You thought it was a bad thing when levied on hides, but a good thing when levied on shoes.

Mr. D'OENCH. Will you permit me to say a word?

Senator STONE. Yes; so we may have your views.

Mr. D'OENCH. I wish to say this, Senator, that if we have free hides and free materials that go into the manufacture of shoes, and we are exempted from this royalty-I can only speak for myself-I believe we would have no difficulty with free shoes.

Mr. FLORSHEIM. Oh, no.

Senator STONE. You don't agree to that?

Mr. FLORSHEIM. Let me answer that. There is no particular significance to this letter, because we are a good deal like the Democratic or Republican Party. We do not always all agree. Some men have different views and insist upon having them. But it does not follow that they are necessarily right or wrong, or that they have not a right to their own opinions, but, speaking for the trade as a whole, I do not think you have a right to take an individual opinion and say that that should rule or tell the Senator what is right and what is wrong.

Senator CLARK. But, Mr. Florsheim, when you gentlemen yourselves who are engaged in the same line of business and are representatives of great individual concerns in that business differ among yourselves, how can you expect us poor laymen to act intelligently at all times?

Mr. FLORSHEIM. We do not differ. You have to take the opinion of the majority; but individuals may differ. That is human nature. But let us take these statements, if you will pardon me.

Senator CLARK. Oh, yes.

Mr. FLORSHEIM. In the first place, the Senator evidently forgets that there are three gentlemen in this room, two in St. Louis, and one in Chicago, who do more business in the aggregate in a year than all