648 
’ AGRICULTURAL RELIEF 
Mr. ‘WaLLace. I am trying to talk about economics and keep 
away from politics. 
Mr. KincHELOE. Of course a ‘‘nonpartisan’ fellow like Mr. 
Ketcham would accuse us fellows of playing politics. But I want to 
get the condition of the country as it is. Is it not a fact that there 
have been more commercial failures in the last six months in this 
country than there have been in many years? 
Mr. Warrace. 1 have read of such. I have kept track more of 
the workingmen out of employment than I have of commercial 
failures, because one affects the other. There is no doubt but there 
is bound to be a good many more commercial failures when men are 
unemployed. 
Mr. KincHELOE. There have been about 3.500 bank failures in the 
last seven years. : 
Mr. WALLACE. Yes, sir—I can not say the exact number, but I 
know there have been more than general. 
Mr. KincHELOE. More than general? In the eight years prior to 
1920 there were only 864 bank failures in the whole time. 
Mr. Warrace. I have not those statistics. 
Mr. KincueLoe. Well, I know about that. What are the con- 
ditions of the laboring man in the highly protected industries of this 
country? 
Mr. Warrace. Well, we can consider the textile industry as a 
protected industry. 
Mr. KincueLoE. That is the highest one of any of them. 
Mr. Warrace. To begin with, they are miserably underpaid; 
certainly, they are unemployed to about 50 per cent. 
Mr. KincaELoE. Then you do not subscribe to the statement that 
the protective tariff raises the standard of American living in the 
United States? 
Mr. WaLLace. Of course, you know what Henry Clay said about 
protection—*It is a local issue.” That is true. If 1 could have my 
particular industry protected and all the others have free trade I 
would be sitting pretty. 
Mr. KincHELOE. The point I am getting at is, you do not think 
that the tariff on the textiles of this country, which is the highest of 
any in the Fordney-McCumber tariff bill, has done much in raising 
the wages of the laboring people who work in it, do you? 
Mr. WALLACE. It has not had that effect in the textile industry; 
it has not raised them. But, as I stated before, we have come to the 
point where we export 15 per cent of our textiles, and our wages like 
the farmer’s returns, is predicated on that 15 per cent that has to be 
exported in competition with the world. 
Mr. KinceeELOE. I was getting down to that. That is very 
interesting. I did not know that. If I understood, then, the manu- 
facturers of textiles, which is, I say, the highest protected industry 
under the Fordney-McCumber tariff bill, when they come to fix the 
wages for their laborers that work in these institutions, base those 
wages upon the price they get for their surplus abroad. 
Mr. WaLrace. That is apparent to me. 
Mr. KinceELOE. How many thousand coal miners are out of 
employment in the United States, do you know? 
Mr. WaLLace. Well, it depends on how you would estimate it, 
Mr. Kincheloe. If vou were to ask me to give those who are totally