The times-news. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1927-current, 1938-01-26
BUSINESS TWELVE MONTHS OR SIX?

i
Developments in Hendersonville since
the first of the year have demonstrated
conclusively that little special effort on
the part of business men will be rewarded
even in the dullest period of the year. In
retail mercantile circles it has been shown
that trade can be stimulated and merchan-
disc moved in January.
T! Times-News directs attention to this
matter because over long period of time
(perhaps throughout the entire period Of
modern day tourist bpsiness) the practice
here has been to freeze business after the
Christmas holidays, to take Winter va
cation, to sit around the stove. and wait
for, several Winter and Springs months to
pass and for Summer to show up before
arousing and getting started on the busi-
ness of another year.
This course, as matter of fact, has been
more or less disastrous to the business in
tereSts of the community. During these hi
bernating months business men have been
taking staggering losses; business slips
back or retrogrades, business enterprises
lose all the ground gained and all the ad-
vantages of the progress made in the pre-
vious Summer and Autumn seasons. The
net result is they face the return of the
sO-called busy season with their enterprises
at low ebb, they are in weakened and
crippled condition to accept the advantages
which come with the Summer and Fall
months; and by the time they have made
some recovery to conditions approaching
normal, the dull months have rolled around
again and there is a repetition of stagna-
ton conditions and the staggering losses
sustained in the so-called dull months.
Now, the faith of the Times-News in the
community and section and their possibili-
ties is that in a large measure this condi-
ton can be overcome, the effects of the
Winter period of stsgnation can be miti-
gated, and general business can be stimu-
lated in way to prove profitable, indi-
vidually and collectively, to Hendersonville
and its trade territory. ...
Just as it is reasonable and possible that
the tourist season can be heightened, that
winter visitors can be induced to come
here, that people and capital from other
sections can be interested in locating in
the town and section, this newspaper is
confident that lively, energetic, concert
ed effort by local business men to keep
trade moving and business progressing
would produce results. This course would
protect the town and section from much
of the highly unfavorable and destructive
results of Winter stagnation.
One of the worst results of the course
taken here through the years of crawling
in our holes for the Winter season has not
been mentioned. That is the direct loss of
retail trade and other business to nearby
larger places while our business men are
alternating.
These larger places, of course, are push
ing ahead and fighting for business twelve
months in the year. They do not let up
for three or four months after Christmas
Their business men do not retire to their
dugouts to await the coming of Spring.
They go right along with we'll planned
and sustained efforts to keep business NOV
ing. The effects of these conditions is that
those places competing with our business
men for the trade of Hendersonville and
the surrounding country meet with no Hen
Jacksonville competition during this period
OF the year. 1t is easier, therefore, for
them to drain the trade of the community
and the surrounding country into their
stores and business houses.
IhS Whole mater may be summed nm nv