APPENDIX 157 



price list of a great mail order house. She took this list to the local grocer who 

 studied it carefully and then either duplicated or improved upon every item 

 listed thereon, and filled the order for $48.12 in cash. He met the mail order 

 problem successfully. 



" Eliminating the Middleman." (Address by W. B. Liyerance, before the 

 20th Convention of National Creamery Buttermakers Association, Milwaukee, 

 1917.) Speaking of the recent federation of cooperative creameries near 

 Grand Rapids, Michigan, Mr. Liverance said: 



" The one great idea in organizing our association was, by combining the 

 output of our creameries and by improving the quality, to secure better 

 markets for our butter. We, at the outset, had many wild theories of distrib- 

 uting butter direct to the consumer, of perfecting a marketing system in many 

 of the large cities, of eliminating the middleman completely, etc. We were 

 in the class of many of the impractical theorists of to-day. We worked out 

 schemes of house-to-house disposal of butter, of distributing butter direct 

 from the creamery to the retailer, and many others of similar nature. It 

 took us a year or better to realize that it takes money to market butter ..." 



Cutting Out the Middlemen, or Selling Through the Middlemen. (The 

 experience of the California Almond Growers Exchange, 1918 report, p. 12.) 

 "The Eastern broker received 2^ per cent for his services, which consist of 

 the following: Soliciting orders from customers; forwarding them to the 

 Exchange; telegraphing when necessary; and unloading and distributing our 

 cars on arrival. Two and one-half per cent is a very reasonable brokerage 

 for the service rendered." 



