The Price War at the City Limits

The Walla Walla Grocers' and Merchants' Association, organized several months ago for the mutual benefit of local retail houses, is up in arms against the methods being employed by Pendleton grocers in an effort to capture the bulk of the trade of local hotels and restaurants. According to one member of the association, a Pendleton grocer has personally visited and solicited trade from local hotel keepers, offering cut rates on staples and fancy goods. As a result of this solicitation, it is alleged that no less than four carloads of groceries and cured meats have been shipped into Walla Walla within the past month, practically annihilating the trade relations with local grocery houses. By evading the usual running expenses that confront the local business house—rents, clerk hire and numberless items of expense—the outsider is able to undersell the local merchant. "We are not averse to meeting any legitimate competition, and in fact we rather like it, as it stimulates trade, but the association, and in fact every local retail grocer in the city, cannot tolerate the methods now being employed by outside merchants," President McLean said. "There is hardly any way to keep out this class of 'cut rates' only to appeal to the persons purchasing goods outside to be patriotic enough to patronize the home merchant."