Middletown transcript., 1907-11-23
[Communicatedl
IUIIIHIuHICat5uJ
THE AGITATION GROWS

Mr. ED1ToR-I would like to know
who "Bill Simpson is, but it probably
does not make any difference, for who.
ever he is he has hit the catalogue house
buainess just about right. | am opposed
to these large cities controlling every
thing. believe we ought to do q little
Of this controlling business ourselves.
Tie harvester trust went to work to
drive the smaller fellows out Of the busi-
ness and have succeeded SO well they have
really cornered the entire harvester trade.
Then We have our nail trusts. hardware,
and trusts Of all kinds. | am not exactly
satisfied with this idea OF shipping our
cream to the large central creameries
where it looks to me like an effort to
drive our home crsameries out Of business
and then they will pay Us whatever they
please for our cream and they will control
the price Of butter as well as the price of
cream.
There is. danger in such things and
for one do not propose to harbor the
mail order catalogue house trusts. Il
seems TO me our home merchants occupy
the same relation. to US as the small man-
.ufacturer does to the different trusts.
ii the big fellows once get hold of ue,
We are their ulBat,
The things bill Simpson" says in his
letterto you ares just about right. This
nonsense about our home merchants
making 100 big profit I believe is all
wrong. 1t seems to me any man capable
Of reading and ofcomprehending the way
business is done NOWADAYS, know compete
ton in al lines ID so strong tliat il is pret-
ty near impossible for man to charge
more than he ought to any length Of
time. Suppose one Of the merchants Of
i our town should ask-a dollar profit on an
article he ought to sell at twenty-five cents
profit, how long would sit ber before the.
other fellow, selling the same thing,
would see his chance Of cutting under
tile man who wants such large profit
and get the business?
remember once only q few months
ago, OF reading lecture by one Of our pro-
fessors Of economics in one Of our large
eastern colleges. inswhich he warned the
people to look out for this mail order and
| catalogue business, for it was only another
form OF the trust idea. He went ON TO
say that these concerns bought what 10
| cal!ed slightly damaged goods from iac-
tories, and In that way got hold Of stuff
tiley could handle. He said the most of
their goods which were only slightly dam
aged could not be detected by tile average
person. He drew the illustration of a
customer buying dried fruits, or groceries
al any kind, and said that if it was only q
quarter or half pound short. the person
buying thought itBas so small an item as
not to.be worthy of notice, but to The
catalogue house, handling thousands Of
pounds. ii made nice profit. This he
called robbery and guess he is about
| right.
T. s +
i once had the pleasure of visiting q
large factory where they made knives.
forks and other things in that line. The
foreman Of one of the rooms showed me q
i pile of these goods and said they we're
damaged. ! examined some Of them,
but I declare, until be showed me where
tlle flaw was, il was pretty hard TO detect
II II. II seemed to me big waste to throw
4 these damaged pieces away, and asked
him what they did with them. He said
THAT they bad a contract with large
catalogue house TO take all damaged goods
!. they had and showed me how they wrap.
ped and packed 50 aa to keep the flaws
from being seen unless the examination
was pretty thorough. This was about
the first time ] bad had my eyes
opened on.tliis kind Of business. Paint,
varnisb. nice boxes. etc, can hide 4
whole lot Of devilment. Two or Three
years ago everybody was going crazy ogel
buying from catalogue, but ! notice 81 late
good many people are getting their fiiI
Oft. THa H0an Man