Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 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 not.
What is all this money spent for2
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 a given expenditure will
result in grea.ar and greater sales at a
lower and lower expense. Why do the
advertisers van to sell more and more
cheaply? So that they can beat their
conlpetitors-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 if they
by their methods have been selling things
more extensively.
There is another thing that we owe ii
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 a 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
ahcut it! No doubt about 1t!
One OF the things which a 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 &c around among the trade doing lit
tie except neutralize one another. About
four times the talk, nerve force AMI
money are spent to sell only ms nany
goods as Indianapolis wants that day,
as needs be spent. This is one OF the
many things that the trusts have found
~out-that they knew before they started
in.
Now, it Is inevitable in the very econ
omics. in the very natural law of the
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 ct home. or they
may be dismissed entirely. Just so much
OF their work as has been unnecessary
will surely be dispensed with In time.
Competition does that. and we couldn't
have any better illustration OF the fact
that competition is always active. Here
II is potent. actually. Tn the case OF the
glucose trust that was afraid to encour-
age too much competition tof other capi,
tai and brainsl by making more than sew
en- per cent, it was active potentially.
Ii Is preposterous TO say that fifty
thousand commercial travellers. or thirty.
i've thousand. have been thrown ont Of
work by the trusts. There are probably
not sixty thousand of them in the whole
country BESIDES. IL ten per cent OF
them have been thrown oAt OF work by
the various changes in producing and dis.
tributing that have come about in the last
few years. other causes have probably
contributed equally with the combination
movement. Even so, and putting the
case at its very worst, the genera: i'm.
proyement ir business. the wide expan.
sion OF trade az home and abroad, which
all OF our producers. manufacturers and
traders have helped to bring about. and
by which they have all inevitably profit
ed-this has put all of those commercial
travellers back into places just as good
or better. or will DO so. Ii is inevitable
More people were employed after ma.
chinery was NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. because
the wants OF thu human race BEGAN,
greater and widef eyefx reAf. ana these
wants had to be suonIfS1 md could ia