e there are so many
stores which have had the advantage of years of cumulative advertising.
The city is growing. It will grow even more next year. It needs
_increased trading facilities_ just as it's hungry for new
neighborhoods.

_But it will never again support neighborhood stores._ Newspaper
advertising has reduced the value of being _locally prominent_, and five
cent street car fares have cut out the advantage of being "_around the
corner_." A store five miles away, can reach out through the columns of
the daily newspaper and draw your next door neighbor to its aisles,
while you sit by and see the people on your own block enticed away,
without your being able to retaliate or secure _new_ customers to take
their place.

It is not a question of your ability to _stand the cost_ of advertising
but of being able to _survive without it_. The thing you have to
consider is not only an _extension_ of your business but of holding
_what you already have_.

Advertising is an _investment_, the cost of which is in the same
proportion to its _returns_ as _seeds_ are to the _harvest_. And it is
just as preposterous for you to consider publicity as an expense, as it
would be for a farmer to hesitate over purchasing a _fertilizer_, if he
discovered that he could _profitably increase_ his crops by _employing_
it.

The Tailor who Paid too Much

I was buying a cigar last week when a man dropped into the shop and
after making a purchase told the proprietor that he had started a
clothes shop around the corner and quoted him prices, with the assurance
of best garments and terms.

After he left the cigar man turned to me and said:

"Enterprising fellow, that, he'll get along."

"But he _won't_," I replied, "and, furthermore, I'll wager you that he
hasn't the sort of clothes shop that will _enable_ him to."

"What made you think that?" queried the man behind the counter.

"His theories are wrong," I explained; "he's relying upon word of mouth
publicity to build up his business and he can't _interview enough
individuals_ to compete with a merchant, who has sense enough to say the
_same_ things he told you, to a _hundred thousand_ men, while he is
telling it to _one_. Besides, his method of advertising is _too
expensive_. Suppose he sees a _hundred_ persons every day. First of all,
he is robbing his business of its necessary direction and besides, he is
spending too much to reach every man he solicits."

"I don't quite f