The Dickinson press., 1913-02-08
AN INJURY TO THE CONSUMER

AIN lINJON1 ~ lie CONOUMEE
Some farm journals and several of tn,
more prominent national magazines fint
great amusement in setting up the re,
tail merchant for the most bitter sort O
d%enunciation.
Their object is very hard to find, un.
less it be that some of their readers
delight in hearing someone blamed for
the high cost of living, and look upon
the retailer as a legitimate mark to
shoot at.
Now we have no ak to grind, but al
a newspaper that likes to be fair, We
cannot refrain from repeating a few
facts, and letting you make your owl
conclusions.
Doesn't it seem strange to you that 8
system of distribution that takes care
of about 81 per cent of the merchandise
bought and sold. not only in America,
but in countries as old as France, Germ.
any and England. should be as rotten
as some folks would have you believe!
Personally w feel that there is q
place in this world for every legitimate
sort of business, and that we shall al
ways have room for the city department
store. the retail mail order house and
the ordinary retailer. Each of these
institutions serves a good end, and
none of them are going to die off.
They are all retailers, and while
their methods may vary, each one has
a work to do. That's why we don t like
to hear any of them called robbers,
highwaymen or III threats.
None of them are any of these things,
even if some ill-advised magazine,
from an u~nderhanded motive, does
choose to class them with thugs and
criminals.
In the first place the prizes quoted by
any one of them do not differ much
from the quotations of the rest. Each
system has its own peculiar economies,
and each one suffers from it's own De-
culiar sort of waste.
The department store may be able to
buy in larger quantities that the ordi-
nary retailer, but the running expenses
of the latter are so much lower than
those of the city establishment that
things come out ever in the end.
Of course the retailer can't carry so
many goods as the bigger fellows, but
you can examine and handle the goods
he does carry with perfect ease
Parcels post will increase the ease
with which you can shop at home, so
that the nome merchant will be still
better able to balance off the advan-
tages of his big competitors.
Now We don't pretend to think that
any home merchant has a right 10 your
trade unless he gives good service, good
value and fair prices. But neither do
we believe that a distant establishment
that has no personal interest in your
welfare should draw your business away
from home simply because they are ut
of-town enterprises.
That the home retailer is not a high
wayman. and that he does not practice
piracy, is proved by the fact that he
does not get rich The home retailer is
no better off than any of US, and when
a thoughtless magazine makes a bitter
attack upon him, it's like rubbing salt
IN a wound-and the merchant has no
means of retaliation.
That's the reason we have taken up
a cudeel in his behalf. Moreover, when
a bitter attack is made upon an in
dividual who is rendering so worthy a
service as that performed by the retail
er. the consumer suffers as we'll. y
A little carefal comparing in your
home market might not do you or your
home merchant anY harm.