Arizona republican., 1921-04-04

In the middle of the Navajo desert in Arizona, more than 100 miles from a railroad, is a trading post It H. illustrates a trade theory that America used to know well but has almost for gotten-that in order to sell one must buy.
 Within the fortress like stone building, the two young men who run this Navajo trading post main = tain two departmentsr~ In one. be- hind chicken wire screens, are piled calico, tins of smoking tobacco, pack ages of biscuits, handkerchiefs, quirts spurs, coffee, flour, chewing gum, boots, brooches brides and a hun dred other articles that appeal to the Indians discriminating taste.
 Behind this display room is anoth- CT - long, narrow, protected by mas sive doors and lighted by a single small window high up in the wall. II is stacked with wool, hides and sheepskins except for a space near one door, where a tier of wonderful blankets delights the eye of the oc- casional visitor who stops to eat a meal with the young men. In stout corral near the store building stand a dozen or more Indian ponies. sturdy little beasts that have standard market value in the COW countries. Farther off. but in sight, three Nav ajo boys and a dog guard a flock oi sheep liberally adulterated with i'm pudent black and white goats. Very little money ever passes be- tween the Indian buyers and the two young men, yet the store prospers and the Navajos are satisfied and | friendly customers.
 | From time to time one of the young men conveys a strange expedition over the sandhills to the railroad town of Flagstaff, half a dozen wag ons piled high with wool, sacks ant skins, drawn by long strings Of as sorted Navajo ponies and burros; little bunch of ponies herded loos along the dry miles. forty or lift Indian drivers and horsemen flour I ishing whips, their long black hai | bound back from their faces wit l brilliant bandana handkerchief. Three nights they build their fires b the roadside and night herd thei ponies. On the fourth day they touc civilization, where wool, hides an ponies are converted into shoes an
 chewing gum, biscuits, etc, to
 hauled back across the desert an
 exchanged for more wool hides an
 ponies and sheep. But there is a
 ways something left over after u
 store supplies are bought tha
 months increment to the fortur
 these two useful Americans al
 founding.
 The business of that trading DO would be impossible on an ordinal
 merchandising basis. It would quicl
 ly die if the young men demanded u
 Navajos should themselves conve
 their wool and hides and blanke
 into cash. then pay over the cas
 for the calico and harness they nee
 That post would have to shut |
 shop also if the young men refuse
 flour and bacon ands sugar to o
 Hosteen Bigay who said that !
 would bring in two ponies and ty
 sacks of wool some time prett quick" That might mean two weel
 two months or six months, Whai
 ever the time, they must do bushes
 on the supposition that the India
 will keep his promise. As a matte of record he does; and what Hostee Bigay brings to them in payment fe
 the flour and coffee and sugar nc
 only pays for the groceries but brins
 them an adequate profit.
 Much of the world today is in u condition of the Navajo Indian. IT world war has helped to throw u people of many countries back to
 basis of barter; and it has not in proved the condition of those deve oping countries where cash and quis
 credit have always been scarce. In this parable, American produce l, ,,I-farmers, cotton planters, catt growers, manufacturers, exporters stand in the place of the two your
 men out on the desert. They ha' at their command vast stores ( things the world needs: their pro' . lem is to find a basis for supplyiI these things. It is two-fold pro lem.
 First. American traders must d I eide whether or not they want take all sorts of products - unman factured asbestos, dried blood, sta ! uary, scientific apparatus, kapok, he rings, and multitude of oth : things from the Argentine, Venezu