692 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Oct. 29, 



hope he means to send it back, but he may never do so. I 

 think we are too easy on men of that sort. Maybe he does 

 not have the money. I don't know." 



Dr. Miller— Gentlemen, I don't want to vote on this mo- 

 tion, but I want you to. [Laughter.] 



Mr. Abbott — I want to say another word. I don't want it 

 to appear that it makes any particular difference to me, as far 

 as I am concerned, that is not the question. Mr. Benton wil- 

 fully circulated false reports, but this is of little concern, be- 

 cause no one will know whether they are true or false. He 

 sent them through the United States mails, and when a man 

 refuses to make any amends, then it is time for us to go our 

 way and let bim go his, and have no conversation with him. I 

 think he can get along without us, and I think we can get 

 along without him. 



Dr. Miller — I don't want to vote for this resoulution — it is 

 an unpleasant thing to do ; but I do believe, dear friends, we 

 have allowed things to pass that should not be passed. So to 

 bn consistent, and get this sort of thing wiped out, I will vote, 

 too. 



The question was then voted upon, and carried. 



A member asked, " Did Dr. Miller vote?" Answered by 

 the President — " I heard his voice." 



This was followed by a paper by Rev. Emerson T. Abbott, 

 of St. Joseph, Mo., on 



Tlie Supply-Dealer and llie Honey. Producer. 



My subject is a broad one and should be of interest, as it 

 has relation to the general make-up of society. It opens the 

 question of the dealer's right to be, and his relation to man- 

 kind at large for good or bad. 



In this age of close competition, low prices and slow profits, 

 it has become popular to talk of doing away with the so-called 

 " useless middlemen." If this idea should prevail, of course, 

 society would have to be re-organized, and our methods of doing 

 business materially changed. While I do not object to any 

 buyer trying to get as near to the first producer as he can, yet 

 I do think that it is a mistaken idea that all dealers belong to 

 a class which may rightly be called " useless." In other 

 words, I maintain that the dealer not only has a right to be, 

 and is not a useless member of society, but he is a real producer 

 of values, and is just as important a member of the body 

 politic as any other producer. More, in many cases he is an 

 absolute necessity. 



This opens a wide field for discussion, but I shall confine 

 my remarks to dealers in bee-keepers' supplies, and ther re- 

 lation to the honey-producer, and indirectly to the community 

 at large. What I shall say will be equally applicable, with 

 the necessary modifications, to dealers in any other class of 

 goods. 



First, the dealer is a producer just as truly as the man 

 who keeps bees and markets his honey, or as the owner of a 

 factory who takes boards and cuts and fits them into hives; 

 or, to go back still further, as the man who grows a tree, cuts 

 it into boards, and then cuts these boards into hives or sec- 

 tions. In the broadest possible sense of the word a producer 

 is one who satisfies human desires. Some may say he is a 

 creator of value, but what makes value? Evidently, human 

 desire, for if no one desires a thing, it cannot be said to have 

 any value in the sense of a market price. If no human being 

 wanted honey, the man or woman who kept bees and secured 

 it surely would be a useless producer. But just as soon as the 

 securing of a crop of honey would satisfy a human desire, 

 then the person thus administering to the wants of mankind 

 would become a real producer, and a creator of value. Now, 

 if creating a value is production, then every one who adds to 

 the legitimate value of anything is a producer, and is not a 

 mere trafficker in the fruits of other men's labors. 



WHAT MAKES VALUE. 



A thing may not have any value, or at least not very much 

 value, in Michigan or Ohio, but it mav have great value in 

 Nebraska. If bringing an article from Michigan to Nebraska 

 will cause it to satisfy more, or a greater, human want, than 

 it would if left in Michigan, then whoever brings the article 

 to Nebraska, the point of consumption, creates a value. Who- 

 ever brings an article from the place of no desire, or of little 

 desire, to the place of greater desre, is a real producer, for he 

 satifies human want. To say that he is a " useless middle- 

 man," a non-producer, and that the man who chopped the 

 article out of a log, or planed it out of a board in Michigan, is 

 the only real producer is, in my opinion, a mistake. This idea 

 is founded on a false conception of what production is. It 

 limits production to the narrow field of producing value out of 

 the original raw material. I might ask just here who it is 

 that deals with raw material. Is it the man who cuts a hive 

 out of a board, the man who saws the lumber, the man who 



fells the tree, or the man who planted the seed and grew the 

 tree ? I hold that every man who helps to put the fruits of 

 human labor into channels where they are best suited to sat- 

 isfy human desire adds to the value of the article thus manip- 

 ulated, and is therefore a producer. 



Let us see, then, if we can, how this kind of production 

 on the part of the supply-dealer is of any real benefit to the 

 honey-producer. How does the dealer satisfy any human 

 desire from the standpoint of the keeper of bees? 



WHAT THE DEALEK DOES. 



It is the dealer's business to place articles in stock, such 

 as the consumers in his line are likely to want, and hold them 

 there until the consumer is ready for them, and then to 

 furnish them to the consumer in such quantities as he may 

 desire. In doing this the dealer runs many risks ; especially 

 is this true of dealers in bee-keepers' supplies. At the same 

 time he confers special benefits upon the possible consumer, 

 for there is much uncertainty in this business, and every 

 dealer in bee-keepers' supplies runs the risk of having a stock 

 of goods left on his hands until the next season, and in some 

 cases he is lucky if he finds a market for them then. 



Now, if it were not for the local dealer, the honey-pro- 

 ducer would have to lay in a stock of goods himself, and run 

 the risk of not having any use for them for a season or two — 

 or possibly never. It is very hard to keep stock of any kind 

 without its depreciating in value. This is especially true 

 where it is kept by the ordinary bBe-keeper who has no good 

 place for storage. Even a dealer with the best of facilities is 

 very apt to find some dead stock on his hands after he has 

 been in the business a few yearsi' 



The losses incurred by the consumer by deterioration, and 

 that arising from not being able to get his goods when he 

 needs them most, and in such quantities as he may desire, I 

 am sure will more than over-balance any profit the dealer may 

 make. Then, it does not necessarily cheapen the article to 

 the consumer to be able to buy it at the point of primary pro- 

 duction. Freight on small quantities is always higher than it 

 is on carloads, and those who are engaged in the first act of 

 production can afford to sell their goods for less profit in large 

 lots than they can in small quantitii-s, so that the dealer's 

 profit does not of necessity come out of the consumer. 



A thing has real value in proportion to the amount of 

 human labor that is required to produce it and place it at the 

 point of consumption. If, by handling large quantities of an 

 article at a time, each individual article of the sum total can 

 be placed at the feet of the consumer with less outlay of 

 human labor than would be required if only a few articles 

 were moved at a time, then the cost of production is cheap- 

 ened, even though each man through whose hands the articles 

 may pass receives a profit on the same. In this way it comes 

 about that the dealer is notable to provide for the satisfaction 

 of his own desires, but he enables the consumer to satisfy his 

 desires, and at a less cost of human energy than would be 

 required if the dealer were eliminated from the economy of 

 modern trade. 



THE DEALER AN EDUCATOR. 



Then, again, the dealer is an educator. He is constantly 

 calling the attention of the cousumer to new and better, and 

 therefore, cheaper, methods of doing work or satisfying 

 human desire. It is to the dealer's interest to study carefully 

 the best methods of the industry that creates the demand for 

 his stock in trade. Prom such dealers the consumer often 

 gets information which is of much more value to him than is 

 the cost of his entire purchase. This is especially true in our 

 industry where so many who are engaged in it in a small way 

 know so little about it. 



It is true there may be too many dealers, but it is gen- 

 erally to the advantage of the consumer where this occurs. 

 There are too many for their own good, but the consumer has 

 no cause to call them useless on that account. 



There are many other points along this line which I would 

 gladly touch, if I had time, but I will leave them to be noticed 

 by those who may engage in the discussion of this paper. 



THE DEALER'S RIGHTS. 



If the dealer is to receive recognition, then what are his 

 rights? Has he any which other producers are bound to re- 

 spect ? I think he has. The first one which I will mention is 

 his right to be freed from competition with the people who are 

 engaged in putting into shape the goods in which he deals. 

 The factories of the country owe it to the dealers who handle 

 their products not to bring those dealers into unfair competi- 

 tion with themselves. I am compelled to say that the dealers 

 in bee-keepers' supplies have felt the pressure of such compe- 

 tition during the last few years. The factories have each 



