The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-06-30

most competent industrial organiza- tions of its kind in the country. Under the leadership of Gustav Koehler for ment into which his company has fallen not to any mistake of judgment, but to an unexpected and uncomfortable move ment of trade centers in New York In banking circles this explanation is be- heved to be entirely sound. The shifting or retail trade centers has been of phe- nomenal character, and 1t has been accom- panied with heavy expenditures for the construction of palatial-like business houses This involves very heavy inter- est charges upon the amounts expended in constructing buildings of that kind and in purchasing the land. Then, too, some of the retail stores whose customers are chiefly from the well-to-do have thought it prudent to make leases of buildings upon which very heavy rentals are charged. The shifting of trade centers to which MT. Claflin has referred began about l2 years ago The first movement was from lower Sixth avenue, where at the corner of Fourteenth street, one of the first and for many years the largest of thes department stores in New York had done business. The owners of this building were the Straus brothers. con spicuous as phllanthropists and for asso- citation with prominent public office. They bought plot of land at the corner of Thirty-fourth street and Broadway a mile away from the original site of their de- partment store. To many 1t seemed foolish venture, involving as it did heavy capital requirements But it was sue cessfuI, partly because there was great concentration of rapid transit at that point-elevated, surface and the terminal of the Hudson tube
 The Second Step
 This example was speedily followed by the sole owner of another great depart ment store which for years had done busi- ness on lower Sixth avenue. He ventured, however into the very heart of aristo- cratic Fifth avenue, and caused to be erected marble building, a copy in its architecture of the best Italian styles, and he chose his location directly across the street from the white marble home which A. T. Stewart had built. Within year or two one of the leading jewelry houses not only of the United States, but of the world, invested some $6.0O0,000 or $7000,00o in land and in the construction of a marble -fronted building and when this structure was completed transferred its establishment from Union square, a mile below, to the new building. There were speedily several followers in these magnificent footsteps and Twenty third street. which had long been the centeh Of high grade retail business, lapsed into d forlorn condition, Fifth avenue from Mad ison square far north as Central park, nearly two miles in all, being now for the most part occupied by these very expen- sive business structures.
 This shifting of trade centers had al- l ready caused the collapse of one or two 1 large department stores upon Sixth ave- nue. The proprietors of another of these stores. seeing with clearer vision than some of their neighbors, into the future, decided to liquidate their business. It was the shifting of trade centers which in part explained the failure of Henry Siegel last l winter. MT. Claflin asserts that this shift | ing of trade centers in New York did se- riously cut itno the wholesale profits so that his company was compelled to rely l for maintenance chiefly upon the prohts | which accrued from financing retail stores | this country. It seems to have | been from one point of view the actual of this business which made necessary very large new capital and at this time the H. B. Claflin company has found 1t impossible to secure that cap- | itaL
 Purely Local Reasons
 It will not be accurate, therefore. to as- | sert that the embarrassments of the Il.
 
 business conditions in the United States. They are chiefly due to a phenomenal. | very sudden shifting of trade centers | which has converted Fifth avenue from highway of aristocratic homes to what | European authorities assert is the finest | retail highway in the world. Hundreds | of millions of capital have been involved | in this shifting of trade centers.
 In what high esteem Mir Claflin is held | was made evident from the fact that some | of the leading men of finance of the coun- l try have organized a protective commit tee the expectation being that 1t will be | possible speedily to perfect plan Of re- organization which will accomplish for the present Fl. $. Claflin company what was accomplished for the original com pany which MT Claflins fabier built up. This company met with uncomfortable dif- iiculties at the beginning of the civil war. From them it emerged, and Horace Claf- lin, father of John, subsequently, paid every dollar due to creditors, many of these payments representing only moral 
 slmed that the embarrassment of sthis corporation will be of long duration MT. Ciaflin has gained a reputation which only the greatest merchants secure. He was not great merchant in the sense that A. T. Stewart or Marshal Field or 10. D. Jordan of Boston are, for these men were suprenlely great both as practncal retail and equally great in the count ing room. John Claflin was not, and never was. practical retail merchant. observing closely each department of retail store. studying markets and de- vising the best means for approaching those markets. These were features char acteristic of Al Stewart. Marshall Field and E. D. Jordan. But in the counting | room Mir. Claflin ranks with the greatest of American merchants.