Arizona republican., 1910-05-22
CHAS. F. JONES
 Manager
MERCHANTS ORGANIZE
 A PROTECTIVE BODY
They Will Agree Among Other Things
 on Protective System.

The merchants of Mesa ur at least practically ninety per cent of them have organized themselves into an as sociation for the purpose of adopting a credit system so that they may be able to protect themselves against the prOIhiSCuouS selling of goods tO ire spOnSible parties. The organization has been perfected with O. $. StapIey as president. C. Fred Bracket, vice president. and George Fitzgerald. sec retary. George Johnson, J. T. Lesueur and Cove Phelps were appointed on q | committee to draft a set of bylaws and if deemed necessary to look after the matter of incorporating.
 While the primary object of the as sociation has been outlined above the l details of just how the organization hopes to get at the desired ends is as follows:
 Ii iS q well known fact that the wholesale houses investigate the if nancial standing of the retailers. The retailers are subjected to investiga- tion to determine their standing be- cause il is a common practice and they recognize it as business. It is the intention of the local merchants to follow out the same plan with their customers It must not he construed by the foregoing that the merchants will investigate the standing of their cutomers who in any way show disposition to pay their debts but they will have d blacklist and on that list v,ll appear the names of the custom- Q who Ia fhair will of course be privileged to buy from any concern in the city as long as they pay the cash but any mcr- chant who extends credit to black listed customer will do SD at his own risk. It is recognized that where a merchant credits q black listed GUS toner even though he does so Knowing that the standing of the customer that he is in d measure weakening the real objects of the association vet it is be lieVed for time at least that the risk assured hy the merchant will be Suffi- cicnt to cause him to extend credit carefully
 Heretofore there has been an at tempt to organize d protective asSo- citation and a number ef the merchants have been heartily in favor of it but since a few have been slow in realizing the advantages of the proposition il has been disbanded before organiza- ton was effected However it is be- lieved that with the present repre- sentation of the merchants that the proposition cannot fail.
 As an example of the purpose of the association and to still make the ob- jects of the plain plainer a fitting illustration might be given as follows: Suppose that customer who has been running bills at the different stores and has refused payment and makes no attempt to pay and he goes to another store to open up an ac- count. the merchant vho is confronted with this customer by looking at his blacklist will have the information at hand as to whether to extend credit or not. As another illustration suppose a stranger arrives in this section and buys groceries and hardware or in fact makes any transa ctions which re- quire the payment of money and starts to open up an account at an other store it will then become the privilege of that merchant to get the
 
 determine whether the particular pros pectivc customer has been keeping up his accounts or whether he can be trusted or not.
 In the event that an incorporation IS effected q fee will be charged for the purpose of joining the charter members joining for q nominal sum and those coming in later will be charged slight advance Attorney 1 Silverthorn has already been employed | to look after the legal end of the prop l osition and practically every detail has ! been completed. The next meeting | will be held next Thursday evening at ! which time it is anticipated that the ! bylaws will be adopted and a decision reached as to whether the concern shall he incorporated or remain as an association.