The Mankato free press., 1916-04-21
CREDITS WAS SUBJECT
AMONG THE DEALERS
Interesting Meeting Held Last
Night BY Merchants
WILL ORGANIZE IN KAT0
Association That Will Deal in
"Pay-Up' Information to
Be Organized
From SATURDAYS Daily.


From SATURDAYS Daily.
Retail dealers and other business
men of Mankato will probably have
local credit association in the neal
future. Steps looking to that enc
were taken last evening at gather
ing in the city hall building. George
w. Sugden, who presided over the
meeting. is to appoint committee OF
five to look into this matter, and
make arrangements for social lunch
for business men to be held in the near
future There is to be speaking and
music. and another discussion of the
project. Last nights meeting was
pretty fair for a starter, but it was
not deemed wise to take any further
action then, as so many important
retail business houses of the city
were not represented.
A. E. Berg, the manager of the
Aer-tite Credit bureau, Henry E..
Hance, Fred NJ Otto, the grocer, and
quite number of others took more
or less part in the, meeting and it
seemed to be the consensus OF opinion
that the retail merchants of Mankato
were too generous and too reckless in
extending credit to people, without
due consideration of their reliability.
Mr.. Otto remarked that the grocerS
alone had about $4,000 on their
books, and everybody seemed to
think that that was entirely too
much.
Two speakers were there from
Minneapolis. One was S. l.. Gilfillan,
credit man from the l.. S. Donald
son company, and the other was C. r.
Lane, secretary of the Minneapolis
Retail Credit association.
Business Men Should Cooperate.
Mr.. Gilfillan said he felt that in
coming to Mankato to tell the busi-
ness men all he could from his own
experience, he was only following out
duty, for he felt that in this age of
business men should cooperate t@
make the extension Of credit as safe
as possible He said it was absolutely
necessary to give credit, if modern
business was to go on. There was not
sufficient capital to run modern busi
ness without the aid of credit.
Credit has become the keystone OF the
arch of commerce. More than ninety
five per cent of the worlds business
was done on credit. Without credit
the railroads could not run and the
great liners could not plow the ocean.
Speaking of retail business, Mr..
cent of that was done on credit.
Credit was a great advantage both to
the seller and the customer, when II
was conducted in the right way. But
people should be made to feel that
the way of the transgressor was hard.
Bad check artists and dead beats
should be dealt with strenuously,
and that could not be done success
fully without cooperation on the
part of business men.
Origin of National Association.
Mr.. Gilfillan told about the origin
of the National Association of Retail
Credit Men, which was organized in
1912. He said that association had
accomplished much in the matter of
exchange of information, but it's
work had only just begun. This
association should have something to
say about the laws that were passed
He said the present laws were en-
tirely too much in favor of the debt
or. He declared the national bank
ruptcy law was a ridiculous piece of
legislation. 1t allowed a man to go
through bankruptcy as many times as
he pleased. He said the bill that had
been introduced by Congressman
George R. Smith of Minnesota ought
to be passed. That measure would
enlist the postmaster in the duty of
helping to locate bad debtors. 1t
would bring back through the mail to
the creditor the address of the dead
beat. Mr.. Gilfillan also remarked
that cooperation did much to force
the payment of bad debts through
the instrumentality of publicity. a
woman would not be so ready to run
up bill at one store and then an
other and then another, if she thought
all the merchants in the city were
going to know about it, and any
merchant of any other town might
find it out.
Trade Likely to Be Lost.
In reply to question by Mr..
Hance, Mr. Gilfillan remarked that a
great deal of good trade was likely
to be lost by q merchant, who was
very careful about the extension OF
credit, and did not have the neces-
sary information as to who was de-
serving of credit and who was not
He was likely to turn down good peo-
pie and thus lose good, reliable GUS
toners ~
Mr. Lane, who was also called upon to
speak, announced that Mr.. Gilfllar
was credit manager of the largest
retail credit house in Minneapolis
and was father of the National AS
sociation of Retail Credit Men.
Mr.. Lane declared that it would
be considered very ridiculous for a
clerk, in handling out goods, to guess
at weights and measurements, in
stead of ascertaining just what was
the right quantity. Such a clerk would
soon lose his position. Yet retail
merchants often extended credit as a
mere guess, and they frequently had
little idea of how much credit it was
safe to give when they did it. The