The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1906-05-24
A TALK WITH LOCAL BUYERS.
(Communicated)

The man who buys his goods of
mail-order house and expects his
neighbors in Sank Centre to buy
goods of him or to buy labor of him
or to buy professional service of him
is leech. He is sucking industrial
blood out of the town and gives none
back. He sends his profits out Of
town and has no more right to a
standing in the community than a
foreigner.
We are all neighbors industrially in
this town and the man who sends,
away for his goods is not one of us.
He is of another industrial system
and deserves no mans support in
Sank Centre. The fact that this is
economically wrong is recognized by
the mail-order houses themselves.
They protect their customers by offer
ing to keep people from knowing
where the mail-order goods come from.
The mail-order houses have no tags
on their goods. They say in their
catalogue that none of their goods are
marked and that no one knows where
they were bought. If it is proper to
hide the place of purchase OF an article
it is wrong to buy the article at that
place. Only the man who comes by
goods unlawfully is ashamed to say
where he got anything he has. There
is such a thing as tainted dry goods,
tainted groceries and tainted furniture.
All of such that are not bought at
home, of men who befriended you, OF
men to whom you owe living, are
tainted because they came unfairly.
The trouble in Sank Centre is this:
So many merchants buy their goods
away from home that systematic
jealousy has sprung up. The dry
goods dealers don't feel that they have
to buy their furniture at home because
the furniture mems wives buy their
dry goods away from home. The
same quarrel exists in every line OF
trade. 1t is disheartening and dis
tressing and paralyzing to the business
interests of the town. 1t is time to
begin to reform ourselves and not our
neighbors by buying everything at
home whether the neighbors do or not
and now is the time to begin. The
thing for all of us to do is to turn over
a new leaf.
There is one more thing to bear in
mind, and which we think serious
one. Supposing the mail-order houses
could sell goods cheaper, and every
body would order their goods from
there, the local stores would soon be
no more. You would then be obliged
to send for everything.
Remember a store cannot be kept
up with the small purchases, if the
money is sent away for the big things.
You have then succeeded in running
your home trade. You have then
helped to build up an enormous cor
poration in some far away city. Your
home consumption and market would
decrease. The value of your farms
or houses would get less valuable as
you we'll know if town goes back the
value of it and it's surroundings de-
crease. Send your money away and
you get nothing but the goods. Spend
it at home and it will come back to
you in better towns, better stores,
better schools, better churches, and
better advantages.
1t not the building up of your small
towns more to you than the building
up of some far away city? Is it not
fact that it our town had ten-thousandl
in population instead OF twenty-five
hundred it would be better for us all5
Would there not be much more EN-.
ployment? Would not these people
consume more products and conse-
ouently make better market? Would
not the small homes with one lot be
doubled in value, and every farm
within a radius of ten miles be worth
from ten to fifteen dollars an acre
more? Then is it only a good thing
for the merchant or tradesman ii you
buy of him? Is it not just as good a
thing for your