Life — July 2, 1914 — page 37: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

FOURTH OF JULY HE DIDN'T KNOW IT WAS LOADED It Might Be Worse, Anyway! RECENT observer ‘in a trade journal declares that the depart- ment stores are in danger of declining because the increasing weight of the machinery of their business has tended to crush the element of personality. There is no longer any personal rela- tionship between the shop and its cus- tomers. On a smaller scale the shopkeeper was often the personal friend of the customer, who not in- frequently consulted him about his wants. The cooperative store is a vast aggregation of units. When the REDUCED RATES een FOR SUMMER CRUISES JAMAICA, CUBA, CENTRAL AMERICA, AILINGS, every week, from New York, Boston and New Orleans. Delightful Cruises of Zighteen and Twenty-two Days cost you no more than your annual vaca- tion to seashore or mountains. It is cool in the tropics in summer- time. Much cooler than in Summer Resorts further North, Official tem- perature records prove this. The thermometer at Jamaica, Havana or PANAMA CANAL COLOMBIAN PORTS at the Panama Canal seldom touches 88 degrees during July, August and September. Great White Fleet Ships have won an enviable reputation as “ The Cool- est Ships Afloat.” Built especially for tropic travel. Extra large staterooms, many of them with baths. A cuisine noteworthy for its excellence. Use the ship as your hotel while in port. Write for Summer Booklet. customer enters this bewildering con- glomerate, and is “commercially” directed from one metallic saleswoman to another, there is no other incentive for him to repeat his visit except from dire necessity. He has established no personal tic. The politeness he re- ceives is all mechanical. If he doesn’t happen to be treated well, or if an error has been made, it is hopeless for him to make any attempt at correction, be- cause of the intricacy of the machinery. No man who is able to make money enough to be able to buy goods in a department store has time enough to wait for the machinery to act upon him if there is anything to be adjusted. This is not the fault of the depart- ment-store proprietors, who have lately come to recognize the Frankensteins they have erected, and have tried to remedy the evil. Many of them have salaried men who call personally upon QUELQUES FLEURS 7 —HOUBIGANT Inthe best sense, a society perfume—made ‘such by its adoption in the most exclusive social Circles throughout the country. At Leading Perfumers Send for Small Sample Bottle, 25¢ PARK & TILFORD, Agents, NEW YORK & —_——— W, IDEA! Whe can think of some simple thing to patent! Protect your ideas, they Bay bring you wealth. Write for “* Needed Inventions *How to Get Your Patent and Your Money." RANDOLPH & CO., Patent Attorneys Dept, 128, Washlagten, D.C. UNITED FRUIT COMPANY STEAMSHIP SERVICE s 17 Battery Place, N. Y. Long Wharf, Boston 630 Common Street, New Orleans Ato, customers ‘when mistakes are made. They also encourage the heads of their different departments to establish personal relations with customers. Some give bonuses to salesmen. But these things are not cures for the real malady, which lies in the sense of personal relationship. What does this obstacle toward the further development ‘of the depart- ment store really indicate? Only that there is still a Providence who rules over the husbands of America. Hordes of women, having nothing better to do, now yield to the bargain-counter hysteria, to the glint of cheap tinsel and manufactured gew-gaws, and this in spite of its lack of personality, But suppose it were possible, by some miracle, for the proprietor of the de- partment store to divide himself in- definitely and spend all his time ingratiating himself into the heart of every woman who enters!