The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1931-05-29
STORE HOLDUP
WOUNDS KILL
|. A. JACKSON
Merchant Genius Is Victim
of Bloody Clash With
Hoodlum Gunner.
HIGH TRIBUTE is PAID
He AStounded Associates
by Grasp on Details of
Huge Business.


Huge Business.
Arthur Price, 30, of 1876 East
Georgia street, was held for
questioning by detectives this aft
ernOOn as a suspect In the Staying
of Lafayette Jackson. Police said
Price answers the description of
the man who abandoned the ban
dts car after the shooting.
Receiving tributes Of the COM
munity he served more than a
quarter century, Lafayette A. Jack
son, SO, recognized nationally as a
merchant genius, lay in his final
rest today, hero and victim of a
bloody clash with hoodlum gunner.
While thousands whose benefit
was his predominant passion paid
their last respects, around the bier,
in flesh and memory ranged a more
intimate group who chung to his
friendship through the years like
lesser flakes of metal to a giant
magnet.
They saw stilled the dynamo that
Numbered its way to power. They
saw inert the hands that had in one
minute driven a merciless bargain
and in the next spread lavishly what
balm they could delinquish to
q human i'll.
They saw liberated from the flesh
a fighting spirit that fired the hui
man machine, a spirit that urged
him to a death he had foreSeen, as
a crusader against a vicious enemy
(crime) with the odds piled high
against him.
Kroger Mourns Death
They glinpsed briefly a biogra-
ply as unique and still as human as
the combined life stories of a Ma
poleon and a Hoosier housewife.
1t is forty years since a young
Kentuckian, born while civil war
ragged through his native south, an
swered want ad in a Cincinnati
paper, and became a salesman for
Benjamin H. Kroger, head of the
grocery chain bearing his name.
Il was surprised and grieved to
hear of his DEATH have not seen
Mr.. Jackson for years, but as recall
him he was a bright, energetic and
go-ahead type of chap" Kroger
said today, learning of the trag-
edy.
When Mr.. Jackson lifted a foot,
prosperity followed. The Kroger
stores grew after he became man
ager until he left.
First City Store in 1897
In indianapolis, in 1897, he
opened a grocery at Washington
and New Jersey streets. half
block from the scene of the bloody
encounter in which he suffered
mortal wounds Wednesday.
Six years later there were other
stores, built from the profits of
preceding ventures, and in COM
mand stood the man whose sight
neglected not a detail of the fleet
and sped beyond the horizon where
other stores were waiting to be de-
veloped.
Success was pillared entirely upon
his individual ability. AS his enter
prise enlarged, so did his capacity
to control it.
He combined ultra-modern chain
store business methods with the
simplicity of the days when the
grocer added his accounts on
single, and that was all there was
to it.
Couldn't Be "Out-BOught"
No huge Office force, no army of
stenographers and assistants to the
president"
The whole affair was Lafayette A.
jackson.
Backs of envelopes carried
scrubbed notes that told him what
he couldn't remember. and check
book was his buSiness bookkeeping
system.
Those who worked beside his desk
with him obtained rare glimpSes of
the character that founded and
backed the Standard grocery chain,
and few saw more of his business
life than John E. Hoffman, auditor
of the company.
THE man doesn't live who could
out-buy him." Hoffman said, and
therein lay one of his secrets for
success. He battled with statesmen
and pinched away each unnecessary
penny of expense.
stopped Little Leaks
Even to electricity. A small desk
lamp burned on his proportionately
small desk only when the big boss
sat there. Little leaks here were
stopped, and pennies that added
into dollars were placed on the
credit side of his account He was
a hard merchant.
And still, there was an employee
whom Mr.. jackson suspected -
later he discovered rightfully-of
dishonesty, whose son had to go to
q hospital.
When he went to pay the bill
there was none.
I'VE never tried to find out who
paid that bill" Hoffman said. I'VE
didn't have to. We knew"
His hard bargains, it seemed were
seldom of benefit to him. His ia
vorite confession, I'm the best buy
er, but the worst salesman, in the
world" led him invariably to turn
q low-buying price into a similarly
low selling price.
Two years ago, Governor Elem d.
Sampson Of Kentucky added Mr..
Jackson to his staff as a Kentucky