Courier Democrat. (Langdon, N.D.) 1891-1920, 1907-12-19
MAIL ORDER MENACE
Smaller Cities and Towns the
Prey of a Modern Octopus.
AN INNOCENT ACCOMPLISH.

r. F. D. Man Is Made to Serve as AGENT
For the Big City Store to the Detri-
ment of Local Merchants and the
Community Interests.
A recent writer describes at great
length n Of the big mail order stores
In Chicago, covering twenty-five acres
IT floor space and refusing to sell any
thing to anybody in Chicago. This
writer discovered that there is one
employees who is an expert ON post
offices. He knows every postoftice in
the United States. Give him the name
of a small city. village or crossroads
place and he will tell you at once the
county and state in which it is located.
In one department is a vast card index
system, with the and addresses
Of the many thousands of customers,
people from everywhere under the sun.
After explaining the system of receiv-
ing and filling orders the writer con
cludes with this significant paragraph,
which is an important item for the con-
sideration of every ~storekeeper in
smaller towns and also for every resi-
dent of the smaller towns and the
farming country:
"In the mail order store the cata-
logue is the show window and the viii
lage %postoffice is the bargain counter.
No longer does Lydia Jones hear ia
Their say that he is going to hitch up
and go down to Bassctt's and the vii
lage.' Instead, little Mary runs out
and drops the orders in a rural deliv-
cry box, and then when the mails and
the store and the express company
have applied their machinery back
comes the new harness, the pound of
coffee, the wooden mittens and the
game of parchesi. 1t looks as if the
old crossroads store would have to go
down before this new kind of shopping
shopping with postage stamps"
The writer just quoted does not mean
by 1.-THE old crossroads store merely
the establishment at Piney Fork or
Haze Run; he means also the stores
i'll cities of considerable size, in the
substantial towns, in the pretty vii
lagos, with which Uncle Sans land is
blessed in great abundance. He means
to say that it looks as if the local store
everywhere would have to go down
before ''this new kind of shopping
shopping with postage stamps" OF
course he does not mean that all the
local stores will have to go down so
far that they must shut up shop and
quit business, but that the drain upon
their patronage promises to be SO
great that some of them will go down
and out and others will find mighty
hard Shedding.
AS Grover Cleveland once wrote, "It
is a condition and not a theory that
confronts u.s." the "us' meaning the
citizens of every town and countryside,
including yours and ours. 1t is up to
us to combat this tendency of the
country people to do their shopping
by mail instead of in person, thus let
ting the local stores shift for them
selves. Both the merchants and the
nonmerchants are vitality interested in
this matter, inasmuch as all citizens
are mutually dependent, and what
hurts the town and community hurts
the people who belong there.
The rural free mail delivery is a
great thing for the farmers no doubt,
but it is unquestionable that the es-
Enlistment of these routes has a dis
tinct tendency to hurt both the town
and the country. The tendency is to-
ward the depreciation of land values
both as to town lots and farm acre
age. How and why? Well, simply
because the farmer and his family
travel to town less frequently now
| than before, since their mail is deliv-
cred to them each day. The women
| folks, who do most of the buying. find
it extremely easy to look up something
in a catalogue. buy a money order
from the r. Il. d. man, stick a postage
| stamp on an envelope and receive from
MI. II. +. DIS hands in Il few days the
article ordered.
The ~storekeepeps in town lose the
trade which they formerly enjoyed.
Some Of them go out of business.
There is much less money in circula-
llOu uIOuuu loNii, III SeS VI W
tinuing to grow the place begins to
decay. With the town on the down
grade farm property in the vicinity
likewise takes the toboggan chute.
There's no doubt Of it. The logic is
clear. The person who gets into the
mail order habit may imagine that he
or she is getting good bargains, but in
the long run the community is sure to
lose by the process.
The remedy lies with the people of
each community. The local merchants
can do their part by becoming more up
to date, advertising their goods in the
local paper in such an attractive style
as to compete with the catalogue peo-
pie, and the citizens in town and coun-
try can cooperate effectively by de-
veloping a deeper sense of community
interest.
If "the catalogue is the show window
and the village p~ostoff1ce is the bargain
counter of the mail order store, the
r. r. D. vehicle is the delivery wagon
for the mail order store, and Uncle
Sam innocently supplies it by the thou
5000 r&~ N,.N%