Ladysmith news-budget. [volume] (Ladysmith, Rusk County, Wis.) 1907-1927, 1911-02-17
PRACTICAL BOOSTING
HAS A PART IN
BUILDING UP A CITY
PENNY WISE AND POUND FOOLISH

Monev Sent East Doesn't Build Busi
ness Blocks in Ladysmith or
Pay Taxes in Wisconsin !.
In replying to letter received from
farmer friend, relating to the pat
ronage of catalog houses, the Mer.
chants Trade Journal presents some
sound arguments which cannot fail tc
appeal to every buyer who has at heart
the best interests of the community in
which he lives. The following is a
severe arraignment Of the catalog
houses:
We have said repeatedlysthat if the
catalog houses do business on the
square, they have just as good a right
to be in business as has anyone else.
This is their American privilege, and
SO long as they do business on the
square they ought to have the protec-
tion of the law in every way. When
they do business on the square they
ought to be protected from any publ
cation saying anything against them.
[ hardly see how you can uphold
them, when one of them is now under
indictment in the United States courts
for using the mails for fraudulent pur-
poses. Surely when the United States
government brands a concern as a
fraud, there must be some grounds for
it.
| was just wondering if you knew
that & Co., in buying
tables from certain table manufact-
urer, took the tables that had split legs
and split tops, these cracks, of course,
being filled up with some kind of ma
terial.
I wonder if you know that a certain
mail order house buys odds and ends
from practically all of the jobbing
houses in Chicago. These odds and
ends are stuff that retail merchants
will not buy from these wholesale
houses.
wonder if you know that certain
mail order concern in Chicago, on sew
eral different occasions, has gone to
of different lines and
asked them to make them up the cheap
est article they could and make it look
good.
wonder if you know that the whole
sale houses in Chicago have made the
statement that if they had any stuff
that would not pass muster, that they
could fird market for it with the cat
alog houses.
| wonder if you know that it is an
fact that if wholesale shoe
house in Chicago has some shoes that
are out of style and out of date, that
the catalog houses in Chicago will buy
them.
wonder if you know that The Stick
ney Mfg. Co., of St. Paul, three or four
months ago, was given judgment for
a good many thousand dollars against
a certain catalog house, because this
catalog house bought gasoline engines
from the Stickney people and then,
when they advertised them, quoted
them at a higher horsepower than they
were. The court gave the Stickney
people this judgment becsuse it injured
the manufacturers to have the catalog
houses rate their engines at a higher
horsepower than they would develop.
| wonder if you know that the cata-
log houses in Chicago will not sell
goods at all to Chicago people.
/ wonder if you know that a certain
who makes cream sepa-
rators for certain catalog house hires
the very cheapest kind of mechanics.
wonder if you know that certain
manufacturer of sewing machines, who
makes machines for -- --- & Co.
and also makes machines for retail
dealers, found when they tried to make
the cheap machines for the catalog
houses and the good machines for
the dealers, that it did not work
at all, and the result was that all
their mechanics deteriorated in their
ability. So marked was this con-
dition that the manufacturer makes
the statement himself that they found
it necessary to institute separate
with cheap help to make
the catalog house machines.
| wonder if you know that the rail
road companies have more claims
against them for mail order house
goods, because of the inferior quality.
than they have from any other concern
covering the same amount of ship
ments.
wonder if you know that the agri-
cultural and food department of North
Dakota issued little booklet in which
they showed that lot of catalog house
paint had as high as II per cent of
water in it, and that practically all of
it did not show single trace of white
lead. Not only that, but that prac-