ducer's guarantee. This advertizing value frequently arises from the false impression which it creates of lowprice standards in all lines in the cutting store. It also leads frequently to fraudulent substitution of inferior goods. Any loss, if he purchases on an equality with other dealers, is made up by extra profits on other lines of goods. The large scale retailer does not claim that the maintenance of resale prices would bring him any direct loss. He merely contends that he would be deprived of the advertizing value of these cut prices. By pricecutting he is able to take advantage of the producer's reputation and obligations and thus give to his customers an extra price inducement to trade with him rather than with his small competitors. Fourth-The small retailers under price cutting lose trade. Eventually they lose control of a substantial portion of their remaining business, and the ultimate result of the price-cutting practice in certain trades is to force small retailers out of business as independent concerns. Fifth-Under price-cutting the consumer gains a saving in the price which he pays for certain identified goods. He loses eventually whatever advantage there is in independent as against monopolized retailing. He loses, also, as a result of the weakened inducement to produce new and improved products and he loses the advantage of identified merchandise purchases. UNDER A PRICE-MAINTENANCE SYSTEM First-By a reasonable system of resale price maintenance within the field under discussion, the producer profits by the protection of his distribution and of his good-will property-rights. Second-The wholesaler by the protection of fair profits guaranteed in return for a useful service rendered, is saved from monopolization or complete annihilation. Third-The large retailer loses the un deniably valuable privilege of advertizing the willingness of his store to give low prices on commodities whose quality is guaranteed by their maker and namer. Fourth-The small retailer loses nothing and in many lines is preserved from annihilation of profits. Fifth-Those consumers who are not customers of a price-cutter lose nothing and are protected in their purchases of identified merchandise. Those who are customers of price-cutters lose the difference between standard and cut prices. Consumers, as a whole, have preserved for them the benefits of production initiative. They retain the advantages resulting from being able to buy identified, guaranteed merchandise, and they are protected against monopolistic retailing. Neighborizing the Farmer One of the most significant facts of our telephone progress is that one-fourth of the 9,000,000 telephones in the Bell System are rural. In the days when the telephone was merely a "city convenience," the farms of the country were so many separated units, far removed from the centers of population, and isolated by distance and lack of facilities for communication. But, as the telephone reached out beyond cities and towns, it completely transformed farm life. It created new rural neighborhoods here, there and everywhere. Stretching to the farthest corners of the states, it brought the remotest villages and isolated places into direct contact with the larger communities. Today, the American farmer enjoys the same facilities for instant, direct communication as the city dweller. Though distances between farms are reckoned in miles as the crow flies, the telephone brings every one as close as next door. Though it be half a day's journey to the village, the farmer is but a telephone call away. Aside from its neighborhood value, the telephone keeps the farmer in touch with the city and abreast of the times. The Bell System has always recognized rural telephone development as an essential factor of Universal Service. It has co-operated with the farmer to achieve this aim. The result is that the Bell System reaches more places than there are post offices and includes as many rural telephones as there are telephones of all kinds in Great Britain, France and Germany combined. Why is a Waste Basket Bigger than a Letter Basket? Answer-Because most letters go into the waste basket -because most men don't think or care enough to make their letters look important and interesting. Where do your letters go-those sales letters and other important letters on which you and your office force put thousands of hours and thousands of dollars a year? Isn't it worth a little more thought to keep them out of the waste basket, to insure their being read? To send out letters that will side-step the waste basket is not necessarily expensive. A little careful thinking will solve the problem for you. Hundreds of the most important concerns in America have gone to the bottom of this problem-with an eye on expense. You will find them using dignified, impressive stationery produced on Construction Bond They use Construction Bond because it is a high-class paper-and so known-marketed in a manner which holds down the price. It goes direct to the most substantial printers and lithographers in the two hundred principal cities of the United States. And it goes in big quantities -500 pounds or more at a time. This cuts out the expense of doing a small-lot business-saves losses on irresponsible accounts-and gives you substantial, impressive business stationery at a usable price-obtainable through a nearby printer or lithographer who is invariably competent and responsible. Write us for our portfolio of twenty-five handsome specimen letter-heads. You may find a suggestion which will help you improve your own stationery. You will also see the various colors, finishes and thicknesses, in which you may obtain Construction Bond CONSTRUCTION with envelopes to match. Write us now and you will be making the first move to keep your letters out of the waste basket-to save some of the business you have been losing by neglecting this important detail. W. E. WROE & Co., 1006 S. Michigan Ave., Chicago My Beauty Exercises will make you look Younger and More Genuinely Beautiful than all the artificial, external treatments known. As my way is Just Nature's Way, results are permanent and come soon. It is astonishing to see how the too thin face and neck round out and the hollows fill in by scientifically developing and thickening the muscles. Other special exercises Reduce Double Chin by working away excess fatty tissue, leaving the flesh firm. Wrinkles caused by the drooping facial muscles disappear. Muddy, sallow skins become clear and the complexion Fresh as in Girlhood. No one too old to benefit. Instructions for beautifying the hair, hands, nails and feet are included. Write today for my Illustrated Facial Beauty Booklet-FREE. If you tell me what improvement you would like I can write you more helpfully. KATHRYN MURRAY, Dept. 285, 209 State St., CHICAGO The First Woman to Teach Scientific Facial Exercise. clusion was as follows: "Your committee, after considering all the evi-. dence it could secure upon this subject, is of the opinion that this question is of grave importance and that steps leading to the wisest possible federal legislation ought to be taken at once. From our consideration of the evidence which we and others before us have collected, we are convinced that in this case the condition is serious, and that, instead of correcting itself without law, it eventually must grow worse. We are convinced that legislation permitting the maintenance of resale prices, under proper restrictions on identified merchandise, for voluntary purchase, made and sold under competitive conditions, would be to the best interest of the producer, the distributor and of the purchasing public or consumer." In a recent issue of the Dry Goods Economist, we find this comment: "It is now pretty well conceded by those intimately associated with the struggle that has been waging within the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, over the provisions of the Stevens Bill, that the advocates of price maintenace have won their fight, and that the issue presented cannot longer be avoided." "Life is made up of only two things, ideas and their expression," says Frank Alvah Parsons. "If I have not the right idea, it won't live. If that which I say is not clearly organized in my mind, I shall never put it across." I NO OCCASION FOR ALARM IN THE opinion of the New York Herald and some other newspapers, the business interests of this country are awaiting with some solicitude if not anxiety the initial action of the federal, trade commission. It is hard to credit these reports, because the chief stumbling block in the path of business progress and development has heretofore been the uncertainty of legislation and the rather arbitrary attempts at control. From my interviews with executives of a number of large corporations, I am sure that the business interests of this country will welcome a standardization of business practice and control. If it was left wholly with the railroads they would not abolish the interstate commerce commission. The main promoters of public utility legislation in every state are the public service corporations. There is nothing in history to justify the fear that national regulation will prove destructive to legitimate profits. When George W. Perkins began his campaign for national regulation of trade and profits, one of the strongest arguments of his opponents was the benefit everybody assumed would accrue to the trust corporations with which b You must do it Don't imagine that your superiors are going to help you to a higher level or that your subordinates. are working hard to push you up. Both are working for their own advancements not yours. You must do the pushing and pulling yourselfthat's a law that is not often broken in business. And here is another law-if you want a bigger. job you must be a bigger man. You cannot advance with a mental equipment that is just big enough for your present job. The man that goes ahead bulges out of the old job because it cramps his growing powers. The department manager who became general manager had first to learn how the other departments-sales, advertising, finance, accountingwere run. He learned banking, transportation, organization, commercial law. He knew so much more than anyone else that they had to make him general manager. And he stayed general manager because he kept on learning. No one ever gets to the top JOSEPH FRENCH JOHNSON, D. C.S., Dean of the New York ELIJAH W. SELLS, M. A., C.P.A., Senior Member Haskins JEREMIAH W. JENKS, LL.D., Professor of Government, ELBERT H. GARY, LL.D., Chairman of the Board, U. S. Its subscribers include men in every rank of business life: presidents and The Modern Business "Forging Ahead in Business contains a vital message drawn from the experience of Send the Coupon Now Alexander Hamilton Institute 35 Astor Place, New York City FORGING AHEAD IN BUSINESS I should like to have you send, without cost or obligation to me, a copy of "Forging Ahead in Business," and full information about your Modern Business Course and Service. Name.... Street Address. Town Business Position.. (Name of firm or company) Number of years in business... If you wish to add any facts about yourself, or your business plans, that will help us determine the fitness of our Course and Service for your needs, we shall treat your letter as confidential and give it personal attention. he is associated. As former Secretary of State Knox said the other day, "The people have come to understand the difference between wise regulation of business for the good of the whole country, and a policy of hounding business." There is a wide difference between constructive measures which are wisely radical, and running amuck with sweeping and unnecessary reforms. Many business men are convinced that the work of the federal trade commission will be constructive. We have had altogether too much varied interpretation or misinterpretation of the Sherman law. No one law enforced by the courts can adequately meet all demands. No distinction is now being made between different kinds of business, and this has resulted in some injustice and much confusion. Jeremiah W. Jenks, the economist, put the matter very clearly when he said, "What is needed is: first, provision so flexible that it can be adapted to a diversity of industries and conditions; second, certainty regarding the legality of organizations or proposed agreements. It is believed that the federal trade commission can and will accomplish this result. وو Henry Ford has been quoted as saying that some manufacturing plants are honeycombed with rich men's sons who have been spoiled by money and college. No doubt this is true, but neither money nor college is responsible. Mediocre mental capacity is bound to fail, with or without money and with or without educational opportunity. It is lamentably true, however, that many who have had every advantage of money and special training have not had the capacity or ambition to make the best use of it; only now and then does one make the best use of his opportunities. I ness THE NEXT BIG ADVANCE N AN address before the Sphinx Club of New York, John H. Fahey, president of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States, said: "One of the most serious defects in the busisystem of this country, until within a few years, has been the lack of really representative and efficient organizations of business men, planned to deal with the question of business development from a broad and comprehensive viewpoint. "It is surprising that we in America who have placed so much emphasis upon thoro organization in private. business should have been so slow to see the necessity of applying the same the principles when dealing with greater project of promoting the total business of a city or the whole country. If we had long since studied the great development of the leading commercial nations of Europe we would have observed that the system of carefully worked out organization of the business men, concentrating the results of their thought and experience and cooperating with their central govern WOULD YOU LIKE TO OWN A Good Paying Mall Order Business? We have a line that gets repeat orders all the time; you can start in spare time; invest a dollar or two a week and soon own a nice paying business of your own; we furnish everything and instruct you free; write for particulars. NADICO, 1688 Belmont Avenue, CHICAGO ments in general promotion, had been a tremendous factor in the success achieved. "I believe we will find there are two great elements in the recent commercial progress of England, France and Germany, the importance of which we are just beginning to see-the training of skilled workers and the scientific organization of business men. Especially in Germany during the past thirty years have these two factors counted. Why do we buy imported goods in the United States at all! In small part because of cheapness in quality and price, but in most cases because of art and skill. The art of the French worker is not wholly inherited. It is partly the result of environment, but more because of training. "The French manufacturer takes fifty cents worth of raw silk and by the application of art and skill turns out a product which sells for $1.50 to $2.00 per yard. We in this country take the same quantity of silk, and, lacking the French experience and training, put it into a product which sells on the market for fifty to seventyfive cents a yard. I am not quoting exact figures. I only intend to illustrate the disparity and the difference in results secured from the treatment of raw material, which represents in large part French success in manufacturing and the wealth which has come from it. "When in the single State of Prussia the ministry of education reduced the proportion of unskilled labor from thirty-three per cent. to ten per cent. in twenty years, something has happened which helps to explain Germany's great prosperity. In one year out of 2,200 graduates from the highest classes in the elementary schools of Munich, 2,150 went directly into skilled employment. And at the same time remember that for many years population has increased in Germany at the rate of 900,000 per year excess of births over deaths-or equal to the record in the entire United States, exclusive of immigration. Meanwhile, immigration from Germany, which averaged 220,000 annually thirty years ago, has dropped to less than 25,000, and for the past fifteen years nearly Your Life Problem MEN OF IDEAS 35,000 persons have entered the empire and become citizens every year. In addition to this the country has taken care of a million foreign laborers a year in seasonal work. "It is evident there was plenty of work for the ever-increasing supply of skilled young at satisfactory men, wages, else they would have been tempted to come to the United States. The openings were made for the employment of this skilled labor by organized business working in a sys 375 and inventive ability should write for new "Lists of Needed Inventions," Patent Buyers and "How to Get Your Patent and Your Money." Advice FREE. RANDOLPH & Solved by Constructive Thought Co., Patent Attorneys, Dept. 75, Washington, D. C. How to relate yourself to the Constructive Forces of Life so that their power will permeate you and carry your plans to successful fruition based on psychological laws. Special Offer. Six months' membership to the Club entitles you to a copy of the Brochure "the Constructive Life," containing the key to the method, the knowledge of which will remake your world, also monthly letters of inspiration from the President-letters that breathe the very breath of life-which elaborate and amplify the System. If you have a knawing desire for a more successful and abundant life this knowledge will show you how to accomplish your desires by the use of certain immutable laws. Send two dollars, money order or bill. NEW THOUGHT CLUB OF AMERICA 39 West 39th Street New York City 1915 Model ΤΟ Delivered YOU FREE A sample 1915 model "Ranger" bicycle, on approval and 30 DAYS TRIAL. Write at once for large illustrated catalog showing complete line of bicycles, tires and supplies, and particulars of most marvelous offer ever made on a bicycle. You will be astonished at our low prices and remarkable terms. RIDER AGENTS Wanted-Boys, make money taking orders for Bicycles, Tires and Sundries from our big c italog. Do Business direct with the leading bicycle house in America. Do not buy until you know what we can do for you. WRITE TO US. MEAD CYCLE CO., DEPT. R-217 CHICAGO |