Page 37 - Past Presidents' Club Book 1

40 The National Supply and Machinery D ealers’ Association
afraid of— that their competitors will not be willing to come into
it, unless there has been a formal agreement—and so they hang
back.

P resid en t S t r o n g : M r. Prentiss, have you anything to say?
M r. P r e n t i s s : I want to say one thing. First of all I think
our interests as dealers or merchants are safe in the hands of the
Committee of the National Machine Tool Builders' Association. I
think they are friendly to us, and I think all we have to do, as an
Association, is to call their attention to the fact that the Associa­
tion would like to have its wishes brought to the attention of the
Committee of the National Machine Tool Builders’ Association.
I think they will protect us, and, furthermore, it is due them
as a matter of courtesy. 1 am sure that they will appreciate zny
action of that kind, and that we will get results.
I, for one, feel that in a restricted territory we are all right.
I would just as soon get net prices, and let us get whatever prices
we can— that would satisfy me as well—but as the majority of the
Association feel there should be a minimum price, I have no
objection to it. We can take care of the prices on the tools we
sell exclusively, but what we want is on the goods sold by other
people in our territory.
Let the manufacturers say to the dealer “If you do not main­
tain our prices, you can’t sell our goods.” If they do that, they
have taken away a good many obstacles. For my firm, we want to
maintain a price. It rests with us to get into harmonious rela­
tions with one another and with the manufacturers. We have
started in that direction, and let us go on. Let us do it in a kindly,
courteous and gentlemanly way, more by persuasion than by
forcing people to come our way.
I feel it better to take it up in that way, and I think it is
reasonable for us to take it up that way. It is little by little, but
I feel it will come. (Applause).
M r. C olcord : I happened to attend the meeting Mr. Mar­
shall spoke of, at Cincinnati, not as a member but as an invited
guest.
While one manufacturer held out against giving the dealer
more than twelve and a half per cent, or even twelve per cent,