The Newberry herald and news. (Newberry, S.C.) 1884-1903, 1888-08-02
Doing Away With Middlemen.

Doing Away With Middlemen.
From the New York Commercial Bull
ietin.
1t has now been many years since
organized effort was made to do away
with middlemen and bring producers
and consumers as near together as pos
sible with view to obviating the null
tiplication of profits and margins as
products passed through successive
hands. The government, as first Or
ganized was to great extent visionary
and impracticable. Seeing the exces-
sive profits to middlemen and unneces-
sary Intervention between producer
and consumer were an evil and deprived
producers of the full fruit at their labor,
it was assumed that all meditation was
injurious and that by cooperative o.
ganizations, combinations and devices
of various kinds, the merchant and his
profits could be done away with, and
sales negotiated either through sales
men salaried by the producers them
selves. In some communities and
even in great states, the theories ad-
vanced were fairly tested by expert
ment, and so far as they were sound
and practical good results We're attained.
Toa great extent, howevee1- -'1'A ''a 'a..11a e1
ment was deieated BY its own fallacies
and devotion to half-truths, and as an
organized effort its results were incon-
siderable. Itmust be surprise to the
pioneers in this movement who are
now living tosee how far their vision
ary ideas are being worked out in this
later day on a more practical basis.
The world having rejected the fallacious
theory that middlenen as a class are
unnecessary and burdensome, has been
busying itself ever since in the more
practical direction Of getting rid of
those Intermediates Who are really
useless. The progress which has been
made in this direction has been very
great, and the influences now at work
are even more far-reaching. Many Of
the most pronounced tendencies Of the
present day are strongly in this direc-
ton, and the great advance in combi
nation and absorption involves this
result at almost every step.
4 prominent consideration in that
new and often indefinable organization,
the trust, is obliteration Of middlemen.
The tendency in wholesale mercantile
transaction of almost every character,
and in importations of every class, is
toward direct dealings without inter-
vention. Competition and the neces-
sity for reduced expenses forces this,
and in great financial and commercial
enterprises there is an almost universal
effort to secure such alliances and COM
binations as will abolish the middle
man. Through every branch of busi-
ness this tendency may be observed,
until we find even the farmers organiZ-
ing their sales bureaux so as to get rid
of unnecessary middlemen; the insur-
ance companies making hard fight ?
for the business which they have here
tofore gladly left to well-paid brokers,
and the railroads trying to cut off the
commissions of ticket agents. Strongly
marked and general as this movemen'
is, however, it does not ignore the f
that the so-called middleman j.
true sphere and in certain brancl Mi
business is as essential to trade as
producer or consumer, and that h
part in the worlds activities is most
important one, =
The movement is in step with the
universal march toward better meth
DDS, and the obGteration of the unnec-
essary and burdensone wherever they
are found. The middleman who has
cleaned excessive profits from unin-
portant service now finds his income
shrinking, and the useless barnacle
upon commerce must go-is going. In
the better adjustment that is being
brought about, when all relations are
more clearly defined and the survival
of the fittest has been emphasized by
killing Off the unfit, it will doubtless
be found that the great intermediate
class between producer and consumer
will still have its proper place and
sphere of activity, and that is impor-
tant contribution to the success of trade
will be fully appreciated and properly
compensated.