The Evening statesman. [volume] (Walla Walla, Wash.) 1903-1910, 1909-03-05
TA|L0RS LOSING
TO READY MADES
ADVERTISING, SAYS ONE OF
THEIR NUMBER, is TIE ONLY
WAY TO GET BACK.
Have Relied Too Long Upon Dignity
and Have CareIessIy Let Ad-
vertising Chances Slip BY.

CHICAGO, March 5-The several
hundred tailors who attended the Mer-
chant Tailors' National Exchange con-
vention at the Hotel Astor last week
gave their attention to lot of things
besides style
The matter put up to the men as
sembled was how to keep up with the
ready-made people with their attrac-
tive pictures of broad shouldered
tackles and fullbacks wearing crease
less garments and dragging along
bulldogs by slender chains, talking the
while to sweet young things in Paris
ian millinery on sunny day at the
country club.
you merchant tailors," said Her
bert Kaufman, speaking before the
convention, 'have arrived at point
where you must pay dearly for your
refusal to buy advertising protection
in time. You have too long relied upon
your trade dignity. For years you
have allowed yourselves to be tried in
the court of public opinion without a
counsel. Even poor ready-made suits
can compete successfully if no one re-
flutes the overstatements of their man.
uufacturers.
"Bit by bit your trade has been tax
en- from you. The tailoring business
in this country in the last twenty years
and especially in the last decade prec-
tically has stood still-in an era of
great incomes ard of enormous in
crease in extravaganza. But in this gen
Grafton of spenders you are doing well
if you do as we'll as did the tailor of
1880. You are dealing with a lot of
sioues, and are making clothes for
men who learned the advantages of
merchant tailoring before the ready
maker started to advertise.
'"There was time when no college
man could wear ready-mades, but
now hardly a college man wears tailor
mades. And the son is weaving the
father away from you. N:aetv per
cent Of men nowadays go to the ready
| made stores for their clothes. There
was a time when the ready-maker
told your customer that fifty dollars
| for a suit of clothes was an imposi-
| ton, and that he could buy as good
a suit for twenty Now the ready
maker is actually getting fifty dollars
| at retail for suits himself.
"You have lowered your prices-in
| spite of increased cost to you-to meet
| the competition at a time when all men
are willing to give a higher average
price for anything they desire. There
| is only one way for you to reestab-
| lish your strength and that is to meet
your opponent in the same court where
|she is opposing you.
"You must go into the same newspa-
pers that he uses and have your say
| where he is having his; you must talk
to the same people and counteract the
| influence of what ne is telling them
I know of no way in which this can
be done except through communal
work. You must get down to the basis
Of cooperation. or there won't be
merchant tailor in America ten years
from now Remember what happened
to the custom shoemakers. You may
have better case than the ready
made man, but the customer doesn't
hear you You talk with him only
when he comes into your store-the
ready made man talks with him in his
own home through the magazines"