The Sauk Centre herald., 1907-12-05
HURTS BUSINESS
J. J. Ryan Gives his Opinion Of
of the Effect of the Supply
on the Small Town

Grocers' Association, hands tt e
Herald the folio wing Tor publication:
Among the scholars who attend
ed the academy at Elizabethtown, N.
Y, with me twenty-five years ago
were about hundred sons of farm
ers, such as 1 was About twenty-five
of them have since gone into the
mercantile business in nearby coun-
try towns, and without exception they
have failed in business. The Chicago
catalogue houses accomplished their
ruin.
Not only have the merchants been
driven out of these towns, but to-day
in some Of them you cannot buy or
get repairs for such articles as q
wagon, harness, stove, shoe, furniture,
ETC. for love or money. Twenty-Five
years ago, when | lived there, you
could buy and get repaired anything
needed on a farm in these villages.
"These men have been driven out of
business through no fault of their
own, but because an Assyrian peddler
in Chicago, some Fifteen years ago,
laid down his pack and invested his
surplus, some $4,000, in catalogues
about the size of family Bible, and,
sad to say, they have driven the Bible
out of many home. These cata-
logues are illustrated with pictures and
ingenious descriptions of every art
icle known, whether useful or useless,
and curiously has created almost as
large demand for the latter as for
The former. Every year millions of
these catalogues are sent out from
Chicago at an average delivered cost
Of 81 each.
You infer from reading their cata-
togua thai hey have 10 expenses, and
are doing business for the producer
ard consumer without profit, unIl
one of them makes sworn statement
that his net, profits in the past ten
years were S40,000,000, which sheds
light on the cause of the failure uE
he farmers SONS as merchants---and
III New York state 80 per cent of the
merchants are the sons of the farm
ers. Some Of the smaller towns have
surrendered their charters because the
merchants who formerly paid the eX-
ira taxes necessary to maintain a
village government are no longer
there At on open meeting Of 10
cal grange the question of buying
in Chicago was freely discussed by
the farmers. Most of them admitted
they could do better by buying at
home, ard in the minds of all VINO eX-
pressed themselves there was a doubt
as to the adyisabiIity Of sending their
money away from home, and al We're
opposed TO building up a great mono
pcly III Chicago that would forever
close The door of opportunity against
The farmers sons in the mercantile
line.
minnesota is beginning to feel
the competition OF the foreign mall
order concerns acutely. | know d
farmer in Sibley county who gave
his son $4,000 to start general store
and the boy only lasted two years.
1t happened this same farmer had
himself been buying from the cata-
logue houses for ten years past, pass
ing up his own town, and the town
passed his son up.
'The last census showed a decrease
/ in many of the towns in Southern
Minnesota. AS an example, take the
once flourishing town of Ottawa, on
the Northwestern railroad, which the
merchants had to abandon because the
people in that locality sent their mon
ey to the Chicago catalogue houses.
There are at least twenty vacant
buildings in the town that are going
to decay, and the village charter was
surrendered.
1.-THE value of every farm in Min
nesoa is determined largely by its
distance from a market An acre
near the Twin Cities is worth hum
dred acres away off in the country,
and farm close to village is worth
two farms ten miles out, while in
Northern Minnesota to-day land is
practically valueless because there is