The Wisconsin tobacco reporter. (Edgerton, Wis.) 1877-1950, 1922-12-08

When be discussed in this column
couple weeks ago the advantage of CO.
operative advertising we did not real
ize how much of this is being done in
many important industries. An effort
that method of advertising is now under
way, and may bear results, though too
many of the packers who have not
seen the advantage of individual adver-
tising hold back also in coming across
for cooperative effort in this line.
Quoting George C Sherman, adver-
tising wizard, in the editorial column of
the Leaf:
Intelligent marketing is, of course,
vital to the success of any unit of an
industry. Cooperative advertising and
merchandising has demonstrated it's
great effectiveness in other important
industries for instance, in the markets
of paint, confectionery, canned goods,
fruit, milk, lumber and many other
products. The group idea of combined
Push has actually re-created and re-
vitalized entire markets at compare
lively insignificant cost in relation to
LAG OGuH1lCS W GuC lilulVlUud1
bgsiness concerned.
In the following from U. S. Tobacco
Journal there is another slant:
Cooperative societies, cooperative
associations, cooperative pools! Every
thing is being conducted along the CO.
operative idea now, it seems. the to-
baccO growers being among the most
recent recruits to the movement that
has for its chief object the elimination
of the middleman in getting merchan-
disc from first hands to the market.
If these associations will make it pos
sible for the profit now going to the
middlemen to be retained by the grow
ers Or to be reflected in the price Of the
tobacco as it goes to the consumer,
nothing but good can come from their
operation.
If, on the other hand, honest, but
mistaken, leaders develop these asso-
Citations into mere holding corporations,
that may blatantly override the law of
supply and demand and attempt to get
an artifcially nigh price for their prod
uct by withholding it from the market
when it is really wanted, the resultant
situation will be more adverse to the
best interests of the industry than the
middlemen ever were.
Though not generally recognized, the
middleman has ever been great sta
bilizer of trade. His force has been
that of a gyroscope keeping an even
keel a cumberson craft tossing through
impetuous waters. He has given in
Vulnerable attestations of his value as
saving support In years filled with
grave crises.
With an accurate knowledge of the
country's consumption capacity and the
probable trend of general commercial
courses, the middleman has proven him
self bulwark on which the grower
could dependably set his hopes for
prices as high as conditions would per-
nit. Viewing him from the other side,
the middleman has been the manufac-
turer's best friend, the alertness of his
contemporaries making quotations out
of conSonance with values extremely
precarious AS his profits are small,
the middleman watches more carefully
than the general run of business men
the so-called unimportant demands of
his clientele, as he is constantly mind
full that many years of satisfactory
dealings must lie between him and the
accumulation of competence. Ac-
counts of the enormous profits of mid
dlemen are, as a rule, nothing more
than fabricated distortions of fact
Even the oldest house in the trade
could with futility scan through it's
"reminiscences for instances of middle
men having joined the millionaire class
after several decades of successful op-
GRAFTON. AS the middleman's activities
must of necessity stretch over long
period of years, his stabilizing influence
is doubtless one of the prime reasons
for the position of prominence he has
occupied in the commercial organism
for so many centuries.
Practically without single exec
tion, those industries in which the elm |
ination of the middleman has become |
nearly complete the promised reduction |
in the price OF the commodity by the /
time it reached the consumer never |
materialized. On the contrary, the |
price to the consumer has been in |
to figures that in many in
stances were out of keeping with val
ues. The California fruit industry was
one OF the first to oust the middleman.
With his exit entered an advance ini
oranges and other fruits many times
above the prices that had previously
obtained.