The Hays free press. [volume] (Hays, Kan.) 1908-1924, 1920-03-11

are the owner of city property, and
everybody who is member Of the
Chamber OF Commerce is In one way
o. the other, it comes back to him in
mis- real estate and his property. You
may say, oh, there is 3.371ac tax
alton on that. All right, you can't
nave things without paying for them.
But on the other hand, the fellow who
IS always worrying about that go
Caxation-you never hear him squeak
about selling his property at an extra
thousand dollars that has been tackled
on it. There are places in this town
that could have been bought three
years ago for 100000 and now the
owner will not consider $4,000. Who
made the extra 100000? He didn't
do anything to it iE the meantime-he
simply hung arount But as a matter
of fact, nobody makes that extra
thousand dollars except the growth of
the city of Hays and the development
of the City of Hays.
Then you get it back because your
town is better place in which to live
because it has a Chamber of Com
merce- That doesn't mean that~it is
heaven, by any means, but it is a good
IDEAL better than it would be without
any organized effort to keep improv-
ing conditions.
! ''Now then, we have a special rea-
son why there should be a Chamber of
Commerce here I'd that is because
we have public institutions here.
There is the Normal School, there is
the Catholic College, there is the Elk
pertinent Station, and there is the
Hospital, all of them institutions of
which we are proud. None of them
can function to the fullest extert
without the thorough organization of
this town behind them. Of course,
the station can go on and grow, the
Normal School can go on and grow,
the Hospital can go on and do bust
ness, but they will do more business
if we are organized and so member
ship in the Chamber of Commerce is
lsimpIy organized effort to help put
those things over in the biggest pos
sible way.
Another thing is the increase of
your ! trade territory. There isn't
any question but what people know
about Hays as trading center miles
beyond where they would if it were
not for the organization we have here.
For instance, in the last two. years
the Chamber of Commerce of Hays
put on advertising campaigns that
went into all the papers in territory
that we never had thought about
touching before. You say, 4 didn't
get any of that business directly
Well, the fellow didn't come into your
store and say, Now, read the ad in
the Lacrosse paper and come in and
hand you back your Chamber of Com
merce dues.> But it comes back to
yau all the time because there are
people coming from that territory and
that is the only way you can make
| Hays bigger town, is to increase its
the automobile we were reaching out
ten or fifteen miles. Now there isn't
any rason why We can't brig people
to Hays to trade from distance of
forty or fifty miles and we do bring
them. People are actually coming
that far to trade in Hays today and
the only reason is because they be-
lieve that Hays has institutions differ
ent from what they can find in any of
the towns between them.
at is in this increase of your trade
territory that you get your largest
profit. For instance, Mr.. Winters in
the conduct of his hardware business
knows that his overhead is certain
amount and it takes a certain amount
of business each year to clear that.
Every dollar that he gets beyond his
usual business pays him the largest
profit and that extra business is what
organization in the Chamber of Com
merce is bringing to the town in a
business way since this Chamber of
Commerce has been organized.
''Then, since the men have been
meeting together, we have come to
know each other lot better ard that
has something to do with this. It is
possible for man to have city-sized
body with village-sized head. There
are a lot of you fellows that three
years ago had city-sized bodies and
village-sized heads There are a few
fellows probably, out in the dark yet
who haven't had their heads expanded
to the city size, at least there are
more possible members for the Hays
Chamber of Commerce and my talk
was to introduce that subject of get
ting every individual in this town who
should be member of the Chamber
of Commerce and getting them in. It
is inevitable to every community that
) there are going to be some people who
are ALWAYS 1vjDor-g}oUO on the job tbat