The Winchester news. [volume] (Winchester, Ky.) 1908-19??, 1908-12-23
MAIL ORDER ORIGIN.
System Grew Out of Failure CT
Oranges Business End.
MlDDLEMAN is ELIMINATED.

MiUOIEmHN 10 GliNlNH Gu.
When the Grange Stores Quit Sup
ply Agent Continued This Idea on
the Catalogue PIan-Immense Growth
From Small Beginnings.
The story Of the rise of the so called
mail order business Is an interesting
chapter In our commercial history
The spread Of the craze-for it must
Be classed as such-resembles that of
IN ordinary epidemic against which no
precaution is taken. The disease has
until very recently been allowed to
spread without even quarantine regu-
lations. But from present indications
its decline will be as rapid as was its
rise.
The idea of selecting goods from a
catalogue containing pictures of the ar
ticles and then ordering the articles
thus selected by mail was the direct
result of the failure Of the business
end Of the grange movement, the
grange store. writes Richard A. Haste
In Maxwell's Talisman.
Not so many years ago, but before
the telephone. the rural routes and the
ihterurban electric lines had brought
the town and the farm into the present
close relations, there existed In the
rural communities an active prejudice
against townsfolk generally and the re-
tail merchant In particular. He was
q "middleman" and wholly unneces-
sary. He was looked upon as hu-
man drone, a nonproducer. and as such
not entitled to any fixed place In the
economic scheme Of civilization.
As the working bees every fall when
the FIRST frosts come to blight the flow
ers cast the drones from the hive, SO
the middleman was to be cut out Of the
equation Of trade, eliminated from the
problem, and through the grange store
the farmer would deal directly with
the manufacturer. Millions Of dollars
would be thus saved to the workers
by this short cut across the commercial
Geld. The grange store would buy the
produce of the farm and In turn sell to
the farmer the essentials Of life with
out profit either going or coming.
In carrying out this simple scheme
the grange, not being acquainted with
the mercantile business. employed
agents to buy goods for the grange
store, and the store was then run by q
"hired mana man Of more or less ex-
perience in handling retail trade, but
who had no interest In the business
He was simply hired man.
One Of these supply agents was o
Arm the name Of which now stands
second If not first among the catalogue
houses Of today. This firm, If l am
net mistaken. was then located in Mil
waukee, and its business was to supply
the grange stores Of the middle west
with goods-to gczinto the market and
buy as cheaply as possible for its prin-
e3pals.
For few years the grange store
nour;shed. There was much interes,
manifested In this new trade toy. Ii
was boldly asserted that the day of the
middleman, the retail merchant, ha'
passed. But, like all complicated ma
chimes run by hired men, it got out
Of order and then stopped. The band
cd farmers found that instead of saw.
ing money by means Of the grangs
store they had actually lost money
The grange stores were accordingly
closed, and the stockholders charged
ND the little loss to experience and
turned to the ever interesting discus
sion Of the tariff on wheat.
With the passing Of the grange store
the firm above referred to was left
without a business. But out Of the
wreck it saved two things that proved
TO be most valuable-a list of names
Of the farmers of the middle west
and an idea. With this capital stock
the first catalogue house was started
1t was a commercial inspiration born
Of the then conditions. But the discov.
erer was not left long In exclusive pos
session Of this find. The pickings were
30 rich and the possibilities of ex-
pioitation so exceptional and safe that
others entered the field until now the
competition has become about as sharp
rs 1t Is in the retail trade. Indeed, the
original catalogue house-none genuine
without our stamp concern-has been
outfooted by a young rival which
struts before the commercial world
with a capital stock of $40,O00,OO0.