Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1918-03-08
THIS DECISION EPOCHRAL.

Tie U. s. supreme court has decid- retailers to sell goods at fixed price.
 This battle Of business has been raging for several years, with the public mere passive onlooker Yet it is something that vitally interests every person in the nation because it touches the pocketbook.
 Strange to say, throughout the dis cussion, which has agitated advertis- ing men and retailers much, the news papers have taken neutral attitude, and few have gone out of their way to make comment.
 titiCn among retailers, but will also permit the stronger to override the weak The fixing of a price for retail ing has permitted wide distribution on equal terms. For instance a talking machine could be purchased in town for the same price as in New York or Chicago. st. Louis or Denver; and every dealer ill every city sold them at the same price. The only competi- ton that existed was between the makers of different machines. And the same principle held good or automo- piles, safety razors. trade marked clothing and everything else on which the manufacturers fixed a price for re- tailers.,
 The public was concerned in this fashion. Would d high fixed retail price tend to increase consumption? We think not. There is only one way to expand consumption of goods to the maximum. and that is to have the price within reach of the greatest number of people.
 The fixed price policy did not do this. It stultiiied retailers. It per mitted each to sit back and say, Well. the public can't get the goods any cheaper anywhere else and Pm per fectly safe in waiting for trade"
 Nothing in recent years has made such disagreeable sound to the pub lie as the policy of price-tiXing. This knowledge was intensified by the be- lief that the price fixed was "all the traffic would bear'
 The supreme court of the land has decreed that the policy is wrong and cannot be maintained. that mans property is his own, and that he can public will pay.
 This price-tiXing policy has unique collateral practice in the so-called licensing" rights. According to this modern business development (since knocked out by the courts) a person did not buy a patented article. but merely purchased the right to use it. the right of possession still remaining with the patentee It was only short time back that notices" to that effect appeared stamped or printed on var ious patented articles-and this in spite of the fact that the buyer did not know he was making such contract at the time he paid for the goods. nor did his signature or verbal agreement make such compliance. Mere posses sion of the article, the notice usually related, bespoke acceptance of the con tract.
 It was evident to any person With common sense and possessing a rudl- mentarv knowledge of legal rights, that such piffle could not be maintain cd in any court anywhere-and 1t wasn't. Some months ago a federal conrt in Cincinnati laughed the thing down with as scathing sptfaw as was ever emitted from the bench.
 Returning to the price-tiXing deci- sion, there isn't the slightest doubt that it will help the retail trade to dis seminate goods more widely. Nothing talks like price tag.
 The desicion, of course, would be use less if not enforced: but this will come through the anti-conSpiracy and re- straint-of- laws, which would compel manufacturers of such goods to sell to dealers whether or not they comply with the pricetiNing desires of the manufacturers.
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 CZar Nick and kerensky seem to have gone to the port of missing men,
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 Another war aim is to put junker-