Page 17 - Past Presidents' Club Book 1

IK The Xtilioiml Supply ami Machinery Dealers’ Association

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Mr. E. P> B a ii.k y : Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen: I
hardly expected to he called upon to speak to you gentlemen,
although 1 know most of you and have had business dealings with
\<>u for many years. I do not think 1 ever had the pleasure of
seeing so many of my business friends together.

T am speaking from the standpoint of the manufacturer of
an article that is quite important in your own line, but not of as
great magnitude as some others. I am in the chuck business.
\\ hen T received a letter from Mr. Drurv suggesting that

we establish a retail price for chucks, it made me smile, because
at that time it seemed a thing impossible to do. Most of vou
know the condition the chuck business has been in for the last
five or six years.
I have been of the opinion that in the course of time it would
right itself, and I think, through this Association, it is righting
itself*
The result of this letter from Mr. Drury was, I answered
him that I thought it better for the manufacturers of that article
to get together and fix a price at which they would sell, after
which we would consider the retail price, and we, naturally, have
formed a little Association among ourselves. There are so few
of us that we can hardly call it an association, because there are
only eight or ten manufacturers of chucks, but we manage to
supply the whole world.
I am not here representing this Association in any sense; I
am only speaking for myself. We have associated ourselves to­
gether and have established, first, the manufacturers’ price, after
which we have added the re-sale price, and we have tried to make
difference enough so it would be to the dealers’ interest to handle
the chucks more than they have of late years. The prices have
been cut so there has been no particular object for the dealer to
carry a stock of chucks. I do not blame them for not doing it,
and I would not have done it if I had been in their place.
We have made sufficient margin so that if the dealer will
stand bv our re-sale price, the manufacturers will also hold to that
price if they sell at all to the user. Occasionally there is a user
who prefers to buy an article like a chuck at first hand, but, speak­
ing as a manufacturer, I much prefer to sell them all through the