The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1905-06-30
PROGRESSIVE MERCHANTS

mum Z OOI v Z MI nOr TAN 1
The stores having on their ''Specla
Price Sales" this week, are crowded
and though they all have extra help
they have more customers than they car
attend to.
How they do il, . is their business.
Certain it is they do 1T They might
fool the people some of the time. but
not all the time. If they did not give
bargains, even so good an advertising
medium as the Herald, could not con-
tinue to draw the crowds for them.
ALI the Herald can do is to tell the
people of their bargains. But the
bargains must be there; else the people
would not believe their ads a second
time Hence we conclude that the
bargains are there, and that the people
profit by these sales. 1t is a vain man
who thinks this people a.e fools, and
buy and buy colored tags without get
ting full value for their money. So
we conclude that these sales are good for
the people.
They must he good for the meT-
chants, somehow or other. else they
would not be repeated.
But the special point we wish to
make is this: They are good for the
town. You may talk about your fac
tories and schools and all that-and
they are all good-but there Is nothing
enlivens town more than live mer
chant. Take the merchants who adj
vertise out of town and you kill the
newspapers of that town and town
without newspapers and live mer
chants is ''Seepy Hollow" sort of
place. The live merchants of Colum-
hia created the demand for daily
paper. and Columbia would feel lost
now without daily paper. Live mer
chants create a demand for large stores.
and thereby enhance the value of
property and give employment to
builders and contractors. And 1--we
merchants not only advertise them
selves, but the very showing they make
In the papers and in their show win
dows and by their handsome buildings
and big stocks is the very finest ad
veftising a town can have. Atlanta,
Ca. grew from sleepy village to a
great city by advertising methods of
one sort and another, and the retail
merchants were the men who did it.
Memphis, the biggest town in Tenues
Tennessee, and Its retail merchants
do practically all of it. Some mer
chants like leeches suck blood out of /
community all their lives and hoard all |
they get. They are worth nothing to
the community, and their lives are SO
narrow and selfish and contracted, that |
they die without ever once expeTienc
ing the Thrill of noble deed, a genef
Gus act, or the real JOY of living But
real live, progressive merchant /
always does as much, and oft-tines
more for the town in which he lives.
than the town does for him. Take
today's crowd for example. and inquire
in the lines OF business not IN the
''clean sweep class how their trade
has been today az compared with YES
terday. ASK the drggist, the grossly
man, the hardware, queenswaTe or
furniture man, and see if they won't
tell you that this well advertised sale
though entirely out of their line. has
helped their trade ASK the barber,
the butcher, the baker; ask the fruit
vender the candy seller, the hitch
yard keeper. The idea is simply this:
Live merchants, with progI essiye
methods, bring crowds TO the town;
crowds make trade; tlade makes the
own. One reason why Columbia is
the best town Of its size IN the South
is because it has wide-awake, literal,
enterprising, progressive, Advertising
merchants as a class.
And, naturally, as discerning men,
lit follows as the night doth follow
the day." that the Herald is their
favorite medium.