OCR Text |
Show CITY IS BOOK CENTER t Chicago Is Greatest Distributing Station In America. Competition Not Only In Selling lut Buying School Publlcstlons Has Caused Many Scandals In Thla Business. Chicago. Chlrago'a supremacy smong cities In most branches of commercial com-mercial utilitarian production It undrr-tukca undrr-tukca la ao well known as to over shadow whatever exccllcnco It rrisy have In pure Intellect. The muul' lptl-Ity lptl-Ity baa had to atruggle to extend l's reputation of being sntstlially l-cllntd, l-cllntd, but even with the ronparatUe succisa It baa attained In that direction direc-tion few peraona know that Chlcaie baa erudition tn scatter about tba country. Yet thla city la known. In fact, aa the groaleat dlatrtbutlng renter ren-ter of educational books In America. Publication of school books Is a mr-tairloua mr-tairloua process, ss far aa the iti-ncral public la coucerned. In this business there Is competition, snd (li-rc competition, compe-tition, too, not only In selling, but In buying as well. Competition In selling sell-ing has more thau once occaslunrd scandal and formal Investigation; In buying It la another thing entirely. The Tbree H'a company, for In-atance. In-atance. persuadea the authorities In Joneavllle that the Alphabet compunf 'a school readera In use there are Inferior In-ferior to a new publication of lb "Three It's." Therefore the latter gels the opportunity of selling Its on readers In Joneavllle, taking old sod I 1 .r " " dog eared Alphabet company renders In exchange, making therefore s discount dis-count of perhaps lu per cent, on lbs price of the new books. At the earns lime the Alphabet company has ousted oust-ed Three H'a company's histories from the Rmlthfleld schools, receiving the students' old lex I books In partial payment. pay-ment. These two deadly rivals here find s common basis In protection against their enemy, the s ind bund dealer. Rather than have those books, acquired ac-quired by exchange, sent through the denler'a hands to undersell new books In other cities, each company Is willing will-ing lo exchange with tho other and to buy at a good price any copies that may be left over after the exchange. Thla price may be much lurger than the discount given for the books In Ihe fliat place. Hut the second hand dealer Is not to he put out of buslncna In this way. Hundreds of thousands of new and used school booka are brouuhl yearly Into Chicago by the five firms en gaged here In that form nf trade. Thoy are acquired from retail dealera whose market haa failed through a new decision de-cision of a local school board and from the smaller publishers who have taken books on a discount basis and have no exchange agreement with the original publishers. |