The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-09-08

1 the goods out I'll pay twenty-five thou
 sand dollars more."
 The 1obber walked homo that night
 with his head in whirl.
 1 That Potter,' he said slowly to him self. shaking his head half in admiration
 and half in something like fear That Potterl He's a devil"
 Potter went straight back to Chicago. l During the next week the Independent
 Match company received an order from
 the Jobbing house of Parsons & Taft in
 Milwaukee, the biggest house in It's line l in the state and one with which the
 Independent people had never before been able to do any business The order | called for five carloads of matches and
 the managers of the Independent company
 were overjoyed, President Oldham of l the Universal heard of 1t and ordered his brokers to sell out the twenty thou sand shares of Universal stock they had
 bought for him. The deal netted him a
 slight loss, but he saw great opportuni- | ties on the other side of the market. A few moro sales like that reported to l Parson Ss Taft would certainly cause a big drop in trust stock. He would play l that end of the game to his own profit.
 It happened strangely enough that on 1 the day tho five car loads of matches were received in Milwaukee the house of Parsons &Taft found itself with d strike of freight handlers on its hands. l A great lot of goods were coming in at l the same time. and MT. Taft was obliged | to assume personal direction in handling l them. In addition to It's regular store | the firm conducted large oold-storage warehouse. and in the confusion incident l to the strike a good many errors were
 made. Goods which should have been sent to the cold-storage plant were sent
 to the store, and vtse versa.
 The strike lasted only forty-eight hours. grara af m
 again and peace and quiet settled down l over the whole tangled situation About forty days went by. Then all the 1 traveling salesmen of Parson 6S Taft. who
 covered tho states of Wisconsin, Iowa and
 Minnesota in their Journeyings, began to sell independent matches to the reta1l dealers. They met the cut rates made by the salesmen of the trust and ap- pealed to the sympathes of the rural deal or to patronize an independent. They
 were successful.
 At least one dealer in almost every
 town in the three states ordered anti trust matches The goods were shipped One week later Taft or Parsons &TRft
 found g. letter in his mornings mall which
 caused him to suppress a smile. It came
 from a retail grocer at Beoit. Wis. Parsons & Taft: Gents-The Indepen-
 dent matches you sold me are not good
 The - things won't even light Every
 body I sold them to has brought 'em back. I won't pay for them. You can get what's left of them whenever you want to. Yours truly,
 c, B. BRIGGS.
 That letter was only the start. Every mail thereafter brought similar letters, increasing in number and in bitterness. 'I don't like the trust worth a cent"
 wrote one man from up in the big woods country. but match that won't light
 until you hold 1t In the fire for half a
 minute ain't any better"
 Taft of Parsons &s Taft waited until
 he had about 900 such letters. Then he
 had copies made and sent them all fin one batch to the headquarters of the Inde-