Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1919-10-10
WILL THE PUBLIC BUY CHEAP?-By Frederic J. Haskin

NEW YORK, Oct Sit has been conclu-
N Sivey shown that the public will buy
dear-almoSt incredibly dear 1t buys
just as much at high prices as it used to buy
at low prices. 1t cheerfully pays dime for
one-cent apple, provided there is fruit
stand man to polish it on a somewhat dirty
apron and put it in paper bag 1t will pay
weeks wages for pair of shoes, provided
there is an accommodating clerk with whom to
discuss the idioSyncracieS of its feet, and a
delivery service to carry the shoes home for it,
But will the public buy cheap? That is,
will it take any trouble or fOregO any con-
money? Is it enough in earnest about reducing
the cost of living to make personal effort
to reduce it? Or does it really enjoy its own
extravaganza, admire the aStute profiteers who
fleece it, and howl about the high cost of living
merely from ingrained habit of bowling?
These may sound like foolish questions but
consider the sale of army food. The attempt
to sell food through the poStoffice department
for about fifty per cent less than it could be
bought in the retail stores, was, as everyone
knows, a failure. After several weeks of per-
SStent advertisement, most of the food in
most of the cities remained unSOld. Various
reasons assigned for the failure. Perhaps
the most plausible was that food was in rel
atively large quantities, while most people have
only little money to spend at a time on
food. The average workman spends his wages
every Saturday for a weeks supply of food
He cannot buy six pounds of bacon because
But it was widely suggested that families
club together to buy in quantities.
ooh, yes; we never thought of that" some
aSSented feebly. few went so far as to act
upon the suggestion. But it was not acted upon
generally Most of the army food still remained
unSOld.
Various other reasons were given why the
army food was not taken. Some housewives
said is was not of good enough quality for
their faStdiOuS SpOuSeS
archibald simply won't eat that army ba-
con-" said one young married woman. "He
likes the kind that comes all sliced up in
little glass jar"
And yet the army bacon is good bacon, and
Archibald is probably the kind of husband who
howlS like wolf every time the wife hands
him grocery bill
Some held off because they were suspicious
They remembered that during the Spanish
American war the army meat was tainted. The
fact that there was never a word about tainted
meat during this war made no difference to
them. Army meat and ptomaine poisoning are
inextricaby and forever associated in their
minds.
But none of these reasons was the main
reason why the food did not sell through the
poStoffice The main reason was that people
are not used to buying in that way, and they
do not feel strongly enough about the cost
of living to break the bonds of habit. They
are used to trotting around to the corner gro
Gerry store and being soaked, and they would
rather continue to do so than take little
trouble and avoid the soaking.
The war department, having duly recognized
this fact, abandoned the poStoffice plan of SELL
ing and decided to open retail stores of its
own 1t also started to sell it's food through
regular retail stores and Trolling stores" Both
of these processes have recently been going
on here in New York. The chicken sold through
regular butchers has been largely taken be-
cause it came to the public in the usual way.
But the government retail store is the
really interesting experiment. Here is one
more chance for the public to buy cheap. If
this store proSpers (there is only one in New
York at the time this is written) others will
be added, according to Colonel J. NJ Carson,
of the quartermaster corps, who has charge of
the selling of army food in this zone
Colonel Carson is not primarily interested
in reducing the cost of living, but merely in
getting rid of surplus supplies. He does not
expect his operations to lower prices generally.
He says he has tried to assure the retail mer-
chants that his operations will not affect theirs
in any way. The retail merchants have shown
that they are not afraid of his operations by
offering him their cooperation in getting his
store going. In fact, his operations are about
as serious a menace to the retail business as a
flea is to elephant
But Colonel Carson admits that his en-
terpriSe will grow if the public Enthusiastically