Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1900-09-20

would cause drummers to lose their
places.
Then consider that millions and mill
ions of dollars are spent in this country
for advertising purposes, not merely in
the newspapers and the magazines, but
on the fences and the bill boards, in
signs, in distributions Of printed mat
ter, and what hot.
What is all this money spent for?
To sell goods.
And the study of hundreds of the
brightest men in the country Is devoted
to making advertising more and more
effective, so that given expenditure will
result in greater and greater sales at a
lower and lower expense. Why do the
advertisers want to sell more and more
cheaply? So that they can beat their
competitors-by giving the consumer bet
ter things for the same money, or just
as good things for less money. All this
effort to sell things cheaper means that
drummers are going to be laid off IL they
by their methods have been selling things
more extensively.
to ourselves to look fairly in the face.
Many drummers in the past have consid-
cred that the business that they helped
their houses to do belonged to them and
not to the houses. Others, surely all the
houses, used to take contrary view;
and Of late years they have resorted to
the various more or less direct methods
Of selling in order to get their business
back into their own hands. No doubt
about it! No doubt about it!
One of the things which trust aims
| to do is to reduce its selling expense. II
four manufacturers making the same ar
| ticle are drumming Indiana, and their
| four able and persuasive representatives
| light into Indianapolis some day, they
all go around among the trade doing lit.
/ tie except neutralize one another. About
| four times the talk, nerve force and
money are spent to sell only as many
! goods as Indianapolis wants that day
as needs be spent. This is one OF the
many things that the trusts have found
0ut-that they knew before they started
in.
Now, 1t is inevitable in the very econ
! omics, In the very natural law Of the
4, situation, that some Of those drummers
must go some time; they may be sent
into new territory, they may be recalled
10 work in the Office at home. or they
may be dismissed entirely. Just so muct
OF their work as has been unnecessar,
will surely be dispensed with in time
Competition does that, and We couldn'
have any better illustration Of the fac
that competition is always active. Herr
il is potent, actually. In the case of tn,
glucose trust that was afraid to encour
age too much competition (of other CAPT
tai and brains) by making more than sew
en- per cent, it was active potentially.
1t is preposterous to say that fit!
thousand commercial travellers. or thirty
five thousand, have been thrown out o
work by the trusts. There are probabl
not sixty thousand Of them in the Who'll
country. Besides, IL ten per cent o
them have been thrown out OF work b.
the various changes in producing and dis
tributing that have come about in the las
few years, other causes have probabl
contributed equally with the combination
movement. Even so. and putting tn
case at its very worst, the general i'm
provement in business, the wide expan
sion OF trade at home and abroad, whic
all of our producers, manufacturers an
traders have helped TO bring about, an
by which they have all inevitably profit
ed-this has put all OF those commercia
travellers back into places just as gooC
or better, or will do so. 1t is inevitabl,
More people were employed after ma
chinery was introdueed-simply becaus
the wants Of the human race becam
| greater and wider every year, and thes
! wants had to be supplied, and could b,
because things were so much cheaper.
, We have taken over Porto Rico. HI