Page 18 - Past Presidents' Club Book 1

First Annual Conx’Fiitioii

dealer, because it is less trouble. It costs more than it is worth
sometimes to look up a small buyer, and we prefer to give the
dealer profit enough to let him do it.
The only thing I can add at the present time is that I trust
this Association will do all in its power to hold to our re-sale
price, and I think it depends largely on your Association whether
our little Association holds together.
There are some suggestions I could make, perhaps, in regard
to the way the business has been handled, and improvements that
might be made, perhaps, a little later in the way of selling and
handling them in the market. I will defer that to another time.
(Applause).
P r e s id e n t S trong : Mr. Camp.
M r. C a m p : I, like the two previous speakers, have come
here not expecting to take any part in your deliberations, and I
also have nothing on tap which would be o f interest to you, but
I would like to say that I believe your organization is bound to
do a great deal of good. It is bound to carry influence with the
manufacturers, and I am heartily in sympathy with the objects
you have in view.
Your esteemed secretary, Mr. Drury, can tell you that we
have had correspondence in regard to the maintenance of prices
on our goods, and the two fundamental principles on which our
business has been conducted are these: all business to be done
through the jobber, and, secondly, all goods to be sold at one
price.
I want to confess to you, Mr. Chairman, that we have had a
a great deal of trouble in living up to this principle, or to these
principles, and I am frank to say that one of them has been with
our travelling salesmen who understand that if they make a cut
in price they are immediately discharged. The great difficulty
that they have to contend with is that prices are cut throughout
the country.
In New York that question was put to me— what am I to
do to debar me from making a price to meet some other? I
took up this matter with Mr. Drury. I am most heartily in sym­
pathy with the objects of your Association, and I believe it is
bound to do a great deal of good in obtaining a single price and