The Carlisle independent., 1907-02-07
HOME-TRADE CLUBS
They Should Be Organized and ActiUe in EUery
 Community.
PATRONIZE HOME MERCHANTS
The Great Danger to Local Interests That Are Found in the Mail Order Systems-Educate
 the Public.


 Copyrighted. 1906, by Alfred c. Clark) Why should we trade at home? Why should We consider home in any way more than any other place unless it pays us financially? First. because 1t is our home. The pride we should take in the prosperity of our home town and our neighbors should be suf- ficient inducement to give them the preference. Second, because beyond all doubt or question, it pays from a l money point.
 The greatest menace to the country merchant today is the mail order business, and with the decline of the country merchant comes inevitable loss to the citizens of both town and country. What at first was considered great convenience and an exhibition of commendable enterprise has grown to be one of the crying commercial evils. The success of the mail order house is the result of constant, ex~ tensiye and intelligent advertising. It is not by persistent swindling as some tell us, for no business was ever built up in that way. The home merchant can do no better than to adopt the same method, the judicious use of l printers ink.
 While the merchants are the heav- fest immediate losers, and could do much toward checking and correcting this growing evil, by liberal advertis- 1 Ing and publishing prices, they should not be expected to do it all. Every newspaper should preach home trade, every teacher should instil it into his l pupils in the school room, every min- ister should preach it from the pull 1 pit The debating societies and DO litical conventions should discuss it. l The interests of town and country | and newspaper and church, and so- 1 ciety generally, are so interwoven and l so identical that whatever injures one will eventually injure all. When the merchants are compelled to bring on smaller stocks, and employ less help, and pay cheaper rent, they are not alone the sufferers; the whole com munity feels the loss. The price of real estate is largely dependent on its
 
 1 dependent on the amount of business The merchant can move to some other l town and establish himself again more readily than can the professional man and many others who have built up business through years of acquaint- anceship and establishment of char acter. If the farmer, or property own CT in town, want to sell out they are the greatest sufferers-they can't move their property to some place where people are booming their town and country by patronizing home.
 The remedy lies in education and publicity. In many places that edu- cation will come through bitter ex- perience, but, in other communities,
 where they are quicker to detect the approaching evil, and heed more read fly the warnings of the press and
 friends of home, they may correct the evil more readily
 Wealth and power are corrupting influences and the mail order houses are probably not sending out as hon est goods as they once did. They have learned the tricks of imitation and
 substitution and how easy it is to deceive the public. But. if the mail order man is honest, and his methods of advertising legitimate in every way, his success is of no interest to us and will never benefit our community in the slightest degree. If crops should fail or sickness render us short of money we could not expect him to trust us for dollar-we must always