Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1907-05-31
The Agitation Grows.

i would like to know who bill Simp-
son" is, but it probably does not make
any difference, for whoever he is he has
hit the catalogue house business Just
about right. l am furninst these large
cities controlling everything l believe
we ought to do a little of this control
ing business ourselves. The harvester
trust went to work to drive the smaller
fellows out of the business and have
succeeded so well they have really cor
nered the entire harvester trade. Then
we have our nail trusts, hardware trusts
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 creameries out of bust
ness 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 and catalogue house trusts. 1t
seems to me our home merchants occupy
the same relation to us as the small man
ufacturer does to the different trusts.
If the big fellows once get hold of us,
we are their meat.
The things bill Simpson" says in his
letter to you are Just about right. This
nonsense about our home merchants
making too big a profit l believe is all
wrong. 1t seems to me any man capable
of reading and of comprehending the
way business is done nowadays, knows
that competition in all lines is so strong
that it is pretty near impossible for "a
man to charge more than he ought to fo1
any length of time. Suppose one of the
merchants of our town should ask me
| nr alca
article he ought to sell on twenty-five
cents profit, how long would it be before
the other fellow, selling the same thing.
would see this chance of cutting under
the man who wants such a large profit
and get the business?
l remember once. only a few months
ago, of reading lecture delivered by the
professor OF economics in one Of our
large eastern colleges. in which he
warned the people to look ont for this
mail order and catalogue business, for 1t
was only another form of the trust idea.
He went on to say that these concerns
bought what is called seconds or slight
ly damaged goods from factories, and in
that way got hold of stuff they could
handle He said the most of their goods
which were only slightly damaged could
not be detected by the average person
He drew the illustration of customer
buying dried fruits, or groceries of any
kind, and said if it was only a quarter
or half pound short, the person buying
thought 1t was SO small an item as not to
be worthy of notice, but to the catalogue
house, handling thousands of pounds, it
made a nice profit. This he called rob-
berry, and guess he is about right.
| once had the pleasure of visiting a
large factory where they made knives,
forks and other things in that line. The
foreman of one of the rooms showed me
a pile of these goods and said they were
damaged. l examined some of them,
but | declare, until he showed me where
the flaw was, 1t Vas pretty hard to de-
tect it. 1t seemed to me a big waste
to throw these damaged pieces away,
and l asked him what they did with
them. He said they had a contract with
large catalogue house to take all dam
aged goods they had and showed me how
they wrapped and packed so as to keep
the flaws from being seen unless the ex-
animation was pretty thorough, This
was about the first time / had had my
eyes opened on this kind of business.
Paint, varnish, nice boxes, ETC.. can
hide a whole lot of devilment. Two or
three years ago everybody was going
crazy over buying from catalogue, but
! notice of late good many people are
getting their fill of it.
The Home Man.