The Blackfoot optimist. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1907-1918, 1914-04-09

phey Cigar stores Of Boise, Pocatello
Blackfoot and Idaho Falls, is in the
east rambling around with the cigar
trade, and the other day he bumped
into the editor of the Tobacco Leaf,
the big trade journal of the tobacco
business, and gave out one of his
characteristic views on business and
organization that contains many good
points, and is worthy of reproduction.
The story in the Tobacco Leaf reads
as follows, albeit the publications got
Frod mixed up with the wrong ter
ritory, citing his habitat as the Bit
ter Root mountains:
He blew in from Idaho and with
him there seemed to come a breath
of the breeze from the Bitter Root
mountains. He was westerner, the
genuine type from the real west, the
raw west; that part of the west which
twenty years ago was parchcd land
and sage brush, but which now is a
blooming garden. His name was
Murphy; Fred Murphy, Of Pocatallo,
cigar dealer. And, without knowing
it, perhaps, he preached q better edi-
torial than many self-satisfied cru
dite editor knows how to write.
+ + +
Seven years ago. he said, II
was railroading, with no particular
vocation, a very lean poch stbook and
a lot of ambition. On one of my
rambles I passed through Idaho,
stopped off at Pocatello, and thinking
l saw possibilities in the cigar busi-
ness, jumped into it.
did l say 'jumped?' That's not
the word, for it was short step, a
slow step and careful step, taken
after much deliberaticn and with a
thorough understanding of what
was up against. l began with little
case no bigger than the desk at which
you are sitting.
That, as l said, was seven years
ago, and l. could hardly tell cigar
from lead pencil.
To-day l have six establishments
in four cities, every 'one of them q
paying proposition; and l did a bust
MSS last year, wholesale and retail.
Of quarter CT million dollars.
How did l do it? l did it by using
my head instead of my hands; by
looking a little farther ahead than
the end of my nose, and by exercis-
ing the ordinary common sense with
which every man is provided, and
which will do for every man what it
has done for me, and perhaps more,
if he will only draw upon it.
Il don't like to talk about myself,
but, since you have ask ID, me, that's
the truth. And besides, am look
ing fer information. l want to know
why it is that almost everywhere !
see cigar dealers throwing up their
hands and calling for help and cry
ing that the day Of the cigar dealer
is done.
what l have accomplished in the
past seven years any other ab!ebod-
led man can do in the n KIT seven
years. And conditions are mere ia
now than they were then.
"Soven years ago, you will remem
Der, the troubles of the tobacco trade
were in their most acute stage Ev
erybcdy was crying that the entire
industry, from the growing of the
leaf to the retailing of the product
was in the hands of the trust.
THE tobacco crops We're in poor
way, the tobacco trust was at the
height of it's power, and the United
was adding a store week to its
chain.
But these conditions. hundred
per cent worse then than they are
now, did not feaze me. figured that
the country was sound, that my head
was as lev>l as the next fellows and
hat any man having ambition and
business ability could get along
And when l stocked my little six
DOT case with cigars and tobacco,
ind planned my s1lling campaign l
lid it with the same attention to de-
all and with the same thought and
study that l would have given it i
t had been giant chain store sys
EN- with million dollars behind it,
Il thought out new ideas and Or
ginal schemes; but in addition to
hat l watched what my competitors
we're doing.
Il read The Tobacco Leaf from!
over to cover; l watched the tactics
Il every live cigar merchant that !
ould see or read about, and when
yer l saw them using what looked
ike good idea l grabbed it.
Some of them were using cou-
'on system. I put in a coupon sys-