The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-04-15
They'rs off for the pennant.
MIsGurDING THE PUBLIC

| From the New York Daily Garment {; News
 l The well-meaning but misguided gentlemen Of Birmingham, Ala, who organized an overall Club" to com 1 bat the high cost of clothing, learned 1 to their dismay that, while working overtime listing new members, the price of overalls had advanced from $2 to SC pair.
 The irony of their discontinue and predicament is. of course, the swift penalty of their wrong headed and ill- considered propaganda. Any sane economist knows that they are attack l ing the problem from the wrong end, and they will be the chief sufferers,
 but in the trend of the whole idea there turks a peril to the stability of sound business principle, in the up setting of which the consuming pub, lie is hardest hi. by the folly of the l agitation
 | Everyone who is familiar with the simplest rules of the laws of supply ] and demands knows that any con. | certed movement to substitute one
 article of use for another will inevit- ably exhaust the supply, with attend ant price jumps. This corollary is as old as the history of the world anG I can accomplish nothing toward hriner ing down the cost of clothing. The
 Alabama incident is isolated and un- | important, but as part of a larger l popular program based on nisconcep- 1 tion presents an element of dangerous
 error that the discriminating retailer
 and manufacturer regret for the sake Of the public that they serve.
 The Don't Buy" agitation which is
 being circulated in certain parts of tn.
 south at the inspiration. it is believed l ef the department of justice and aimed at eniisting the sympathy of cham l bcrs of commerce and the many w. l mems clubs, naturally must fail be cause the consumer, having money and wanting merchandise pays no a;- tention to the gratuitous advice. The
 consumer, further, is pretty well con 1 Ninced by this time that the prices of women's apparel are not out of l.na l with the costs in other directions, and l that retail merchants are far from. i being soulless profiteers. But the germ of trouble is there in the move. ] ment. It is not on the relailer hu* 3n the consumer, that the success of .
 Don't Buy movement, if successful i would react
 The unsettling. of business through sud- den price collapses hits the wage-earnel first and hardest, and in the consequent Reorganization of the whole financial structure. down might come tumblng the
 house of prosperity upon our heads.
 Of the truth of this, all retail mer- chants are well aware. and for the sake
 of their customers as well as themselves they should resolutely stand out against any compromise with depressive propa- ganda. Only the timorous will give way, but it is the duty of all<to resist wig orously with every means at their dis posal the entire insidious campaign of
 misrepresentation and misguidance
 !. Were the price of every article sold in a department store or speciality shop cut in half it would not help bring the solu- tior of the problem of the high cost of living one step nearer. | would be but 1 a drop in the great big bucket
 The cause of high prices runs back to I the smallest threads of the postwar social fabric, and cannot be corrected in
 a day or by the easy shortcut of tearing the cloth.
 1 Retailers and manufacturers know thev are not profiteering. They know taey /! are asking only honest prices. and are making but honest profits. Their own book balance shows this most convinc- | ingy. They would be the first to well come the old era of pre-war levels. But 1 they realize also that arbitrary agita-
 tion will not bring this about.
 l Let them then speak out. Let each
 manufacturer and retailer defend hiri- self heartily and with no misgivinss He ! has nothing to be ashamed of Let him
 tell the public. so.