Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 167, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 July 1914 — PROSPERITY AT HOME [ARTICLE]

PROSPERITY AT HOME

erpHERE IS NOTHING OF GREATER IMPORTANCE TO US THAN THE JI PROSPERITY OF OUR COMMUNITY. PROSPERITY AT HOME IS BASED ON LOCAL BUSINESS CONDITIONS. If our local merchants and storekeepers transact a large volume of business their prosperity Is communicated to every perstm in the ehtfre community. The values of our real estate increase. Wages are increased. There i» more money in.circulation and it is more readily obtained for purposes of expansion, paying for improvements, buying luxuries, etc. In every way we can discover better conditions on all sides when our business Inen are busy. There is every reason In the world why we should spend our cash at home Instead of sending it to the big cities. By keeping It In circulation In our home community we profit In many way*. But if we send our money to the mall order houses, that is the last we hear of It If enough money is sent to the mail order houses from our community we may easily put our local merchants out of business. By diverting our trade from our local storekeepers we can make It Impossible for these to maintain their stores. Every dollar sent out of our town to the mall order houses detracts just so much from our own Individual prosperity, as well as from the prosperity of the storekeepers and from the community In general. Think of the consequences if we should all send to the mail order houses for our necessities and our luxuries How long would it be before our local merchants would have the “closing out sale” signs on their doors, to be followed by the “for sale" sign* an the stores themselves? AND WHEN THE BUSINESS HOUSES ARE ALL ADVERTISED FOR SALE WHAT WILL BE THE VALUE OF OUR OWN HOUSES AND LOTS? Such conditions have actually prevailed in some communities. It ha* happened that the citizens became “mail-order-mad” and sent to the big cities for the greater part es their merchandise. The local merchant* abandoned the field, because there was no business there for them. The burden of taxation fell on the various property owners, because there were no business concerns to bear the big proportion which generally falls to their share. Property values decreased until there were no bidders for undesirable real " estate." The town became dead. In the meantime the head of a big mall order house In Chicago was • drawing an income of over a million and a quarter dollars, made possible by the business received by hl* concern, by mail, from such communities a* the on* above described and from our own community, a* well as from other* all over the United State*. Every dollar of this enormous income was diverted from storekeepers tn small communities. Every dollar sent in to that great mall order amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars annually, detracted from the prosperity of some community, struggling to become a center of population, but retarded by the short-sightedness of the citizens who sent their money out of town in preference to helping towards the prosperity of their own community. Of course, It was all done unthinkingly. Those who sent their dollar* to the mail order house did not stop to consider that these same dollar* would add to the prosperity of the home community if expended at home. They did not stop to reason that by helping those to their own community they would be best advancing their own interesta THIS COMMUNITY NEEDS YOUR HELP. YOU NEED THE HELP OF EVERY DOLLAR IN ORDER TO MAKE A BETTER COMMUNITY IN WHICH TO LIVE. YOU NEED THE PROSPERITY OF THIS COMMUNITY TO MAKE YOUR PROPERTY OF GREATER VALUE AND TO GIVE YOU THE BENEFITS OF A BETTER COMMUNITY IN WHICH TO MAKE YOUR HOME BRIGHTER, MORE DESIRABLE AND WORTH MORE IN DOLLARS AND CENTS. . We must all consider these matters. We must stop and think, before ending our dollars to the man order house*, that our cooperation is necessary to t*»e upbuilding of our community and that, for our own selfish adwsnhtge*, even with no other motlve, we ngtot patronlze home institution* and keep our dollars at home so that they can work for the advancement of our own prosperity. ■ We will all find that it is a fact, when we consider the question from every view point, that we can buy as cheaply and as profitably from our local merchants as from a mall order house, and we then know what we are buy* tog. instead of buying a “pig in a poke.” > *