Bonners Ferry herald. [volume] (Bonners Ferry, Idaho) 1904-current, 1913-05-09
SHOULD BUYAT HOME
HOME TRADE WINs-ACTS OF
MANY PEOPLE INDICATE
BENEFITS FORGOTTEN.
OUGHT TO FAVOR LOCAL MERCHANTS
Is Backbone of Country Town-City
Mail Order House Is Its Worst
Enemy-Spend Money Where
You Get 1t.

1t should scarcely be necessary to
tell the people of this community OF
the benefits to the community OF
home trading and buying. Everyone
knows that buying ones requirements
of the local dealers helps directly in
the upbuilding of the home town, in
the development and prosperity of the
entire community and in making it,
in every way. a more desirable place
in which to live. Everyone knows
also that buying ones requirements
from some distant city helps to stifle
local business, retards the growth and
development of the home town, causes
a depreciation in both town and farm
land values. impoverishes the local
market for farm produce and tends to
xiii off the prosperity and wellbeing
of the entire community. Yet the
acts of many of our people indicate
they have forgotten these facts or are
willfully closing their eyes to them.
Nevertheless, business is business
and if people can make a material
saving by sending away for the
things they need or want, they can
not be greatly blamed for doing so.
But in nine cases out of ten the facts
of the case are that taking into ac-
count actual quality of the goods,
terms of sale and transportation
charges, one can buy nearly anything
he needs or wants of his home mer
chant just as economically as he could
get the goods from any other sources,
and in many cases the home dealer
really gives better value for the mon
ey. There are three things that gov
ern the price of any article-quality,
supply and demand. There is no arti-
Gle of ordinary use that the home
merchant can not buy in the open
market and there is no living man or
concern that can materially cut the
price of any article without cutting
the quality.
Some 20 or 80 years ago approx
mately two-thirds of the population of
the United States was in the small
towns and country districts with only
one-third in the cities. Now the sit
uation is just about reversed, with
two-thirds of the people in the cities
and only one-third in the country.
This, probably more than anything
else, is responsible for the present
high cost of living and many existing
social and industrial evils.
The conditions which have fostered
away-from-home trading are RESPONSE
BILE, more than anything else, for this
desertion of the country and the con
gestion of trade and population in the
big cities with all it's attendant evils,
| and for these conditions the country
merchants are not entirely blameless
They can supply the goods and met
outside competition, but if the public
does not know this and if the lure OF
the handsome catalogs from distant
concerns is stronger than the business
methods and personality of the local
merchants, who is to blame? If mer
= chants expect to hold the trade that
rightfully belongs to them, they must
convince the people by advertising and
other methods of publicity and by
progressive methods that they have
the goods for sale and at fair prices
The retail merchant is the back
bone of the country town; the mai
> order concern is its worst enemy. The
farmer needs the town and the tow
/ must have the farmer. Every resi-
dent of the community is equally in
terested in the trade-at-home idea. Re
= member. if you spend your none.
. where you get it, you will be able Il
+ get it where you spend it.