The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1895-12-27
Department Stores.

leu 10 an eIIoII DeIoIe tue legislature 10
restrict the lines of goods dealt in. This
of course could not be. New York is in
similar condition, and the transition from
the numerous small dealers to the great
department store is steadily going on.
This will take place in all the large cities.
1t is only question of time. There is
but one possible remedy in sight, which
is for the city to take charge of the bus
mess and supply the people at cost. That
will place all on all equality, and place
the few big dealers just where they are
forcing thousands of small dealers.
In New York the greedy department
stores are striving to grasp the liquor bus
mess and add its profits to their gains.
When the entire supply trade of a city is
monopolized by one great combination or
department store syndicate, the people
will be likely to reason, ii a half dozen
millionaires are to reap the entire profit
flowing from the business of supplying
our necessities, why should we not trans
fer the business to the city which would
supply us at bare cost? The plan looks
reasonable and feasible, and the
more it is considered the more they
would be likely to favor it. That would
be municipal socialism. If such con-
dition ever does take place it will be
forced by the grasping and squeezing
process of monopoly and not by the free,
voluntary act of the people, and when free
competition is strangled to death, which is
being done.
The ginmills and domineering spirit of
the liquor monopoly have forced South
Carolina to place the entire sale and dis
tribution of spirituous liquors under State
control. That is socializing the liquor
traffic. A trial of two years notwithstand-
ing many obstacles that were to be over
come, has won the almost unanimous
approval of the people. The greed,
tyranny and abuse of monopolies are
driving the people to combine against
them
There is but one means i'll sight by
which the people can concentrate their
power to defend themselves from the
grasp of concentrated capital. When
they discover it the chances are they will
attempt to use it.
The department store, the machine by
which combined capital and concentrated
money is driving out of business the small
shop-keeper, has already cast its penum-
bra over the retail trade and soon the
small merchant who cannot find posi-
ton behind the counter of the great sym
dictate store will find his place in the great
army of the unemployed, tramping and
searching for employment but finding
none.
The time is not far distant when these
mammoth stores will absorb all the sup
ply business of the large cities, when they
will turn their attention to the country
and speedily freeze out the country mer-
chants. All that will be necessary is to
open sample house in each village or
town with corps of clerks and type
writers. Samples of every class of goods
are placed on the shelves and counters,
from which customers are enabled to
choose. The selection is made and goods
paid for, bill and receipt made out in du-
plicate, a copy given the customer, the
order mailed to the central house in the
city, and few hours after the goods de-
livered by express to the customer.
Such stores would steadily draw all the
cash custom by the reduced prices they
could and would name on their goods,
and by monthly settlements with the safe
class of credit customers, and what chance
would Tor mil, rather) any small estab-
tishment have to compete with them?
The millions which commercial travel
ing, advertising and similar expenses re-
quired to get their business and goods be-
fore the public, under present manage
ment, would be saved or shifted to
sustain the sample houses, which would
CLEAN all the trade of the neighborhood
where located.
This is not theory confronting the
retail trade but condition which is being
pushed with all the energy characteristic
of the syndicate, and nothing aids this
process of squeezing and freezing out the
small dealers so much as the contraction
ofthe currency, the decrease of the money
in circulation. While the volume of cur
rency is small the cornerers or monopo-
lists of money can control it, and the
power that controls the money of a coun-
try controls its business. That is fact
so plain that none dispute it. With
sufficient volume of money in circulation
to create normal prices for the products of
industry larger proportion of the money
of the country must fall into the hands of
the industrial class, and tend to more
nearly equalize the volume which is
divided between the producers and nom
producers. The hope of the country
merchant and small dealer is in the well
fare of the producing class. If that class
gets its share of the circulating money by
advancing the price of products, the
money syndicate and department store
cannot swallow up the trade of the
country and enslave the people enmass.
The small dealer is blind as a bat to his