The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1914-02-13
Speaker At National Cham
ber of Commerce Asserts
Chain Stores Threaten Ex-
istence of Small Retailer.
TENDENCY is MARKED
Cigar Trade Controlled By
Big Concerns While Big
Department Stores Estab-
lish Branch Houses.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 13-Having
conquered the industrial field, the
great financial interests are now striv-
ing for monopolies in the retail bus
ness of the nation, William H. Inger-
soil. New York merchant, told the
delegates to the meeting of the Cham
ber of Commerce of the United States
here today.
He made his assertion concerning
retail monopoly in the course of a
speech advocating a law permitting
makers of trademarked articles to
dictate the price of retail to the re-
tailers. Price cutting of well-known
brands is one of the principal weap-
ons now in the hands of the great
retail monopolist, he argued.
Threatens Competition.
THE progress made by certain
classes of retailers, not only threatens
the existence of the brands themselves
but tends to divert trade from the To-
cal centers to the great stores of the
large cities, oppresses the thousands
of small merchants in cities and the
smaller towns, and is bringing about
the same concentration of business
in the retail field which has thrust
upon the American people the trust
problem, which they have had such
difficulty in wrestling with in the in
, dustrial feld," said Mr. Ingersoll. 1T
not only hurst business in the smaller
centers, but by lessening the Oppor-
tunity for the young people growing
up there, contributes to the depopula-
tion of the towns, sending them to
the cities in search of opportunity.
Whether in Boston, New York or
San Francisco, or almost any city in
between them, you will find that with
in the last dozen years the drug bust
ness and the cigar business has been
| largely brought withinthe control Of
single companies operating chains Of
stores; in fact, the cigar business
| from coast to coast is in no small de-
gree in the hands Of a well-known
chain store system with its thousand
branch establishments; while the
! president of this same company is
reported recently to have acquired
! control of the largest chain store syS-
tenn of drug stores, with the proba-
! bility of similar nationwide extension.
! In Philadelphia, it is reported, that
! within five years over half the grocery
stores have been put out of business
by chain stores, and chain grocery
stores on nationwide scale are get
ting their hold on the market. one
! system now having some Eve hundred
branches.
Growth Phenomenal.
Not only do we find the depart
ment stores as units, but these mann
moth institutions are being themselves
combined into a great chain, which
already has control of the leading es-
adjustments in nearly fifty of the
principal trading centers of America.
The company is understood to be
closely affiliated with the largest
wholesale business in America, own
ing factories and having control Of
many subsidiary businesses from pi-
amos to haberdashery. Smaller chains
of department stores are numerous,
and Boyd's Lists, offer to furnish the
names and addresses of ten thousand
: chain store systems in this country.
! All sections are affected. and the
smaller links are being rapidly merged
into greater chains.
! The present unScientific, unfair
! sale of quantity discounts allowed
! generally to large buyers is turning
the retail business into one, not of
merchandising, but of financial man
ipulation to combine outlets so as to
gain buying power and be able to un-
derbuy the general run of merchants.
"A premium is put upon mere size,
| permitting wastefulness of manage
ment through unearned buying advan-
tage, penalizing the small independent
dealer, closing the way to the new
conner and making it impossible for
the individual retailer to compete re-
gardless of how capable he may be.
Quantity discounts should be reduced
to scientific scale or abolished as
rebates for quantity freight shipments
! have been abolished under the law"