The record-union., 1893-04-06
A MISTAKEN IDEA.

Some one has been promulgating the
very mistaken idea that Sacramento man
ufacturers are contemptuously treated by
home houses in preference for foreign
houses. Now what we know upon this
subject is specific, clear, indisputable.
We made a study of it years ago. 1t
amounts to this: No man in this or any
other town ever made an article needed
in trade, that was up To the trade standard
and level with its price, and who pushed
his business Alright, who was not patron
lied by home buyers to his full merit.
There is only this eXception-an old,
long-established brand, the merit of which
the people know, is not easily displaced,
but in time may be.
Secondly, no such man was ever de-
pendent upon home buyers alone. Neither
Sacramento nor any other town can be
compared to Mark Twain's uninhabited
island, upon which peddler being cast,
arose and began to sell clocks to the peo-
pie. ''Sally in Our Alley'' is very nice
girl. but when Sally comes to buy shoes
and stockings there is no sentiment in
the matter. She buys where she can do
the best for Sally. That is human nature,
and will be to the end of time.
Moreover, any one who talks about
any manufacture living upon its local
| field-as for instance, that Sacramentans
should buy only of home manufacturers
and nowhere else, and thus support
them-talks nonsense, the nonsense of a
ring around rosey" game of a townspeo-
pie alone supporting the manufacturer,
and he in turn buying of the townspeo-
pie and both swapping their fingers at the
rest of the world, and living forever upon
each other.
Let every one who does not know learn
| this truth-Elgin does not support her
manufactures, nor the smallest side of
them; Michigan City could not buy in
ten years one days output of her chair
works; Lynn could not consume in a
year twenty minutes produce of any one
of her factories. San Francisco cannot
buy enough of the product of any one of
her large factories to keep it alive on the
basis of its scheme of life. Petaluma will
not buy so much of the output of her
silk-rhread works as the mill can twist in
thirty minutes time. Worcester women
cannot in fifty years wear out one days
yield of the print works there-and so on.
Wherever, no matter who he is or has
! been, anyone in Sacramento has manfact-
ured any article and failed to find home
| consumption for it, it has been for good
reason. On that proposition we stake
our reputation for capacity to understand
that two added to two gives the product
four.
There is no sentiment in trade; there is
no poetry in commerce; there is no top
lofticalness'' in buying and selling for a
profit. Towns as rule become manu-
featuring towns because their manufact-
ures address trade beside which the
town itself is but fly speck on teacup.
Let US have no more of this nonsense
about our own people not buying of home
manufacturers-iti is not true, and we defy
proof to the contrary. Our people do in
fact buy the home product when it is just
as good and sold on as good terms as they
can buy what their taste or need asks for,
elsewhere.
No man, no woman, we care not who
they may be. has the right, the mort
gage lien, to start in business and
then declare to the people of the
town that they are bound to support
him or her. 1t sounds well to prefer
such a claim, but when it comes to
i business it is NONSENSE and everSman