Grand Forks herald. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1916-1955, 1918-01-25
THE SMALL MERCHANT FACES

Assuming that the plan Of the Consumers United
Stores Company is exactly what it has been represented
to its subscribers to be, a genuine plan for supplying to
the farmer the goods which he needs in his business.
and a system which is TO endure and to become a per-
manent part of the economic life Of the state, instead of
a plan cunningly devised to enable shrcwd organizers to
appropriate to their own uses more than so per cent Of
all sums contributed by farmers in the belief that they
are aiding in a public Notwithstanding all this. where
does the small country merchant stand?
The local merchant has been able to exist. and
sometimes to make a little profit, when he has been a
capable business man and has had the patronage of his
community. His customers have not been many, for
our population is not dense and it has been necessary for
him to have. if not the entire trade Of his locality, at
least a very liberal share of it. in order to pay expenses
and accumulate a little. year by year, against the time
when he would no longer be an active business man. He
has been part and parcel of the life of his community.
He has paid taxes to aid in the maintenance of village.
township and county. He has been a supporter Of
school, and church, and of all public enterprises. With
the rest of the %communit he has had his good years,
and his very lean ones. When disaster in the shape of
flood or drouth or hail has struck his farmer customers
it is to the local merchant that has come the first appeal
for aid in order that the years credit. which has been
the rule in so many localities, might be extended TO two
years and that families might not go hungry or un-
clothed. In order to meet these appeals he has been
obliged to draw on his own little capital, if he had any.
and to apply for an extension of his own credit so that
the sources Of supply might not be closed.
| His ability to meet these demands upon him has
always been more a matter of character than of capital
In many cases where local disaster has befallen, the local
merchant has gone to his own creditors and stated the
whole case. that such capital as he has is already tied
up in bills owing to him by his customers: that these
bills can be collected only at the price of impoverishing
in a position, through no fault of their own, where they
the wall; and what has been the answer? In many
cases it has been this: I'VE understand the conditions;
we know that you are doing your best; we trust implicit
y in your judgment: go home and We will see you
through, not because of any capital that you may have
but because we know you to be a square man." In just
this way the character of the local merchant has carried
his community over many a rough place.
The new order of things. if carried out as represent.
ed to subscribers, as a real merchandising enterprise in
stead of a gigantic graft, eliminates the local merchant
No other result is possible. Therefore, everything tina,
the local merchant has accomplished for his community
goes by the board unless provision is made for it in some
other direction.
propositions to abet this enterprise are made to consider
whether or not it is TO their interest to remove the local
merchant as a factor in their community. 1t may be
worth while for the local merchant himself to conside
what this movement means to him and to the business
which he has built up by many years of energetic and
conscientious work.