Newspapers / Jones County Journal (Trenton, … / Aug. 16, 1956, edition 1 / Page 4
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fee***** hind, <rf tb. h«y«»i and retailers are having to relearn, oi &&.«»*•£* hard facts of |1fflB)tlii|i A great many ol today’s retailers grew up and learned theii trade to the “sellers’ market” and have titHfi or no comprehension of what the “hard aell” really is. But they will have t* learn, learn |a#^ 'f«*d up. No bustoeu tddky is-any mere • brutally dedicated to the “sufvhral of the fittest” than retailto*. It is very easy tor the harc^-pressed in dependent retailer to throw up, his hands and say "I can’t compete with a giant like gears with an eight bfllkm dollar per year grossl” He’s perfectly correct in mgay senses. But he’s wrong as a threedollar Ml in many other senses. Certainly the massive buyin^MBBr of a Sears gives it a commanding pMuon price-wise, but their are diseases suffered by bigness that can often be as restricting as those that plague those little folks. from the independent retailers. But still Sears doe* more business. Is price the only regson for this- I wonder. Over the door of every Sears store are five words ,that seem to me to be as important as a price advantage: “Satisfaction Guaranteed or Money Back”. That is one merchandising lesson that ought not.be lost on some of our independent merchants who have grown up in the past 15 years when the customer was “never rjght” instead of “always price differential would be cooperative hay ing. But of course that automatically make* necessary a working independent retailers’ association. For years, generations in fact, the farmer has beep called the “most dif ,,_u _1 hart \1/Vwvwpr ficult animal tp . mganize” but whoever started that saying'never tried to talk a community’s retail merchants into coopera tion. The first big thing that an. organiza tion brings together is brains plus exper ience, Of lesser value but vitally important is the collective buying power. For instance, the big part of wooden fur niture sold in Kinston pomes from the High Point area. Isn‘t^LceasonaWe to believe that one buyer spe&Pbg f°r °f Kinston’s many furniture stores would be in a better buying position than a dozen men, each buying small lots. Remember, when its a buyers’ market at the retail level it is also a buyers’ market at the wholesale level. Advertising is another sphere , in which the giants lord it over the independent small fry. Sears spends as much for advertising in as any 10 other outlets combined. Hence, Sears gets the lowest scale adver tising rates plus massive display of its wares in the aneifo wfpch it chooses. Any independent who Mb to see the advantages of cooperative buying at this level Is too stupid to survive;, ap^ won’t. The indepen dent retailers of Kinston could invest a OH er*J»_ Distributed by King Naturae Syndicate borough of the Harvey School faculty. Of course, we’re not happy that the other nine persons were Marines and that they suffered the worst in these wrecks. . Speed and reckless use ot speed were the combination which caused both of these Greene County accidents. Some tend to criti cize the Maripe Corps command for not giving the Marines “enough time" for their leaves, causing tbpm to hurry away and hurry bade. This is absurd as anyone who knows anything at' all about the attitude ef the service man is bound to know. If a service man was given a 364 day leave each year, and only had duty for one 24 hour period in the year, he’d do the same way. He’d stay away just as long as he possibly could and when his 24 hours of duty was* up he’d fly arway from It Just as fast as wheels, steels and gas would carry him. The fault lies NOT with the Marine Corps command,but with the engineers at Detroit and the legislators of our several once sove reign states. The same kind of mechani cal genius that builds the modem car has "Now, we know your car wfll run a 10* miles an hour, but you can only drive it 55” is about like giving a kid an ice cream cone and idling him to take only hall a lick. So-called “professional drivers” don’t like the governor on their flivver. They argue that it is dangerous in that It robs the car of much of. its acceleration. We counter that claim by arguing that the driver who knows his oar does not have suf ficient acceleration will not attempt to pass on curves, Mtts or simply fly beyond the limits of reason ,on the straight-away. In the ultimate, sense each of us who drives'is a “professional driver” in that we each drive "for a living”. Speed is unoon tradictahly the great killer on our highways. It is also uncontradictable that a mere legal speed limit does NOT effectively control speed. This leaves the governor on each motor as the only practical method of con trolling =speed, and lowering the death toll en our highways. , ' . with'tito blood on our highways demand and recede this proven ■ ->:m*t A From this sweaty stick* corner of Bast Carolina the Suez Canal problem may seem remote to most o* us, at this moment. It could suddenly become of paramount im portance. however, 1£ we am embroiled to war. Th«pe hwi/not t MtMin nr on* 4w «■ mmm ag down his -todc waves dancing mi? ■ Perhaps tome at this miserable August weather results from the hot air being turned loose in Chicago this week. And no relief is yet in sight. The Republicans con week with Aim Us oil reserves are assured. Russia needs Middle East oil to balance the American production. Not perhaps, as in active ingredient lor immediate war but certainly, and reasonably as preparation for the great day “When and IP’. Against this political problem the me chanical yalue of the Suez Canal becomes less vital. Certainly the longer haul around Southern Africa would be a great incon venience, but not an impossibility. The groat risk in re-taking Suez .lies in that direction. The wateaway can very easily be re taken but without the oil production ef the-Middle Bast in western hands the Suez loses a Vast portion of its importance. That is the kind of question western, lead ers must answer before they reach a deci sion and final action against Nasser. Of coiyse, Nasser knew tUs full well when he made hisprab. It is not a new kind of politics, but It does contain new problems. Refusal to act againtit Nasser, however, leaves the western powers in a greatly weakened position to dozens of ways. If minor political opportunists are permitted to abrogate international agreements, thro, ene may jogicaily ask, “What good are to JONES JOURNAL XAJCSK RIDKE, Publisher ked Bvftry #!MHr«iay by The Lenoir y .News Oompilif, toe., 40# W«et
Jones County Journal (Trenton, N.C.)
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Aug. 16, 1956, edition 1
4
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