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selves from their families during the term of cities back to the country be opened so as to their employment.

In 1900, Iowa, according to the census, had 282,622 farms. By questions addressed to many township assessors, the writer recently secured data relating to 5,133 of these farms. Of these only 104 were reported as having, besides the dwelling occupied by the owner or tenant, a dwelling for the use of farm help. On these 5,133 farms were employed 1,838 farm hands, of whom only 103 were heads of families, the others being single men. It is deserving of notice that the number of married agricultural laborers appears to be limited to the number of available extra dwellings. With these figures as a basis, we are justified in assuming that less than 7,500 of the 132,290 male agricultural laborers which Iowa had in 1900, and less than 210,000 of the 3,747,668 male agricultural laborers in the United States at that time, were heads of families.

Farm labor, therefore, is manifestly the monopoly of single males; and all who leave the single state are barred from the country and must be content to remain in the cities.

THE UNEQUAL CHANCE OF THE MARRIED

WORKINGMAN

This ostracism has practically divided into two classes all adults in the United States who work for wages and who lack the means to farm on their own account, cither as owners or tenants. The first class is composed of laborers who are single men. Members of this class may compete with all other persons for work in the cities. Yet to them is given, throughout the vast agricultural districts of the United States, a monopoly of the work which the farmers and their families are unable to perform. To them is offered work in such abundance that hundreds of thousands of acres go untilled; and crops valued at millions of dollars perish annually in the fields because this class cannot supply the demand for farm labor.

The second class includes all of the workingmen not included in the first class. Its members are restricted to employment in the city. They must there fight with each other for work, and there is not always enough to go round. Hundreds of thousands are in enforced idleness, are wretchedly housed in slum districts, and eke out a life of indescribable misery.

permit heads of families (each representing the average American family of five persons) to be substituted for one fourth of the nearly 3,800,000 single male farm laborers of the United States, our cities would be relieved of almost four million of their most dependent population. And could the demand for additional farm laborers, which is so urgent in many farm districts, be also supplied by heads of families, several millions more of the most dependent city people could be released from their miserable lot. But can these avenues be opened to this class, or is the blunder of the early settlers to keep them forever closed? Can scattered homes be gathered into attractive farm villages at this late day, and can homes be provided for farm laborers who are heads of families?

Some of the past errors are certainly beyond recall. Scattered farm homes cannot at this late day be assembled into attractive villages. The time to establish these was when the homes were being built. Until the end of time, occupants of the homes unwisely located will have to suffer for the mistakes of their builders. Nor can the monotony of farm life be fully eliminated. Telephones, better roads, electric lines, the daily newspapers, the rural mail delivery, and other modern advantages, offset some of the attractions of cities and provide some check to the drift of young men and young women to the cities. But more than this is required. The country must be opened to all classes. The state which permits migration from the country to the cities to go unchecked should see to it that the avenues leading from the cities back to the country do not remain closed. Heads of families should have the same chance for employment as single males. The tide of labor forces should be turned toward districts where it will be of the greatest economic benefit, as well as receive the greatest benefit itself. But how is this to be done?

AMERICAN FARMS ARE TOO LARGE

France owes its wealth and the prosperous condition of its people largely to the fact that its large landed estates were subdivided into tracts of sufficient sise to support a small family. In America the disinclination to subdivide large tracts into smaller farms has kept them at the high average of 146.6 acres to each farm, and has prevented such average

Could but the avenues leading from the from being lowered quite seven acres in thirty

years. By thus selfishly clinging to many acres, owners force into the cities not only strangers desirous of purchasing small tracts, but even their own children and kinsfolk who want homes of their own. Public interest requires that large farms be subdivided, but we have no means of compelling this.

The ambition to cultivate many acres with little help rather than turn to more intensive methods of farming and furnish employment to many more hands on an equal acreage, keeps the population of nine of our best agricultural

states at the low average of thirty to the square mile. The benefits of a change-extensive to intensive farming-cannot be overestimated. But when even the limited number of laborers now needed for extensive farming are unobtainable, how are those required for intensive farming to be provided? The answer is simple. Heads of families, as well as single men, must be attracted from the crowded cities. And this cannot be done until farmers erect cottages for married laborers, with the free use of a few acres for each.

G

THE NEW SCIENCE OF BUSINESS

DISMISSING UNWELCOME CALLERS

ETTING rid of an unwelcome caller by sheer brusqueness is a method that has had some vogue. But business men have sometimes made serious mistakes in treating callers thus, and with the growing appreciation of the value of courtesy in business most men now err rather on the side of giving ear to too many rather than too few of their callers. How these may be dismissed without offense when they have shown that their call is vain, or have stayed too long, is a problem that successful business men have worked out in various ways.

There is a large hardware establishment in the Middle West with many busy departments, the heads of which are constantly receiving all sorts of callers. Their method is this: As a caller seats himself beside the executive's desk, the executive pulls out the slide above the drawers on one side of the desk, interposing what is practically a counter between himself and his visitor. Upon this he places a hand or an elbow, and then leaning over he looks the caller straight in the eye and says quickly, "What can I do for you?"

The manner is that of a salesman in a store on a very busy day; the caller, impressed by the need of haste, instinctively says what he has to say in the briefest possible form. Whatever action the executive takes, he takes at once -jots down a memorandum, calls on a stenographer to write a letter, or refers the matter to another department. Every word and every movement is decisive. Action once taken, he

says "Good-by," or shakes hands, according to the relation of the caller to him or to the business, and snapping the slide of the desk back into place, he turns to the work on his desk. About this action there is a finality that it were idle to try to overcome. The physical acts of pulling out that slide and pushing it back again act on a visitor like strokes of a bell to tell him just when his interview begins and ends. Going from department to department in that establishment reminds one of the old story of the objectionable salesman who was expedited down several flights of stairs and arrived at the bottom admiring the "system." One does admire the system. A caller leaves the building in much shorter time than he could have supposed possible, with a sense of satisfaction. "Here are people," he says to himself, “who know how to do business"--and this even if his errand has been fruitless.

There is a New York merchant who gets rid of his callers with similar brevity by having no chairs in his office but his own. The merchant sits; the visitor stands. When a caller arrives to whom this arrangement would be a distinct discourtesy, the merchant rises as the visitor appears and he too stands. The merchant is a busy man, with much desk matter to attend to every day, and the condition of standing which he imposes on his callers saves his time by giving them a subconscious feeling from the moment they enter that they are just about to depart. The disadvantage of this is

that many men are offended at what seems an arrogant reception, even though they transact business satisfactorily. Another busy man who receives his callers with elaborate Southern courtesy brings their talk to a close by rising when the call has lasted too long, reaching out to shake hands and then leading the caller gently to the door by the clasped hand and propelling him out with a few final words on the subject of the call and a pleasant farewell. This method is effective and it leaves no sting, but it requires art to practice it, unless it happens to come naturally.

Of the more mechanical devices, most consist of signals to office-boys, assistants, or secretaries to come in and interrupt on very important business." These are employed even against important visitors or acquaintances on friendly relations, who must not be offended even by a hint that their departure would be appreciated. The head of a large exporting firm has an engagingly informal way of lighting a cigar, strolling over to a window and standing there with legs apart and hands behind his back, apparently to continue the conversation at his ease. But his secretary sits just outside a glass door, and this attitude of his employer, invariably brings him in with a huge handful of "important papers that must be attended to at once in order to catch a foreign mail." This gives the desired opportunity to usher the caller out with expressions of regret. Another busy man has the button of an electric buzzer under his desk where he can unobtrusively press it

with his foot. It is an emergency signal which calls in an assistant, who apologizes for interrupting but is obliged to bring up an important matter for immediate settlement, and he stands discreetly waiting while the caller makes his hasty adieu. When the visitor is safely out he returns to his desk. But he makes sure that the caller has really gone, for some bores have a way of returning suddenly to say a word they have forgotten, and unless the assistant is still there the story begins all over again. Other men use other kinds of distress signals but the principle is the same in all. Its disadvantage is that it is of course dishonest, a form of deceit, and some men refuse to use it.

It is manner, after all, that gets the best results. If a business man give callers the impression that he has an infinity of leisure, most callers will stay too long. If he try to be noncommittal and thus fend them off, most of them will at once begin to show that they have learned the business lesson of persistence, and they will stay on and on, trying one tack after another. The system in use in the hardware establishment mentioned, where every executive tries courteously over his desk ledge to get the meat of the matter as quickly as he can, then rapidly gives the caller with the utmost definiteness everything he can give even though it be a postponement or a refusal—and then conclusively ends the conversation, might be imitated elsewhere to advantage. It not only saves the time of the executive; it also saves the time of the caller.

HOW DEALERS IN SMALL CITIES COMPETE WITH MAILORDER HOUSES

IT

BY

LOUIS H. MARTIN

T HAS only been within a very short period-less than a year or two-that the contest between the retail dealer and the big mail-order house has become an evenly matched game, where there is a chance to wager on the result. It was formerly a onesided battle, with everything to favor the mailorder house.

The distribution by mail of the household

necessities listed in encyclopædic catalogues is a great convenience, especially at frontier points where local stores can be conducted only at a loss unless exorbitant prices are charged. In these isolated cases the metropolitan mailorder house has been a blessing, and many a ranchman's wife has regarded its annual catalogue as more precious than her prayer-book. But during the last ten years rapid transitions

have taken place. Perhaps the ranchman, who then rode ten miles in an ox cart to the nearest trading-post, can now ride in an electric car, and the trading-post has developed into a thriving little city with a department store of its own.

The vast amount of business-science literature that has been published during recent years has not been monopolized by department stores, mail-order houses, and manufacturing concerns the AAA-1 class; most of it has been read by young merchants ambitious to reach that class, but whose available capital is limited to a few dollars and much sound sense. They commence to adopt the methods described in business articles as those followed by successful millionaire concerns; in other words, the dealer in the small town is beginning to fight with the same weapons as his competitor in the large city, and this is what is making the contest so interesting.

What is the chief weapon of the mail-order house? Its advertising literature. A thousand of the old-school general-store dealers will deny this and say "No, the price is what brings our trade." That is simply a case of color blindness, just as misleading as the advertisement that promises as a gift a set of chairs with a sewing machine. No mail-order house is giving away anything; but what it is doing is advertising such a gift in hundreds of farm papers and in a million catalogues.

Now how is the dealer of limited capital in a small town to meet such competition? Simply by convincing the purchaser that he can buy the same goods, or better goods, right in his own town, and not be buying “a pig in a poke." For this purpose the local paper, rightly used, has many advantages over the metropolitan catalogue.

Here is the way one enterprising hardware dealer in a small town beats the mail-order houses at their own game. He gets from the manufacturer or the local paper wood-cuts of a few articles of general necessity and prepares some effective advertisements. The first week he runs in two cuts-say an axe and a lawnmower-and his description shows the intending purchaser that he can get a quality up to or beyond that advertised by the mail-order house, and for less money. Furthermore, there is no inconvenience about forwarding money, and no delay in receiving the goods.

There is nothing of the "give-away" atmosphere in such an advertisement; it is a direct

appeal quite as convincing as any mail-order catalogue. Any sensible person who reads such an advertisement would be inclined to examine the axe or the lawn-mower before sending money for a similar article offered by mail. Honest publicity is perhaps the sharpest weapon in the dealers' hands and they are beginning to use it with more dexterity. Some not only use the local papers but even publish their own price-lists.

Another weapon that the dealer has is the agency of widely advertised goods sold only to the trade and not to mail-order or premium houses. Most manufacturers of high-grade wares protect themselves and their customers by attaching their names or trade-marks to the goods, and by selling through established retail stores. This is known as the legitimate trade, as distinct from the sale of imitation wares by unknown manufacturers who care nothing about a name so long as they can dispose of so many thousand pieces through one channel— usually a department store or mail-order house. The dealer gets the benefit of national advertising, as the manufacturer refers directly to him all inquiries from his city; and the manufacturer, instead of having one immense storage plant, has a thousand or more distributing agencies in which to show his wares. Hundreds of dealers now advertise themselves as exclusive agents to gain the greater benefit of this national publicity.

Dealers all over the country are organizing to fight the mail-order houses. One method they use is to refuse to handle any line sold to mail-order or premium houses. Of course, every time the consumer asks for an advertised article, he helps the cause of the local dealer in competition with the mail-order house selling imitation wares; and people are insisting more and more upon what they ask for and not something "just as good," or "better."

That the local papers are coming to thesupport of the local dealer in his fight against the mail-order house is shown by the following editorial. (I have read no less than thirty from as many different states along the same line within a month.)

"The political campaign is obscuring the ever-living problem of how to deal with the mail-order houses. The contest between the local business houses which pay taxes, contribute to the support of local enterprises, and whose owners live and vote and go to church right in the home community, and the big mail-order houses which pay no local taxes, support no local institutions, extend no

credit, and do not care a fig for the health, wealth, and prosperity of the home town, is just as keen and as far from being decided as it was before politics became the prevailing topic.

"Now the local dealer not only has the opportunity to utilize a medium which is usually read with more interest than any outside periodical-his own local paper-but he has every advantage that comes from acquaintance and the ability to show and carry the goods in stock. Given a reputation for fair and honest dealing, the co-operation of a local paper for advertising purposes, backed by continuous energetic efforts, there is no mail-order house that will be able to compete for local patronage under such conditions."

Governor Folk of Missouri, in a recent address before the state Association of Retail

Dealers, expressed similar sentiments, and his advice was published in nearly every newspaper in the country:

"We wish the city merchants to build up," he said, "but we also desire to build up the country merchant. If a place

is good enough for a man to live in and to make his money in, it is good enough for him to spend his money in. He should not send it to the mail-order houses in the large cities. No merchant can succeed without advertising in one way of another. Patronize your town papers, build them up, and they will build the town up and build you up increased trade and greater opportunities."

So the mail-order house is to-day in conflict with conditions decidedly different from what they were ten years ago. The local dealer needed the stimulant, and under large doses he has revived to that extent that he is contesting every dollar of trade that goes to the outside mail-order house.

This education on modern business methods has broadened the minds of many thousands of local merchants. The contest has developed a most interesting phase of business competition, and the chances of success for the local dealer were never so promising.

THE

THE LOOSE-LEAF REVOLUTION IN BOOKKEEPING

HE loose-leaf system of accounts has made its way as an excellent device for saving time and for increasing convenience in accounting. Its two great advantages are its automatic elimination of dead accounts (which may, however, be instantly revived at any time), and the possibility it creates of performing by a single operation the work which formerly required from two to four operations.

The automatic elimination of dead accounts is made possible because every account has its separate leaf. Thus, as long as the account is active, it remains in the current binder, or holder; but as soon as the account is closed it is removed from the current binder and inserted in the "transfer binder." If such a closed account should ever be opened again, it is simply withdrawn from the transfer binder and returned to the current binder. The advantages of the flexibility are obvious; it keeps the dead accounts out of the way, but makes all accounts-live or deadinstantly accessible.

The possibility of performing several operations at once is the other great recommendation of the loose-leaf device. This is achieved by the fact that the separate sheets may be used to make carbon duplicates. Thus, with the

sheets properly ruled and perforated, by the use of carbon paper the operation of making out a bill makes out simultaneously the shipping sheet, the label, and the charge sheet. Each of these sheets is of a different colored paper, so that there is no delay in sorting the labels from the bills, etc. This method not only saves time and clerical labor, but insures uniformity of records and tends to insure accuracy.

Many of the objections first made to the looseleaf system have been overcome by recent improvements. For instance, it was feared that the leaves would be lost from the binders or during the transfer from the current to filebinders. In practice it is found that the loss of a leaf is about as rare as the loss of an entire book. For greater security to exceptionally valuable records, binders are now made which lock with patent keys, so that only a member of the firm or a trusted subordinate may loosen the binder to remove a leaf. Another objection was made to the quantity of paper required to give each account a separate sheet. But it has been proved that the additional expense of the paper is more than offset by the reduction of labor effected by the conveniences of the loose-leaf system.

There are many incidental advantages in the

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