OCR Text |
Show BUTCHER" DEPENDS" THE GROCERVMAN He Says This Paper Has Been Too Severe and Has Failed to Labor With the Combine in a Patronizing- Way Explains Why Butchers, Though Making- Big- Margin, Fail to Ride in Autos What This Paper Has Accomplished. -, i; Editor Standard and Examiner: "I want to say a fow words In regard re-gard to your article on high prices published pub-lished In your papers of the 27. You eoom to bo putting all tho blamo on tho poor retailer. Your article, taken mostly from tho Post, Is tho fairest one you have published. Heretofore you have made it appear that tho Ogden Og-den grocers were responsible for tho i high prlcos. You have called them names, regardless of the fact that several sev-eral of them are advertising cut prices. I believe any of them will fill orders at tho same price. It Beems to me that you aro tho one tliat Is driving driv-ing trade out of town, not the grocers. I think tho grocers have made a mistake In not advertising more than they have. I believe thoy think so, too, now, but you, Mr. Editor, havo roasted them until they are mad. Thoy probably would not reply now under any circumstances If some of the prices were too high, you, as an editor, might havo had them lowered and still have retained their friendship. A short time ag;o some one, commenting com-menting on the high price of sugar, as compared with the samo sugar In Chicago. You, In an editorial, explained ex-plained why conditions were such. Could you not have been as fair to the grocers? But I startod out to defend the meat business, tho grocers should tako caro of their own troubles. In your article taken from tho Post It shows very plainly that tho ones who buy In tho smallest quantity are the ones who pay tho most Naturally, that Is a buslnoss condition that can not bo helped Noto our advertisement In this paper of the diffcronce in largo and small quantities. You say that tho government reports that the av- erago retail profit is 28 per cent Now. I that report was mads bout It! months r ago, November or Deoemher, 1909 I gave tho prices on one of tho reports from Ogden. They were for strictly retail orders, from 25 to 50 cents, but did not include' prices on large quantities. quan-tities. If 1 remember right, tho profits woro between 25 and 30 per cent. Now. mind you, that was In the fall, when the wholesale price is the lowest. The retailer lowers his price at that time and raises It In tho spring, but not nearly In proportion by any means. The retailer only about plays oven for soveral months In tho year, and sometimes, some-times, as was the caso last year, he oven losos monoy. So, if he hopes to stay in business, ho must mako a good profit In tho fall Last fall the wholesale price of cattle, cat-tle, dressed, In the looal market, was C 1-2 cents. It Is now S 1-2 cents, I and will be hlghor bofore it Is oheap-or. oheap-or. That is an increase of over 30 I per cent, while the retail price has ad- vancod only about 10 per cent This i may not appear so, If you figure only ' the steaks and better cuts, but romem-l romem-l her the waste Is tho same, and tho j bones are the same, a shank that sells for 25 cents all tho tlmo costs G 1-2 cents per pound. 75o, while at S 1-2 cents it costs $1 a whole shank weighing 12 to 13 pounds. Now, just for tho sake of argument, lot us suppose that we make 3S per cent all the year round, which, of course, we do not Tho avorage small 1 dealer, wo will say, uses throe cattle a week, of 500 pounds each. That is C.000 pounds a month. Lot us say, at an average cost of 7 cents per pound, ' $420 Let us suppose ho uses half as much other meats, such as veaL pork, . etc. That makes his meat for tho j month cost him $630. Now, 38 per I cent on that Is $239 40 on his monthly ' business of nearly $900. Now, to run the. smallest kind of a placo will require the owner's payment of say, $100; one mun at $75, a boy, horse I and wagon, with feed and repairs on ' wngon would bo at loast $80. Other Incidental oxpenses of not less than $25, making a total of $230, or a loss j of $10.60, which must come out of tho owner's salary, leaving him only about , SCO a mouth for himself. Now. If he 'did not do any other kind of .business i except sell to retail trade In small i quantities, the two men and a boy would ho kept busy. They would have all thev could do. But, someone says, there Is no business but what docs moro than that; yes but It is not In I such small orders. It Is mixed up with larger ones, with a less porcentago of profit. Now. supposo we tako the same outfit out-fit Belling only in quarters of beef and kept busy. They can sell six beef a day. or 144 a month. Now, flg-1 flg-1 ure a profit of only i-2c a pound, or 9 1-3 per cent. That will mako qulto i a difference In profits 72,000 pounds at one-half cent $360, to say nothing of the smaller moats. Wo buy a bag of popcorn from a street stand for 5 cents. The co3t of ranterlal used.' Is probably not moro than lc, with scarcely any Investment. Yet ho does not pet rich on his 400 per cent. We do not ask or expect him to sell for less. The cost of anything, when It reaches tho consumer, Is based almost entirely on tho labon cost This covers cov-ers almost everything that we use. Of course, there are a few articles controlled con-trolled by trusts, but you can count thom on tho flngerB of ono hand. There aro also a fow patented articles whero tho price Is controlled by tho maker. Nolo this: The government is a party to this, as It protects tho Inventor for a certain uumbor of years. This Is as It should be, and nobody kicks. . There aro so many reasons for tho high cost of living, and bo many good articles havo been written on tho sub-I sub-I Ject, that I do not bolleve tho majority J of tie people bollevo the retailor has anything to do with It. , Oh, yes, I nearly forgot to mention one of the main reasons that is the pure food law. That has suroly given us bettor ! and cleaner food than we had before, and we can woll afford to pay for IL Statistics show that only three re-tall re-tall merchants out ot a hundred succeed, suc-ceed, the other 97 por cent either fall or quit tho business and go at something some-thing else. Out of all the meat markets that havo been in Ogden only one Is hero now that was here twenty years ago, and only one other that has beou here fifteen years and not ono has retired on income enough to sport an automobile. automo-bile. If you have abused my business without cause as you have tho grocery men, I might havo been tempted to do just as they have done and kept still, but as the article of the 27th is only a criticism and only suggests that tho butcher is maklngtoo much, I take this opportunity to fcrepy. Now, let's get tbgethor and quit knocking. Publicity -Is all right Advertising Ad-vertising Is the malnstay of a newspaper, news-paper, also of a business, fCn-n.wt 'V i toiri Tinnc Our friend James thinks we are rather fair on the batcher business, but too severe on thegrocer. We do not agree with Mr. James at all. The fact that prices have fallen on so many groceries and provisions Is proof of the Justice of our grocery campaign. Take sugar, for Instance, to which Mr. James refers "'The wholesale price has scarcely -changed, yet, when wo first started ouf-jj campaign, 13 and 14 pounds were sold for a dollar; now you can got 18 pounds of the best granulated beot sugar for $1. That is an actual reduction of almost 30 per cent. That Is not all The grocers' combine has boycotted grocery stores that havo dared tq adertlse prices In this paper. That is ono of our objections ob-jections and the ,9Ut advertisements of groceries did not appear In this paper until we got after the combine with a great big stick We do not wnntJ.he grocers to advertise ad-vertise with us ifc-Lhey do not want to, but we do object to the combine boycotting people who do want to do business with us. Mr. James Is entir.elv mistaken when he saj-6 tills paper is the cause of sending more grocery orders out of town than were sent out beforo tho fight began, because the railroad receipts re-ceipts of groceries by local shipment shows a great falling-off for the last i fow weeks. Such facts are conclusive. Wo hope the grocers' combine Is satisfied sat-isfied with Mr. James' defenso. Wo are. ' Tho fact that the grocers aro mad is another proof that this paper hns touched tender spots. Come again, Mr. James. We think your defense and confession are wholesome to tho trade Wo have received re-ceived hundreds yes, thousands of messages, lettors and communications, saying that the Standard's fight Is a winning one and that the prices now prevailing arc much lower and have proved a saving to the poor of many n dollar. Let the good work go on. |