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