Decatur Daily Democrat, Volume 47, Number 221, Decatur, Adams County, 20 September 1949 — Page 7

V C’■ P ’ EMBBR * o ' 1949

Do You Want Your A&P Put Out Os Business? Last Thursday in New York, the anti-trust lawyers from Washington filed a suit to put A&P out of business. They asked the court to order us to get rid of most of our stores and also the manufacturing facilities which supply you with A&P coffee, Ann Page products, Jane Parker baked goods, and other quality items we produce. This would mean higher food prices for you. It would mean less food on every dinner table and fewer dollars in every pay envelope. It would mean the end of A&P as you know it. This poses a basic question for the American people: Do they want to continue to enjoy lower prices and better living? Or do they want to break up A&P and pay higher prices, and have lower living standards? What do you want? Why Destroy A&P? Who Will Be Hurt? wit ".. brought under the anti trust law,. These are good law, They were Th.ro ha , nev „ any qua , |ion our m ; n j (ha , j, gqq(J bu , lneM anS posed about fifty year, ago to prevent any company, or any group of companies. good citiMnahip to good fo(x) „ cheap | y „ poß , ib | c A , Fortune Magazine from getting a monopoly in a field and then raising prices to the public. , aid about A* P some lime ago. "It is firmly attached to the one great principle - A&P has never done any of these things. the selling of more for less — that has made the desert bloom and the nation Nobody has ever shown that we have anything even approaching a monopoly wax great." of the food business anywhere. As every housewife knows, the retail grocery . . ■ businew is the most competitive in the country and we do only a small part of it. «*beve that we have helped the American people eat better and * live oettcr* Nobody has ever said we charged too high prices — just the opposite. This whole attack out of the fact that we sell good food too qheap. We would We believe that the hundreds of thousands of farmers and manufacturers who ' not have had any of this trouble if, instead of lowertrftf-price*, We had raised voluntary »°ught our business have profited by our fast, low-cost distribu. them and pocketed the difference. tion of their Products. Nobody has ever said that our profit rate was too high. During the past five We know that our 110,000 loyal employees enjoy today, as they always have, years our net profit, after taxes, has averaged about 1 'fjC on evary dollar of the highest wages, shortest hours and best working conditions generally prevail* sales, which is less than almost any other business you can think of. * n E * n the retail food industry; and that these men and women have found in The American people have shown that they like our low-price policy by coming A4P ,OO< * op P ortun,, ' e * for ••c’dty ent * progress, to our stores to do their shopping. If A&P is big. it is because the American We know ,ha ‘ of businessmen — the landlords who rent us our people, by their patronage, have made it big. wh ° <>ur ,h '. ” h “ “ wi,h r r • j r o ° and ge rvice» — have a big stake in our operations. Obviously, it is the theory of the anti-trust lawyers that the people have no right to patronize a company, if their patronage will make that company grow; and Obviously, all these people will suffer if this company is put out of business, that any big business must be destroyed simply because it is big, and even if the public .... hurt in th. proc... WBat Do You Want Higher Prices? wd • b . i — , we admit that the interests of the owners of A&r are of little importance. There is much more involved in this case than the future of A&P. The entire Frankly, they could make an enormous amount of money by breaking up A&P, American system of efficient, low-cost, low-profit distribution which we pioneered, as t h e ant j. trußt lawyers wish, and selling off the parts, will face destruction and the public will suffer. . . • ,11 c But »■ this what the American people want? Do they agree with the anti-trust A&P was the first chain store in this country, ror more than ninety years we nave . . « . . , , , , ~, ~ , .... * . .. -i c i .. r i lawyers that our food prices are too low, and that we shou dbe put out of the tried to build a sound Easiness on the simple formula the founder gave us: - . . \ . , , , , , c .. • „ v picture so other grocers can charge more? “Give the people the most good food you can for their money. Year after year we have tried to do a better job, make our business more efficient, and pass the Frankly, if this were the case, we would not want to continue in business, savings on to the consumer in the p But we ser j OU9 |y doubt that this is the case. Twelve years ago, an effort was Our efforts along these lines have led ot er grocers tc eep ir costs an made to tax this company and other chain stores out of business. The public profits down rallied to our support. They said they liked our quality foods and our low prices. In the old days before A&P, food that cost the grocer 50c, often sold as high As a result of their opposition, the tax was defeated. as SI.OO at retail. Now we are faced with this new attack through the courts. We are faced with Today, food that costs the grocer 50f generally sells to the public at less than 606 the heavy COBtB and a j) the trouble that lawsuits involve. "to. tlTy'bteX^ndrei'o" cto «.r«' B “' ~f“ » *“• lO » SLu,, group. and individual ntoant. operating with .be Mm e method. and in the same pattern here under attack. r , -r , If the anti-trust lawyers succeed in destroying A&P. the way will be clear for We fed that it is our responsibility to all these people to defend, by every the destruction of every other efficient large scale distributor. legitimate means, this company and the low-price policy on which it was built THE GREAT ATLANTIC & PACIFIC TEA COMPANY

DECATCR DAILY DEMOCRAT, DECATUR, INDIANA

PAGE SEVEN