The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-01-09
VIGOROUS FIGHT ON TRADING STAMPS President Board of Trade Gives
 His Reasons
  MONTGOMERY EXPERIENCE Ewing Says It Lost One Concern In Atlanta $1s,ooo, and No One Wants
 Them Who Has Had
 Experience.
MONTGOMERY EXPERIENCE

The trading stamp question continues to be an extremely live issue in Birming- ham, Conferences of merchants are held almost daily to discuss plans to combat the use of the stamps and the concerns advocating the stamps are apparently equally strenuous in maintaining that they. are good thing both for the merchant and customer The Board of Trade has taken leading part in the matter and President R. W. Ewing yes terday made a statement in answer to criticisms that had been made by the trading stamp people of a speech MT. Ewing made before the board at its meet ing Monday. In his statement MT. Ew- ing says:
 q notice that MT. Kenyon, in an adroit attempt to divert attention from the vital points of criticisms regarding the trad ing stamps, takes exception to one part of my remarks by presuming to the knowledge of a lawyer and declared that the tax or license of $500 on each mer- chant using trading stamps is unconstf- tutional, and refers to some case which went up from Montgomery, which he says IS JL IH6 Sdnle SnardCIeT.
 T am a little surprised that the gen. tleman refers to Montgomery, for I am just in receipt of a letter from Montgom- cry stating that they drove the trading stamp proposition out of Montgomery as a bad thing, and that it would be un- wise for a trade stamp man to show his head in that city again.
 fsrnhfs been standing upon the statute books of Birmingham for several years at S2O0 and has been recently raised to $500, and I presume the tax collector will proceed to collect it until the courts decide that it Is not constitutional. This question will have to be decided as to Birmingham specifically, as each municipality has the right to say what taxes concerns doing business within its borders has the right to say what taxes concerns doing bus mess within it's borders shall pay. Nat urally the trading stamp people are anx- ious that the customers whom they de- sire to sign up on their scheme should not be called upon to pay this tax, and in as much as I understand the trad ing stamp people have offered to refund or pay the mechants' tax themselves, it is natural that they should want to get out of it, if possible.
 '"The fact that the manager of the trad ing stamp company did not try to attempt to controvert the other statements which I made and which others also made at that meeting would seem to be tacit admis- sion of their truth. Among these state ments were the facts stated based upon correspondence with concerns who had formerly used trading stamps in other cities, viz: Atlanta, Nashville. Augusta, Savannah, Montgomery, etc, these state ments being very strong expressions de- rogatory to the trading stamps, and it does look like if the combined express sions of practically everybody who has used these stamps before in other cities are that they are a bad thing for the merchant and ultimately for the customer, the wise and proper thing for the Bir- mingham people to do is to keep clear of them. One merchant in Atlanta, whose letter has been published in the newspa- pers, says that they cost him $lS,OO0 @ year. He ought to know, and if they did cost him that much 1t is at once appar- ent that it is a terrible drain upon a business to have that much money taken away by any trading stamp or other SCeneme, ana II lutI colAlihNCh eAiO chant would be compelled to materially raise his prices. Disguise it as you may, the customer Is bound to pay for these stamps or premiums.
 "In addition to the experience of other cities who have been trying the trading stamps and have gotten rid of them be- cause of their many disadvantages, we have right here in our own city number of people who have tried them, and 1t might be we'll for any firm or individual who is thinking of going into the scheme to talk with these gentlemen before com hitting himself to a plan which has been so much criticised, and which has been driven out, either by combined eff fort or by legislation, from so many of the southern cities. Among those in our city who have once tried the trading stamp scheme and now strongly oppose it are the Fowlkes & Myatt company, Ben M, Jacobs & Bro, Caheen Bros, Ferd Marx Dry Goods company, Robert Prow ell Hardware company, Louis Saks, c. E. Cox MT Barton of the Hanover Shoe company, H. J. Porter and others.
 / Not Really Benefited.
 Another point of criticism which has been mentioned to me relative to the trad ing stamps Is that In many cases, this gentleman stated, 1t happened that the original purchaser or customer procuring the trading stamps from the merchant was not really benefited, as he was trad ed out of his stamps by professional stamp collectors. There seems to be a good chance for the stamps being divert ed from the customers use when it is mo- ticed that in the trading stamp peoples notice of conditions, upon which the holder accepts the book, the following, which places the stamps pretty thorough ly in the control of the Trading Stamp company, appears in very small type:
 Neither the books nor the stamps are sold to you or the merchant, the title thereto being expressly reserved in the undersigned. They are furnished to you as evidence of payments to our sub scribers. The only right which you ac- ouire in said stamps is to paste them in books like this and present them to us of them, or make any other use of them without our consent in writing We will in every case, where application is made to the undersigned, give you permission to turn over your stamps to any other bona- fide collector of IS. & H." green trading stamps; but If the stamps or the books are transferred without our consent, we reserve the right to restrain their use by or take them from other parties'
 "I believe that the scheme will work the biggest hardship upon the small mer- chant who unwittingly goes into 1t. I am reliably advised that four of the few peo- pie who are advertised as using trading stamps here have declined to use them, and I notice that Dr. Gum of the Gun Gambill and Gum Drug companies, in an interview yesterday in one of the papers states positively that he will not use the plan, and that he has requested the trad