Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1922-11-01

lage we have been discussing Il
ripe for a wholesale receipt of
Catalogues" And every villager
in Happytown and every farmer
for miles around straightway Is
in possession of a fat, attractive
looking boOk-a book that they
later learn came TO them rs so
much poison. We hear feverish
talk among villagers relative TO
the wonderful offerings of this
remarkable institution that sells
everything from a peanut to an
automobile, by mail. We see the
insidious workings of this pref
ty" book, gotten up by artists,
who make the merchandise appear
so alluring, using their ability to
conceal the true shoddiness of the
goods themselves.
And now, let us return to Hap
pytown. One by one, we find Mr.
Pioneer Merchants customers
leaving Misunderstanding him to do
their buying from a soulless,
heartless, entity that is no more
concerned with the growth of
Happytown than it is with the
fate of the ex-Kaiser. Mr.. Pho
neer Merchant soon learns whats
the cause of the wholesale loss of
customers. At first, he says TO
himself, "Oh, why worry, they'll
be back soon" But they don't
come back at all-not because
they are satisfied with the goods
received from the mail order
house, but because they think
that they have saved a few paltry
pennies. Then our merchant friend
begins to worry at the loss of
trade and wonders where the end
will be. Soon he loses his affable
disposition, and as he commences
to decay, so does the town start
to go to seed. And before we
know it, what was once a thiving,
prosperous, cOntented community,
enjoying a healthy and steady
growth, enlivened by that subtle
influence for good community
enterprises now a struggling,
weak, halfhearted town, bound
straight for obscurity and desola-
ton. And the end is inevitable
unless-unless some live wire"
gets into Happytown with a pub
licity campaign designed TO show
uD' these business vampires, show
up their insidious methods and
their COMMUNICATING conduct.
And therein lies the hope and sal
walton of thousands of smalltowns
the country over. May the light
of unfavorable publicity be thrown
on the activities of every mail
order house in existence they
are all alike, all engaged in the
nefarious business of destroying
small towns and the many worth
while things in life that go with
ones existence in a small town.
But let us remember, always,
that the storekeeper has some
other problems to meet. His store
must be kept up to an efficient
standard; it must have a person
atty and distinctiveness that will
make it Just a wee bit CHEEKY and
popular and better stocked than
his rivals store in the adjoining
county. The storekeeper must
not rely wholly on the willy trav-
cling man. The drummer, to use
a rather mixed metaphor, may
have his own AK to grind. The
storekeeper should make at least
an annual trip to some large city
where he can view for himself the
everchanging Kaleidoscope of cos
mOpolitan department stores and
their achievements of staples and
the more elusive vagaries of the
mode.
The time is coming when the
mail-Order houses will be legislat-
ed out of existence. Several of
them are in bad, so to speak, with |
Legislative and industrial bodies
at the present time. The more
that the unfavorable light of pit
less publicity is thrown on their
wicked ways and means of getting
business, the more strong will be-
come the movement designed TO
secure their abolition, and the
day is not far distant when the
three great "ex's" will slumber
side by each in an unholy grave.
unhonored, unloved, unmourned
the ex-Kaiser, ex-Booze and ex-
Mail-Order houses. They are equ-
ally Ubiquitous. Two have already
passed on, the other will soon fol-
low. Let us all put our shoulder