Woodruff County news. [volume] (McCrory, Ark.) 1901-1910, 1906-05-24
TO THE CONSUMER.
FACTS FOR HIS CONSIDERATION
REGARDING HOME TRADE.
Patronage of Local Merchants an
Important Factor in Build
ing UP a Commu-
nifty.

Dear Mr. Consumer: The retail
merchant in your community very
often has much less at stake there
than you have
The prosperity or lack of prosperity
Oh the community may mean much
less to him than it does to you.
His investment in your community
may be represented entirely by the
stock of goods he is carrying.
II your particular community does
not afford him prosperity according
to his necessities it is a comparative
ly simple matter for him to close out
his stock and go elsewhere, taking
with him that part of the prosperity
of your community which his capt.
tai added to it.
If you are a farmer, let us say
since we are writing of mail order
house patronage, and agriculturists
are very large patrons of the mail or
der institutions-your holdings in
your community represent many thou
sands of dollars, so that it's continued
prosperity is vital-most vital-to
your own prosperity
1t is true that many retail mer-
chants have property interests in the
communities in which they live in ad-
dition to their mercantile interests.
1t is true also that many mail order
house patrons have small financial in
terests of any kind.
1t may be safely stated however,
that the interests of the average
farmer who is the great catalogue
house patron, are more closely bound
up in the welfare of his community
than are the interests of the average
retail merchant.
1t must be plain, then, that you who
have much at stake in your commun-
ties are placing responsibility on the
wrong shoulders when you demand
that in order to retain your patron
age merchants who have comparative
ly little at stake shall compete in the
assortment of stocks, and to the ex-
act dollar and cent in prices, with
some millionaire merchant in a dis
tant city.
If your local merchant be honest,
and if he be making an effort, fairly,
to supply your needs as far as it lies
within his power, it is to your inter
est that you should encourage him by
every means you possess, not only to
remain in you community, but to ex-
pand his business to further meet the
requirements of your community-in
stead of placing upon him the burden
of gratifying your every within that
you may be induced to keep at home
the portion of your money that be-
l9nss there in any event.
We say to you, therefore, that it is
your duty to yourself to purchase
within your own community every
dollars worth of goods that it is pos
sible for you to buy there at a price
within reason; that it is your duty
to yourself to give your home mer-
chant an opportunity to order goods
for you that he may not have in
stock; that it is your duty to your
self to help your home merchant en-
large and widen the scope of his bust
ness as rapidly as possible.
If you cannot buy a certain kind of
goods in your own community, it is
your duty to yourself to join with
your neighbors in a search for an en-
terprising merchant who will come
into your community with his capital
and handle that particular line of
goods.
At one time or another you may
have contributed a bonus to bring a
manufacturing establishment to your
community. The retail merchant, in
a smaller way, is as important fac
tor in the prosperity of your COM
munity as the manufacturer-some
times a more stable one; he is nee
essary part of the whole.
And he asks no bonus but your en-
enlargement and the share of your
trade which it legitimately belongs to
you to give to him.