Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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Blueprints for Industry Committed To Memory Vote As You Please BUT VOTE! Tuesday, Nov. 6 is election day. You have a lot to lose if you don’t vote. By failure to vote you will not be able to express yourself on—for instance—schools, law enforcement, etc., candidates and the issues they stand for. You will be letting those who DO VOTE decide these impor tant matters for you. The right to vote is a priceless heritage of a free people. It is your ticket to continued freedom and the kind of government, local and na tional, that you want. Maybe you think your vote won’t matter in the final results. But you’re wrong. Your vote could decide an election. The winner of many a statewide contest has been decided by a dif ference of one vote per precinct—or less. Historically, one vote had a lot to do with things in the U.S.: Thomas Jefferson was elected by a single vote in the electoral college as was John Quincy Adams. Just one vote elected California, Idaho, Oregon, Washington and Texas to statehood. The Draft Act of World War II pass ed the House by one vote. So don’t throw away the vote you’re entitled to cast in election. It may elect your candidate to office. Intelligent voting is a basic act of good citizenship. Be a responsible citizen. Make up your mind. Vote as you please—BUT VOTE! Textile Industry Hurt From Imports The U.S. textile industry celebrates its bicentennial this year, noting a long record of economic and social contribu tions to this country. In 1790, the United States was a young nation, still struggling to become an established country. But that was soon to change with the birth of the U.S. textile industry and the start of manufacturing. An English textile mechanic named Samuel Slater had a great influence on the beginning of industrial progress United States. He arrived in America 200 years ago this year, having been trained in the production methods of Richard Arkwright. Arkwright was responsible in 1771 for producing the first all-cotton fabric in England. Competition in textiles was so intense at that time that skilled workers in the industry were not allowed to leave England. Slater left anyway, taking in his memory the details of textile machinery and methods for spinning cotton into yarn for weaving. Moses Brown, owner and manager of serval manufacturing and trading enterprises, hired Slater in hopes of making a success of machanized yarn production. Slater started his opera tions on the Blackstone River in Rhode Island, building the first U.S. spinning factory, which earned him the title of the father of American manufacturing. In December 1790, a work force of nine employees began spinning cotton with Slater’s machinery. Three years later, the Slater Mill was built and became the first English-type cotton spinning mill on this continent. A series of inventions helped to ad vance the U.S. textile manufacturing industry even further. In 1793, Eli Whitney perfected the cotton gin, which cleaned as much cotton each day as it had taken 50 people to do in the past. Francis C. Lowell of Boston visited England in 1811 and observed the power-loom industry. Two years later in Massachusetts, he began manufac turing cotton goods by power looms for the first time in America. His mill became the first in which all operations—from cotton bale to finish ed cloth—were not only mechanized but carried out under one roof. Textile manufacturing had become a large-scale industry. Cotton good companies began to spring up in this country. Ring spinn ing, the first great American invention in the textile industry, was perfected in 1828 by James Thorpe. In 1846 Isaac Singer designed a sew ing machine more sophisticated than earlier models. His machine, when mass produced, led to the textile in dustry’s biggest offspring, the apparel industry. By 1847 more people in the United States worked in textile plants than any other industry. The first synthetic dye entered the picture in 1856, when it was accidental ly discovered in a solution of coal tar. Before that time, fabric dyes had been obtained from such sources as shellfish, insects, plants and wood. To day more than 1,500 dyes are produc ed in the United States. By the 1870s, textile manufacturing began to become established in the South and continued to gain strength there. The first rayon plant opened in the United States in 1910, signaling the (See BLUEPRINTS, page 11) The U.S. textile industry, one of the largest manufacturing industries in the country, is being hurt by growing volumes of textile and apparel imports. As imports have increased, the market share for the U.S. industry continues to decrease, which translates into a loss of jobs for people in this country. Consider several alarming trends. Textile and apparel imports have been growing at a rate of almost 12 percent a year for the last decade. During that time, however, the U.S. market for tex tile and apparel goods has increased by only 1 percent a year. More than 400,000 works in the U.S. textile complex have lost their jobs in the last 10 years because of rising im ports. Within the last 12 months, the in dustry has lost more than 70,000 jobs. The U.S. textile industry lost $47 million in the first quarter of 1990 as 89 textile and apparel plants closed their doors this year. In the first half of this years, the tex tile and apparel trade deficit was at a record level—accounting for 27.7 per cent of the total U.S. merchandise trade deficit for that period. U.S. textile companies are not only competing with low wages paid by overseas producers but with subsidies by foreign governments, protection of foreign markets, fewer environmental and safety and health regulations for foreign workers, and manufacturing under conditions that would be illegal in the United States. All Americans have a vested interest in seeing that the U.S. textile industry survives. Manufacturing jobs provide the foundation of the U.S. standard of living. More than two million people work in the U.S. textile, apparel and fiber industrial complex, which generates about $50 billion in gross na tional product annually. A domestic textile industry is vital for a strong national defense. The U.S. Defense Department, which has some 10,000 textile items in its inventory, ranks textiles second only to steel in importance to the national defense. The textile industry is the best and most reliable customer for U.S.—grown cotton and consumes virtually all of the U.S. wool clip. The industry employee more women and minorities than other manufactur ing industries. Unlike textile industries in numerous foreign nations, the U.S. industry supports education at all levels as well as employee safety and protection of the environment. The U.S. government must take on the challenge of effectively addressing the import problem. The employees of the domestic industry and the nation as a whole deserve no less. U.S. TEXTILE AND APPAREL TRADE C.I.F. Import Values, F.A.S. Export Values Calendar Year Totals Millions of Dollars 36,000 IMPORTS 32,000 28,000 24,000 20,000 DEFICIT 16,000 12,000 4,000 - EXPORTS 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90* * Annualized based on the first six months of the year. page 10 - Cloth Maker