Sustaining Home Industry

I have been very deeply interested in the remarks that I have heard during this conference. I earnestly desire that the time I may occupy shall be for our mutual benefit. ¶

From my childhood, I have been interested in home manufactures, and I was very pleased with the remarks of our President on this subject. So far as I may have the ability, I am anxious to make an impression upon the minds of my hearers today, that when they shall return home, from this conference, they will do so with a determination that in the future they will be more loyal in sustaining and building up our manufacturing institutions than they have been in the past. From the time that I was a boy of sixteen, until the factory closed, with only two or three exceptions, I never wore a suit of clothes that was not made of cloth manufactured at Provo. I purchased a suit, once, while in California for six months, as my clothes became the least little bit shabby. I paid more than twice as much for it as I would have paid for a Provo Woolen Mills suit, and I was ashamed of it at the end of four months, and gave it away. I have worn many a suit of Provo goods continuously for three years, barring the time that it was at the tailors, being cleaned and pressed, and then I did not wear it out, and it didn't get shiny either; but I can't get a suit of clothes today, for ten dollars a suit more than I used to pay for a Provo suit that does not shine and shine like everything in three months, instead of three years. I remember, when the Wyoming legislature was here, that I was wearing a light-colored suit. I happened to be a member of the Utah legislature, and they gave a ball in the theater; so I had to buy a black suit, so as not to be the only "white sheep" in the crowd, at that ball. But I gave the suit away the next day, for fear I might want to preach home manufacture when I had it on, and that the chips would fly back in my own face. Subsequently, when in New York for over six months at one time, I bought a suit there; but as that was in the panic of 1893, which wiped me off the earth, financially, I could not afford to give that suit away, so I wore it out. With these exceptions, I wore nothing but Provo goods until the factory closed down. ¶

The way I figure, the wool that would have made a suit of clothes, if shipped out of our country, will bring back about one dollar to help enrich the community; but if that wool were put into cloth, and the cloth into a suit of clothes, at least twenty-five dollars of the value of that suit would remain here and would be received by somebody for labor or in the increased value. We are told that a dollar is to the world of finance what a drop of blood is to the body, — that it is the circulating medium. I understand from doctors, that the heart handles about four ounces of blood every time it beats; that it beats seventy-eight times a minute, with the average individual — call it eighty, in order to make it easy, and we have twenty pounds of blood handled every minute, or practically every drop of blood in the body. Multiplying that by sixty, and then multiply it again by twenty-four. Of course, they say it does not beat quite so lively while you are asleep; but it amounts to more than ten tons, every twenty-four hours; and, yet, there is only twenty pounds of it. It is going and going, circulating and circulating. It is the same with money. Where the money goes out of a community, to import goods into that community, the circulating medium is weakened; the life blood is taken away, and the community becomes about as sickly as the individual would be if you should bleed him, and take half of his blood out of him. He would have a pretty light color. ¶

Now, I remember a story, and I have repeated it a number of times, because it hit me very hard. It was told by Bishop George L. Farrell, then presiding at Smithfield. It was many years ago, and they were having quite a time boosting for home manufactures. A meeting was held in the Assembly Hall, during conference, and Brother Farrell was called on for a speech. He gave the people to understand that he was very much like the rest of us — that of all his father's sons, he loved himself the best; and he said one reason why he bought homemade goods was that he would like to keep the money here at home, so that he might get a chance to pick it up as it went moving around. He said that he had been coming down here to conference, twice a year, for twenty years; and as eastern capital owned the railroad, he wanted to know how much of the money he paid out for railroad tickets ever came back to him. So he marked the money every time he went to the depot to buy his ticket, but never did a single railroad five dollars come back. But he also marked the money he paid for home-made goods; and every little while he would pick up some of the money and put it in his pocket. Then he said, "Just to give you an illustration — This very conference, when I was at the depot, I saw a man who had made some shoes for my children, and I paid him $5.00. The man who got the five dollars for these home-made shoes, handed it to another man; he handed it to another; he to another; and when the fourth man got it, he handed it back to me, and figuratively speaking, I put my home-made shoes back in my pocket. Now," he said, "that five dollar bill paid $25.00 worth of debts quicker than it takes me to tell you of it; but if I had bought imported goods, there would have been five of us looking for five dollars." ¶

I remember, on one occasion, going to one of our merchants here in the city, trying to sell him a box of soap, and he said: "Oh, I make as much profit on the imported article, and it is established; I don't have to talk to try to get rid of it; and I don't care to buy your soap." "Well," I said, "you, undoubtedly, make the people pay you at least 25 per cent profit, so I will just give you 25 per cent if you will buy my soap; that is, I will take orders on your store." Well, you know, he liked himself the best, and of course he wanted that 25 per cent, and so he was willing to help boost for home-manufacture. He would do it if he was paid for it; otherwise he would not. Now, I took the trouble to keep track of those orders that came to me — who got them, what they did with them, and then find out what that party did with them. By keeping track of these orders, we found they went through seven hands during the week, before they got into the merchant's till, — so they did one hundred per cent a day of work, and did enough in six days to be able to rest on Sunday. If the imported article had been purchased instead of the home-made article, seven hundred per cent of debts, in one week — equal to seven times the sum of the home-made goods bought — would not have been cancelled. ¶

The first money that I ever made I put into a vinegar factory, and lost it. Why? Because the people and the merchants would not patronize it. I remember I said to one merchant, "I have had your vinegar analyzed by a chemist, and there is about one-quarter of it that is mineral — it is acetic acid — and you are burning people's insides up." He said, "It sells as well." (Laughter). I said to him, "I will tell you what I will do, — I will sell you a barrel two-thirds full of vinegar, at a much less price than you are paying. Then you can go to the drug-store and for seventy-five cents you can buy that mineral poison and put it into the barrel; then fill it up with water." Oh, no, — ■ he would not do that; he thought that would be wrong; but he went on selling the stuff manufactured that way. I could not get the patronage. The only people who patronized the soap I made were the Chinamen; (laughter) they bought it almost exclusively; they discovered it was the best they could get in the city. There were, also, a few of the good sisters who patronized it. I know of one lady — I won't mention her name; but she is the wife of one of the general authorities — who is quite cranky on the question of having first class washing in her house. She looks after it herself, and sees that the linen is in mighty good shape. She always believed in Bee Hive soap. ¶

The reason we closed up was because the people would not patronize us, and I had about twenty thousand dollars to add to experience on account of soap making. I have a bigger experience account than all the money I am worth; and I have got a lot of this sad experience in trying to build up and establish home institutions and home manufacture. If I ever get any money I will put some of it into home manufacturing institutions again; and, perhaps, I will lose it. They say I am a crank on home manufacture. Perhaps I am, and I am proud of the appellation, if it means that I am an enthusiast in that direction. I do not believe we accomplish very much in life unless we are enthusiastic, unless we are in earnest, and unless we practice what we preach. James has written some things that have pleased me mighty well, and one of them is that "faith without works is dead;" and to preach home-manufacture without buying the articles is just about as dead as faith without works. When a fellow is dead, why, he is in condition to be buried; (laughter) that is the condition he is in; and when we preach to get others to sustain home institutions and fail to do it ourselves, as far as our usefulness in sustaining manufacture in the community is concerned, amounts to nothing. There are 350 factories in Utah, and they are manufacturing over 500 articles. I believe the great majority of the people do not know this, and they never ask the question, "Is this article made at home? If not, have you one like it that is made at home?" If we would make up our minds to do this, it would make a wonderful change. I remember years ago, that I used to write a very good hand, I used to teach penmanship at the University of Deseret; and I found that the very best ink for fine writing, the best I could find in the city, was made by George Goddard. I went to nearly every merchant in Salt Lake and couldn't buy a bottle of Goddard's ink. They didn't have it; they said it would not sell; that it was not as good ink as some other. I said, "I know better; I am a judge." Well, I could not get it, and I had to go to Brother Goddard down in the 13th ward, to buy a bottle of his ink; and he had a cellar full of it. Nobody would have it. "Well," I said, "we will create a demand for it;" and I said to every one of my students, "This is the best ink, you can write the best with it, and if you want to learn to write well, you must have good ink. Now, you go to all the merchants and ask for Goddard's ink;" and Goddard got an order from every merchant in town. (Laughter.) The merchants are in the business to sell their goods, and the reason they all wanted Goddard's ink was that there were a hundred and odd boys and girls learning penmanship who asked for it. If people ask for a certain brand of goods, the merchant is going to keep it, so it all comes back to the people. If the people ask for home-made goods, they will get them, because what the people want is what the merchant has to sell. ¶

I went to the theater last night to see the last part of the performance, and the house was literally packed. I remember that when the grand opera was here, the house was not packed; but the show last night simply pleased the crowd. There was precious little to it — thin as air, lots of mighty poor things in it, some very suggestive things; there was certainly a lack of clothing, and a great many objectionable things; but that is what the people want today, and that is what the theatrical people are giving them. Therefore, the great artists are giving us the go-by. The Tabernacle Choir with Brother Ensign, Brother Crawford, Sister Lizzie Thomas-Edward, with some of the greatest artists in America, or with one of the greatest singers in all the world to come here and sing with them, can sing to empty benches; but if somebody will get up some kind of a skit, without much clothing for the women to wear, and put it on the stage, it will draw a crowd. ¶

Now, I pray the Lord to bless us and give us the inspiration and the wisdom to ask for home-made goods and for first-class music, Amen. ¶