Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-10-20

WASHINGTON, D. c., Oct. 15.-"Why,'
wv demands an editor out in the corn
W belt, "does the retailer charge from
g. to 40 cents a pound for pork chops when
hogs cost him only or cents?"
He is one of chorus singing different
words to the same tune. A man down in
Oklahoma wants to know why he cannot tote
enough hides across the street on his back
to buy pair of shoes. A man in Georgia
wants to know why cotton enough to make a
tent won't buy an underskirt. And farm
er in Maryland asks why apples, such as he
fed to his hogs because it would not pay to
haul them to market, sell for cents each on
the fruit stands.
/ All of these questions have been asked
many times. They have also been loudly
answered with the assertion that retail
prices are too high which is of course mere
ly begging the question. Sometimes it is
added that the retailer is a profiteer, which
is generally not true and certainly sheds no
light on the situation.
When the editors query was laid before
certain marketing experts in the government
service, it was learned that the question is
good deal more complicated than those
who blame the retailer, and let it go at that,
ever imagined. The Department of Agri-
culture is making study of the retail prices
of farm products in all of the principal
American cities. 1t is going to find out just
why these prices are so Unfortunately high and
why the farmer gets such a small share of
the large price that the consumer pays. The
government men do not care to be quoted,
nor to make any extensive comment, until
this investigation has been completed. But
in the meantime they throw out few hints.
In the first place, they say, don't be too
quick to blame the retailer. Retail prices,
probably are too high, but they are not as
much too high as you think. The retailer has
been facing dull market for long time
now His great need is to turn over his
stock: 1t is extremely probable that he
would reduce prices if he could afford to do
so, in order to stimulate trade In many
cases, of course, he has done so. The pa
pers are full of bargain sale advertisements.
Yet the average of retail prices remains high.
Cost of Retailing High
This, say the experts, is partly because the
cost of retailing, as business operation, is
high. Out of the 35 cents that you pay for
pork chops, the retailer must pay, not only
the price of the pork at wholesale, but also
the rent of his store, the cost of the ice on
which he kept the pork, the wages Of the
who cut it and sold it to you, the paper
in which it was wrapped, and upkeeE of the
vehicle in which it was delivered.
The experts do not seem to know exactly
what percentage of the cost of those pork
chops is represented by each of the elements
in it's transfer. That is probably one of the
things their investigation will reveal. But
they think that the price paid for the pork
is less than half of the total cost of getting
from wholesaler to consumer. And all of
these factors in the, operation have risen in
cost. Rent, wages, ice, paper, gasoline-no
one needs to be told that all of these things
are from 10 to 100 pc" cent higher than they
were in 1918.
Remember, too, that with many persons