Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Benton County, Or.) 1900-1909, 1905-10-20
MAIL ORDER HOUSES.
Buy at Home and You Will Pro-
fit in the End.

A we'll known business man in
this city has handed US an article
from the Gilman Guide that ap-
peals to us strongly and seems
: quite apropos just at present.
The article follows:
The mail-order house is a
poisonous octopus. 1t makes its
home in the large cities and
basking there in the sunshine of
an undeserved prosperity, reaches
its venomous tentacles far out
through the surrounding green
meadows, golden harvest fields
and tasseling plains of corn,
sucks up the increase of the vii
lage farm.
All it sucks up goes to teed its
insatiate greed. Not one iota
ever comes back to up-build or
enrich the farm. Not one penny
of all it gets ever comes back to
the community from which it is
gotten in the shape of a donation,
charity, or taxes.
1t takes all it can; keeps all
it gets and like the tape worn
cries give, give, give.
Although it seems nominally
to subsist on the farm, its poison
Gus fang bites deeper than the
stalks of hay, green grass and
sweet kernels of corn-they para
lvze the very heart and spirit of
enterprise itself.
When the mail-order octopus
feeds, patriotism is undermined,
home pride poisoned, the very
springs of progress dried up at
their fountains.
It feeds on the little busting
county village that nestles On
the bosom of the broad prairies
like little poem on the face Of
the earth.
1t feeds on the little red school
house at the foot of the hill where
the girls and boys of our farmers
romp and study and where are
nourished the precious germs that
foster our free institutions, up
build our churches and sustain
the very government itself. L
feeds on the little white church
on the corner of the cemetery
where moulders the hallowee
dust of our dead, and whose tai
spire, pointing upward, admon
ishes US of the resurrection, ane
of the precepts that unfold tn,
promise.
1t feeds on all these because i
sucks their nourishment ant
bears it afar off to upbuild anc
foster strangers-charlatans
money-grabbers, catalogue pre-
varicators and picture "sells'
men, who care not whether hom
institutions are living or dead S
they get the hard earned dolla
that should go to support thes
institutions.
Moregougery, Fleece & Co
Shear Soakem & Co.; Smith
: Snoop & Shuckem Co.; nor an
mail-order house, never paid
dollar to upbuild or foster a hon
institution.
They never paid a penny
sustain church or religious il
stitutior in which you are inte
ested.
They never paid one penny t
wards putting in an electric ligh
to assist in working a mile
road, or pay for a single plan
in bridge in your home cor
munitv.
The little town that has sprur
up almost at your door to ser
your needs and double the vail
OF every acre OF your farm-tf
/. is neglected; despoiled and 70
bed of its well-earned patrona
to support an over-grown, &C
poration that is managed
strangers and whose toweril
ware houses are filled with ban
rupt frauds; vanished kn'
holes and weather rives; polish
pot metals, cast iron and pewt
old rags and paper bags work
into warp and woof; adult
ations, decorations, and CO
pounds labeled to stimulate fos
Every dollar spent to benz
the 11ail-order house, is tax
out Of the value Of your far