Middletown transcript., 1916-09-16
TOWN PROSPEROUS"
Many Things Needed to Make The
Town Grow
AMONG OTHERS FINE STORES


Some Of the things that make town
prosperous are live, business men; a
wise Town Board with progressive ideas,
welcoming manufacturing plants, and
jealous for all the public improvements
that commend town to new corners;
such scrupulous care for the general
health as forbids an individual to main
tain any nuisance prejudicial to the
public health and comfort, such as ill
smelling piggeries, open fy-breeding
manure piles etc.
Finally, the prosperity of town is
very greatly dependent upon first-class
stores, and wanting these, no town can
keep, much less increase, its population.
OF these town stores it is the purpose OF
this article to speak.
1t would seem self-evident truth
that this prosperity and well being of
the town is of all it's business interests.
A live, growing town with poor, second
class stores is so impossible as hardly to
be thinkable.
One of the first questions the prospec-
tive new settler asks after inquiring
about the schools and churches, is
"What kind of stores have you? Are
they up-to date, and so well patronized
that they can afford to keep big stocks
of fresh goods constantly on hand?''
This question hits the nail squarely on
the head when it asks if the town stores
are patronized by its own citizens, since
only such stores can prosper.
Silently, and without our knowing it,
great social and commercial changes
are going on around US. Among others,
the inordinate growth in population and
wealth of the big cities. They are rob-
bing the country and town of its best
young blood, and in many cases of the
cream of its trade. This tends to make
a few business men in these cities enor-
.mously rich at the expense of thousands
of men doing business in the country
towns and villages.
One of these changes is the robbing
by the city mail-order houses of the
trade of our local town and village
stores. Parcels Post has done herein
some evil by helping these city monpo-
lists grow inordinately rich by cripplng
or wiping out multitudes of useful town
stores.
These mail-order houses pay no rents
locally, no wages, not penny towards
the support of the town or of the state,
not even the trifing sum of the business
license the town stores have to pay.
Because of these facts, their competition
is not fair one, and the citizens OF
these towns should be the last to en-
courage it.
Can these town people thus freeze
out their own town stores without them
selves suffering serious injury? Will
the injury not fall upon every Other
business, trade and profession in the
whole town? Nay, will not town prop
erty values, town rents, go down lower
and lower as these stores go out of busi-
ness or sink to the petty shops of the
country crossroads?
Certainly all this will happen; taxes
will go up as values go down and people
go out, till in the end, the once fiourishing
town famed for its fine stores and bis
trade will, slowly but surely, fall int
the dry rot decay that Goldsmith will
equal beauty and pathos pictures in hi!
famous Deserted Village"
Middletown has stores of all kind:
that would do credit to city, only, ii
fact, surpassed by few of the bigges
city stores. They are a big factor il
making the town what it is-a spo
where comfort and ease and most of th'
city blessings with the yet greater one
of the country. can be enjoyed by all
Should they, then, not have the lOya
support of their fellow toWnsfolk
Surely. And what is more, they mus
have it-or the whole town suffers jus
as certainly as the whole body suffer
from an injured eye, hand or foot
Suppose in some cases the buyer can
not find just what is needed in the loca
stores, would it not be fair in such case
to give them chance to get it for sue
buyer? Tell them just what you want
describing materials. qualities, styles
ETC., and in most cases they can and wi
get the very goods you want as cheapl!
as you could yourself by going to tn
trouble and cost of trip to the city O
the delay and cost of a mail order t
some city store. In this way you ca
really save money for yourself beside
helping them make their percentage
also.
Let the more well-to-do citizens 0
Middletown, who are the worst often
ders in this matter, refuse to do thi
justice to their local tradesmen, an
they do so at their own peril to hav
their reward of beholding at some fu
ture day MiddIetown become a "Dc
serted Village!"