N

OTHING succeeds like Failure. It is the

most effective thing in the World-provided we know how to manage it; how to turn its dramatic value to account. For Failure has its theatrical moments; its psychological second which-deftly handled-is intense, vital, and productive of high future suc

cess.

Did you ever go to a Circus and see a man or woman fail? Did you ever notice how it caught the crowd when they stayed in the ring and kept going? Haven't you been one of those who watched them with more than ever eagerness-holding a sly suspicion that they were only pretending they couldn't? When the bareback rider tried to make the flying leap on the horse thundering around the curve, he failed. But, Watch! Wait! Hold your breath

He'll Do It Next Time

When the woman in tarleton and tinsel crashes through the hoop-only to land on the sawdust, you are disappointed. But for the moment only: Watch!

She'll Do It Next Time! Watch her as she jumps squarely to the flank

and rides around the ring to applause all the more deafening because she failed at first.

The Failure, by sticking at it was made a Success-all the better for Waiting.

It's so with Advertising-When we see the little "dinky" advertisements timidly peeping at us from the unclassified corner, they make only the slightest impression. "Same small concern"-we say. But that small concern has a way of keeping at it, in spite of ups and downs, that obtrudes under our noses every time we take up a paper. We accidently stum. ble upon it-the name gets a place in our consciousness.

Then by and by we see this name in good, big type next to reading matter. We sit up and take notice!

Then some fine day, the persevering name jumps at us with triumphant headlines from a full page, and lo! A success.

The Chicago Daily Live Stock World has the largest paid in advance independent subscription list of any daily farm paper. Readers, believe in it. "World" Bldg., Chicago. (Adv.)

I

N these times of referring to the high cost of things, we very naturally seek an explanation of the cause.

After looking over all of the features of production, it is apparent that that end of the business is in a comparatively good state of development.

Executive Committees, Shop Committees, Boards of Experts, are giving careful consideration to items that represent no more than one dollar saving on a two thousand dollar automobile, or ten cents on a lumber wagon.

Motion studies are becoming common and productive elements are being worked down to the nicety of a gnat's eye lash. But how about the distribution costs? Are we giving the same consideration of the fractional costs in the field?

We observe the many hands through which, according to our present more or less prevalent system of merchandise distribution, these goods must pass, the actual expenses incurred, the profits exacted for each handling process, and we find ourselves wondering how much of it is really necessary to accomplish the work of putting into use or consumption with the consumer that which is produced for him by the manufacturer.

The consumer, from whom all blessings flow, finds every detail of his want-producing nature worked to a frazzle.

His desires operate at about 100 per cent efficiency, thanks to double-page spreads, miles of bill boards, artistic follow-ups by mail, etc., but when he endeavors to gratify his desires, he finds a wide discrepancy between his income check and what he really gets for it.

Evidences on every hand indicate that he is really giving some thought to the why's and wherefore's of this reduced purchasing power.

With a low cost of production seems to necessarily follow a high cost of distribution, and there is a large discrepancy between the piece of the dollar that the manufacturer gets and the pieces that are clipped off between that point and where the consumer comes into the game.

If an article is being placed in the consumer's hands at $10.00 or 10 cents, that could just as well be placed there for $8.00 or 8 cents, allowing for the essential and legitimate costs along the line, then there is surely room for improvement.

Not only do we decrease the purchasing power of the consumer-including the range of his purchases-but we encourage the development and growth of a parasitic population that would be far more beneficial to the community if they were tilling the soil, raising poultry or stock, or doing some other useful things, for the lack of which we now pay high prices through limitations of supply rather than excessive demand.

In short, there are too many merchants-not only retailers, but wholesalers-there is too much lost motion in selling and re-selling, shipping and re-shipping, and every time the goods are handled, on goes an extra to the price, which does not add to the value of the article to the consumer. Now, it may be that all of these motions are necessary. I do not say they are not, but I do claim that there are too many people making these motions, and they all seem to be wanting pay for their services whether they are necessary or not.

The more of them there are in a given community, or trade, the more expenses such as rents, wages, taxes, insurance, interest, etc., have to be met.

Ask any merchant if there are not too many in the distributing markets; he is sure to say yes. Of course, it is always the other fellows that ought to get out-but that does not alter the fact that the excess of shopkeepers is recognized. The problem is to eliminate waste, or reduce its sting.

If 10 or 20 per cent of every householder's purchase could be diverted to purchase other things than those to which he or she is limited because of the excessive costs due to uneconomical distribution, more or other purchases could be made, thus spreading prosperity by utilizing waste.

This is a more serious menace to the future

business of this country to my way of thinking, than is the subject of circulation, space position, the selection of colors for a news' poster, or the study of how to sell goods without a teacher.

The average dealer has but a limited idea of his function in the great field of merchandising.

He does not know what he should do to earn his toil, and he needs education. The whole subject of merchandising distribution needs a more careful and scientific analysis than any of us have seemed to think it necessary to make.

A great howl goes up about mail order houses, and I am not here to defile or defend them. I do say that there must be some reason for this great development in business, and it strikes at a part of our distributing methods that needs attention.

From the consumer's standpoint,-whether rightly or not, he sees a greater effectiveness for his dollar-he sees more merchandise for less money--he sees his income covering a larger number of his wants.

That is the reason for a certain mail order house in Chicago opening a mail one day last November that contained over a million dollars of real money, paid in advance for their merchandise, the average order being about $9.00 each.

As between the consumer and the producer, I am told that this averaged only from 18 per cent to 20 per cent over factory costs-plus the costs of transportation and inconvenience of delay.

I may be wrong in my deduction, but I believe this new phase of merchandise distribution finds its impetus in the light that is dawning upon the consumer-that he is not getting value received for the slices of the dollar that are being taken off at the numerous points of turn-over between him and the factory.

You, gentlemen, can do no greater service to your country and your clients than to give the same careful consideration to the elements of merchandising that are being given to the production of merchandise.

The principle of efficiency is well defined as being the relation between the determined standard and the actual performance.

In production, it is not difficult to determine some standard for every turn of the hand or wheel, and measure results thereby.

No consumer can enter complaint as to the excellent development being made along that line, and the percentage of his dollar that is

being legitimately used in the productive end. In the field of distribution, however, there are no standards, some may say that such a thing is possible. That may be true as a general statement-but in just the same way as standards are adopted in all of the processes of production, so may like standards be established for the various elements of distribution.

They must be established by the distributors that are interested in maintaining our present system of merchandising, or the consumer will step in and establish them through the various channels of mail order houses, syndicate buying, co-operative stores, or otherwise.

You may be able to delay the ultimate successful development of these lines of relief, but until you can show real money value for the pieces of the dollar that are picked off for expenses, profit and service, between the producer and the consumer, the last named will soon be using resources to save his neck and his dollar through other channels.

We must stop and consider. We must look to such standards of efficiency, through the attainment of which the consumer's dollar will be spread over more merchandise and needed comforts, this prosperity to the masses.

If, as Harrington Emerson has said, men must have ideals or they cannot do good work, then let us work for an ideal in the distribution of merchandise that will stand for efficiency.

Make the right goods at the lowest price consistent with the quality or grade desired, and endeavor to market them so that in the final analysis-in terms of dollars and centsthe cost of the various steps of production and distribution, does not become an unnecessary burden upon the consumer for whose use and benefit they were made.

The time is now ripe for continuing that process of cost reduction out beyond the factory shipping door-watching the useless waste of dollars, dimes and pennies, down to the last buyer, the real consumer.

When those efficiencies become ideals, then we will have completed the chain that will place in the hands of the user, at a lower cost. the very same article, intrinsically worth no more than when it left the factory door.

Thus, we will realize the ideal of an efficiency in distribution commensurate with the efficiency of production, leaving a larger piece of the consumer's dollar in his pocket for the realization of his own ideals of home, comfort and education.

I

T IS not strange that an advertising man should occupy this pulpit or that he should preach honesty.

From the first chapter of Genesis to the last paragraph of Revelation the Bible advertises and is intended to advertise the benefits of Honesty, Sobriety and Virtue and the disadvantages of their opposites.

Every church spire and every Sunday school in a little country schoolhouse is a monIument to the effectiveness of that advertising. Advertisements of commodities, advertisements of people, advertisements of various kinds of business have appeared in all agesin all times-by all people. The first advertisement was away back there in the beginning of time when God said, "Let there be Light," and there was light; when he divided the water from the land; when he caused the land to be inhabited by beasts and the waters by fishes and the air by birds and other flying things. All these things constituted an adver

edge of the needs of man and of the workings of his mind.

The value in the creation of worlds, in the separation of light from darkness, of the water from the land; in the creation of birds and beasts and fishes, pales into insignificance as an advertisement of the power and wisdom and beneficence of the Almighty when compared with the creation of man to whom was given

tisement of the power and wisdom and omnipotence of the Almighty Creator.

He looked upon his work and He saw that it was good; but that it was not complete and He made man from the dust of the earth. When He did that, He sent forth to the Universe another advertisement of His creative power. He saw man alone, unhappy and, to a degree, living a useless life. He caused him to fall into a deep sleep-took a rib from his side and created woman and ever since then man has had something to think about. Ever since then man and woman have constituted living and moving advertisements of the creative power and wisdom of the Almighty and of His knowl

dominion over the

beasts of the field and the fowls of the air and the fishes of the sea.

There have always been people who didn't believe in advertising. You will remember that Noah was the advertising manager of rather

an extraordinary exhibition in the way of a waterfall.

No doubt the people in those days said one to another: "Oh, that is just a fake advertisement that old drunkard is sending out so he can fill the rooms in that silly ark he is building."

And they went their way without answering the ad.

Lot handled the publicity for another unusual spectacle, but the people of Sodom and Gomorrah didn't believe in advertising. It is even recorded that Lot's own wife took some of his statements with more than a grain of salt.

There are undoubtedly those among your neighbors who take the same attitude in regard to present day advertising.

From the beginning of time, men have builded for themselves reputations, and it is remarkable how a reputation will stick to a man or a woman or a race or a business. For centuries the reputation of King Solomon for wisdom has been established in the minds of men.