Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1919-10-10

demands it's growth He is selling at the time
this is written only underwear, socks, Blankets
OverShOeS and few other such articles. He
will greatly increase both the size and the
variety of this stock if the public demands it,
He will sell food as we'll as dry goods. There
are still great quantities of stuff to be sold.
How is the public taking this opportunity to
buy cheap, which will grow if they demand
that it grow?
The store opened at O'Clock and stayed
open until on the first day. There was a
great rush at the opening. People had been
gathering before the door since early morning
When the doors opened there was a crush
and woman tainted
But after about two hours the crush was
over, after four hours the crowd was gone, and
in the evening, after working hours, when
everyone free to buy, there little
business that the matter of closing the store
earlier than the appointed time was seriously
considered.
Out of this city of six million people, the
army actually got about nine thousand cash
sales that first day, totalling about $4,000 The
next day the great crush was repeated several
toes were seriously stepped on, the crowd
again faded away after a few hours, and eve
ming again found many of the clerks idle. The
cash sales this day were a thousand dollars less
and the number of customers nearly two thou
sand less.
In other words, the tendency of the business
is to diminish rather than to increase. And
the public perSiStenty refuses to understand
the nature of the enterprise Here again it
pathetically revealed its helpless devotion to
habit. The typical citizen reads in the paper
that the government is selling a lot of goods
at very low prices at % West Nineteenth street
This, them is bargain sale. 1t is only at bar
gain sales that things are sold for reasonable
prices If you have a certain social position,
you do not go to bargain sales, no matter how
much you would like to. 60 1t is beneath
your dignity, &c. if this typical citizen owns
boiled shirt and flivver he probably asses
up this sale as no concern of his, no matter
how much he has been kicking about high
prices His wife is more tempted, but reflects
that the best people probably won't be there,
so she won't either.
But if the typical citizen is of the kind that
wears overallS during the week and walks to
work. both he and his wife scent this bargain
sale as their natural prey. They know all
about bargain sales. You go to bargain sale
early in the morning, stand in line for two
hours, fight people with your elbows for an
other two hours, and finally emerge with your
purchases, having saved thirty-fve cents in
money and Squandered two dollars worth of
time and energy.
This average citizen and his wife immed-
ately resolve to go to the bargain sale, and they
insist on doing it in the usual manner. The
manager of the store on Nineteenth street once
went to an upstairs window and made an i'm
FASHIONED speech to the long line of people
assembled on the sidewalk He told them that
the store would be open all day and part Of
the night, and that there was more than enough
time for all present to buy. He told them it
was not bargain sale, but semi-Rermanent
enterprise, which would still be there for
months He told them there were goloshes
and blankets enough for all. They merely
looked up, at him in blank amazement, and
none of them went away. They thought he
was crazy. He didn't know bargain sale when
he saw it.
So the public refuses to regard the army
sale as anything but a passing opportunity to
buy goods cheap at the expense in time and
energy and oxygen which such opportunities
have always entailed before That part of the
public which is accustomed to improving such
opportunities comes once, and then regards it
as all over One-third Of these do not buy,
according to Captain Peterson, manager of the
store. They either have no money or want
nothing They merely come because they are
in the habit of attending bargain sales, and
perhaps because they regard them as an in
door sport
The bulk of the public seems to pay no
attention to the army sales at all.
Needed: Some one to teach the public that
extravaganza is not virtue, that it is not a
disgrace to go to the store and carry your
packages home, that the cost of living will
never come down unless really want it to
come down badly enough to make some effort
to that end-in word, badly enough to buy
cheap.