Public Relations and the Chains

Abstract

A LTHOUGH numerous articles have A appeared on the subject of chain stores versus independents, no one has presented a co-ordinated statement of the development of public sentiment toward the chain store system. This article attempts such a treatment and seeks to describe some of the organized efforts of chains and independents in their attempts to get and hold the favor and support of the public. While anti-chain sentiment appeared in the latter half of the nineteenth century,1 except among certain vested grocery interests and among certain newspapers, there was little anti-chain publicity prior to the I920's. During their early development, single stores branching into chains were looked upon by the public with mingled curiosity, respect, and indifference. Anything so harmless as a branching home-town store meant little to a nation whose attention was focused, in turn, on railroad combinations, industrial trusts, department stores, the silver question, the Spanish-American War, the Panama Canal, and World War I. During World War I, when prices soared, the purchasing power of the dollar fell sharply. Middle-class incomes lagged, and middle-class housewives went over to the chains by the millions. . . . 2 Middle classes went to the chains