Submitted by Gerald Neath, Oregon Area Historical Society
"Christmas Mail" photo courtesy of the Oregon Area Historical Society. Were these packages purchased from catalogs, to the detriment of local merchants?
The Oregon Observer of December 2, 2010 reprinted a gem from 100 years ago that couldn’t be more contemporary.
The December 1910 Oregon Observer published this WARNING TO SHOPPERS:
The Holiday Season is near. Do not be led away with catalogues and flaming ads of mail order houses to the detriment of your own home merchants and loss to yourselves. Remember that all kinds of fish are caught by baits and suckers that bite are generally landed.
Remember your home merchants are not declaring dividends of $10,000,000 like some mail order houses. Stop! Think! Of whom do they get their surplus? And who are the suckers? Does taking this ten million out of the country and away from home help you at home? Do they contribute to reduce your taxes or to make good roads for you?
Every dollar you spend at home does contribute to your own welfare—not to keep up trusts and large mail order houses and large capitalized industries to your detriment. They have sapped the country that much more than the goods they have sold cost them, besides paying the expense of handling, rent, fuel, labor, etc.
“You cannot serve God and mammon.” Neither can you keep your home merchants and buy your wants away from home.
Looking South on Main Street, 1899. Photo courtesy of the Oregon Area Historical Society.
