People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 November 1895 — Patriotic Citizens Read This. [ARTICLE]

Patriotic Citizens Read This.

A flourishing town is not only desireable to live in but it is profitable to live near, and it is but good judgment for every one to encourage, as far as possible, every worthy enterprise. If one class of merchants by advertising extra inducements can draw people from a distance to come to them to trade, their competitors and other tradesmen are in a measure benefited, for whatever biings the purchasing public to the town is beneficial to all lines of business. While the clothing merchant may have induced a customer to come from Benton county to purchase an overcoat and suit, he is liable to buy a bottle of patent medicine of the druggist before leaving town, and often a dozen lines of business are patronized by such a person. Common business courtesy usually influences patriotic tradesmen to purchase whatever they need for their own use in their own town. But there is a better reason than business courtesy for trading at home. Every dollar spent with the home tradesmen adds to their prosperity and no town can flourish without its people are prosperous as a whole. Prosperous merchants build houses to live in and blocks to do business in, and mechanics and laborers are employed, building material is consumed, and, in fact the expense of building is widely distributed and benefits many. Not even the capitalist, who has retired from active business, can afford to send his wife to Chicago to purchase a fashionable coat. it is doubtful that the garment can be purchased in that city as cheaply as at heme, but even the saving of a few dollars may prove a loss in the end. The profits on that particular fine coat might change the figures on the weekly balance sheet of a home merchant and stimulate greater effort to push his business, or the purchase price might be just enough to settle his overdraft at the bank. It is the duty of every citizen to purchase at home, within a reasonable range of prices, those commodities which he consumes. Usually the price is no higher than in the big cities and always you have the garantee of a responsible local merchant. The larger and more prosperous the town the greater the value of adjacent land- and tributary farms. Dollars are scarce in these gold basis times and each one has a long line ot debts waiting for it to pay. If you pay one to your home mer-

chant, he is liable to pay it to the very man that is owing you, thus enabling him to liquidate his obligation to you. Look at this matter in its many phases, you people who borrow mileage books of your neighbor merchants, when you desire to make a shopping trip to Chicago, and see if it is consistent to return with your arms full of bundles from State street stores. Some people do this, quite too many indeed, who are dependant upon the town for their own livelihood.