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A J V I IT be Mi )dern Curse of Quantity Rati ler Th lan Quai ity By Prof. Ferrero By Prof. Guglielmo Ferrero, The Greatness and Decline of Rome," Etc. The Distinguished Historian, Author of T HE enormous wealth of America Is one o! the most remarkable phenomena of our epoch. It has done much more than furnish to mankind means of action and enjoy ment such as we never possessed before. This wealth, in fact, is pushing to its last phase the movement which began more than a century ago and which threatens to overturn the foun dations of our civilization. It presents to us, In fact, the gravest problem of our time. We find this problem, at the same time as the influence, tiie hatred and the admiration of wealth in America, at the bottom of nearly all the moral and social difficulties with which we are strug gling. it is the problem of progress. is this American wealth that of a barbarous nation? Not at all. Magnificent universities, museums and libraries are the signs of a cul ture born of a great enthusiasm. A writer who loves paradox might, if he wished, amuse himself by proving that Americans are more idealistic than Europeans, at least if we can regard the desire to understand, to assimilate a:,d to marvel at everything as a proof of idealism 1 do not accept this paradox, but 1 must say that the governpeuts and govern ing classes of old Europe give less encourage ment to art. letters and science tnan those of America. The fact is that a revolution is taking place in the minds of humanity even In old Europe. I'iie idea of progress came into existence be tween the end of the seventeenth century and :he beginning of the eighteenth at the moment wh- j man began to perceive that he could con- qu- r the whole earth and Its treasures. It was u in- ccuceited tiie idea of progress. This . a to-day dominates all our civilization and rannizes over us. We have abandoned the id scruple* of tradition and authority for the ■a i’U. o’ liberty and wealth. What is this progress, the mystic word that lies us? Everybody speaks of it and nobody nows with precision what it is. It is a most I'orre thing that in this cenlur; of progress • 11 im'- cm; iplains of liie decadence of every thing. Workmen, employes, soldiers, students, . iiiotners, servants---especially :wants are not as good, we are told, as those : other days. Good cooking is disappearing at ■ same time as good literature, good furni- !i ‘ids nd good manners, and so on. How Is it then that so many things are de- t-riorating in (he century of progress? Are we reall.v progressing or are we not? Is the !"' -!•’■ of which we are so proud, to which we sacrifice every day our rest, our Iran- ometimes even our lives, only an il lusion ? This, is the supreme problem which has pro ved Itself to me as the result of my A mer it experiences The civilizations of which ours was tiie outcome were poor In resources They limited their desires, their ambitions, their spirit of Initiative, their audacity and their originality. They produced little and slowly. Although they suffered continuously from the Insufficiency of their material resour ces, they considered the Increase of wealth as only a painful necessity. But they sought to attain in everything a difficult model of per fection artistic, literary, moral or religious. The artistic character of nearly all the Indus tries of the paRt, the importance which the decorative arts, matters of personal morality, ceremony and form possessed formerly, are proof of this. Quality was then more Import ant than quantity, and all the restraints to which these civilizations submitted and which astonish us to-day were only the necessary ransom of the perfection which they so greatly desired. We have turned the world In which our ancestors lived upside down, and America has taken the leading part in this movement. We have made the multiplication of wealth the main object of existence. We have won liberty and destroyed nearly all the restraints of other days. But we have been obliged to abandon nearly all the ideals of perfection—artistic, moral or religious venerated by our ancestors. We have been obliged to sacrifice quality to quantity. We no longer know where we stand because we continual!, confuse these two standards of measure quality and quantity — sometimes making use of one and sometimes of the other. We really desire two different things. That is why 11 comparisons made between Europe and America to decide which of the two worlds is superior to the other never reach any definite conclusion. America is not the monstrous country some Europeans affirm it to be, where people dream of nothing but making money, nor is it the coun try of miracles so extravagantly praised by some of its admirers. It is the country where tiie principle of quantity, which has become so Important all over the world during the last one hundred and fifty years, has won its most brilliant victory. In the same way it Is not accurate to say that Europe represents as compared to barbarous America the ower of civilization; or to affirm on the other hand that the old world is worn out and rendered impotent by unchangeable routine. The ancient societies of Europe have also entered upon what I may call the quanti tative phase of history. Which of the two civilizations—the qualita tive or the quantitative- should we accept as an ideal? Is the development of tile world we see to-day marvellous epic of progress or is it a sombre tragedy of decadence? Alas! it Is not probable that man can end tills cruel uncertainty as long as the present phase of our* civilization lasts, for this uncertainty is the price of the conquest of the earth which mail has accomplished, and especially of the prodigi ous development of America. How many times, as I travelled across the vast plains of the two Americas, seeing day after day endless fields of grain or coffee plants spread out beyond reach of the eye, 1 have thought as a his torian of antiquity of those tiny pieces of marble worked with such exquisite perfec tion by tne Greeks, which we have admir ed In our museums. The Greeks attained such marvellous per fection a the arts be cause at a certain mo ment they renounced their ambition to ex tend their empire over the earth and Its wealth. We have conquered with the railways these im mense deserts because we have renounced so many artistic and moral p e r f e c tions which were the glory of the ancients. In the light of this idea I seem to better com prehend both the an cient civilization and our epoch. If the the ancient civiliza tions, which carried too far the desire of perfection, ended by exhaust ing their strength in the pur suit of an object at once limited and im possible, are not the civilizations of to-day, which allow them selves to be carried away by the mania of expansion, speed and quantity,destined to end in a new bar barism jth gross and violent? I say, therefore, that if you must pursue quantity do not forget the value of quality. The mere production of quantity without regard to quality, whether in foodstuffs or manufac tured articles, may become an abuse that will reduce man to a new type of savage. Modern industry has succeeded in multiply ing the production of wealth in proportions which would seem fantastic to a man of the eighteenth century. From the point of view of quality modern industry is engaged in per petrating a colossal fraud upon the world. It confuses originals and imitations so thoroughly rj. ’ rfofai* tifTi/WM m WMWi' ■ • ( K \ H L •/ l f '■e A/S? hm Professor Guglielmo Ferrero. that no one can distinguish between them. You imagine you are buying rare and curious Hindu or Japanese articles? They were manufactured in some dingy manufactur ing centre of Europe. Articles of Parisian lux ury, fine English cloth, etc., are made in every country in Europe. The souvenirs that Euro pean travellers carry back from the East were originally manufactured in Europe, in the Italian province of Lombardy they manu facture vast quantities of Smyrna rugs and export them to the Orient. The problem of origin becomes still more mysterious when we come to objects of great value, "objets de luxe,” upon which chemistry expends all the magic power of Its manipulations, such as perfumes, liqueurs, furs, and even Jewels. For my part, I have never heard a more curious conversation than that of men who understand some branch of this commerce thoroughly and consent to reveal the little secrets of It. The processes which are employed to-day to give the public the illusion of superior quality when It is really only getting cheap quantity are truly of an unheard-of complexity and refine ment. How much genius has it not required to Invent all these Ingenious mystifications! A phenomenon of such proportlqns is not the effect of simple chance or an explicable wan dering of the mind. It Is bound up with the whole movement of modern civilization, which everywhere has been the triumph of quantity over quality. Some day, however, we shall have to put a limit to this liberty of mystifying the public, if we do not wish to destroy en tirely the sense of beauty and the desire of perfection. Sometimes we laugh at people who wait before deciding whether an object is good or beautiful to find out where It came from and who made it. This blind confidence In labels seems so stupid that in the eyes of many persons it justifies the manufacturers who un scrupulously profit by it. Yet is this not a necessary precaution in order to distinguish good things from mediocre and bad ones? Most men are not gifted with a very sure Instinct to enable them to make this distinc tion. They learn to do it little by little by comparing the objects they handle with cer tain examples which serve as a standard. The blind confidence In certain labels with wliich we reproach ordinary people is only the desire of finding a standard of quality. No doubt the perfection of these models is not absolute. It is certain that neither Jap anese porcelain nor Persian rugs represent a level of perfection which can never be sur passed. They are models of a relative perfec tion, like all other products of human labor which have acquired as a result of long effort a great reputation. But simply for this reason they may serve for a certain time either as standards to measure the quality of objects of the same class or as stimulants to better work. They are, therefore, one of the most im portant factors of progress. They can never play this important role, however, if they are continually falsified, as happens to-day. Good things and poor things are so mixed up together that it is almost impossible to distinguish be tween them, and we finish by judging the quality of an object by its price instead of fix ing the price according to its quality. In American newspapers we find many advertise ments which recommend certain objects by declaring that they are the dearest in the world. Because they are the dearest they must be the best! Is it necessary to say to what dangers we are exposed If we adopt this standard to measure the quality of articles? Nations and Industries which have created fine models of workmanship should be able s, protect their authenticity not only In their own Interest, but in the general interest of civiliza tion. We are working for progress In th« highest sense when we provide means of dis tinguishing really beautiful and really good things from imitation. The task is not easy, The resistance which such a simple remedy ai a declaration of origin meets proves this. Mod ern society is such an entanglement of contra dictory interests that even the nations whose products are Imitated in the greatest number have much difficulty in organizing an effect ive protection. The spirit of the times favors cheap imitations. This situation will never be improved unless we modify certain ideas which are to-day very popular. We must learn to give more importance to quality in every thing. Nations have succumbed to-day to the blind tyranny of numbers. Take, for instance, ths statistics of export in any country. We ar« satisfied, as a rule, simply to compare figures. When the figures increase, that is progress; when they diminish, that is called decadence, and the nations which can show the largest figures are considered to be marching at tha head of civilization. These judgments which only take account of quantity seem to me a little too simple. Without doubt quantity Is a force; it has always been one; It Is especially a force to-day in an epoch which tends espe cially to exploit rapidly large territories and to organize enormous armies. Nations which can produce much very quickly, even if tney produce poor things, enjoy to-day advantages that past ages did not know. Even nations which have inherited the traditions of ancient civilization are obliged to consider this situa tion. But quantity, while being a force and s great one, should not be the force unless met wish to be transformed into simple wealth producing machines. We must examine more closely commercial and industrial statistics and understand th« elements on which they are based. The ex portation of raw material and the exportatlot of manufactured products may equally swell the statistics, but they have a very different social and moral significance. Among the manufactured products which people exchange between themselves there are also considerable differences. The original industries which are the result of long national effort should noi be confused with the imitative industries ol other nations, for the first are the manifesta tions of the true creative energy of the coun try. I do not understand why people who cap manufacture a million dollars’ worth of prod ucts of an original industry should be consid ered inferior to a people which can sell three or four times the amount of imitations of that industry. I Why Department Stores Cut Prices and Have ‘‘Bargain Some interesting Secrets Behind the Scenes Revealed by Mr. E. VV. Bloomingdale, Counsel for the New York Retail Dry Goods Association. M i ILL OWNERS, manufacturers and “middle men” would veiy much like to fix the price ihat the public shall pay for their goods. The habit of the department stores of cutting prices and having bargain sales upsets their plans. At the recent session of the National Civic Federation, Mr. Edward \Y. Bloomingdale, counsel for the New York Retail Dry Goods Association, was asked lo answer these two questions- Should a manufacturer be permitted lo fix the price at which the retailer may sell to the consumer? I the price-cutting of department stores a benefit or an injury to the public? By E. VV. Bloomingdale. N in article published recently an amusing attempt is made to defend the fixed price theory Obviously this article was written by a person without commercial experience, but rain* r Uv a special pleader to support pre- Conceived opinions. The reasons given in justi Illation of the position the writer lias assumed are that ill the cutting of prices Is unfair to the manufacturer; i2i unjust to other retailers, and u>) that it is an injury to tiie consumer If tlit- last of these alleged reasons were true the question would be a serious one. if it were true that the Interests of the retailer mil re toilers I were unjustly prejudiced. It would be important but if the only point involved is the self-interest ot the individual manufacturer, as against the interests of tin- rest of tile com niunitj (and I claim that such is the fact). then the proposition is hardly worthy of eon si.leratiiiii in this presence. Of all the e,intentions made, that which pre tends to claim that tiie interest of the buying Punlit, is injured is tiie most lenuous. To sus tain this view it is urged that the purchaser may lie tempted by the cut price to purchase some other articles at a higher percentage of profit than is charged on the leader, or. that a reduction In profits may narrow the avenues of distribution and tiie consumer may thus have greater difficult' in procuring the article at ad tin many instances this would be a direct ad vantage to the consumer), or. worst of all. "the manu!c -1 orer nay be tempted to deteriorate the a:th e in order to preserve tiis own pr< fits.' Tiie last sixteen words are quoted from the newspaper article referred to. and therein lies the r ■ crux of the mannf.i'-turers' solicitude. Tin- sii blindiai Uishleratlon is the :* J;t I'll - cturers* pro To main tain these Is the b:isi is nnd I'ispir • >n of ;«'! theso tear^ shed for tin* dear abused public, and it is the fear of tl a ini tt ion of th» »se profits that actuates the owi »er of a pro prie ■tnry article ■ in participa- tins in the carrying or i of an ext< -nsive and ex- ►ensive i-aqupaign i n f avor of pri i-e regulatii n. r '»r the popularizing ( >f a lower retail selling is jin rurally f oll< ►wed by a pressure ilpou a roa nufacturer ! For a reduction in his sell up fisru re. Why should the ma nufnetu rer lie permitted o coutr ol the price at which the retailer sells? When he parts with his property he does so for his personal gain; when lie gets ids price he has parted not only with ownership but with control. lu the article he is quoted as saying in effect "that which I create, in which 1 embody ray experience, to which 1 give my reputation, is my property.” So it is until lie parts with Ills property, but ail of these elements are Included lu tiie price and go with tiie title which passes when tile sale is made. The artist who paints a picture or models a piece of sculpture creates something in which he also embodies Ids experience and to which he gives Ills reputation, and ns well might he claim that the thing created continues to be his property and deny to tiie person who acquires it the right to dispose of it at any price lie can got. lest It militate against his reputation. The manufacturer of a proprietary article does not consign his product to the dealer, nor sell with tin- privilege of returning that which remains unsold. The dealer pays for his goods when he gets them and thereafter lie assumes tiie entire risk. If he miscalculates and pur chases more than his trade will absorb, or if tile demand for the article diminishes, or if the season for their use is unpropitious. and they lie upon his shelves, who is to bear tiie loss and what is to become of him when Ids bills fall due and lie can point only to unsalable mer chandise to satisfy Ids creditors? i'nless tills title, which tile purchaser ac quires. Is clear, absolute, and without restric tion. tiie stock of the merchant is to a certain extent without substantial value. Take a con crete case: A customer goes to ids hank to ob tain a loan of five thousand dollars. The banker asks what security tin- applicant has to offer, and ho answers that he has a stock of staple merchandise, costing twenty thousand I'lillars. ad paid for. Tiie banker replies. "Why don't you reduce your stock and realize money •-HI 'T r/% s* . jvSL ' The Cut-Price Bargain Sales Which Manufacturers Want to Put an End To. in that way?” "Well,” says the customer, “trade is a little slow just now and my goods are not moving.” "But,” says the banker, “why not reduce your prices 5 per cent to stim ulate your business?" “I'd like to do that," says Mr. Merchant, "but you see I am not per mitted to sell except at certain prices fixed by the manufacturer." The banker's reply is ob vious; “Suppose your loan falls due and you are still unable to sell your goods at the fixed price, how am I to realize on my security?" and ihe interview is closed. One of the fallacies of the claim for this spe cial privilege to the manufacturer to fix the re tail prices lies in the assumption that the arti cle is commercially worth the price sought to be put upon it. An extensive advertising cam paign may acquaint a large number of people with the fact that they enu get a good watch for a dollar, but that alone does not make tiie watch intrinsically worth a dollar. The same measure of quality may be contained in a watch selling at seventy-five cents, the reason being that in the former the expense of adver tising is incorporated in the price, while in the latter it is not. The retailer, having an expert knowledge of qualities and wishing to put arti cles of iike merit on an equal basis may well believe that in charging a dollar for the adver tised watch he is really asking the customer to pay for an element which is of no value to him, that both watches are of equal value as watches anil that fair dealing compels him to charge the same price for one as for the other. But a one-price standard is not maintained, even by the producer. In nearly every in stance his selling list is subject to a sliding scale of discounts, according to the quantity purchased, so that the 'proprietor of a big de partment store who can buy in maximum units owns his goods at a lower figure than the small dealer, for whom the manufacturer now shows such great commiseration. One of the most generally sold commodities In this country is cigarettes. The grAitest pro portion of these gre manufactured and sold by the American Tobacco Company, which, since the decree of the I'nited States Supreme Court, may no longer be considered a trust. Tiie usual ten-cent box of cigarettes, which costs to manu facture three cents at the outside, costs the dealer 7 76-100 cents a box. in the quantities usually bought by the retailer, thus affording him a gross profit of 23 2-10 per cent, which is not a living profit in a business of limited vol ume. To the larger dealer, who can use solid cases of a single brand, there is a rebate or discount, increasing in amount, which, in the case of those who buy in ihaximtim volume, such as the United Cigar Stores Company or the great news agencies or one or two others, reaches a difference in cost of about 10 per cent, so that here we have a situation in which the big man makes a handsome profit,,while the little dealer starves to death. Nor is this the only method by which the manufacturer maintains a double standard. A well-known article of common use. nationally advertised, is sold in quantities by the manu facturer at 60 cents, to be retailed under the producer's trade-mark at $1.00 This same manufacturer puts out a similar article of equal intrinsic value, costing about the same to produce, but which is offered under another name at 47H cents wholesale, and is generally sold at 69 cents retail. The identity of these two articles is thoroughly well known to the trade, the only difference being that one Is ad vertised and the other is not, and yet this manufacturer Is high in the councils of the American Fair Trade League. If we concede to the manufacturer the right to fix both the price at which be sells to the retailer and the price at which the article may be sold by the retailer to the consumer, he, the producer, can establish Ills market by exten sive advertising, making it practically compul sory for the retailer to handle his product even though the margin allowed be too close for safe merchandising, for the retailer must handle an article for which there is a demand. We thus hand over the destiny of the retail merchant to the persons who control his sources of supply, for this principle, if allowed, would not necessarily be applied only to advertised goods but to all merchandise. Perhaps at the beginning the manufacturer would allow a D R GEORGEI ish author an in England. GEORGE BRANDES. the famous Dan and critic, lias been lecturing One evening Dr. Braudes •vas to lecture on Nietzsche, the strange Ger man philosopher who turned the old-fashioned ideas of life upside down. The equally eele rated Mr Bernard Shaw introduced the lee- turer. and oecupled more attention with his iiitroduetion than the visitor with his lecture. These are some of Mr. Shaw's remarks; Bv Bernard Shaw. r HIS meeting, like all other meetings of tiie same kind in England, is field just about thirty years too late. It i> very curious how punctual we are In our lateness— always a quarter of a century or so behind. We are now beginning to know what we ought to Know about tin teachings of Nietzsche, about twenty-five or thirty years after they were launched upon the world. It is realty a great pity that we could not be a little more up to time. In this Instance It is partly due to the fact that we are not able to take on more than one idea at a time. Thirty years ago we ought to have been discussing the ideas of Nietzsche, wlieu we were busy over the ideas of Darwin. What Darwin did was to make us familiar with the conception of mau as a super-monkey, and it was Nietzsche wlu> pointed out that the super-monkey was pretty certain in the long- run to become the super man. Now we have become familiar with the idea of wfiat we call a suj>er-raan. although Nietzsche was not tiie only one responsible for the name But tiie more I look around and see the ap palling incompetence of men to deal with the problems of tiie world, the more I see the way- in w hich the capacity of men is being beaten by- tile political, the social, the religious problems forced upon us by our own species, the more I begin to wonder whether what will set us right will be a super-man at ait. For evolution does not proceed endlessly on the same line of ex periments. It began with fishes, and ended by making some very decent fishes—and then gave up the job. It tried birds, and afterwards went on wi.h something else. Do not let your conceit as super-monkeys carry you away, for I am be ginning to think that, if we do not waken up. Nature will try something else than man. and that the Improvement on man may not be a super-man. but something of which we have no conception, which will wipe us out—and serve us r.ght. If Dr. Braudes were a nobody it would not be necessary for me to introduce him to you. I -■; mid be able to say that he needed no intro duction As a matter of fact. Dr. Braudes has been know-n as one of the most distinguished critifts in Europe, and therefore, under ordinary- circumstances. we might presume that an ordi nary F.ritish audience has never heard of him. But I may assume that some of you have heard of him before. His real distinction is not that he has a profound knowledge of the literature of Europe, not that he is a very learned man. but that he is a groat critic and recognizes a man of genius instinctively. And that is where ail our own critics fail. When Richard Wagner mine, all our critics informed us that his was not music at all. and that he was only a perverse charlatan. You will remember the nu-ss they made of Ibsen— 1 will not speak of later men of genius. Some . of them have had their share of misfortunes. The real distinction which Dr Brandes has, and which all tiie rest of the critics have not — Is that he knows a man of genius as soon as he sees him. more liberal margin, to facilitate the introduc tion of his merchandise, but after liis goods were well introduced he could, by raising his own prices or reducing the fixed retail price to stimulate sales, drive the retailer out of ex istence. We have seen the result of this condition o! affairs in the tobacco business of this city, where hundreds of small dealers have been literally forced out of business because, on the classes of merchandise mostly in demand, the margin of profit is not sufficient to support the enterprise. I have not attempted to set forth nil of Hit arguments nor elaborate any of them that have occurred to me, which, in my opinion, are in opposition to the principle of permit ting. or would make it unsafe to allow, the manufacturer to fix the retailer’s price, but i hope I have suggested some reasons why such a rule should not be established. While I have addressed myself to a consid eration of tiie issue as it affects those who de sire the freedom to conduct their business ac cording to their own economic ideas, I think it applies equally to those merchants who have neither the courage nor the acumen to object to the limitations which would be placed upon them. Every merchant should be prepared for time of stress and be in a position to adjust his business to the necessities of the hour, for every man who has invested his capital or his credit in any commercial venture at some time may be compelled to offer his merchandise at prices that will transmute it into cash to en able him to meet his engagements. The writer of the article before referred to expresses a great interest in the consumer. He argues that the best way to help this un fortunate individual is to amend the law so that in his dealings with the retailer he must pay a higher price set upon a given article by a third person who takes no part In the trade. I do not believe that the consumer class de sires any such protection. I am rather of opinion that he prefers, and that his best In terest is. to be able to supply bis wants at the lowest price at which be can buy honestly ac quired merchandise of any given standard of quality. The name on the package means nothing to him. excepting that it is a conven ient way of indicating the nature of the thing be wants. It must be conceded that a lower price tends to a reduction of the cost of living, provided tiie prices are not reduced merely for the pur pose of crowding out a competitor, to enable those who deal in the product to afterwards compel the consumer to pay more for liis goods. Obviously no mere distributor could ac complish such a purpose How. then, even if the reduction in price is merely temporary, can the consumer be injured by being able to buy the article for less money in the meantime? I dismiss as entirely without foundation the suggestion, timorously put forth, that the dealer raises his prices on other articles to balance the account. In these days nf sh-> competition such an expedient would be ap parent to the most inexperienced shopper. It is just as usual to sell unidentifiable merchan dise at a special price as it is to thus offer an advertised article. The daily advertisements in the newspapers will prove this. It is always the public that gets the advan tage of these price reductions and bargain sales. To deprive them of it would be to place a burden on the entire community and com pel the retailer to take a profit which he does not want and has no desire to exact, and at the same time transform the merchant into a mere automaton, a channel through which the , manufacturer could distribute his product.