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Show Count the Cost Count the cost.- Th5t is what the Texas Messenger advises ad-vises its readers to do now that the Texas' chain store tax bill has become law. Already, according to the Press Messenger, Mes-senger, more than 50 stores of one chain system alone, and probably a hundred all told, have been discontinued driven out of the state of Texas by punitive taxation. Andi who pays the bill? Not the politicians who destroy the business and payrolls, but the consuming public, as usual, through high prices on necessities, increased taxes and .diminished competition. In the case of Texas, the smallest towns have been hardest hit because the great majority of the stores that, were removed were in small towns where, as a result of) their advertising and merchandising methods, they had influenced other merchants to advertise, make better displays, dis-plays, improve their stores, and give better values. Taking a typical small town, the Press Messenger gives some of the direct results of this political destruction of business: "The newspaper loses from $50 to $200 per month in direct advertising values (his other merchants, handling similar lines, will now reduce or eliminate their edvertising . . . ), one to two buildings vacant, best locations loca-tions in town, from five to twenty people out of worky city, school, county and state taxes lost on a nice valuation. valua-tion. Many farmers who were brought to that town by! the advertised bargains, going elsewhere each Saturday." And that is the sad tale of just one of the states that had allowed politicians to wreck legitimate business with, punitive taxation. Other states are in the same plight, and! there will be more if the professional "destructionists" can; get away with it. |