Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 192, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 August 1914 — LOYALTY TO OUR COMMUNITY [ARTICLE]

LOYALTY TO OUR COMMUNITY

M I A LOYAL CITIZEN? Zf*\ 001 PERFORM A FAIR SHARE OF MY DUTIES TOWARD THB 64 COMMUNITY IN WHICH I LIVE? Let us discuss the subject, fairly and openly. In the first place, we each owe something to our community. We each derive benefits and profits because of our association with the community of which we are each a part, making us each responsible for a fair proportion of the cost of maintaining the support of the community. '’The physical responsibility is represented by the taxes' we pay. Toomany of us are satisfied with the perfunctory performance of that part—leaving the moral responsibility to others. In other words, WE ARE TOO EASILY INCLINED TO BELIEVE THAT TSE PAYMENT OF OUR TAXES RELIEVES US FROM ANY AND ALL RESPONSIBILITIES IN CONNECTION WITH THE COMMUNITY IN WHICH WE LIVE. We are inclined to forget that the many comforts and conveniences, both, in a social and a business way, which we find in our community, are oursbecause of our association with our kind; with others who have invested, their dollars and their efforts here, jiffit as we have ourselves/ We expect our associates to be loyal to us and to our community and we r at least pretend, that we are loyal to them. Are we loyal? J: If we purchase our necessities and luxuries from mall order houses, we are not loyal to our associates tn the community, because we then show no appreciation of their endeavors to supply the members of the community with these things. We are not helping our associates to maintain their establishments, which can be successfully operated only with our co-operation and* support. ’ . A If we send our dollars out of town—to the mail order houses —we can. only expect that the time will qutckly come when we must send to the mall order houses for everything we require,, because It Is only natural that our local business houses will become discouraged if we do not patronize them and buy our merchandise from them, and go out of business. Even now we note that the'stocks of some local stores have been restricted to puch things as must be bought to comply with emergencies, for the reason that our citizens send to the big cities, to the mail order houses, fer so many of the goods which* should be found on the shelves of our local jtores. And It will be but natural for our business men to continue to restrict their stocks to the merchandise which our citizens do not find it convenient to buy from the mall order houses until we will awaken some day to a realization of the fact that we must sand away for practically everything. Then what will happen? We will discover that the mall order houses, finding little, if any competition for our business in our home community, will' be the ones to profit, because wo must then send to them for all werequire in the way of merchandise. It is not Impossible, although it is admittedly improbable, that when the mail order houses shall have driven competition from the fldlfl by eliminating our local merchants, with our aid, foolishly tendered through our sending orders away from home, that there yrtll be a readjustment of prices so that we* must pay more for the things we buy. At any rate, we should be compelled to pay whatever prices the mail order houses might choose tb charge * us, with no competition against-them to protect us. At any rate, we are really trying to cut our own throats when we send- 1 OUr'-Money away from home. Loyalty means more than a mere perfunctory appreciation of the efforts of our local merchants to supply our necessities, for It means that we are conserving our own Interests and protecting ourselves against the exactions of monopoly. . We are fighting for our own protection against the conditions which are bound to come unless we help our local storekeepers to maintain their business relations with us and to stand between us and the big mall order concerns which are'lying in wait to take their business away and compel us to send to the big cities for everything wo require in merchandise. *. When we pay our dollars to our associates in the community, tfie storekeepers, let us do it cheerfully and with a feeling that we are providing for our future welfare. Let us forget the attractive and often misleading descriptions In the catalogues Of the' mail order houses and remember the kindly, friendly spirit of our local dealers who strive earnestly to merit our trade and who, when everything has been carefully analyzed, -give us much better service and more satisfaction in the end than we can expect from the mall order house where every customer is known merely as a number and every Shipment a mere mechanical transaction made at the convenience of ar »> roticr •