The Farmington times. (Farmington, St. Francois County, Mo.) 1905-1926, 1914-07-03
THE MEANING OF THE
CLAFLIN FAILURE

The Clafln failure does not prove
that we are on the verge of such hard
times i'm the United States as m anac-
ed Europe last fall and winter or that
| business conditions generally are un-
sound. On the latter point, IN laGt,
| il is very roassurluG. The splendid
reaction Of our markets against the
decreasing influence Of the news told
IFS own story Of commercial sound
ness and business sanity. What the
failure proves is simply that we are
entering upon Il new phase IN the de-
vclopmcnt Of our machinery Of dis
tributiou Of such products as dry
goods. The manufacturer Is selling
direct to the consmer. In the old
days of transportation and long cred
its this was manlfestIy impossible.
We have improved at equal pace the
machinery of transportation and that
Of financial exchange.
To the jobber, face to face with
this growing tendency, two possible
curses were open. He might him
self become an investor in retail en-
terprises, so that the wholesale house
should come TO be, in a sense, ii mere
instrumentality for collective pur-
chase and distribution. Or he might
become manufacturer, adding to the
elaborate and efficient machinery for
distribution already developed the
machinery Of production. The Olaf
lin organization was an attempt a
along the first of these two lines; the
development of the dry goods bust
ness in st. Louis is an impressive IL
lustration of the second.
The Claflin plan had the inherent
and ineradicable defects of oVercen-
tralization. As many architects. OF
so-called trusts" have found to their
cost, there is natural limit to the
size of the business organization
which may be economically admin
istered from q single center. When
this limit is passed the organization
loses fleXibility; rules harden and sys-
TENS become mechanical; the bene-
fits of original initiative are lost. In
the Claflin organization the whole
was not equal to the sum Of its parts.
The organization broke down because
the principles upon which is was
founded were wrong.
Very different is the st. Louis solu-
ton of the same problem. Our
wholesale dry goods merchants nave
seen from afar the tendency OF the
times, with n vision characteristic OF
the business men of this community,
and have auietly-like our wholesale
hardware houses-provided against
possible future elimination Mt the
hands of the manufacturer by be-
coming manufacturers themselves.
The popular movement toward
ready-to-wear garments has occurred
at time specially propitious. in view
of all this. We are not accustomed
to think of the great dry goods houses
of this town as manufacturers, but
they are, none the less, and the pay
rolls Of the manufacturing depart
ments of some of them contain more
than a thousand narles each. Not
only are their factories growing stead
ily in size and number; they are be-
coming diversified in character. The
St Louis jobber is not being "elim-
mated" he is being transformed.
The Claflin plan for the reorgani--
cation of the jobbing business tended
to make business relations still more
complex The plan followed by st.
Louis jobbers frankly meets new con-
ditions half way. The Claflin fail
ure is not Mt all symptomatic of the
general business situation. II simp-
" provides one more illustration of
the impossibility of solving problems
arising out of the growth of business
and trade except along the lines of
natural development.--St. Louis Re-
public.