The Iola Register

ELI PERKINS On CHICORY.
A Result Brought About by the New Tariff-Baron Babant's Experience-How the Price Has Fallen-A Duty on Raw Chicory Would Save Us $8,000,000 Yearly.

I want to tell our little children a story about chicory, says Eli Perkins in the American Economist. I suppose you don't know what chicory is. Well, it is a vegetable like a parsnip which the French and Germans have been raising, drying, browning, grinding and using instead of coffee. We have been sending out about $8,000,000 to Germany every year for this little article. It tastes like coffee, is good wholesome food, but it has no nerve stimulant like coffee. Children can drink chicory as they can milk.

To get to the story: When they were putting the tariff on different things last year and got down to "C" they came right on to chicory.

"What's chicory?" asked Maj McKinley.

No one was able to tell anything about it except that we paid Europe $8,000,000 every year to get what was used.

"Well, what shall we do with it?" asked several congressmen.

"Why, if we can't raise it," said McKinley, "and the people want it, we will let raw chicory come in free, but we will put a protective tariff on manufactured chicory. We will try and bring the manufactories to America if we can't raise the stuff." So the tariff went on to manufactured chicory

Suddenly I noticed a great stir among the chicory importers.

"Why, this McKinley bill has raised the dickens," they said. "We can't import ground chicory any more from France and Germany. We must make it here."

So they wrote and telegraphed the foreign chicory manufacturers that they must hurry up and bring their chicory factories over here. And sure enough there was a stampede from Europe, and chicory factories began to go up in Jersey City, Hoboken, Williamsburg, Newark and Brooklyn. Then Philadelphia and Detroit started chicory factories till we had 14 factories and 900 chicory makers at work in America They got their raw chicory from France and Germany, where it is grown with very cheap labor This worked well in New York, but out in Detroit they said:

"We are too far away. We must raise our own chicory."

So they got chicory seeds from Germany and put in a small crop last spring. The farmers made more money than they made out of wheat. It set them crazy. Everyone wanted to raise more of it. Well, this fall the Detroit factory is doubling its capacity and all the farmers are getting seed through the factory and Jerry Rusk, and preparing to plant chicory next year.

What is the result? Why, after paying out to France and Germany over $70,000,000 for chicory we are finally going to make it here, at home, and save our money-keep it in this country.

The history of this industry and how we got it is like that of a dozen other industries which have come through this wise tariff measure.

One very funny thing came out of this tariff on chicory. When Baron Babant, an extensive chicory raiser in France, heard of it, he thought the tariff was on raw chicory, as it ought to be, and will probably be if the next congress is as wise as the last one, and he came over here to raise it. But when he found there was no tariff on the raw roots in the states he went to Canada, saw Sir John Macdonald and said:

"If Canada will put a tariff on raw chicory I will plant four miles square in Manitoba."

"Then we'll do it," said Sir John, and he did.

Last spring I visited Baron Babant's 4,000-acre chicory farm in Whitewood, Manitoba, on the Canadian Pacific. He proposes to supply all Canada with chicory and send his surplus raw chicory over to be manufactured in the United States without paying any duty. His fall crop is now coming to Detroit to be manufactured.

It is funny about the price of chicory, too. It used to sell for 12 cents per pound wholesale. Competition brought it down to 10 cents, then to 8 cents, then to 6 cents then to 4 cents, and now it is offered wholesale at 3 1/2 cents. Our retail grocers are keeping the news from the people and still selling chicory at 10 cents per pound, when they could sell it at 5 cents.

By and by, if we get a tariff on raw chicory, every farmer can raise a substitute which will improve his coffee. One-half chicory gives a delightful flavor to coffee. Good coffee costs 30 cents a pound. It is one of the burdens of our farmers and mechanics to buy it, for we all drink coffee. But soon chicory will be one of our own crops and $8,000,000 will be saved to our country every year.

Putting in chicory, flax beet sugar, and raising more sheep for wool, will reduce the acreage for wheat, and with the present tariff of 25 cents against Canadian wheat, rye, oats and barley, we will next year consume our surplus wheat, and then wheat will go to a dollar a bushel in Dakota, farm lands will go up, the farmer will again, after fifteen years of low prices, be on top-and all through the wise protection put around us by the McKinley bill