The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1915-07-29
RURAL PROSPERITY MENACE

One of the great dangers that men
aces rural prosperity, although they
fail to realize it is the great and con-
stantly increasing business of the big
catalogue houses that are constantly
draining the country districts of their
ready money.
This danger is generally supposed
to threaten the local dealers only. In
deed many country residents labor
under the delusion that they are OF
real benefit to the farmers, and those
that patronize them, but they really
are as detrimental to the interests
of those that purchase of and through
them, as they are to the local mer-
chants.
No agricultural territory, that is
not interspersed with thriving villages
and towns is ever really prosperous
or has a solid foundation for future
prosperity. The financial welfare of
farmers is interdependent on the well
fare of the adjacent villages and
towns, neither can thrive unless both
thrive.
The home market of communities
the same as that of nations is more
valuable than the outside market.
The more business a community does
within itself and the less it buys from
the outside the better is it's financial
condition.
The business that goes to outside
mail order houses if kept at home,
would so improve local business con-
ditions that the resultant benefits
would far exceed any difference in
the price of the articles purchased.
1t is very doubtful if any real saw
ing is achieved in buying from the
catalogue houses when everything is
taken into consideration. The man
ayers and ad. writer's of these con-
Germs are past masters in the art of
selling deceit. On some articles, the
price of which the public are familiar
with, startling reductions are some
times made, on others, whose values
are unknown to purchasers, ten to
twenty per cent more than the local
dealers ask are charged.
An acquaintance of ours the pro-
prietor of large general store, it
might also be, termed a Department
Store, in town about the size of Sank
Centre, keeps this notice standing at
the head of his advertisement:
eff you are thinking of buying a
bill of goods from a mail order house
send or bring the bill to us. We will
duplicate goods and prices, deliver
your goods the same day and afford
you the privilege of exchange if not
satisfactory. In this way you will
save transportation charges and pos
tage."
The proprietor informed me that
he had filled hundreds of such orders
made out from mail order catalogues
and made as much on them as on his
regular trade and sometimes more
what he lost on some articles he made
up on others.
This establishment spends a sum
every year on advertising that would
take the breath away from most mer-
chants in cities of the same size, yet
he does the largest and most profit
able business of any establishment OF
similar kind between the Twin
Cities and Fargo.
If every local dealer in the country
would follow similar course every
catalogue house in the country would
be forced out of business in five years.
The mail order house is a problem
that must be met. Let their patron
age increase during the next ten
years as rapidly as they have during
the past and local dealers will be
forced out of business and country
villages and towns will degenerate in
to mere distributing stations for great
mail order houses located in the large
cities and the rural districts into mere
provinces subject to city dominion