Cameron County press. [volume] (Emporium, Cameron County, Pa.) 1866-1922, 1907-04-11

Editor Press
beg leave for space in your valuable
paper for the purpose ofanswering the
clipping over the signature of ~. G.
Barnett"
With all due respect to that article,
and with absolutely no prejudice or
ill feeling, whatsoever, / wish to speak
a word in defense of the home mer-
chant. Mr.. j. G. Barnett, the author
of this article, starts off by saying
"when our home merchant, or mer-
chants, tell US by trading with them we
keep our money at home" l no not
wish to put myself on record as stat.
ing that the merchant, or merchants,
did tell Mr.. j. @. Barnett, of this fact,
but nevertheless it is a fact, and Mr..
Barnett also further states that they
should also keep at home only legi-
innate profit, he is certainly very far
reaching, in that the writer is in no
position to know what the cost of diff
ferent articles may be in different To-
calties. This is simply a statement by
Mr.. Barnett, without one iota of proof
or any truth, whatever in it.
Mr.. Barnett states that some ner-
chant has told him that he lost, hund-
reds and even thousands of dollars
through credit business.
This may be true in very small de-
gree (Mr. Barnett seems to have a
knack of making assertions which
practically have no limit whatever to
them and right hear dear reader is
where | wish to impress on your mind
the old saying "that friend in need
is friend indeed" Just suppose for
one instance that the head of the family
is taken sick and the income is practi-
cally shut off, or some one in the family
has had an accident, such as a limb
broken, or you have lost your home
by fire or some other way, in fact re-
verses and troubles never seem to come
single; you have no money laid by for
rainy day. Now dear reader would
the mail order house hold you up and
supply you with the necessities of life
without the money in advance before
you get the goods Just take the
trouble to write them a letter and ask
them what they will do for you, or is
this the only time you patronize your
home merchant? Let us take another
step in this direction, is there any
children in your home. Now would
you have church or Sunday school
to send them to or public
park where they could play in or
public library they could learn and
educate themselves and other benefits
too numerous to mention, ask yourself
dear reader, if the mail order houses
built these for you.
Mr. Rartlattja aanop1 ii,
starts off like this, 'from these FACTS
we may form certain conclusions"
My dear friend you must first learn the
definition of the word fact. When
you are stating fact you do not start
out by using the word IF, taking Mr..
Barnett's second paragraph as whole,
with emphasis on the last two sent
ences, it is one of two things. Either
the rawlings of a thoughtless brain or
an insinuation that the merchants do
not pay their bills. Fellow citizens,
you can Judge for yourself how long a
merchant would stay in business if he
did not pay his bills. The third para
graph tells of bill of goods purchased
at the saving of$3.s1. In the first place
did this man give his home merchant
fair chance? Did he take the bill and
the cash and go to the home merchant
duu doh lOT IllS lOWeSU CASH uSuT6 Oh
this bills of goods? Did he realize that
there are at least three or more grades
of goods in nearly every article pur-
chased in generel store. Did he have
fair chance to examine the goods be-
fore he bought them. Did he compare
the quality after seeing them? I would
say that he simply took it for granted
that they were of the same quality.
This is probably the reason Mr.. Barnett
was satisfied with every article he re-
ceived in the order. Right here wish
to say that I, personally, know of sew
eral parties who were not satisfied with
the goods coming from these places.
Now gentleman by the name of
Hicks, seems to have something to say
in this article about the marvellous in
crease of the mail order business. This
must have been pretty dear letter for
the mail order houses to get up. AS |
hnderstond it now has taken four men
to land this in the CAMERON COUNTY
PRESS. In the latter part of the second
paragraph MIR. Hicks, makes this re-
mark: SIN fact it is contemptibly
mean for a merchant to saddle his
losses on honest customers who pay
for what they buy"
Dear friend If there was one grain of
truth in this remark of Mr.. Hicks, you
would see seven times the amount of
successful merchants that you see to-
day. And as far as dead beats are con-
cerned, my friend, the proper place to
commence action on that point is at
the state capitol. Speaking about the
parcels post, Mr.. reader did you stop
and think who is gang to pay for this?
1t is not the mail order houses; they
will foot the bill which will be very
small proportion and then they will
gracefully hand the burden over to the
poor tax payer. If your taxes are to
small help it along.
think ! have answered the prin-
cipal points in this, made to order
letter'' which the owner was ashamed
of himself and any reasonable minded
man will agree with us that he had
reason to be ashamed, therefore he
sent it in hY a substitute