The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-01-15


that the entire subject of reserves be
came exactly like the 81 and 81 so kind
sold in town-binding, paper, and all
the same.
This set us to thinking If we could
save this much by sending away for
books, and get the same quality of
we not be our own merchants, and at
least cut out one middlemans profits?
TO make a long story short we COM
menced to order by mail, and have
given the Chicago firm at least two or
ders year and sometimes more. But
have we been doing right Let us see.
I'VE will give the home merchant his
dues first. He is a citizen of our own
county. All he has is here, and on it
he pays taxes into our county treasury.
He takes our products, our butter, eggs
and poultry. and, like the Irishman who
only had to carry brick to a mason
building, all we have to do is the pro-
ducing and hauling to market. Our
merchant does the work.
THE home merchant is also a factor
in the building up of our county. These
! and many other things we must credit
to him, among which are the supplying
| of US with tools. repairs, etc, which we
| sometimes need and which we could
not get from a mail order house because
| or lack of time, for repairs to machinery
| are usually wanted in a hurry and if our
merchant is only few miles away, and
has them. he is at this time almost in
dispensable to US.
THE time has come, however, when
all things are worth money, and cash
at that, not promises of goods. We as
farmers can sell our products as well
as man we pay money to can, for
there are in nearly every Kansas town
produce dealers who are only too glad
to get our small produce and pay US
cash for it. The same with everything
| else; so today the farmer may be said
to be a man who sells for cash and
buys for cash. This condition does
away with all the little strings of the
ay-you-in-the-fau days
THAT your nearest merchants claim
| the right to buy where they can buy
the cheapest. whether it be of you,
from Kansas City or New York, is
| true; and it is also true that they ex-
ercise this right, for one day L hap
pened in one of our home stores lust
! as town lady was buying some cab
! bage. The merchant was, of course
! praising his wares and wound up his
set form of speech by saying that
| those cabbage he had shipped in from
Wisconsin. Knowing that there were
| plenty of cabbage for sale by farmers,
we put in our oar to the extent of
asking why he did not buy his produce
from those who bought goods Of him.
/ We'll, you See he explained, we can
| get Wisconsin cabbage laid down here
in our store for the same as We have
1 to pay for home stock, and these here
4 giving the crate the vegetables We're
| shipped in a kick with his foot, are
soldier than any we can buy here.
How hollow their cry, Buy of your
home merchant, the man who takes
your products sounded to us after
hearing this bit of talk from the dealer
| himself.
1.-The conditions of trade now exist
| ing do away with all the old theories
of patroniing your home merchant.
thus keeping your money at home.
Money is everywhere now. The dollar
/ that is in circulation here is worth the
same as is the dollar circulating in
New York, and the circulation is so
rapiN, the country and its interests so
/ united at as far as keeping the mon
ey az home is concerned, it is as much
at home in Chicago as it is in Kan
sas, and for every dollar you send away
a like amount will come in from some
other direction or source.
i combinations of home dealers have
also done much to build up a mail or
der trade. There was a time when
every dealer did business according to
the dictates of his own conscience. but
that time, like Hans Breitman's party.
has gone away nit de lager beer Now
the grocers' association, the lumber
dealers association. the hardware
dealers association. the grain dealers
Il association, and every other kind of an
association, establishes the price. and
the farmer has to pay 1t If he trades
with any of the members, and usually
he has to if he trades with any of his
home dealers. for the various associa-
lions have perfect organize tions in
nearly every state and county in the
union. Thus we see the old saving.
competition is the life of business.
would have become a dead letter were
| it not for the mail order houses. They
furnish today practically all the COM
petition some merchants have. even
though there are five other merchants
carrying the same line of goods in his
: town. We deem it not necessary to tell
here the workings of the home COM
= bines.' Any man who has had occa-
5 sion to buy lumber the past few years
: knows almost to a certainty how the
3 dealers have the territory sliced up and
] divided, and how, if there happens t6
2 be more than one dealer in a town, the
? profits are said to be divided by a GER
= tain fixed per cent. at the beginning OF
t each year. and that at no time is there
5 true competition. What is said to be-
: true of the lumber dealers association
! may or may not be true of the Other
/ associations. Of this we cannot say
T but we do know that most of the home
i dealers meet often before bushes.
e hours to have quiet talk AS long
d as home dealers claim and exercise ths
e right to buy where they can buy tht
t cheapest, we as farmers have the sam,
Y ripht"