Reproduced from "Wholesale Distribution United States Summary 29 States and 13 Largest Cities", Final Wholesale Report on Census Survey of Business: 1937-38, Published by Census Bureau, Washington.

NATIONAL RETAIL DRY GOODS ASSOCIATION CONFERENCE

Excerpts from Addresses Delivered at the Conference in New York, January 1939.

Government Should Aid Retailing

SAUL COHN, President, City Stores Co., and National Retail Dry Goods Association - "Retailing should have more championship in government. In the present set-up of the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, 90 percent of its appropriation is spent in foreign commerce whereas more than 90 percent of our business is domestic. Of course, we must continue to develop foreign trade but we must adequately represent our internal trade, which amounts normally in round figures to forty billion dollars of retail sales annually. This country is unique in this respect, for elsewhere ministries of internal commerce long have been established to facilitate domestic distribution.

"Likewise, in taking our census a great deal more can be done to aid distribution. The Census of Distribution might be taken more often so that we do not lose the effect of the re search by reason of the long intervening gaps. Also, there might be established ways and means of reporting inventories as well as sales. The present trade figures are handled by three separate agencies. There would be a much better result if a single bureau were equip ped adequately to do the job at proper intervals.

"We need a powerful and respected Ministry of Internal Commerce. In addition, we need a Bureau of Industrial Economics similar to that which the Department of Agriculture has provided, which should be set up with public representation so that the views of business could be vigorously presented on proposed legislation which might injuriously affect the public pocketbook."

General Motors 1939 Employe Income Benefit Plans

MERLE C. HALE, General Motors Corporation "The plans provide for an advance to the employe in periods of slack business against future earnings. These advances are not loans in the ordinary sense of the word. They do not bear interest and are repayable only through an opportunity to work. In case of the employe's death, the advance is canceled. In other words, what we are really doing is to provide a cushion against the impact upon workers' incomes of periods of low production...

"There are two plans, the Income Security Plan and the Lay-off Benefit Plan. Eligible for the Income Security Plan are all employes with five years or more of service. Workers who have fewer than five but more than two years of service are covered by the Lay-off Benefit Plan.

"The first plan provides for advances against future work so that in no week during 1939 will the employe's income be less than sixty percent of his standard weekly earnings. In the second plan, this advance provision differs in that the weekly minimum is set at 40 percent of standard earnings, and the total amount that may be advanced is limited to 72 hours' pay at the employe's regular rate. The term 'standard weekly earnings' is defined as 40 hours' pay at the regular employe's hourly rate.

"Repayment of amounts drawn under the plans is made when the employe's weekly earnings again exceed 60 percent of his standard. Then, half of whatever amount he earns over and above 60 percent of his standard is applied against the advance. In other words, the worker does not have to repay the funds as rapidly as he withdrew them and only half of his earnings in excess of the 60 percent minimum goes to repay the advance."

Incentive Taxation

WALTER A. STAUB, Lybrand Ross Bros. & Montgomery, New York City "A good deal of talk is being heard nowadays about plans for 'incentive taxation'. I, for one, do not like to see legislative authorities use taxation to create social or economic incentives. There are too many different ideas about what the incentives ought to be, and there is too much uncertainty as to how they might work out in practice."

NATIONAL RETAIL DRY GOODS ASSOCIATION CONFERENCE

Suggested Activities for Carrying On Public Relations

HAROLD W. BRIGHTMAN, Vice President and General Merchandise Manager L. Bamberger & Co., Newark, N. J. - "Many retailers have for years carried on public relations activities directed to the community as a whole such as holding art exhibits, arrangement of musical programs, occasional lectures, competitions of various sorts, sewing classes, and so on. I am not suggesting that any such activities be discontinued. However, I think an even more effective public relations program can be carried on by tying in with the present trend: that is, through cooperation with customer groups...

"I shall suggest only a few of the kinds of activities which might be scheduled. You will probably think of others, perhaps more feasible in your particular case.

"Meetings of the forum type, with the store heads who are concerned with the store's relationship to the public participating, are interesting to customers. Such meetings might be held either in the store auditorium, if you have one, or in some other meeting place. At such meetings, the discussion might be devoted to the store's labeling, or to its advertising, or to sales practices, or to customer practices, and so on. Clinics or clothing information programs would undoubtedly be well received. Educational tours through the store, visits to the testing laboratory in your own store or to the testing laboratory you employ and similar activities would all be of interest to customer groups. The maintenance of a Speaker's Bureau is desirable so that speakers your own buyers, merchandise managers or other staff specialists may be furnished on occasion to groups for meetings which they may wish to arrange independently of the store. Making your auditorium available to local groups, if that is possible for you, for some of their own functions is also good 'public relations'."

Consumer Protection

HENRY MILLER, Assistant Director of Trade Practice Conferences, Federal Trade Commission - "Consumer demand for protection in purchases of clothing and textiles through proper labeling and identification of fiber content has steadily grown to tremendous proportion. In no comparable case has the demand for correction been more universally voiced...

"Consumer confidence in the retail outlets is very essential. It cannot easily be maintained unless there is a fair recognition of the necessity for eliminating dishonest practices and a willingness to cooperate in their elimination. Whether dealers be conceived of as purchasing agents for the consuming public or as the manufacturers' outlets or otherwise, the welfare of their business depends in no little measure upon frank and aboveboard dealing with the consumer. That dealer is a builder of public confidence who says, 'I am willing, to the best of my ability, to give my customers essential information about the merchandise I sell them; I will insist upon getting the information from my sources of supply and will conscientiously pass it on to my customers; I will act with reasonable care and prudence to see that the information is correct, and that no deception or deceit, positive or negative, is practiced on my customers'."

American Business Voluntarily Adopts Forward Looking Policies

CARL BYOIR, Carl Byoir & Associates, New York "Those business leaders are deluding themselves and rendering a disservice to American business who believe that any change in the political scene will make possible any turning back from the most forward-looking policies in relation to stockholders, labor and the public...

"The fact that government intervention was needed in some of these fields is best proved by the fact that American business is now planning happily to do many things voluntarily which they could hardly be forced to do five short years ago."

NATIONAL RETAIL DRY GOODS ASSOCIATION CONFERENCE

Reduction of Carrying Charges on Installment Sales is Unsound

F. J. FITZPATRICK, Director of Credit Sales, Kresge Department Store, Newark, N. J. "There is increasing evidence of competitive influences forcing downward the rate of the carrying charge levied on installment sales in the department store field. Not only do I believe this unsound, but exactly the opposite has taken place in the finance company field and they ought to know what they are doing.

"While the usual rate of of 1 percent a month on the original unpaid balance is still the most widely prevailing policy of levying a charge on installment sales, some stores have reduced this rate to a 5 percent per annum basis on the original unpaid balance in order to compete with F.H.A. terms. Others have cut it in half on a community-wide basis, such as in Pittsburgh and Portland, Oregon, to mention but two cities, where a of 1 percent a month rate now prevails...

"There still remains a wide gap between the income from carrying charges and total credit office expense. And as long as we haven't any authoritative figures, let me emphasize again that there should be no reduction in the rate of carrying charges purely for competitive reasons until we have better deferred payment expense data, particularly not since the of 1 percent rate is commonly acknowledged to be one of the lowest rates prevailing in the consumer credit field."

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Business Must Interest Itself In Consumer Education

R. B. BACKMAN, President, National Association of Better Business Bureaus, Inc. Boston, Massachusetts "Too much emphasis cannot be given to the desirability of business interesting itself in consumer education. Consumer education in the schools is growing rapidly. For a time it was largely confined to home economic courses in cooking and sewing. It has long ago gone beyond the bounds of these two subjects and home economic courses now include buymanship and many other problems. It is also being given a prominent place in commercial and social study courses.

"Bureaus are finding educators intensely interested in fact information that Bureaus are able to provide. In some cases, government agencies have, with permission, reproduced such material. It has also been reproduced in various publications and is widely quoted and used by consumer organizations, government agencies, as well as educators."

Suggestions for Promoting Recovery

BENJAMIN H. NAMM, President, The Namm Store, Brooklyn, New York "Let us consider some of the things that business men might do to promote recovery. They might ask themselves, day in and day out, these vital questions:

"(1) Are we taking the necessary steps to purge our industry of existing, unfair trade practices?

"(2) Are we developing higher standards of social welfare in dealing with our employees? "(3) Are we improving our relations with consumers and consumer-organizations, laying greater stress upon standards of quality and informative labeling?

"(4) Is 'big business' being more helpful to 'little business', on the principle of 'live-and-let-live'?

"(5) And last but not least, are we displayig towards our elected representatives in Washington an attitude of sincere and constructive cooperation?"

COL. ROBERT A. ROOS, President, Roos Brothers, San Francisco Cal. "I think we are ready to face the fact, that unless we create a sound, well-organized program for conducting our businesses, on a nationwide scale, of an unselfish, forward-looking nature, we will soon find ourselves saddled with such a conglomeration of independent state laws as to make national marketing a nightmare."