Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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6 LYDIA GIRLS AT CAMP?T Mrs. David Word shows some of Camp Buckhorn laie last month. FALLOW BIRTHDAY PARTY Fallow, daughter of Mrs. L. V. Fall Refreshments were served by her r i Jr . COLEY GRAHAM of the C! here with the $500 automobile whi of a Clinton grocery store. LYD1A (Continued from Page 3) hope she will soon be back at work. Spinning (Editor's Note: We regret that in some way during the printing of the last issue of THE CLOTHMAKER, the news from Lydia Spinning and Spooling got under the Clinton Mill News instead of the Lydia Mill News Department. We assure you that your news will not go astray c.. a : \ in luiuie issues.; First Carding Mrs. S. F. Blackwell, Leroy {/'' xv feftSL w-%? a ,<f.^ "...and icith sugar, it's a nickel!" T j i > i tits iiiiui nidi pnuiuyrapn idken oy the Lydia Campfire and Bluebirds ? These youngsters helped Brenda low. celebrate her birthday July 15. nolher. 73M Linlon Mills Community is shown ch she recently won at the opening NEWS ! I McCravey and Jerome Duckett have been out sick. We welcome James Stroud back on vhe job after being out due to illness. Third Carding We are glad to have R. J. Dunaway back at work after being out two weeks due to illness. We welcome Clarence Roe cis a new employee on tne Third Shift. Mr. and Mrs. D. E. Roberts' daughter and grandson, Carolyn Burmett, are visiting them. S M ABSENTMINDEDNESS CAN BE PAINFUL! HE CLOTHMAKER ... Here's A Tale When you pay three dollars for a cotton shirt, only 48 cents of it goes for materials, tools, land. All the rest goes for labor. We believe you will find this discussion between a store salesman and a customer most interesting. ? rrt-j ^ 1??1 22 5<- 2.1? ?.3f This is the story of a shirt. Joe Evans, the proprietor of a clothing store in Middletown, S. C., has it; John Jones, a townsman, wants it. "Good morning, Mr. Jones." "Hello, Joe. What have you got in shirts?" "What kind did you have in mind?" "Oh, something to wear around?nothing expensive." "Here's something that might be what you are looking for." "That looks okay. How much is it?" "It's $3.00." "That's pretty steep, isn't it?" "Well, shirts have gone up like everything else. We sold the same shirt before the war for $1.25." xi iuurs iu hic iikt sumeone musi oe maKing a terrific profit in the shirt business. You know there isn't much cotton goes into a shirt. And as I get it, the farmer doesn't get anything like $3.00 for the cotton in that shirt." "You're right. I think you might be interested in a story I picked up the other day from one of our shirt manufacturers. It gave a breakdown of all the costs that make up the price of a $3.00 shirt." "Can you believe the figures? Maybe the manufacturer was just trying to justify the high prices he was charging." "They are all government figures. Now the farmer, Andy Johnson, has a little cotton farm in South Carolina. He owns his farm, which includes a house for his family, a barn and shed for his machinery. He also has a couple of tenant houses for the folks who help him take care of his cotton. "In the spring he has to get his land ready; then he plants the cotton, and during the summer he has to cultivate it to keep down the weeds. When harvest time comes, he and his family and all the hired help turn out to pick the cotton by hand." "O. K., Joe, but it didn't take much of that cotton for this $3.00 shirt. How much of the $3.00 did Andy Johnson get?" "Actually, Mr. Jones, Johnson got 22.5 cents for the cotton that went into the shirt. Now you can see that most of the 22.5 cents was for labor ? his own, labor of his family and his hired help. The figures showed that 16.8 cents of the 22.5 cents he got was for lab'>r; the rest, 5.7 cents, was for the use of his land and buildings and his equipment. You might say that the 5.7 cents was pay for the capital he had invested in his business. Of course, cotton farming, like most other kinds of farming, is a risky business. There's always the chance of poor weather and a crop failure. Then there's the risk that when Johnson gets his crop ready to market. the price of cotton may have dropped and he will have to sell at a loss. I suppose you might figure that part of that 5.7 cents is pay for the risk he takes. In good years he may make a little extra to offset the bad ones " "Well, Joe, that 22.5 cents looks reasonable onniH'h anH it'c pacv ir% coo mnef I ? ?n.. M..V. .? ? VMty vw nvv V i U V I I IV/.-) I W1 11 1 > 1 111 labor. But you're still a long way from the $3.00 that I am asked to pay for the shirt." "Let's follow this cotton along." "The next fellow to handle the cotton was Walter Brown. Walter operates a cotton gin." "How much of the $3.00 does Brown get for his job of ginning?" "He gets 2.1 cents, but of course he's set up to handle a lot of cotton, and it doesn't cost much to handle the small amount required for a shirt. Again most of the 2.1 cents goes to the labor which Walter Brown supplies, and a little is pay for the use of his machinery, equipment, and buildings." "What happens to it after the ginner gets through with it, Joe?" "The next step takes the cotton from the ginner to the mills, and some important things happen in between For want r?f n linltop namo ">" ?u ? - w? M ?/v VIV.I nanIV, iti O wan lilt: next handler the merchandiser. Albert Hunt. He's a fairly large operator and assembles cotton from many gins in sufficient quantity to have something to offer to the mill operators. Mr. Hunt has a powerful cotton press that compresses the bales as he receives them into smaller bales ? still weighing 500 pounds, though. He does a lot of other things to the cotton. He takes samples of his cotton and grades them, so that he can sell it to the mills on AUGUST IS, 195S Of A Shirt.. . MATERIALS ^ \\ ANDTOOu^^jk Y0\) A a A.%\ LABOR ..??> ffixfl /iffKM - j-y. 24.6c I $3.00 ~rr~^j 25.5'* specifications. Then, too, he stores the cotton in his warehouse until the mills are ready for it. Naturally, he has to pay insurance on it and finance it while it's in storage." "Well, Joe, what does Hunt get out of the $3.00 for all these services?" "Out of the $3.00 the merchandiser gets just 6.3 cents. Most of this is for the labor of handling and sampling the cotton and moving it in and out of warehouses." "I suppose the mills get it next. We haven't used up much of the $3.00 yet." "Right. The Apex Mill gets the cotton from Mr. Hunt. The first thing they do is to card the cotton fibers. Then they put these fibers through a machine that spins them into cotton yarn. The yarn is then woven into cloth. "What part of the $3.00 do they get?" "They get 31.5 cents for their job of spinning and weaving. It is estimated that 26.7 cents of the 31.5 cents is far labor in their plant and 4.8 cents is pay for the use of their extensive plant and machinery." "Now. I suppose, we're ready to put the shirt together." "No, not yet. There's one more process we haven't covered. The cloth must be bleached or dyed or printed That is the job of Unicorn Corporation. Then they put up the cloth in finished bolts ready for manufacture. The Unicorn Corporation gets 25.5 cents of the $3.00 for their work on the cloth, and a small part of the 25.5 cents is for the use of their machinery and equipment; again, most of it is for labor in the plant." bo iar, joe, we ve laKen tne shirt through five different processes and if I've added correctly, we've accounted for less than 90 cents of the $3.00 and we're all ready to manufacture the shirt. Is that right?" "Yes, Mr. Jones. The Quality Shirt Company takes the bleached, dyed or printed cloth and makes it into shirts. The process includes cutting, assembling and finishing, as well as the addition of buttons and thread, which is also cotton. For its job, the Quality Company gets about 90 cents of the final $3.00. Approximately 76 cents of this is for labor in the plant and 14 cents is pay for the plant capital." DISTRIBUTION SERVICES "Now that the shirt is made, I'd think that it's about ready for the customer; but I see we've used only about $1.80 of the $3.00 he pays for it. How come, Joe?" "Well, Mr. Jones, the rest of it is in the field of distribution and that's getting close to the job I know something about. I believe many people overlook the importance of that part of it. It includes services we can't very well do without in our complex economy. Let's see what it costs. "First, there's the wholesaler who takes the shirts from the manufacturer to the retail store. The manufacturer must assemble and warehouse shirts from many different manufacturers. Ho also cl Aroc 1 Knm unftl * ? ' - *? J ' *' uiuii mc icidii uauu is reaay ior mem. Of course there's transportation every step of the way for this shirt. For all these services, the wholesaler nets 24.6 cents of the final $3.00 paid by the buyer. "Now comes the last job in getting the shirt from the farmer to you, Mr. Jones. That's retailing ? the job we do right here in the store. That may seem like a simple job to you, but it isn't. We have to anticipate our customers' demands and plan our business in advance. We must stock a few of many sizes and kinds of shirts We must display them and advertise them, and hire salesmen. We often sell on credit, and every retailer makes mistakes and often has to sell at reduced prices, some imoc O O 1/xee "For all of these services, we get 98 cents out of the $3.00 you pay for the shirt. Maybe you think this it too much. Others have thought so and tried to do it for less. You probably recall several who tried it and went broke." "Well, Joe, by the way you put it it seems reasonable enough to me. It looks like competition all along the line would keep prices reasonable. Now that we see what the $3.00 was used for, why can't we add all the costs together?" "We can, and when we do we find that Andy Johnson, the farmer; Walter Brown, the ginner; Al(Continued on Page 8)