The Little River news., 1920-04-24

ASAk ~ A/ W 0e
 chant who came to town and located, and it took him a long time to get in- to the spirit of the Neosho Plan. He had rival in business here and he Ia customer would come in and say: 'So-and-so' the name of the rival he hated-sent me over to buy from you Soon the other mer chant began sending customers over to his rival, the breach was healed and they became fast friends, and are yet.
 The first Monday fin each month is sales day" in Neosho. The week be- fore it each merchant who wishes to have a bargain sale that day selects one or more articles and puts spec ially low prices on them. Each article camouflage about it. He writes his advertisement, or he may go to the committee of the club appointed for that purpose and it will prepare the advertisement for him without cost. It may be, and often is, that on this committee is his competitor in bus ness. The advertisement must state plainly, without the slightest exagger- ation, what the article is, what it's for 1o price.
 Equality in Advertising. The whole advertisement may not ! occupy more than three by three and a half inches of space. A merchant may take four, but no more, of those spaces, and each must advertise a different article. No pictures are per- mitted and no fancy type, not even a
 name cut; the idea being to have the advertisements uniform in size and appearance, no advertisement any more conspicious than another. Only two sizes of plain type are used. Thus
 the little fellow gets an equal show with the big one
 A woman is paid S12.50 month to collect these sales-day advertisements 1, from the merchants and take them to
 the printer When all are there she
 notifies the salesday committee, of
 which McGinty is chairman and it
 goes to the printing office and looks over the advertisements. If an ad-
 vertisement is found defective in any
 way, the committee goes to that mer- chant and talks 1t over with him ill
 person.
 Every Item is Guaranteed. At the head of the double page of
 bargains is this announcement, signed
 by the Advertising Club of Neosho:
 Every item on this list by the mer- chants of Neosho Is guaranteed to be
 as represented in quality and price.
 Every advertisement on the bargain
 pages has to pass the censorship of
 the Neosho Advertising Clubs com
 mittee. We want you to be glad you
 came to Neosho."
 The sales-day advertisements are
 printed on a double-page circular the size of an average newspaper. There
 are forty-eight of these advertise
 ments on one side of the sheet and from twelve to twenty on the other 1 side. The balance of the other side is
 filled out with general advertisements,
 which have been censored too. Six thousand of the circulars are
 printed. A woman has the wrappers
 already addressed, and they are mail ed to every tax payer in Newton Coun-
 ty and to many in Mcdonald County, adjoining The entire cost of printing | and mailing is about $144, and the sales-day square of each mrchant
 costs him about two dollars. For this two dollars he reaches 5000 farmers,
 a trival cost.
 The club not only sends out 1000 of l those circulars, but for the same
 sales day it places in the leading pa
 per of Joplin a full-page advertisement of the same bargains reproduced from the circular. Joplin has 50,000 popn- lation and several big stores, and is only twenty miles away.
 Farmers Auction Adds "Pep.,
 To put more pep" into the monthly bargain sales the club devised far mers' auction" which Is held the same day. This has been in operation sever- al years. The club built a pavilion with open sides that cost $1,0O0, an amphitheater that seats 300 and pens for livestock. Any farmer anywhere may bring in anything he wants to sell-livestOck, farm implements or machinery or household goods, The sale of other things than livestock be- gins at lO:3O o'clock in tht, forenoon; the sale of livestock begins at 1:30 o'clock in the afternoon Two nar cant