THE BEE: OMAHA, THURSDAY, AUGUST 31, 1916.
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T.inArfclri'c f!nrrirn pvymqI Arfnnt.v TTpphq Sfpn With flitv's Tiifp
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An eastern advertising man vyho when they have it
came west witn tne crowu oi experts clearly.
J he Bee and vvorm-Hcraio ana a
number of other loyal Nebraska
newspapers had here several weeks
ago, walked down the streets of Lin
coln one Friday afternoon.
He stopped in, here and there, at
the stores, he saw the kind of goods
the people were buying, he saw the
discrimination with which they
bought each kind, he noted how they
traveled to and from market, and his
mind grasped t number of other
I see that very
points a lot of us past up, in all prob
ability. 1
At the end of a couple of hours he
had seen enough to give him a clue
to the situation. He turned, then,
to one of the Lincoln men, who ac
companied him on the tour and said:
"Your folks out here are the best
buyers in the world. I have seen
most of 'em, too. The chief thing
that appeals to me is that they don t
quibble about the prices if they get
the quality. And anothe thing they
have the money and they spend it
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That is the secret of Nebraska mer
chandising nowadays in these days
of proseperity over the state and it
is the secret of the trade which has
developed so marvelously at Lincoln
during the last few yars.
Lincoln is a town ot good retail
stores. Starting with the gigantic
new institution which Miller &
Paine have made over in their bright
new home at Thirteenth and O
streets and going from there to insti-
luuons oi ine same ciase, nuugc at
Guenzel't and Herpolsheimer's and
all the way up and down O street
and on tome of the side streets now,
one finds modern ideas worked into
every stock.
These ideas have not come from
the desire of the tradesmen to force
them upon their customers. They
have come because the people are
ready for them, and because they are
availing themselves of them to the
utmost. The people at Lincoln, at
at other points' of the state, have said
that they wanted these changed and
the storekeepers have responded with
alacrity to their demands. It hat paid
them to do to. Their trade has been
stimulated by it and it has been
money in their pockett to do so, in
thort.
People buy better clothes than they
used to at Lincoln. Men as well as
women do that. The fair sex have
nothing on the stronger sex when it
comes to draping their backt with the
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'atest creations of the designer. Con1
mon sense is shown generally in all o
the costuming of course, and then
are few who give way to extremes in
either male or female adornment.
Likewise the people buy better
things for their homes. By this is not
meant furniture alone, or hardware.
But they are adding phonographs and
more extensive libraries and more
elaborate lighting effects, more pic
tures, more musical instruments, more
of these things in short which in
struct and amuse. Homes in Lincoln
are no more mere places to exist
they are placet where the family hat
at least a portion of its entertainment
and where it gets additional reasons
for staying in spite of the multitude
of attractions the outside offers.
Enterprising firms are selling all
these things to the people. While it
might be said that it is selfish for
them to do so, nevertheless it is true
that the firms are doing much to aid
people of even moderate means to
have tome of the home advantages
their neighbors possess.
It is easy, if a man is half way fair
with his merchants, for him to have
a victrola or a grafonola in his home,
for him to have a set of Brittanica and
for him to gather around him any
number of easy payment plans which
the merchants have offered.
The firms of the capital city are
progressive. I hey do busmesi on
lines that their lathers might have
smiled at, but which they would most
certainly approve of if they knew as
much as these merchants know.
Bookkeeping systems are thorough
and efficient in every tense of the
word, salesmen are courteous and
know their goods, the bosses arc mas
ters of their business and they think
from the standpoint of the customer
because it pays them to do business
that way.
What the retail store has learned
by its contact with the new Nebraska,
the most prosperous Nebraska, the
wholesalers and jobbers have learned,
too. This class of Lincoln tradesmen
have kept apace with the new thought.
They have measured up to every
change in trade conditions and have
been the first in fact to jump in and
give impetus to the movement for
ii ore business-like conduct of the re
ail trade.
Lincoln jobbers reach a territory
which jobbers of many other parts of
the country would give a whole lot to
handle. Lincoln is in the heart of Ne
braska wealth, and Nebraska wealth,
continuing, is in the heart of national
wealth.
In every direction from the city
there are located thriving little towns,
and some of them not so little, where
the bank deposits are exceedingly
high per capita, and where the people
are spending money right and left for
the things they want and the things
they need.
This territory has not been de
veloped in a day. Many of the Lin
coln jobbers have been built up with
it. They have stuck by the mer
chants when the times were not so
prosperous and when it was a real
sacrifice to do so. And now that the
times are better and the merchants
have the wherewithal to meet their
bills thev are (ticking: bv their old
jobbers and wholesalers in a way that
is most commendable. Both are shar
ing now the rewards of business per
sistency and business justice and both
are glad that they are.
there has been no more remark
able iorward stride in all wholesale
and jobbing lines than in these prod
ucts which ko on Nebraska tables.
Grocery concerns and fruit jobbers
have increased in number and busi
ness output most astonishingly in the
new era that has come to Nebraska.
Where once not a man outside Omaha
knew what grapefruit was and very
few there knew it intimately now
that product is eaten from one end of
the state to the other.
And lettuce no longer looks aueer
on a winter table set somewhere out
in the state, and it is not a cause for
excessive comment at the small town
grocery any more whenome of the
families there have strawberries and
radishes at the fag end of a severe
winter.
Syrup hat supplanted molasses, a
corn syrup taking the place of the
slow running product. Canned goods
are bought by the case in most Ne
braska towns by any number of fam
ilies and stored away for winter use
and fewer mothers stew and fret over
the canning season than used to when
incomplete or pioneer jobbing meth
ods made it impossible to obtain fruits
and vegetables at a moderate price.
The automobile has been a great aid
to the distribution of goods over the
state. It has helped the retailer and
it has helped the wholesaler. Now
some of the merchants do their own
shopping by means of the motor car,
and frequently drop in at their houses
to personally inspect the goods they
want to buy. And deliveries have been
quickened and stimulated by the use
of the delivery truck in cities of al
most every size over the state, and
the trade, to some extent, has been
increased through its use.
Lincoln does not satisfy itself with
reaching in its immediate neighbor
hood either. Its goods reach far into
the west and south, into Kansas and
north to the Dakotas and into Colo
rado and Wyoming. It has extended
its trade into channels where a few
years ago some of the business men
here thought it could not possibly
go. The goods have made good in
most every line and in almost all
respects. There have been so few
failures that they are negligible as
tar as this discussion is concerned.
The slogan lias been "Good goods at
a reasonable price," and that slogan
has been adhered to straight through
the years.
Farm machinery has beeir sent out
of Lincoln in wonderfully large
amounts during the last few years.
Some of the largest concerns in the
world have made this a distributing
point. The big buildings at the state
fair grounds are used a portion of
the year, for instance, for storage of
some of this huge amount and it
would surprise the nonbeliever to take
a trip through the grounds some time
during December or January to back
up that statement.
Co-operation has been the word
most used by Lincoln jobbers and
wholesalers during the last decade.
Through the agency of the Commer
cial club the interests of the city have
been kept uppermost, and the trade
has been promoted systematically and
well, with the end in view of getting
re-orders.
Lincoln has been impressed upon
the retailers as a city of fair busi
nesses, ready to work with them for
the upbuilding .of the retail business
and to ultimately make more peole
pleased customers than was ever pos
sible under the old hit-and-miss meth
ods, and under the old system of
fighting with consumers rather than
making them friendly by making good
goods and selling them right and
backing them up in the proper manner.
JfiAw
LoohnS East From As i ill lU"
k I lottos mtzm ISSESPte
jjj jlpl r,
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Buy the Heat of the Coal Without the Waste and Dirt
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Gis is a Servant that can do a Lot
of Things to Make Your Kitchen
Work Easier and Pleasanter
T T WILL give you hot water quickly and economically
A send a. steaming stream from the hot water faucet just
when and where you want it.
Gas lighting is less expensive and more pleasing than
any other gas will burn your garbage a gas iron will do
a day's ironing for a couple of cents. '
And one of the perfect new
Detroit Jewel Gas Ranges
will smooth out your cooking worries cook quickly,
thoroughly and economically.
You can enjoy the convenience and saving of
an All Gas Kitchen at a surprisingly Low Cost
' , Let us show you how.
What do you really buy
when you get a ton of
coal? Heat, of course. If
you could buy heat alone
without getting the by
products of ashes, clink
ers, slate, cinders, soot and
(Jirt, you would tell the
coal dealer to deliver the
calories and keep the dis
agreeable concomitants.
Make arrangements to do
all the cooking in your
home with Gas, then you
can have HEAT of coal
without its attendant
waste and dirt. It is
the cheapest fuel you can
get, if care is maintained
in its operation.
A clean fire when you
want it, heat shut off
when not needed, hot
water instantly, and no
bother with ashes that's
the results of using gas.
Lincoln Gas is highest
quality, and you can al
ways depend upon the
pressure and heat units.
If It's a
Question of
Illumination
If you want to know the
best way to light your
residence, a p a r tment,
stores, hall, garage,
church or factory if you
want to know what is
newest and most efficient
in lamps, appliances pr
electric power regard
less of how little elec
tricity you intend using
this company is always
at your service without
any obligation to you.
A Cool Mittcheiii
Detroit Jewel Gas Ranges are
built so that the heat stays inside
VOU can face the hot days of mid-summer without dread
if there's a Jewel in your kitchen. No super-heated
kitchens no working over a stove that's pouring out with
ering heat no "all gone" feeling or heat prostration, when
you cook on a Detroit Jewel Gas Range.
Real summer cooking comfort is yours
with every one of these new Detroit Jewel '
Ranges the stoves that have been the best
since gas ranges were manufactured.
Keep cool this summer put one of our 1916 Detroit Jewel
Gas Ranges in your kitchen.
Phone B-6585 and Call Our Office Day or Night
Lincoln Gas & Electric
GAS & ELECTRIC BUILDING, LINCOLN, NEBRASKA
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