The Birmingham age-herald., 1902-11-26
MIDDLEMEN MUST GO,
It Is Said United Cigar Stores Com.
 pany Means Just This.

From the New York Commercial
 James B. Duke of the American To- bacco company Is credited with orig mating the idea which led to the establishment of the United Cigar Stores company, the concern retail tobacco dealers are organizing against
 It is said to be the open statement of MT. Duke that the middlemen must go, and the manufacturer sell to the consuemr direct without opposition.
 The United Cigar Stores company denies, and it's denial is endorsed by the American Tobacco company, that the former is controlled by the latter Notwithstanding this declaration. the retailers scoff at the idea of the two not being the same in reality. and say they can prove that they are.
 About thirty-f1ve of these stores have been opened in New York and others in various cities, among them being Jersey City, Newark. Albany. Rochester, Syracuse, Boston. Proyi- dence, Philadelphia, Baltimore. Wash ington, Chicago and Kansas City. Every week witnesses an extension of the system in New York and the other cities; new stores are placed in neighborhoods previously not covered:
 and 1t is expected that such profitable cities as have not been already in-
 cluded will be soon on the list. Ignoring the question of ownership.
 it seems to be fact that the tobacco
 combine Is giving the United Cigar l Stores credit that no other retailers I can secure. One of the officers of the
 newly organized retailers association 1 styled the cigar stores company a l dummy of the combine. Then he told | of the methods used in destroying l competition.
 "The agents of this combine" said he, "scenting a retailer having a par ticularly lucrative business in an active neighborhood, call upon him, and without unnecessary preliminaries, tell him that they want to buy his
 place. They will pay him so much for his stock and fixtures, and employ l him as salesman at good salary after Nothing at all is offered for the good will. which often Is more valuable 1 than the stock and fixtures combined. | say: Well, you'd better accept a fair
 offer than be put out of business 1 Should the dealer persist in his re- 1 fusal, the agents go away. But pres l ently he will find that two stores are l opened near his store-as near as the
 combine can get, and articles of all kinds are offered at cut prices
 "As soon as the combine gets in l rq fhA 4A
 will be able to place the most inferior
 kind of goods on the market and
 charge what 1t pleases. Buyers of first-class cigars are not patronizing | the combine stores, as rule, but the general public is--I mean that part of the public that is not too particu- lar"
 The American Tobacco company's avowed policy Is to control everything that a tobacco smoker utilizes, and if MT. Dukes idea is followed out, it will permit few independent retailers of such commodities to continue In busi- ness.
 In order to extend it's sphere of op- erations, in accordance with the plan of getting control of other tobacco commodities, the American Tobacco company recently bought out seven of the principal clear Havana cigar man. ufacturers and six of the chief cheap cigar manufacturers.
 The factories of these thirteen firms were in New York and Key West. This concentration caused at least 100 independent tobacco jobebrs in New York city alone to give up business. In their place concern styled the Metropolitan Tobacco company was substituted to do jobbing.