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WOOLWORTH, THE MERCHANT PRINCE CLUNG FAITHFULLY TO GREAT IDEA. Millions From Dimes Had the Longest Chain of Stores. Erected the Tallest Building:-?Was Once a Laborer on a Farm. (Richard Spillane in Commerce and Finance.) It has been printed that Frank W. Woolworth left a fortune of $65,000,000. To have amassed such a sum as the result of retail in articles selling for 5 or 1 0 cents is the most ex traordinary achievement in merchandising history. Stewart Marshal Field, Altman, Wannamaker and others we term our merchant princes followed the beaten lines and broadened them. Woolworth did something new. He made little things big, small profits im' . mense. He glorified the cent. His career, his fortune, his buildings, the most majestic in America, if not in the world, typify the power of the smallest coin the country knows. His success illustrates better than does that of any other man in America the opportunities there are in things considered small when touched by the !"Attiinof alchemy of genius, wmcu id uiriiw*.-, | but having the right idea and keeping at it until you work it out. Wool worth was a genius and yet 1 what was his idea? Simply if a store specialized in j selling at 5 cents all the goods it I handled the time saved in making sales and in making change would ( be sufficient to reduce the overhead charge greatly, and that people 1 would buy more of what seemed like ' bargains than they would ordinarily. It was not his idea in the sense 1 that he originated it. The idea was that of another person, but it took hold of him and he kept it before : him always. He was only a poor ' country boy. He had labored on a ' farm, and when he sought a job in a } country store, he had to work several 4 months for nothing for the privilege j of getting employed. He was a grown J man when he embarked on his first : store enterprise. It was a failure. 1 That did not daunt him. He tried 1 again. This time he succeeded. But ' he found the 5 cent store idea was ( not wholly sound. Not until he 1 changed to 5 and 10 cent trading did he make real headway. Later ( he sold some articles for more than * 10 cents, but 95 per cent, or, possibly, 98 per cent, of his trade was in 5 * ***** i o pent items. 1 OUU ? V . In the light of the huge success he 1 made of his business it is odd to c learn that in various instances, par- * ticularly in the earlier stages of his 1 enterprise, Woolworth stores failed 1 to succeed. It was not until he had I trials enough to test his patience to the limit that he began to get full * reward. When profit came big it s came extraordinarily big. t Mr. Woolworth wasn't a man of c particularly fine sensibilities, and he s was asked one day how it happened 1 that he got the ambition to build such a structure, and particularly t such a beautiful structure. s "I built that magnificent affair when I was a boy," he said. "My 1 folks were poor and we lived in a t very small house. Back of our house t there were stone piles and I started r to build a house of my own. After 1 I was making a lot of money as a t merchant I wanted to build some- t thing bigger than any other mer- c chant had. The Woolworth building 1 is the result." i A story that is little known about Woolworth has to do with his first j day as a merchant in Pennsylvania, j had in the I j 'He put every aunai world, and he didn't have many, into ( his stock, his fixtures and his rent. } His opening day was circus day. The < streets were crowded, but nobody < came into the store. The parade was i a bigger attraction. But along in 1 the late afternoon there was a sudden < change. After the circus the people i seemed to find particular attraction s in the new store that had just open- 1 ed. When he counted his cash that night he found his total sales exceedN ed his early forecast. Later i.i life < he said that first day was the most i trying of his life. One thing the death of Mr. Woolworth may clear up is the mystery of the City Park of Watertown, N. Y. ; buiit and year after < "1 lit; jyai n. ?. ?.. year the bills for its maintenance have gone to a banking house in New York. There always has been more than a suspicion that Frank Woolworth was the man who paid. Mr. Woolworth had one great passion aside from business. That was music. In his home at Glen Cove he had one of the most remarkable organs in the world. It was fitted up with all sorts of mechanical appliances for reproducing storm effects? lightning, thunder and such. He did not play particularly well and appreciated this fact. When he got a talented organist to visit his home he was delighted. He was rather sensitive about his own limitations as a player, and when he naa guests he could not be induced to go to the organ. But he would, if he was pressed, play the piano, on which he was a fair sort of performer. There are a lot of stories illustrative of Woolworth's business methods. Once he went to Germany to visit a man from whom he had been buying penknives for years. Going into this man's office one day, he said: ' 1 1?- ----- ? 1-A Tf "o ''Here's a knire mat \uu mai\c. *?. o a pretty good knife. It's higher priced than the goods I handle. How much does it cost you to manufacture it?" The German told him. "If I gave you a big order," and .Mr. Woolworth I named a considerable total, "at what price would you sell it to me?" "Sixteen cents," said the knife man. "If I give you an order sufficient to keep your factory busy night and day, 24 hours, for a year, what then?" The German figured a long time. Then he said, "Eight cents." "Done," said Woolworth. There was no pretense to Woolworth; he was big, bluff and hearty. He didn't pay his employees particularly large wages and he held them to strict accountability. He insisted upon courtesy. "The customer is always right." was one of his doctrines. "Never forget that. He or she is right whether she is or not." Once or twice or thrice a year he would shoot a telegram to everyone uio lmndrpd or more stores in Ill lllO ^ America and have the same thing done in his 50 or 60 or more stores in Canada, England or elsewhere, and this is about the way the messages would read: Good morning. Did you say "Good morning" to each customer this morning? Mr. Woolworth had an admiration for Napoleon that was little short of a passion. His office was furnished in axact duplication of one of Bonaparte's favorite rooms. He purchased Napoleonic relics wherever he could ?et them and he read and reread the life of the Little Corporal with more interest than any other volumes in his library. His friends said he liked to believe he had some of the characteristics of the great Corsican. He ?ertainly had the gift for organization that was Napoleon's, but Woolsvorth was at times a merchant and )nly a merchant, while Napoleon had ;ranscendent ability in many lines. It is said Woolworth was one of he first merchants of (America to nake a study of traffic density. Fornerly it was the custom for a mer:hant to depend on his judgment as o the choice of location for his store. good many years ago Woolworth >egan "measuring" the volume of the luman tide and the character of its dements before he decided upon leasng or buying a store. He endeavored ilso to keep track accurately of the raffic charges in all cities of conseluence. An excellent location meant luccess. A fair location meant fail' ' ? Tn pv ire. He warned nu lanui . w. . >ry'branch of his business he tried o be as exact, as certain of good results as humanly possible. He and all great purchasers like lim came in for bitter criticism at imes. No doubt, by taking the enire output of factories for a year or . nore. they were able, by reason of laving shunted off the manufacurers' former customers, to dictate o the manufacturer as to production 'osts and. not infrequently, reduce lim to subserviency in them. That .vas a vicious practice. There was criticism, too, of the injustice to small town merchants of such competition as that of the chain store. Mr. Wool worth felt this criticism keenly. He had been a strug- ' ;ling storekeeper and knew the trials if the man of small capital, but he said there was no escape from ecoaomic law and the small merchant who could not stand against the force of competition had to succumb. If it was not Woolworth it would be some one else he would have to combat. There was amazement when Woolworth opened a 5 and 10 cent store on Fifth avenue, New York, opposite the library. Some of his friends asked him if he was not making a mistake; if he was not paying too high a rent; if he could get patronage sufficient in such a neighborhood, etc. He smiled. "I've been studying that location for five years," he said. "It is one of the cheapest sites I ever have obtained. The business will be immense. The site will improve year by year. Fifth avenue is changing. It is going to be more and more a thoroughfare of business. Its traffic density will increase steadily." So far his prediction has been verified. The 5 and 10 cent store in the (Continued on page 7, column 2.) DELICIOUS DESERT MADE FROM Stoned Cake ? - " ?? i rt.i Two slices of stone's spanisn uaKe with caramel filling between the slices. Make the caramel filling as follows: 1 cup of brown sugar, 1 cup of granulated sugar, 1 cup of water, 1 tablespoon of butter. Let this boil a few minutes, then add 7 heaping teaspoons of corn starch, 4 tablespoons of vinegar, and 1-4 teaspoon of salt. WE HAVE IT THIS WEEK. PHONE 15 TOM DUCKER BAMBERG, S. C. I LADIES: I We can furnish you and all the I family with all those beautiful and I I useful things you wear from the time you dress in the morning until you I retire at night. So whenever you want anything to I wear, come to us for it and you will fl find it, and you will find the quality I you desire at a price you can afford to pay. I WE MAKE LIFE-LONG CUSTOMERS 8 OF THOSE WHO DEAL I WITH US ONCE. I H. C Folk Co. Just I Arrived We have Just received three carloads of mules and hirses from the Western markets. These animals were personally selected by our Mr. W. P. Jones, and they are in the 1 I pink of condition. They are now to be seen at our stables. Don't fail to see them before you buy. Jones Bros. RAILROAD AVENUE BAMBERG, S. C. 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