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Show Retailers Are Optimistic GOOD news for the nation comes from the Chicago Association of Commerce as the result of tabulation of orders placed during the past few weeks by some 18,000 Jobbers attending attend-ing Chicago's annual trade shows. The Jobbers bought IS per cent more merchandise mer-chandise than they did during the shows last year. That's significant because these buyers are closely connected with the retail market of the entire country. Their optimum over business " conditions during the coming year, as Indicated by heavier purchases, reflects confidence on the part of the nation's retailers as a whole. It is a fact, too, that retailers, who have been hard hit many times during the depression by slumps in trade, are not apt to be carried away by a feeling of false optimism. They know that if they fall to gauge correctly the future course of trade, they will suffer severe losses from large stocks of merchandise on their shelves which they must unload at a sacrifice. So, despite the fact that the nation's bust-ness bust-ness activity curve has been dropping steadily since the first of the year, there seems every reason to believe that the decline is purely seasonal, sea-sonal, and that in another month or two It will be definitely on the upgrade again. That in fact is the analysis of the magazine Business Week, which says in Its current Issue: "From now on the decline In general business should show signs of moderating ... a good part of the recession now seems to have run Its course . . . Consumer buying Is being well sustained ... the early Easter should be a definitely defi-nitely stimulating influence." |