Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1916-05-24
COUNTY EDITORS FROLIC
Meeting Last Friday Well At
tended by Various Scribes.
BLOOMINGTON ROYAL HOST
Began With HandShaking Followed
BY Interesting Talks and Din
ner-Band Concert Last.

hospitality extended to strangers with
in its gates, and each citizen yies with
the other to extend a pleasant well
come to a stranger.
Everyone who ever went to Bloom
ingtOn has noticed this and that they
arose to the occasion last Friday when
an assemblage of meek-eyed and sad
looking newspaper men came to the
village at the behest of A. G. Bishop,
the hustling editor, postmaster and
musician ct al, Bloomington made
no exception to the rule.
The ball opened with a few min
utes' time of fraternizing and getting
acquainted, for strange as it may
seem, editors who get each others pa
pers week after week and occasional
y slam and josh in the press fire.
quently do not know, personally,
their colleagues.
The serious business of the day fol-
lowed with an address by R. G. Lee,
of the University Extension on Cost
Finding for Printers" The burden
of Mr.. Lees talk was technical, but
it was listened to with careful atten-
ton by the editors present. Mr.. r. S.
Butler of the University, followed with
a talk on retail advertising, that pun
gently showed how retail trade could
be built by means of judicious news
paper advertising. Mr.. Butler illus
trated the difference between putting
dull, hackneyed phrases in newspaper
ads, running the same week after
week, and pessimistically hoping for
results, and snappy, bright copy con-
tanning the news budget OF a wide
awake store.
Persistent advertising is what counts,
said Mr.. Butler, and the merchant
must not feel that an occasional, spas
mOdic ad, hastily concocted and with
extravagant and perhaps incorrect
statements can obtain the results fol-
lowing consistent, steady and honest
advertising of what the store has to
offer in plain, simple and straightfor-
ward talk rejecting the merchants
own personality.
Hardly a store but what has some
thing better to offer, either in service,
variety or price over another, and this
can be placed before the reader in a
way that will induce the desire to
trade at that particular place.
How to combat the mail order prob
lem, was a subject taken Up and Mr..
Buffers views on this seemed to be
particularly sound. No use harping
on trade at home" for the fundamen-
tai reason for mail order buying is an
economic one, and therefore basal.
The mail order patron buys because
he feels, correctly or not, that he can
Go better with a Chicago house than
he can at home. Advertising of all
sorts is constantly thrust upon him
from the mail order houses and little
If any from country merchants.
The mail order people work the
bait scheme to perfection, said Mr..
Butler, by taking some standard arti-
Gle and offering it below cost to them
On the unbranded goods their profit
is enormous and in nine cases out of
ten the country merchant can under
sell his big cOmpetitOr-but he keeps
still about it. The results speak for
themselves. Mr. Buffers talk was
strong throughout and one that every
country business man could have lis
tened to with interest and profit
The meeting was purely informal
and no organization arranged for. A
committee composed H. j. Johnson, A.
I'll. Kessler and A. L. Sherman, was
appointed and instructed to use their
best judgment as to the time and
place OF the next meeting. This will
probably be held at Lancaster and an
interesting program arranged for. All
the fraternity are welcome and our
exchanges are asked to bear this in
mind
A dinner at the Jones Tavern con
Guided the day, but it was by no means
a minor affair. The editors showed
they were just as husky with a fork
as with a pencil, and that is, cOlloqui-
ally, going some"
The Bloomington band, under the
leadership of Professor Bray, gave
concert in honor of the guests, who
as one man, said felt distinctly graft
fed, it being the first time a band had
ever played for him.
Mr.. Bishop and the Bloomington
people will henceforth bear an even
more soft spot than ever in the hearts
of the Grant county newspaper men.
Those present were:
H. E. Howe, Prairie du Chen Cour-
Ter. (The old Devil himself)
a. H. Kessler. Lancaster Teller.
..Kess."
II. G. Craig, Prairie du Chen Cour-
Ter. His Reverence"
H. ]. Johnson, Boscobel Dial-Enter-
prise. Harley"
r. S. Butler, University of Wiscon-
sin.
r. G. Lee, University of Wisconsin.
(Have a cost system.)
L. J. Lee, Bloomington Record.