The morning news., 1894-09-10
Modern People and Ancients.

Modern People and Anc1ents.
Years ago, when people Travelled in car
riages and interior commerce was carried
on in wagons and carts, 1t was customary
for merchants TO wait in their stores for
people TO come in to learn what things
they had for sale, and the prices Of
them. In these days railroad trains and
telegraph lines annihilate time and space,
and the merchant of the period, keeping
pace with the age, no longer waits in his
store for customers, but sends out mes
sengers TO seek them. His messengers
are advertisements in the daily news
papers. They are tireless and silent
workers. They never bore a prospective
customer by taking more time than the
customer cares to give, or by talking
about something concerning which the
customer doesn't care to hear.
There are, to be sure, merchants who
prefer the methods Of communicating
with customers employed fifty years ago
to the methods of to day. They do not
advertise; and they tell the people who
happen to stray into their places that the
reason they do not is because they are
TOO honest" to publish such offers to
buyers as are published by some of their
more modern neighbors. They say the
advertisers must certainly misrepresent
their goods. otherwise the prices
would not be so low. Such talk
is on all-fours" with the kind that
used to be INDUCED in by the old fogies
who said people could not possibly ride on
train going at the rate of forty miles an
hour, because the wind would take their
breath away.
The fact is that advertisers are able 10
sell goods cheaper than non-advertisers
because they make more sales and can
afford to take smaller profits. They are
the express trains of the trade, so to
speak they go at a pace that makes the
old fogies dizzy, and the people like to go
with them. The up-to-date people would
Just as soon agree to give up fast railroad
trains and 60 back TO mule teams as to
give up the daily newspaper advertise
ment.
In so far as the question of misrepre-
senting goods goes, common sense is
against the argument Of the old fogies.
Is it reasonable to suppose that a mer-
chant with a reputation az stake, a mer-
CLdub W AO LOHCu W 4Olu buC COI
the people, would write and print false
hoods in his advertisement How long
would Savannah merchants business
last if he attempted TO Systematically fool
his customers through his advertise
menUsf Some advertisers, to be sure, in
dulge in some pretty high-hown rhetoric,
and occasionally in too many superlative
adjectives. But the circus bill advertiser
is the exception and not the rule. Gener-
ally speaking advertisements may be de-
pended upon, because the people who
sign them know that it will not pay to go
into the prevaricatiug business to sell a
few goods
One of the greatest mercantile houses
in this country-and that is equivalent to
saying in the world-was quoted the
other day as saying it would be impossi-
BILE to carry on their business without the
aid of the daily newspapers. The fact
that persistent and intelligent newspaper
advertising brings success is evidenced
by the histories of hundred of great bust
ness houses in all quarters of the country.
And in Savannah there are evidences
of the benefits of good advertising.
There is not in the city to-day an intel
ligent man or woman who, when any
thinG is wanted, does not turn to the ad-
vertising pages of the MORNING News
and scan them to see if the thing sought is
advertised there. And if it is, the adver-
tiser is the first person visited by the
prospective purchaser.
There are, Of course, some few excep-
tional cases of men who have won and
are winning success without the aid of
newspaper advertising. But they are
very few, and their number is growing
less. They are a disappearing species,
like the Indian and the buffalo. The lib
eral advertiser, on the other hand, is
named legion, and is increasing. He is
prosperous, good natured, thoroughly
alive, aud pleasant man to do business
with-that is from the customers point
of view as well as the newspapers. The
other fellow is usually dyspeptic.