Newark leader. ([Newark, Ohio]) 1917-1946, 1918-03-22

He is going to select Il town IN which
money is plentiful, town whose busi-
ness men are progressive and whose
residents, as a whole, are prosperous
and contented. There are too many
live and thriving towns in the world
for a man to risk his future in one
that is dead. This Is the reason that
q town, once dead, almost always re-
mains dead.
Town Like Corporation.
There is just one thing, ordinarily,
that kills town in the first place and
that is a lack of money. A town is
just like a corporation and the money
possessed by it's inhabitants is its cap
ital. If this capital is depleted the
town will fail just as the corporation
whose capital is depleted through poor
management or other causes, fails.
And just as the corporation which has
once failed can seldom retrieve its lost
fortunes, the town which has failed
cannot often "come back"
The capital of a community is de-
pleted when it's money is spent away
from home in a way that brings no
return benefit to the community. 1t
takes no great amount of thought to
be able to realize that the town, like
the individual, cannot last long If it
is paying out more money than 1t
takes in. That does not mean that
prosperous town is one in which the
people do not spend any money. On
the contrary, a prosperous town is
one in which the people do spend mon
ey but it is one In which they spend
the money at home. AS long as the
money is spent at home, the town
gains by having 1t kept in circulation,
but when it is spent away from home,
either by being sent to the mail order
houses or by shopping trips to other
cities, the towns capital is impaired
to that extent and if enough money is
spent away from home in that way,
the town collapses and virtually goes
into bankruptcy just as does the cor
pOration which dissipates it's capital.
The people of community are apt
to overlook the fact that they are
stockholders in their town and that
their fortunes are bound up with those
of the community as whole. They
do not realize that if their town fails
they will fail with it. They-Or many
of them at least-send their money
away to the mail order houses in the
great cities, without realizing that they
are impairing the capital of their own
corporation and that If enough of them
pursue that course they will force their
corporation into certain bankruptcy.
Merchants Not Only Ones Hurt.
Many customers of mail order
houses say that they are under no
obligation to trade with their home
merchants and this may be true They
overlook that fact that the business
men Of town do much for their com
munity and are entitled, in return for
what they do, to the support of the
people in the community, but leaving
this out of consideration, they over
look the fact that they are bringing
about their own downfall when they
drain their town of its mOney-its
capital.
The home merchant will not be the
only one that will be hurt when the
town "goes broke" The merchant
can reduce his stock and cut down his
expenses and get along some way or
he can sell out and move to some 9th
er town which has not been so blind
to its own welfare. 1t is the great
body of the people of the community
including all those who have sent their
money away to other cities instead of
spending it at home, that suffers most
when the hard times come.
The time for all the people to pull
together for live town is while the
town Is still live and not after 1t is
dead, for when a town dies it is q
long time dead-if not forever.