Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 85, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 April 1915 — Had a Corner on Flags. [ARTICLE]

Had a Corner on Flags.

Here he made another bargain, and from there he went to the other dealers, until he had cleared up every available flag there was in New York city, and he got them all at from twenty to fifty per cent off listed prices. As buyer for his firm he had authority to spend his allotted money as he chose, and if he wanted to spend it making a corner in flags that was his business. He imagined that there would be a big demand for flags, but even if there were not, he figured, flags were not likely to go out of fashion, and they were a reasonably safe investment. What happened? Within a few

hours Mr. Feder had all the available flags in the city in the receiving room of the department stpre. In the meantime other department store buyers had gradually come to the realization that there would be a run on flags in view of the death of the president. Many of them realized this first when customers actually came to their stores and asked for them. Then the buyers hurried to the wholesale dealers, but not one flag was to be had. “Mr. Feder bought them all,” the dealers said. “He has got every flag In New York city except a few in retail houses.” That was one of the little coups that lend excitement to Mr. Feder’s business as one of the leading toy buyers of the country. It was also one of the shrewd pieces of business that make department store owners and directors bid high for bis services. Last autumn, when one of the department stores in Manhattan moved from a downtown to an uptow-n site, the owner of the store engaged Mr. Feder as buyer for the trunk and sporting goods department All summer Mr. Feder worked with the other buyers to get together the merchandise for the opening of the store in the autumn. Late one evening a few weeks before the new store was going to open the owner sent for Mr. Feder to come to his office. « As Head of Department . “You have had experience as a toy buyer, Mt. Feder?” he said by way of beginning his,proposition. “Yes," said Mr. Feder, “I began in a wholesale house and I was a toy buyer for a dozen yean more or less. That is the line about which I know most” "I thought so,” said the owner. ’ “As you know, we have never, had a toy department But I Aave decided that we ought to have one. I have also decided that you are the man to take charge of it” This happened the twenty-fifth of September, and the new department was to open on the twenty-seventh of October, tt meant that within M*

weeks Mr. Feder would have to map out a policy for a department that would suit the clientele of the store, that he would have to buy and install fixtures, coach the salespeople, buy the toys and have them in position by the opefling day. ’ In this predicament Mr. Feder found what every business man finds sometimes in his life —and usually at a critical time, too—that friends are the best asset a business man can have. He knew and had friends among the “trade.” They knew,that if he said a thing he meant it and they were anxious to see him make-good in his new responsibility. At first when he asked the wholesale men to let him have certain toys before the end of October they declined. It was, as they believed, an utter impossibility. Then by skillful management they let him 'have a few of the toys ordered by other buyers who.had not stipulated for Immediate delivery. By stretching a point here and there, they were then able to fill the orders later and still accommodate Mr. Feder without putting other buyers to inconvenience. All during October Mr. Feder worked night and day, and when the new store opened no one of the many patrons who came to inspect the new department dreamed that the finishing touches had been put on just a moment before the curtain rose. Mr, Feder began his career as'an errand boy. He was a New Yorker by birth, and when he had finished the public schools his family wanted him to go to college; but the youngster knew somehow better than his eiders that there was a great deal more for him to learn in the business of the great city than there was within the walls of a college. So he took one of the first positions that offered itself —in a wholesale toy store as an errand boy, at $5 a week. Gets Hints From His Daughter.

While the department store buyer has one eye on the figures—and thinks half his time of the way to buy the best possible toys in the cheapest possible market so as to make the toy department as lucrative for his employer as possible—he has to keep another eye on childhood. Several years ago the different toy departments in the big cities made a point of selling “dollar dolls,” and it was up to every toy buyer to produce the most effective doll that it was possible to produce-for a dollar. Mr. Feder has a daughter of his own whose childish lispings have on more than one occasion given him valuable hints on the subject of toys. The little daughter is named Henrietta Evelyn. One day Mr. Feder was putting some of his expert thought on the subject of the dollar doll —a proposition which would mean many thousands of dollars to his firm. It suddenly occurred to him that it would be a good idea to give- his dollar doll a special name; and in honor of his little daughter he called it the “Henrietta” doll. Later, when he wanted to launch another sort of dollar doll, he called it the “Baby Evelyn." It seemed like a simple enough idea, but it was a good one, and the sales on the dolls were increased enormously as soon as they had a name. Within a few months other department stores took up the idea until the market was flooded with Baby Mauds and Baby Helens and Baby Margarets. But the few weeks Mr. Feder gained on his competitors meant just so much more in the pockets of his employers. Next time you go into a big toy department, as you pass from counter to counter, examining- the little perfectly shaped toy animals, pigs a few inches long covered with real bristles, tiny chickens with real feathers, dolls that walk and talk and wink, automobiles that really go and Noah's arks that would have made you as a child dance with joy—stop and think that it is because'of the thought of some such man as Mr. Feder that all these things are brought to your door. It is because some man with brains enough to be a college president and shrewdness enough to be a high financier and with all the imagination of childhood is devoting his time and energies to buying toys and organizing toy departments, that your children have toys brought from the four quarters of the earth to choose from.