Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-04-21
1T HAS GONE UNDER.
Manufacturers of Patent Medicines
Cannot Maintain q Trust
STATUTES ARE AGAINST THEM.
Contracting Stonemasons Vote to Lockout
Their Employees.
MISCELLANEOUS INDUSTRIAL ITEMS

The proposed onbination of the manu-
facturers of proprietary medicines and
wholesale druggists against department
stores and other dealers who cut the prices
of these medicines has proved failure.
The promoters of the scheme have dlscov-
cred that they could not operate the coupon
plan without coming in contact with the
national antitrust law, and the plan was
therefore dropped. They also found
that several States have special statutes
that would be violated by the operation Of
the system. 1t is reported that the organi-
cation had secured the Endorsement of the
required number of manufacturers, and the
plan was to have been submitted to the re-
tail trade for their approval, when it is said
legal opinion that had been secured,
stopped all proceedings. The legal advisor
reported that it would be impossible to
maintain any scheme by which several man
ufacturers combine for the mutual mainte-
nance of the prices of their several commodi-
ties.
A Maker Sets His Own Price.
ANY plan to maintain prices for which o
success of hope can be entertained must be
one in which an individual manufacturer
seeks to maintain the price of his own man.
ufactures alone. Further, it is given out
that manufacturer may control the price
of his goods. BE may refuse to manufac-
ture and he may refuse to sell save at such
prices as shall be satisfactory to him. If he
cannot maintain his retail prices his whole
sale prices must suffer- and he therefore has
the right to insist upon the maintenance Of
retail price for the purpose of sustaining
the wholesale price.
For these reasons those at the head of the
combine, concluded that, as the plan forbade
the sale by wholesale dealers to retailers on
prohibited list and prevented retailer
from receiving rebate in case he did not
maintain the designated price, it was not
safe one with which to be identified.
A call was made at the wholesale estab-
lishment of George A. Kelly & Co. yester-
day, but Mr.. Kelly is absent from the city.
He was closely identified with the scheme,
and while he feared all along that the plan
was not one of the safest, he hoped some
thing could be done to check the cutting of
prices on this class of goods. From another
druggist it was learned that the effort in
this direction will not be dropped entirely.
Still in Hopes of Some Schemes.
'"The manufacturers are in earnest" he
said, land they will not stop here. Some
plan will be thought out very shortly. and
an effort will be made to operate it. In the
meantime. three or four of the manufac-
lures will proceed with the coupon plan, as
individuals, as has been suggested, and
from it may be gained some pointers for
more feasible scheme"
Mr.. May, of Fleisbman & Co., when
seen, said: II heard last Saturday that the
combination was failure and we are pre-
pairing to celebrate our victory by hosting
flags over our drug department. We de-
feated this scheme in 1884 and have done so
again. knew it could not be 3 success.
Outside of its legal aspects it was not
practical plan. For instance: Ii L have
money to pay for certain article, the man
who has it for sale will sell every time and
he may be in as manv combinations as can
be raised, he will sell anyway. 1 had men
to tell me that, and the only line of goods
we had any trouble with at all was Hoods
Sarsaparilla. We finally got all we wanted
of the goods and c. L Hood s. Co. were at
the head of the combination"