The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1921-01-31
HID. MACCOSHAM
RETURNS FROM
EASTERN MARKETS
Speaks of Conditions in
Eastern Centers; Fac
tory Operations
Minimum

II. -. MaCOOSudm VI IHc ASOW1oS-
Mack company and e. w. Rowles,
manager of the Idaho Falls house,
returned last week from two weeks
study of business conditions in
Chicago and Omaha and Mr.. Mac
COsham gave our writer some state
ments as follows:
1--WE had a strenuous trip and
came back pretty tired. AS soon as
/ get my work caught up at the desk
! am going out to the ranch to rest
a while. We went east to study the
markets and to do some buying and
these buying trips, especially under
the present conditions call for hard
work.
I'VE begin at o'clock in the
morning and go till 5, studying
stocks of goods and making compari-
sons, one with another: Stocks thru
out the country are rather low; most
of the dealers have sold out and
cleaned up their stocks to consider
able degree and buying for some
time has been done in rather small
quantities. This has resulted in the
factories operating on q basis to
merely supply the demand There
are no very large stocks for dealers
to draw from and many Of the stocks
that are being offered at interesting
prices are being sold under necessity.
A man going into the market now
Z to do some buying must necessarily
look over all the stocks he can find,
study them and the prices very care
fully and after having seen every
thing, 60 back to where he was Of
fered what seemed to be the best
bargain and buy such quantities as
will, in his Judgment, tide him over
to conditions that are more settled.
when the cut in prices began to
be made the disposition of the pub
lie was to buy rather sparingly in
expectation of further reductions in
prices. When some further reduc-
tion came most of the public ex-
pected still further reduction and
there has not been very extensive
buying. A good many people are
wearing their old clothes in the ex-
pectation that prices will drop still
further and that has developed into
what is called the buyers strike"
The general pubic is on strike not
buying much goods. This is re-
fected up the line thru the retailers
to the wholesalers and manufactur-
ers. The effect has gotten back now
to the workers, who take the cotton
and wool goods and make them up
into clothing and the various articles
of merchandise. Prices have adjusted
themselves so far as it is possible to
adjust without making cut in the
wages of those who do the work in
making up the goods. For the past
six or seven years great change has
been taking place in the working !
conditions. There is question now
as to just how far the backward
steps, if any, shall be made in main +
tanning the right conditions for the
workers. In 1913 in a place like
Chicago a person or firm having
lot of orders to fill for goods made /
up, would arrange to have the goods !
made in small establishments, where
people were hired to do, the hand .
work. A great deal Of it was taken ,
into homes and tenement houses,
where people worked under condi- !
tions that were unfavorable, where
the, light was poor, ventilation was
bad, eating conditions we're bad and
in many cases very unsanitary con-
ditions prevailed. The clothes might
be made up in a tenement, where
there was sickness and the disease
might follow the clothing down thru
the different establishments to the
retailer and into the home Of per-
sons buying and wearing the goods.
If nothing of this kind prevailed the
person wearing the suit was really
wearing the product of starvation
wages and pauper conditions. The
consumer, if he knows that his
clothes were made under such human
suffering, does not want to encourage
the sweat shop or slavery conditions
of those toilers.
"People working for the improve
ment of conditions of the workers
have brought about such marked i'm
provements during the past few
years and have so improved the con-
ditions of the toi1ers that there is a
Continued on page 8
|