The Winchester news. [volume] (Winchester, Ky.) 1908-19??, 1908-12-11
HOME TRADE ADVICE.
Keep Your Dollars Moving In
Your Own Town.
LOCAL UPBUILDING NEEDED.

Will Make Any Community Thrive.
FaIIacy of Trading With the Mail
Order Houses.
There is the same reason for building
munity that there is for building up
the trade and industries of a nation.
1t goes without saying that the coun-
tryswhich does most to foster the COM
merce the manufacturing and the pros
perity of its own people soon outdis-
tances the country which neglects
these things. The same thing applies
to small communities.
Now, that is just the principle in
volved in trading with home mer-
chants rather than with distant mail
order houses. To trade with the home
merchant helps home commerce and
home industry. To send money to the
distant mail order house helps that re-
mote concern, but depletes the commu-
nifty from which the money is sent.
Every dollar taken out of community
makes everybody in the community
that much less prosperous. If more
water flows out of a lake than flows
into it, there is only question of time
when the lake will go dry. If more
dollars flow out of a community than
flow into it, there is only a question of
time when everybody that lives there
will suffer for lack of money.
Take the farmer, for example. Sup
pose he trades with a mail order house
on the supposition that he can buy
goods cheaper there, supposition that
actual investigation shows in most
cases to be untrue. Every dollar the
farmer sends away leaves his cOmmu-
nifty short that one dollar. AS result
the home merchant suffers. When all
the home merchants suffer, the village
Itself becomes less prosperous. This
reacts OH the farmer. 1t is a truism
that a farm near a thriving town is
worth more. money than one near a
poor town. Therefore every time the
farmer hurts the merchant of his near
est village he is depicting the value of
his own acres. This is not a theory,
but condition shown by rundown vii
lagos and abandoned farms in many
parts of the land. The thing that
caused this havoc was not deteriora-
ton of the soil, but deterioration in
the local public spirit. The same thing
that causes dollars to go to the distant
city when they should remain at home
causes the boy or the girl to go to the
distant city when he or she should re-
main at home. The fault does not lie
In soil or other outer conditions so
They fail to appreciate their locality,
its charm and its possibilities. The
outcome of all this is that the city be-
comes congested both with men and
wealth, while the rural community
falls behind In the same degree. This
is not a healthy condition. Any ma
ton is in bad way whose cities grow
at the expense of its farms. When
the farmers are prosperous the nation
is prosperous, and no true and perma-
nent prosperity is possible otherwise.
But the farmer cannot prosper in the
highest degree unless those about him
prosper also. Local spirit, local pride,
local upbuilding, are the only things
that will make a locality thrive This
helps everybody in the community. 1t
creates more enterprise, more hope,
more emulation and more trade. All
these things mean better work, better
looking environments, better prices,
better results all around. Even if the
farmer gains a few cents by sending
ha l1rIC fa
more than he gains. But, on the whole,
article by article and dollar for dollar.
he can get better values by trading at
home than he can by sending his money
to the mail order house. This is sus-
ceptible of proof, and, indeed, has been
proved over and over again But aside
from the few dollars involved one way
counts.
The question is, Does one prefer
home prosperity or distant prosperity?
The farmer who sends his money to
the distant concern is not true friend
to bis children. If he expects them to
live in the same community he has re-
duced the future prosperity of that
community. This can only result in
impOverishing his children to that ex.
tent or in driving them to the distant
city where his dollars have gone. We
are parts of the society about us and
can no more be Independent Of its con-
ditions than a fish can be Independent
of the kind of water it is in. A fresh
water fish cannot live in salt water;
neither can a prosperous. man live per-
manently in an impoverished COM
munity.
Patronize your home concerns. They
are your best friends. AS you help
them they will help you. Be proud Of
your own community and have a COM
munity Of which you can be proud.
This sort of spirit builds natious,
builds states, builds municipalities and
builds neighborhoods. Nothing else
will build them. A man that does not
provide for his own is worse than an
infdel, and a man that does not help
to upbuild the community in which he
lives is traitor to his neighbors, to
his children and to his own best inter-
ests. This is the plain truth of the
matter plainly stated. 1t is a phi
soSophy that has been proved since the