40 



The Florists' Review 



WAV 18, 1922 



retail florists' organization and one of 

 the largest growers of carnations in 

 this city, has denied that the price had 

 reached 20 cents. He said carnations 

 "were selling yesterday for 8 cents apiece 

 and that the reason for the raise was 

 the fact that it is an off season and the 

 unusual demand. 



"Mr. Hession explained that buyers 

 have been coming in from Philadelphia, 



Baltimore and Boston and have vir- 

 tually cleaned the local market out of 

 carnations. There was a wonderful crop 

 of carnations at Easter and there will 

 be another in June, but just at this time 

 it is between crops and the price is gov- 

 erned by the supply. Mr. Hession said, 

 liowever, that carnations should retail 

 Saturday for $3 or $4 a dozen." 





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POSTING PRICES 



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CHICAGO PUBLICITY. 



For Mothers' Day. 



In submitting a report of the pub- 

 licity obtained in the reader columns 

 of the Chicago daily papers for Moth- 

 ers' day, Kirkland-Portcr, the advertis- 

 ing lirm which acts for tlie Allied Flo- 

 rists' Association to that end, gave a 

 full account of the turn of affairs that 

 caused such dissatisfaction. It contains 

 matter instructive as well as interest- 

 ing to florists. 



"We found right at the start," reads 

 the statement, "a bitterness against 

 the florists in connection with Mothers' 

 day. The city editor of the Tribune in- 

 formed us that the holiday bad orig- 

 inated with the florists as a c/immercial 

 proposition and that Mothers' day 

 flower prices had been boosted beyond 

 all reason. Two other city editors said 

 they did not approve of Mothers' day 

 because of high flower prices. 



"One managing editor, on one of 

 the biggest dailies, informed us that he 

 was approached two months ago by a 

 man wlio asked the paper to start a 

 crusade against the buying of flowers 

 on Mothers' day. This man suggested 

 that there were so many other ways of 

 remembering mother that flowers should 

 be eliminated because of their high 

 price. The inanaging editor later 

 learned that this man was connected 

 with the candy manufacturing business. 



Fair Price List. 



"Witli this hostility so evident, we 

 took up with H. V. Swenson, C. J. 

 Michelsen and p]ric Johnson the matter 

 of having a fair price list issued 

 through the city council's high cost 

 committee in an effort to offset the 

 knockers. This was agreed to and a 

 very fair list was made up by Mr. 

 Michelsen and approved by Mr. John- 

 son and Mr. Swenson and leading retail- 

 ers. This list was handed to Russell .T. 

 Poole, secretary of the council commit- 

 tee. 



"We have learned that some mys- 

 terious influence was at work to have 

 this committee pass a resolution asking 

 tlie public to refrain from buying flow- 

 ers on Mothers' day because of alleged 

 profiteering and asking everylKidy to 

 s<'nd candy and other things to mother 

 on that day. 



"When Mr. Poole received the list 

 from us he said he believed the prices 

 quoted were too high. He pointed to 

 the price of from $3 to $4 a dozen for 

 carnations and said he boiiglit fine car- 

 nations for $1.25 a dozen one week be- 

 fore Mothers' day. lie then agreed to 

 get retail flower prices from a number 



of florists on the Thursdaj' preceding 

 Mothers' day and later reported that 

 he had the prices from thirty-four re- 

 tailers in different parts of the city. 

 This list showed, for instance, roses as 

 low as $1 a dozen, with an average of 

 $2.50 a dozen asked by the thirty-four 

 retailers. 



"I later learned that in telephoning 

 and asking for prices, his investigators, 

 in some instances at least, told for 

 whom the information was wanted. 

 This, no doubt, caused some florists to 

 give a much lower price than they were 

 actually charging at the time. 



Council Committee Meeting. 



"Information came to us just before 

 the meeting of the council committee 

 Friday morning. May 12, that an effort 

 would be made to eliminate flowers 

 from Mothers' day by an official resolu- 

 tion. We notified Mr. Swenson and Mr. 

 Michelsen of the meeting. Mr. Porter 

 talked to several of his friends on the 

 committee and was present at the meet- 

 ing. When the Mothers' day matter 

 came up for discussion, it was evident 

 that some members of the committee 

 were bitter against the florists. 



"Mr. Poole and Mr. Porter explained 

 that the Allied Florists' Association 

 was anxious to stop profiteering. Chair- 

 man Edward Kaindl stood loyally by 

 the florists and shut off a lot of adverse 

 discussion. The committee then agreed 

 to ask the public not to consider the 

 carnation as the official flower and or- 

 dered a fair price list issued. Mr. Poole 

 then took the average j)rice his iilvesti- 

 gators had obtained from the thirty- 

 four florists and, after increasing the 

 price above the average in every in- 

 stance, issued his fair price list. 



Ultimately Good. 



"This list, no doubt, worked a great 

 injustice to the retailers for the time 

 being. But it is bound to do them a lot 

 of good in the future. It did help to 

 keep down prices, and if the public 

 were told right now by the newspapers 

 that flower prices were boosted too 

 much for Mothers' day, it would be 

 easy for the candy men or anybody else 

 to get every paper in town, the city 

 council and almost everybody else to 

 join in a campaign next year to stop 

 the buying of flowers for Mothers' day. 



"The situation right now is this: 

 The retailers got the worst of it tem- 

 porarily, but the city council, the news- 

 papers and the public are all convinced 

 that the Allied Florists' Association 

 blocked all profiteering and that flowers 

 will continue as the proper gift on 

 Mothers' day. This improvement in 

 public opinion, we believe, more than 



offsets any harm that has been done to 

 the retailers. 



"Every newspaper in Chicago, with 

 the possible exception of the Journal, is 

 now friendly on the Mothers ' day prop- 

 osition, where three weeks ago the 

 American was the only paper that was 

 not opposed to boosting flowers for the 

 holiday. 



General Publicity. 



"In regard to general publicity, you 

 will see that we put over pictures of 

 'Bob' Sweitzer and Lucius Teter 

 with their birthday flowers, as was sug- 

 gested previously. Many of these pic- 

 tures, showing the flowers, can be put 

 across. Sherman Duffy, on the Amer- 

 ican, has agreed to give over his gar- 

 den colum,n to flowers on at least two 

 days a week. So have the News and 

 Post. We have also talked to the one 

 man on each paper who selects the pic- 

 tures and all have agreed to give the 

 preference to pictures showing flowers 

 whenever possible. We can gradually 

 work that line into a big thing." 



It is interesting to see the tabulation 

 of reader and pictorial publicity ob- 

 tained by the Allied Florists' Associa- 

 tion from May 1 to May 15. It is as 

 follows: 



Items Agate lines Vithie 



Mothers' day 39 .-,,().J2 SSl^!}?? 



General -'G -l.JWJ i;, 706. 45 



(iraiul total 05 9,4'l 5,835.65 



MOTHERS' DAY IN WASHINGTON. 



Mothers' day business in Washington 

 ]irobably broke all records over the 

 same day in previous years. All the 

 stores had all they could do and some 

 of the retailers had to call in outside 

 help to take care of the customers. All 

 of the stores put on extra delivery help. 

 The volume of business was heavy, all 

 told, although there was little advance 

 in prices other than on carnations. 



"As far as waiting on trade was con- 

 cerned," said William F. Gude, of 

 Gude Bros, Co., "it was just like an 

 Easter day. There was plenty of stock 

 of good quality and it seemed as though 

 everything was in demand. As I stated 

 before, I do not approve of raising 

 prices on such a day as this. It is too 

 much like killing the goose that laid 

 the golden eggs. For that reason we sold 

 all of our carnations at $2 per dozen 

 retail. We did not raise any of our 

 jirices perceptibly. We had all that we 

 could do, and our telegraph business was 

 exceptionally heavy and satisfactory. 

 It took the entire time of one person 

 simply to write the telegrams that we 

 forwarded to other cities. Incoming 

 business of this kind was equally satis- 

 factorv. All told, it was a successful 

 day."' 



"We had all that we could do to take 

 care of the trade that came to us," 

 said George C. Shaffer. "We were for- 

 tunate in getting some good stock and 

 we had no difficulty in dis])osiiig of it. 

 Of course gross sales will not he any- 

 thing like those at Easter, because the 

 prices that we charged for both cut 

 flowers and corsage bouquets were much 

 lower than we asked last month, yet 

 our store looked at all times just as 

 it did at Easter. The business was not 

 in any way confined entirely to the sale 

 of carnations, for we moved untold 

 quantities of sweet peas, to say nothing 

 of roses and other flowers. The sale of 

 potted plants was fair. I am well 

 pleased with the results of the day." 

 The wholesalers for several weeks 



