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more a month. I have the location, the organization, and the goods the people need. I lack money to tide me over this depression. The sudden check in trade has left me with an expensive plant; the charges must be met, sir. I have a fortune in sight at Junction Square, but I haven't quite connected with it. Now if your bank will make this loan, at whatever rate of interest you please, I am willing to place my deposit account with you. It will develop into a most valuable account, I am sure."

matter how many Banker Fillmores there are in your town, it may not be necessary to throw up the sponge. If I had possessed the limited grit of some merchants I know, these Fillmores of New York would have counted me out during that panic, and properly so.

Yet here I was, apparently at the end of my string. The situation confronting me was similar, in a way, to that other situation when I came up to New York from Lost River to seek cash for my unfortunate department store down there.

"It is useless to talk about it," said Yet, in reality, there could be no comFillmore.

"I should like to demonstrate to you the truth of my assertions," I insisted. "I should be most pleased to go over with you my financial affairs."

"If I recollect right," he observed, he observed, quietly, "you were in business somewhere before."

"At Lost River," I admitted.

"What became of that business? I have forgotten."

"That business," said I, "is no criterion by which to judge me to-day. I was a beginner then, and I failed because I undertook a thing without knowing how. If you can disabuse your mind of any possible prejudice that may be there - wipe Lost River off the slate absolutely, as I myself have done I can demonstrate my proposition."

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"Mr. Broadhurst," he broke in, with finality, "our bank cannot lend you twenty thousand dollars, nor even thousand dollars. Without regard to your record at Lost River, we must refuse your application. You will excuse me, please; I am much engaged."

Now this was the tenth time I had repeated scenes of this sort, one after another, in rapid succession. I relate the Fillmore conversation merely because it is typical of them all. It illustrates two things: first, the desperate financial situation that confronted not only New York but the whole country; second, the taint that is left on a man's career by one unSuccessful and poorly managed undertaking. Yet my own history should be worth while to men who have tried and failed, as I did down at Lost River. No

parison between one of these crises and the other. On the former occasion I sought to finance a concern that failed in every way to meet banking requirements; on the latter occasion I was prepared to withstand the severe tests of the shrewdest old bankers in Manhattan.

You see, there are times even with the most ably managed business when its salvation depends, not on the banks, but on the resource and ingenuity of its owners.

When I finally abandoned the bankers, I went up to see Higgins in the office of his employers, the silk importers. Of course I did not expect to get money from him, for he had little, at best. What I wanted was merely a confidential discussion of a certain plan that had flashed across my mind the night previous. Higgins, like myself, had become a close student of business. Lost River had thoroughly sobered him and made an analytical chemist of him. Many a concern needs a chemist more than anything else— not a pharmaceutical chemist, but one who is versed in the reagents, reactions, and equations of the making and marketing of goods.

"You're on the right track, as usual," Higgins said. "There are always more ways than one to do a thing. Most men lay too much stress on cash and too little on their own inventive ability."

"Well," I returned, "you are always inspirational, anyway, Hig; that's why I like to come and talk over these matters of management with you. I know some men who throw cold water on every proposition that is broached in their presence. For example, there's Hiram Brown.

commend him to you for a lead-weighted croaker who would sink any fellow's ambitions. How he ever managed to stick in the employ of Lombard & Hapgood is more than I can imagine."

Higgins shrugged his shoulders. "I used to think Lombard had a fine organization," he returned; "but now I see things differently. By the way, I saw him yesterday met him down near Liberty Street, coming out of a bank. He looked sick, and worried. I shouldn't be surprised if he, too, were on the still hunt for cash. I imagine these panic times. have hit the old firm pretty hard."

"No doubt," said I; "how could it be otherwise, with such fellows as Hi Brown on his staff? I tell you, Hig, Lombard & Hapgood will have to remodel their whole organization policy if they hope to perpetuate themselves."

I recalled the remark Joel Langenbeck had once made to me, and I repeated it to Higgins that the house of Lombard & Hapgood would not survive a year were Lombard himself to drop out.

I bade Higgins good-day and went over to Great Jones Street to see Langenbeck. Before taking any important step I usually consulted him. His judgment, I had found, was unerring.

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"The way to beat out a panic," he said, "is to get out and hustle. It's just the time to hustle, Broadhurst when the other fellow has gone back and laid down. I've made more money during depressions than during many a so-called prosperous spell. No, I don't say it's easy to do it; but it can be done very often. It takes science, and knowledge of the people, and that sort of thing. Above all, it takes devilish hard work and a lot of detailed thinking. Some men will tell you that it takes unlimited capital. In some kinds of business this is true, no doubt. Indeed, there are many forms of business that can't be pushed in hard times. Take a rollingmill, for example. All the push in the world wouldn't sell steel to a railroad that was clawing off a receiver. But if a man has only one horse in his barn, of course he can't ride when the beast gets the glanders. Unless a man has capital enough to live on during a time of general disaster,

he should plan to have more than one angle to his business. If he can't sell broadcloth, he should be able to turn over cheap basketcloth, for instance. If he can't sell oranges, he can at least make a drive on prunes. No, sir; a poor man should not invest all his capital in a steel plant. The rich fellows can stand a shutdown once in a while. They can take their vacations then and go to Europe." I had expanded my selling space at Junction Square, under the pressure of the good times preceding the panic; but now I had almost double the space I needed. Space is expensive when it isn't being used profitably, but unfortunately a merchant can't chop his store in the middle, as he can his payroll.

I took a little trip up into New England and visited a lot of manufacturers. Some of them made underwear; some, household utensils like frying pans, clotheswringers, and ash shovels; some made wearing apparel of the less expensive varieties. Every one of them, however, turned out some article of necessity, not of luxury. I skipped all the luxury plants for the time being.

At Providence I introduced myself to a big, sad-looking man named Maloneyof the Maloney Scarf & Knitting Works.

"Hang it all," said he, "the country has gone plumb to the dogs! I can't sell my stuff for love or money." Then he showed me his stock room. The goods in it were stacked up to the ceiling. A big lot of jerseys caught my notice. At that time, people were eager for these garments.

"Send the medium-priced and cheap ones down to me at New York," said I. "I'll take them off your hands if you'll give me a chance to sell them before you send down any sight drafts. I want a rock-bottom price, however the very lowest. I'm getting ready for the biggest economy sale Junction Square ever saw. There's to be no snide about it, remember."

"Take them quick!" said he.

Similar conversations took place at most of the other plants I visited, and thus I came into possession of a huge quantity of quick-selling merchandise that filled the spaces of my store to their capacity.

It was at this time, too, that I founded the manufacturing end of my business. In following out my plan to give the people the best line of necessities I could handle at low prices, I studied, in turn, all the articles in common use, and viewed them in the critical light of the customers themselves. In the course of this procedure I reached women's hats and bonnets. But when I tried to find headgear that met the standard of quality and inexpensiveness I had set, I found myself unable to do it.

"Why not make up a lot of hats yourself?" suggested Higgins.

"Done!" I exclaimed, on the instant. That was the beginning of my varied manufacturing industry of to-day.

My panic hats had no silk velvet or aigrettes on them, I assure you, but they made an instant hit. The women had to have hats despite the hard times. And my millinery establishment produced distinctive goods that were far below the usual prices. It was my aim to discover the lowest price for which I could sell them; thus I reversed the policy of many merchants then and now. I can put my finger on establishments that are going broke because they are trying to extract the last dollar from a shy, backward public.

My funds did not permit me to advertise through expensive mediums, so I fell back on spectacularism. I was after the common people, remember, and I went after them hard. I hired two small brass bands, one with a drum-major; I placarded the exterior of my store and draped the building from top to bottom; I flooded my zone with flaming circulars. All through, the theme was opportunity due to the panic. I made capital out of disaster.

Then I conducted some rather lurid advertising at the store itself. I did many spectacular things that centred attention upon me. Once get the attention of the public, and half the battle is won.

Yet, I would do all these things over again to-day if I found it necessary. To escape bankruptcy and get on the up-grade again, a merchant is justified in any advertising that isn't fraudulent. I have small patience with those cultured gentlemen who sit back and let their establish

ments die because they don't like undignified advertising. Neither do I. It displeases me and rubs my sense of the artistic. I am an art advertiser to-day so far as possible. But I tell you I meant to pull through that panic if I had to turn art into a daub of purple ink with "Broadhurst" written across it in red. I didn't give a whoop for harmony of colors just then. I wanted cash.

One thing I did was to organize a chorus of twenty voices, made up from my store organization; and every morning, exactly when the doors were unlocked, this chorus sang-standing on a platform at the back of the store. The novelty of this was heralded all over New York.

One of the bands played at noon, and again from four to six every day. The other band paraded the streets of my zone for an hour or two in the afternoon, accompanied by advertising announcements.

Then for the children I had a dog and cat show and we had hard work handling the crowds that came to see it. As Christmas approached, many were the holiday selling plans I put through.

Higgins came up one December day to see the fun, and he found it hard to get through the store to my office.

"I've understood from the financial columns of the newspapers that there's absolutely no money in circulation," he observed. "Yet up here in your store, Broadhurst, I see the money pouring over the counters in a thousand rivulets, like a spring freshet."

"That's it, exactly," I ventured. "No matter how hard the times may be, Hig, there are always a million springs within reach that will flow with real cash if they are skilfully tapped."

"I just saw Pillsbury across the street,” said Higgins. "He was watching the crowd over here. His store was nearly empty. That's a fine store of his, too."

"Yes," I agreed; "Pillsbury & Piper have a splendid establishment. You know, they've branched out a whole lot since they started. Piper didn't like the cheap merchandise; it rubbed him the wrong way to mix with ordinary people. He thought his firm ought to go out after the swells. I used to see a whole string of

carriages lined up there, and one of the last enterprises Pillsbury put through before the panic was to hire a colored man and rig him up in crimson velvet. He wore a waistcoat of corded silk, and his knickerbockers had buckles below his knees. He made quite a hit with the people who came in their equipages. His job was to show his teeth to them, and open the doors of their carriages. But he's got a job now shoveling snow for the city. When the hard times settled down, he suffered from ennui out there on Pillsbury's sidewalk. Now I don't mean to deprecate the rich as customers, Hig. When the time comes I'm going after them myself. But until a fellow gets established, velvet flunkies should be kept off the staff."

that is the sole cause of my present sickness and trouble."

"These are troublesome times," I suggested. "But the worst of the depression is over."

"The ailment of Lombard & Hapgood," he told me, "lies deeper than a panic. It lies in our own organization. So long as I had my health and was able to stay there in the store ten hours a day, things went all right. Every problem, you know, came up to me for a decision. No matter how trifling it was, Lombard had to put his O. K. on it. You know how it was when you were there."

"I remember very well, Mr. Lombard." "Yes, the initiative of the whole force was sifted through me," he continued, "and now we have only an excuse for an

"Why doesn't Pillsbury hire a brass organization. I haven't half a dozen band?" Higgins inquired.

"Because Piper doesn't care for any music except Wagner's so I've heard. Besides, swell customers won't come when a brass band plays. It's only the common people who respond to Marching Through Georgia.' That's another advantage of having the great bulk of mankind on your list of customers."

Well, to be brief, Pillsbury & Piper hung on until after Christmas and then they gasped a few times and quit. It was just about this time that the panic showed signs of abating.

In my store, however, the panic had abated weeks earlier. In fact, I had more than twenty thousand dollars on hand; and I didn't have to use it in payment of any promissory note.

I was sitting in my office one afternoon, three years after I started my store at Junction Square, when Phelps Lombard came in. I was shocked at his wasted form.

"You have overworked tremendously," said I. "For twenty years you have carried the weight of your business practically alone. You must take a rest."

I got up and placed a chair for him. "Broadhurst," he said, as I resumed my own seat, "you have hit the situation aptly. What you say is true: I have carried my business practically alone, and

men in the store who are big enough to think and act for themselves. And here I am, mortally ill! For several years I have seen this thing coming, but habit is strong and so long as I kept my health I also kept a tight rein on every little detail, from the stock-rooms down to the delivery department in the basement. Being a is all right so long as a man is able to wield the command and make his minions do his will compel them by sheer force of character. But once let his subjects get the upper hand and his army filled with treason, the downfall of his domain cannot long be delayed. When my health first began to fail, I had a tolerably firm grip on things. The store was making a moderate amount of money, despite its force of mediocre thinkers. In some ways, Broadhurst, we have always had good men and women at Lombard & Hapgood's - after you came to us, especially. You helped us immensely, yet the things you did for us were largely mechanical were largely mechanical-improvements in methods, rather than development of people. But men are hard to get, Broadhurst good human material is amazingly rare."

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"It is not especially difficult to get the raw material," said I. "To pick up the finished product, I admit, is one of the most difficult things in merchandising. I have solved the problem by developing the material myself."

"I know it," said Lombard. "I know it full well. I have watched you grow, and I could see how you did it. At first I was surprised when you went along and got bigger and bigger. I had expected to see you repeat the incidents of Lost River. But when you kept on growing, and moved across the Square to this building, and still grew and absorbed more and more of the space you had wisely provided for, I began to study you with close analysis. Then it was that I understood."

Just then Tom Pennypacker entered my private office, not knowing that Lombard was there. He paused when he saw his former employer, and the pity in his eyes was manifest.

"I did not mean to intrude," he apologized, and backed away. But I called him in again.

"Tom," said I, "Mr. Lombard has just been complimenting our organization. Tell us, please, what you consider the real secret of our success here at Junction Square."

Tom Pennypacker was now my general manager, and under him was a force of two hundred clerks. The business had expanded faster than I had dreamed, and was now a semi-department store, though it still carried cheap merchandise to a large extent. We occupied the whole of the ground floor, as well as the basement and parts of two floors above. The panic and depression had helped us, instead of retarding us, because we had carried necessities and had pushed them. And as a far-sighted adviser and keen deducer of coming markets, Tom was especially able.

"Well," said he, answering my query and addressing Lombard, "the chief secret of our success lies in the men back of it. Mr. Broadhurst, you know, is a specialist in the development of an organization. Take Bob Dawes, for instance

"Another of my men!" groaned Lombard.

"Yes, he worked for you at one time, true enough. Bob is our sales manager now. Mr. Broadhurst believes that a retail business has just as much need of a sales manager as a wholesale houseand why not? And I tell you, Mr. Lombard, if ever a man knew how to sell goods,

that man is Dawes. Then there's Jack Gallagher”

"My advertising man once!" said Lombard.

"It was Gallagher," Tom went on, "who hit on the best schemes of our hardtimes campaign. He got big results. Then there's Joe Ewing

"Tell Mr. Lombard about old Dan Garrett," I suggested.

"Old Dan," he explained, "was a mechanic who worked around the elevator machinery in the basement. One day he came into the store and showed me a design he had drawn for a cheap sewingmachine. He wanted to know what I thought of it. Well, now, that machine, Mr. Lombard, is one of our big sellers today. We have cut the price of the next cheapest machine more than 40 per cent., and still we are making money on it. I tell you, we want ideas that will make profits for us, and we don't care whether those ideas come from the top of our organization or the bottom."

Tom was in a hurry to get back to his office, so I excused him. For a minute Lombard was silent, and sat looking out of the window on the busy scenes of Junction Square. Three years had quite transformed the Square into a metropolitan. maze. It was surrounded now by modern buildings, and a restless horde of people moved up and down and across it. Trucks, cabs, and private equipages kept two traffic policemen busy.

"Broadhurst," Lombard said, finally, with something of an effort in his voice, "Broadhurst, I've got a proposition to make to you. I'll put it in as few words as possible: I want you to consolidate your business with that of Lombard & Hapgood. I want you to move our store up here to Junction Square, after you have built suitable quarters, and take the whole combined enterprise in charge. I want you to run it you and your organization."

I sat silent overawed for a minute. Quickly my memory traveled back over the years to the day I came to New York the first time. For a few moments I quite lost myself in the events of my coming. It seemed scarcely more than a step into the past — when I walked up Broadway

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