The Leavenworth echo. [volume] (Leavenworth, Wash.) 1904-current, 1914-11-06
CONSUMER FINANCIALLY
BENEFITED BY LOYALTY
TO HOME INSTITUTIONS
Farm Values Gagged by NearneSS to a
Live City
Merchant and Patron are Mutually In
tereSted in UpbuiIding Community

To you again may chance 10 roam. .
1t is possible that the person who
sends his money away from home doe:
not stop to consider what effect hi;
action may have upon the business
conditions of his community and in.
directly upon his own fortunes. 1t is a
fact plainly evident and thoroughly
demonstrated by the experience Of any
number of communities throughout the
land, that not only farm values. but the
price of farm products as well, depend
largely upon the proximity Of a good
market.
If the residents of the country tribu-
tary to small cities insist on buying
their supplies from out-of-town houses
and travelling agents, the community is
deprived of business that legitimately
belongs to it. The money thus spent
is lost to that particular locality as a
circulating medium and with the re-
sultant decline of business begins the
inevitable decline of community welfare
and community values. When you de-
crease the business and population oil
your home town and surrounding coun-
try, your own home in turn will be
bound to suffer depreciation. Any
policy which has tendency to iniure
your neighbor will in time react and
you will have to bear your share Of the
damage.
1t is sound economic principle to
spend your money where you make it.
Only in very rare cases is there any
necessity or excuse for anyone sending
away from the home town for goods;
the local dealers are able to buy just
the same goods as the city merchants
at just as low prices, and if they do not
happen to have the article called for in
stock, can always get it for a customer
on short notice.
Commenting on the death Of the
late Montgomery Ward, the we'll known
president OF the big mail-order house
that recently opened a Pacific coast
branch in Portland, the American Fair
Trade Magazine says:
Mr.. Ward leaves a fortune OIL
twenty million dollars in his own name,
and a business of seventy-fve millions
year, built up at the expense of the
small towns and villages of this great
country and not cent OF it ever gets
back to help build up the community
from which it came.
"The situation is surely one Of great
significance. 1t seems that but to read
list Of the country merchants who
every year close their stores and aban-
don their business on account Of the
seductive influence the silent sales
man of the catalog house has gained
in their communities, would be suffi-
cient to establish beyond a doubt that
every mail-order purchase by citizen
is direct and deadly blow at the pros
perity OF his own community. Fol
practically every such commercial fail
ure, a good home is disrupted and g
sturdy, progressive family is scattered
and lost to the community"
President Wilson has spoken on this
general line more eloquently, perhaps
than anyone before him. He said:
THE vitality OF America does moi
lie in New York, nor in Chicago, mol
in any other large city, no matter what
its wealth or resources; it will not be
sapped by anything that happens in
St. Louis; neither will it be affected BY
a Galveston flood or a San Francisco
earthquake. The vitality OF America
lies in the brains, the energies and
enterprise of the people throughout the
land. There dwells the vital forces
that are destined to make this the
grandest country in Christendom.
There is the wealth OF America, and il
America discourages locality-the com.
munity-the self contained town-she
will kill the nation"
Suppose that everybody in your town
and community were to send away from
home and purchase all their supplies
In few months the ultimate result
would ensue-the closing of all the
fine large stores in you town; daily
decrease in population; and an enor-
nous shrinkage in real estate values