The herald-advance. (Milbank, S.D.) 1890-1922, 1906-01-26
DEVELOPING COUNTRY TOWNS
Organize and Educate Your Neighbors to Buy at Home
Boycott the Catalogue Houses-The Mail
Order Extract Evil.

state food law will always be impo
tent, and that is the sale of adulter
ated stuff by mail order houses. Foz
instance, 1 have before me the eXpan
sive advertisement of Chicago con-
Germ which sells extracts. They ad'
vertise an old scheme-premiums to
agents who sell various quantities.
Here is the scheme as described by
the concern in its own advertisements:
Ladies and Girls: We want you to
help US introduce among your friends
our celebrated Red Cross" flayoring
extracts and earn any Of these pre-
miums or your choice of several hun
dred Others Our extracts sell at 20
cents and are quickly sold, because
extracts ere used in every family.
Ours once bought are always asked
for again-and our first customers are
our best ones We sell them on a
guarantee-money back if not salts
factory
In this advertisement we illustrate
a few of the many hundred premiums
we SlNp, w IICu dl = luiiy dGSNllDCd III
our new $50 page catalogue.
We have premiums for selling one
dozen up to forty dozen, and you are
at liberty to stop work at any time
and select your premium from this big
assortment. We believe our offer to
be the most liberal ever made by a re-
liable firm. You will be surprised to
find how pleasant the work is, and
how quickly you can sell the extracts.
BY our plan you are not overstOcked
with goods until you can find for
Yourself how many can be sold.
No money required in advance.
Your credit is good with us. Send us
your name and address; we will then
send you by mail, postpaid, one dozen
assorted Red Cross flavoring ex-
tracts to commence with; also our big
premium catalogue. If you can't sell
them we will take them back; but
there's no can't about it-you can. Do
it now
Surrounding this appeared small
cuts of various of the premiums given.
rake IueS6 dS eAdIuplo
Nomen's Melton coat, ~ inches
long, velvet trimmed, for selling four
dozen. Extension dining room table,
for selling four dozen. Tea or dinner
set, Sc pieces, for selling three dozen.
Combination desk and bookcase, for
selling five dozen. Velour couch for
selling four dozen. Chiffonier, solid
oak, for selling five Dozen
And so on There were lot more,
to be given for selling from one dozen
up to seven dozen.
Now let's do a little figuring. These
extracts, the Arm says, retail at 20
cents a bottle. That means $40 per
dozen.
The woman who sells only four doz-
en- bottles, meaning $3.50, can get for
her work a cloth coat. l have some
acquaintance with the retail cost of
womens garments-let us put the
value of this coat at only SIS, which
admittedly would not buy anything
but the merest shoddy.
That leaves $4.60 to the firm for it's
four dozen extracts, or less than 10
cents a bottle. Can absolutely pure
extracts be sold for this with profit
to the manufacturer?
Assuredly they can't, and there's
still another thing to say-the concern
whose advertisement this is are not
manufacturers, according to the mer-
camille agency books. AS a matter of
fact, they aren't rated at all. But such
concerns are always dealers, rather
than makers, and that means second
profit to be figured.
1t is certain beyond reasonable
doubt that these goods are adulterated
and sold in violation of the law.
The certainty is, too, that very
large quantities of them are sold.
Every town and city has nagging wom-
en- and children ringing it's doorbells
to sell somebody's extracts or baking
powder. These sales are small, but
they are legion. The aggregate, be
sure, is enormous.
Admittedly beyond reach Of food
laws, these impure goods compete
with every grocer in business. They
rob him of trade by the hundreds OF
dollars worth. Yet 1t is just as i'm
possible for the food authorities to
reach them as 1t would be to enter
each home in the land and take sam.
pies from every table.
The sellers have no places of busi-
ness. They are not merchants. Their
sales for the most part are made with
out witnesses and in private. The
buyer is without means of detecting
the fraud and knows not whether her
purchase is perfectly pure or wholly
spurious.
Whether a federal food law would
reach these long-distance fakes is un-
certain. The chance is that some way
OF doing 1t could be figured out un-
der the interstate commerce clause.
Certain is it that no state law will
ever reach them.-St. Paul Trade
Journal.
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