Mr. Perry: I hope, Mr. President, I have said nothing to decry the merits of Mr. Chapin’s paper, which I enjoyed and fully appreciated, and I am under a great obligation to him for presenting the paper, and hope we shall hear from him again. The question of the amount of nickel put upon stoves is the question I spoke of. It is quite possible there may be too large an amount of nickel put upon stoves to be in consonance with good taste, but it resolves itself into the question whether the people demand it, and whether they wish to buy stoves so heavily weighted down with it. If they do, then there is no moral objection to their so doing.

Mr. J. C. Bayles: As I have been placed in the position of correspondent, Mr. President, I ask the  privilege of the floor for a moment. A leading New England clergyman was at one time preaching upon the subject of the Lord’s Prayer, and when he reached the petition, “Give us this day our daily bread,” he said he thought there ought to be added another petition; “Teach us to know our daily bread when we see it.” I have run counter to the prejudices of many manufacturers in advocating the more tasteful ornamentation of stoves, and especially in venturing to say that the showy stoves now considered first-class are out of harmony amid tasteful surroundings. This has been literally rendered to mean something more and different from what I have ever meant, or, in the words of a very much respected friend who differs from me very widely on these subjects, that I said that no stove now made was fit to put into any parlor. Well, perhaps my language was strong and liable to misinterpretation, so we will let that pass.

The difference between the manufacturers and self-constituted critics, like Mr. Chapin and my self, are wide, and, for the present, seemingly irreconcilable.You say that you know what you can sell, while we do not; that we are not competent critics of what you make, and that, while our views are very well, they are not practical. If it be true that the public demand ugly stoves, or stoves not tasteful in their ornamentation, then the stove trade is unique, because there is not another line of manufacture in which there is such a public demand. In every other line it is the best and most beautiful things which can be made that command the largest market and the best prices, and I am yet to be convinced that it is to the best interests of any stove manufacturer to assume that his neighbors have solved the problem of what it is best to make, or that by following their lead and doing as nearly as possible as they do, he can make the most money.

But let us not revive this discussion, as it might lead me further than I intended when I rose. Without feeling that I have been wrong in my views, or regretting that I have given them expression, I am prepared today to recant in some degree. I feel that it was unwise to take the position I have held during the past two or three years, and I am sorry I have taken it. I do not believe the stove manufacturers are now prepared for an art progress that shall be practical. I do not believe that art objects will be made on a scale of three to five or seven thousand tons a year. I believe they are right to some extent in presuming there is a large vulgar taste that demands showy or tawdry stoves, and that probably they are now working in the direction of the greatest known profits. But I believe that, in addition to the greatest demand, which may absorb 90 per cent, of the whole product, there is a demand for at least 10 per cent, of beautiful stoves.

Stoves can be made and sold without reference to what they will cost, if they are nice enough. I have a stove in my office which cost $55 at retail, and it is not a very good stove at that. It is a poor heater, but its artistic excellence sold it, and will sell many more like it. As a practical burning stove, it is not a triumphant success. I also have one at my house which cost probably as much. I could improve it in every detail of its construction, but I would not change it for any stove in your catalogues. I know there is being imported into the country today a large aggregate valuation of stoves, simply because they are more beautiful, as objects of art, than anything produced in this country. Men of wealth and taste are buying these stoves, who would not take, as a gift, the most gorgeous base burner produced in this country. In view of these facts, I do believe there is a demand for beautiful stoves; That it is competent for some one to fill that demand, and that the one who first starts in and establishes a reputation for making a truly beautiful American stove will have as large a trade as he could wish, with profits such as are at present unknown in the business. It would not amount in any one case to a product of 7000 tons a year. I do not believe all the gentlemen around me could go into it and make money; but there is a demand. Once started, that demand will grow. The influence of art will be felt in this as in every other line of manufacture, and it will raise the standard of the whole stove production of the country. We shall see, as Gen. Rathbone says, a change so marked; That we shall look back in surprise at the stoves now considered first class and beautiful. But I no longer expect to see an art progress born of talk. Until you see it to your pecuniary interest to make neat, tasteful and satisfactory stoves, and to abandon the meretricious ornamentation which you despise for its own sake as much as I do, he will be disappointed who expects you to move forward any faster than you are moving now.

Mr. Chapin: I have only to add, Mr. President, that I believe that none of you have meant, in your criticism of my paper, anything but kindness and courtesy. I wanted to bring about this very discussion. I would rather have appeared here in a ridiculous light than not to have succeeded in doing just what has been accomplished here. It has set you gentlemen to thinking I can plainly see.

Col. Warren: I have been on the floor a great deal, Mr. Chairman; but Mr. Bayles in his remarks, stated something in regards to the improvement of stoves. He certainly cannot deny that in the last 25 or 30 years there has been a marked improvement in the adornment of stoves. The other day I picked up a copy of the Lansingburgh Gazette printed in 1817, or about that time, and, comparing it with The Metal Worker that nice, clever, tidy sheet we have before us every week—I saw what a marked improvement there was. There has been an improvement in the manufacture of stoves in the last few years. It may be they do not suit the aesthetic eye of Mr. Bayles and Mr. Chapin. They do not suit mine, but that is not the point exactly. Let us try and make some money as we go along, and educate also, and if there is only 10 per cent of nice stoves to be made, it seems to me we ought to find 10 per cent, of the manufacturing interest willing to meet the demand. If no one else will, I will! I will try to anyway. In fact, I will make them all! (laughter.) There is another point in connection with it. Many decline to use nickel. If you gentlemen agree to let me use nickel exclusively, I will pay you a good large sum for the right! (laughter.) It is in the light of whether it pays us or whether it does not, that I want these remarks about nickel received. If it pays us, it is our province to use it. Just so with the Lansingburgh Gazette. In 1817 it was a pretty nice paper, but it does not compare today with The Metal Worker.

Mr. Chapin: If you will recall the progress made in art in this country, you will many of you remember thirty or forty years ago that there was no such thing as Art in this country—nothing like art. We had artists but they were contented if they were successful in painting a scene and getting a little money to buy bread and butter, and it was all they could hope for. We had first rate artists, but as for the cultivation of art, we had nothing of the kind. We have been passing through a period of chromos. Now where is the gentleman in this association that will have a chromo in his house? I venture to say not one; and yet a few years ago it was nothing but chromos. That craze was rushed into the ground. Chromos were given for everything. Just so with nickel. The time is coming, as Gen. Rathbone has said, when you will look with astonishment and surprise at having used nickel upon your stoves as you do. It is even now going out of date. The current is setting in that direction. As Mr. Bayles remarked, if beautiful stoves are not wanted, the stove trade is the only trade which produces utensils or fixtures in the house in which there is no incentive to a higher standard of design and ornamentation than has yet been reached. As the current has been started, help it on in every possible way. If you must have nickel, let it be strictly in accordance with art principles. That is all I desire to convey and all I hope to attain in the papers I have read.

Col. Warren: When the time arrives that we are going to look back upon this age of nickel, if I can look back with my pockets full from the use of nickel, I can do it with more complacency than I could with lean or empty pockets.