Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1918-03-14
LARGE NEW YORK CITY DEPART
MENT STORE BEING PROSE-
CUTED BY c. E. LAVIGNE,
FORMERLY OF GRAND
RAPIDS
Issue Based on Advertisement of
Hand Tailored" Suits Alleged
to Be Made by Machine

representation in advertising, is now
stirring up the whole clothing trade
of the United States upon the issue
of what constitutes a hand tailored
suit. The purchasing public is vitality
interested, as well, and it is for their
protection that action has been COM
menced in the Courts.
Greenhut Company, Inc, from whom
Mr.. LaVigne purchased the mercan-
disc now the basis of litigation, is a
large department store in New York
City doing yearly business of about
100000 One of the parties made
defendant is c. A Lockhart, sales
promoter operating in all parts of the
country, who was conducting a sale
for and on behalf of the Greenhart
store.
This case has received immediate
and widespread notice by the press
The following is taken from the New
York Tribune:
Greenhart Company, nc, the de-
partment store proprietor appeared
yesterday in the Jefferson Market
Court before Magistrate John G. Nc
Gehan in obedience to a sommons is
sued upon a complaint charging vio-
lation of Section 421 of the penal law
known as the honest advertising sta
tute.
Greenhut's appeared by Manager
George Berard. The complainant,
Constantin E. LaVigne, field repre-
sentative of the American Fair Trade
League, Of 200 Fifth Avenue, was rep
resented by Assistant District Attor-
ney Jacob Goldstein, of the Bureau of
Commercial Frauds of the District At
torney's office. On consent, the hear
ing was adjourned to February %, at
P. NJ
The sommons was issued against the
Greenhut Company and Charles A.
Lockhart, described as a sales promo
ter. The complaint was based on an
advertisement stated to have been
printed recently in an evening news
paper, reading:
MEMS hand tailored suits in my
Lockhart sale at S18.S5. Garments
worth up to $50, and the very best
in quality that you will find anywhere
up to that figure; complete range of
fashions and fabrics in all sizes. The
assOrtments are wonderful. Green
hut's, the Big Store, Sixth Avenue,
Eighteenth to Nineteenth streets"
Mr.. LaVigne's complaint charges
that he purchased at the Greenhut
store one of the suits so advertised
and represented as handmade. The
complaint proceeds: "In truth and in
fact the said suit is made by machine
and is known in the clothing trade as
machine made suit"
Mr.. LaVigne sets forth that sales
man Showed to deponent a number
of suits, one of which deponent select
ed, and before purchasing same de-
ponent asked the said salesman: IS
this Manufactured suit as advertis-
ed?' The salesman answered: Yes,
represent this suit to be pure worsted
all WOOL very fine workmanship and
positively hand-tailored'
The complaint charges that the de-
PENDANTS had the advertisement pub
blished knowingly, with intent to dis
pose of the merchandise.
The Daily News Record of New York
prints the following:
Can suit of clothes be "com-
mercially manufactured ?"
The question was yesterday submit
ted to number of retailers and buy
ers and in practically every instance
there came an answer in the afirma-
tive, indicating that just as we'll as
suit of clothes can be commercially
all-wool, it can be commercially hand
tailored. A reporter, however, put the
same question to Henry Fruhauf, of
truhauf Bros. & Co., whose affidavit
was more or less responsible for charg-
es against Greenhut's department
store by the American Fair Trade
League for false advertising, as a re-
suit of purchase of suit of clothes
advertised by the store as ''hand-tail-
pred" and branded by Mr.. Fruhauf,
after an examination, as machine
made" Mr.. Fruhauf minced no words
N his reply.
mo Such Thing"
There is no such thing as a COM
mercially manufactured suit of cloth
IS, he said. at is either hand-tailor-
ID or not and there is no halfway
about the matter"
The Fruhaufs have their own ideas
about Manufactured garments. as
was evident when the reporter first
mentioned the question. Officials of
he concern refused to express any
IDEAS on the subject until after a visit
through the factory and an inspec-
lion OF the systems of operation at
the plant. When this was completed
Henry Fruhauf made known the
blanks in the platform on which he has
built its business for the past Is years
This is the idea of a Manufactured