EDITORIAL

THE PAPER SITUATION.

A short time ago a magazine having a national circulation found at the last minute that the supply of paper on which the issue was to be printed had not arrived. There had been a delay at the factory and the paper had not been shipped according to the terms of the con

tract.

Over the wire it was learned that the delay was unavoidable, but that shipment would be made in a week. This meant a two weeks' delay, possibly, for Eastern freight lines were badly choked.

The magazine attempted to go in the market and buy the paper. Locally it couldn't get enough for immediate use; and the price asked was more than twice the figure at which the company had contracted for a year's supply the contract having been signed last September. The experience of this magazine may serve to typify, in a measure, the paper situation. We are facing not merely a shortage, but a famine.

In fact, the Secretary of the Department of Commerce at Washington has issued a circular, with a request that it be posted in a conspicuous place, setting forth the situation briefly. It is stated that there is a "serious shortage of raw material for the manufacture of paper, including rags and old papers."

It seems strange that we should import rags and old paper from Europe, but that seems to have been the condition. Another case of American waste and improvidence!

The dye situation further complicates matters, when it comes to colored papers. Some dyes cannot be had at all, and others can be procured only at a heavy advance.

Then, too, there is the general advance in chemicals to be considered, particularly bleaches. Chlorine, for instance, is commonly employed: there is practically none to be had. One chemical in particular, which formerly could be bought for about $45 a ton, now commands a price of $110 a ton.

And there has suddenly sprung up all over the world an enormous demand for paper. Manufacturers are literally swamped with orders, due to the inability of European papermakers to supply their customers. This lays a

heavy burden of temptation on American manufacturers, for it offers the opportunity to ignore regular customers and supply the clamoring foreign demand at greatly enhanced figures.

Taken altogether, the situation is growing more acute every day, and there seems to be nothing to do but to pay whatever price is asked and feel fortunate if the order is filled at all!

It is from such experiences as these that the people of the United States must learn the lesson of thrift. We are a wasteful nation,

priding ourselves on doing big things in an offhand way. This attitude is largely an egotistical one, which we shall learn to our sorrow when our natural resources run low.

We can all recall, doubtless, the day when it was a common practice to save old papers and sell them to the "rag man." The Department of Commerce urges a return to this custom. Drug stores have a great deal of waste material of this character, and not infrequently a bonfire is made of it in the alley. It would be much more sensible to invest a few dollars in a baler and turn these daily accumulations into a source of profit, besides doing a patriotic duty in this day of scarcity.

Otherwise your favorite drug journal and magazine may have to suspend publication before the war is over-or be printed on paper so common in quality as largely to ruin the pleasure of reading.

MAKING A FRIEND OF THE DISPENSING DOCTOR.

Opportunity knocks but once, it is said. And right now it would seem that an opportunity confronts the drug trade which may never come again.

What is the one thing that handicaps the druggist most in the practice of his profession as such? Is it not dispensing by the medical profession?

There is no way of knowing how many thousands of dollars are in this manner diverted each year. Were the amount stated in figures and the record flashed on the screen before us there is no question that the showing would be a stupendous one. Druggists all over the country are affected, and affected in a vital

way.

It is entirely useless to go into the past and speculate on what the factors were which

brought this condition about. Beyond the lessons it teaches, there is nothing in the past that may be deemed of practical value. The condition exists; it is a reality; and we must either accept it as it is and try to make the best of it, or we must endeavor in some legitimate manner to rob it of a degree of its

menace.

The dispensing physician feels absolutely sure of his right to put up his own prescriptions, and he is quite likely to see red if we, on the other hand, assume an antagonistic attitude and go to heaving mud-balls. There is surely nothing to be gained by pursuing such a course, and there is much that may be lost.

The druggist needs the coöperation of the physicians in his neighborhood. He cannot afford to have so potent a force arrayed against him, if there is any way to prevent it.

One who has talked with many physicians is impressed by the fact that, as a rule, doctors do not like to dispense. Putting up a bottle of medicine is more or less of a fussy operation, and a really big, broad and busy practitioner can find better ways in which to employ his time. Keeping up stock is always a problemand keeping posted on prices a bigger job still!

And it is in the latter connection that the druggist, provided he has never displayed open enmity, now finds his golden opportunity during this era of high prices. For it is absolutely impossible, under existing conditions, for a doctor to keep posted on costs. A little investigation would reveal the fact that thousands of physicians are selling medicine at less than cost, and if they give it away they are doing so at a constantly increasing expense.

Why should not the druggist go to his physicians right now, and in a friendly, openminded way talk the situation over with them? Why would it not be a good business move to point out diplomatically the unusual hardships, and to offer to assume a part of the burden?

It would. There has never been so favorable an opening, for there never has been a time when dispensing physicians were so much and so thoroughly at sea in this particular; never has been a time, perhaps, when they were so ready to "bunch the whole business," wipe the slate clean, and go to writing prescriptions.

The war won't last forever; and when prices become normal again the opportunity will have been lost.

Now is the time!

Turning now to the grocery situation, we have found most interesting a recent brochure published by the Bureau. The Harvard investigators have discovered, for instance, that in the retail grocery business the average gross profit is 21 per cent and the average expense 16.5 per cent. In the drug business, as everybody knows, the corresponding figures are approximately 37 per cent and 24 per cent. Why this great difference?

Well, the grocer operates under conditions quite different from those prevailing in a drug store. He is selling daily necessities, and selling them faster. His rent is much less. His volume of business, on the other hand, is likely to be much greater.

The result is that the grocer can get along with a smaller gross or net profit than the druggist must obtain. If, for instance, his average net profit is 5 per cent, and his volume is twice that of the druggist, he is doing nearly as well even though the druggist's net profit may range between 10 and 15 per cent. Then, too, the grocer's stock turnover is at least double that realized in the drug store. The Harvard figures indicate that the grocer turns over his stock seven times a year. The druggist is lucky if he has three turnovers annually.

The grocer's rent is less. Dealing in daily necessities and getting much of his business. over the telephone, he needn't locate his store on an expensive corner, his salesroom may be smaller and less attractive, and he can get along generally with much less in the way of ostentation, investment, and expense of one kind and another. There is less loss from depreciation, and in a hundred respects the economic situation with the grocer is quite different from that facing the druggist.

PROFITS AND EARNINGS

AN INTERESTING QUESTION. Ralph Broadbent, of Ionia, Michigan, an occasional contributor to the BULLETIN, asks a question which is embarrassing a good many people these days. It is with reference to the annual inventory, and it has to do with chemicals which have greatly risen in price during the last year or two. Shall they be inventoried at the original cost or at their present value?

If at the end of the year a regular asset and liability statement were being drawn up, and a balance sheet constructed, you would put all of your stock in the inventory at the present market price. The principle here is clear. Real estate frequently appreciates in value; stocks go up; and when you draw up a balance sheet at the end of the year you put your property down at its present valuation to show what you are worth and to how great an extent your assets have increased during the past

year.

But the situation isn't quite so clear when we come to the use of inventory figures in the profit-and-loss form drawn up by the BULLETIN for the use of its readers. Take any one of the statements reproduced this month, for instance, and, looking at item 9, it will be seen right away that if you inventory the stock at any greatly increased valuation, you will upset the accuracy of item 10.

Do you see the point?

By increasing the amount of item 9, you will decrease the amount of item 10, and you will, therefore, fail to arrive accurately at the cost of merchandise sold during the year. This in turn would give you an artificial profit for the year, when you had subtracted the cost of merchandise from the total sales.

We would suggest, therefore, that in drawing up this profit-and-loss statement you follow a somewhat different method. Put down the inventory figures at the original cost price, and then credit the expense account with any appreciation in value that may have taken place during the year. Is this perfectly clear? You understand that you always charge depreciation in stock to the expense account: if, on the other hand, the stock has appreciated, the expense account should be accordingly credited with the amount. The practical result would

DEATH OF MRS. JOSEPH HELFMAN. Joseph Helfman, known to thousands of druggists throughout the United States as the former editor for many years of the BULLETIN OF PHARMACY, and now a prominent executive in the house of Parke, Davis & Co., suffered the loss of his wife early in April. Mrs. Helfman had spent the winter with her two daughters in California, and Mr. Helfman had gone out to the coast to bring his family back. On the return trip Mrs. Helfman was attacked by pneumonia in Salt Lake City, where a short stop had been made with friends. The best of medical and nursing skill was at once called into service, but it availed nothing, and Mrs. Helfman died within a few days.

Mrs. Helfman was a woman of an unusual degree of cultivation, and she spent herself freely in the interests of her husband and daughters. Caring nothing for ostentation, and finding her greatest joy in the happiness of her family, she will be missed as few mothers are missed. The atmosphere of the Helfman home was ideal, and the children had the benefit of a training in deportment and in intellect which has made them exceptional in every respect. Miriam is 14 years and Josephine 12.

DEATH OF MRS. DAY.

Professor Wm. B. Day, Dean of the University of Illinois College of Pharmacy, and General Secretary of the American Pharmaceutical Association, has recently had the misfortune to lose his wife by death. Mrs. Day accompanied her husband quite recently to the meetings of the A. Ph. A., and endeared herself to the entire membership. Quiet and unostentatious in demeanor, she was a womanly woman in every sense of the phrase. At the time of her death she was Treasurer of the Woman's Section of the A. Ph. A. Two daughters survive her-Helen, aged 19 years, and Charlotte, aged 17.

Governor McCall, of Massachusetts, has renewed the recommendation that the State Board of Registration in Pharmacy be consolidated with six other registration boards. Instead of seven distinct and separate boardsdentistry, embalming, medicine, pharmacy, nurses, optometry, and veterinary medicine— the governor, as a measure of economy, would have one general body.

THE SAUNTERER

I dislike to be patronized. Consequently the manner in which I was approached by the manager of a certain chain store failed to make a hit with me the other night when I went into the establishment with the intention of purchasing a tube of shaving soap.

The manager in question is not very oldhe has not voted for more than two Presidents -so when he came to me with "What can I do for you, my good man?" I didn't like it. Not that I wish to seem more dignified than I am. Indeed, I rather pride myself on my good fellowship. It was his air of conscious superiority which grated on my ears like the shifting of gears in a 1910 one-lunged 'bus.

His manner jarred me so that I told him I was waiting for a trolley car and proceeded up the street to another store. At the second store the clerk greeted me with a pleasant "Good evening" and waited until I made known my wants.

Later I made a few inquiries concerning the supercilious manager, and found that he had risen to his present position in a comparatively short time. The concern for which he worked employs a promotion system based on succession, and as the two men ahead of him had left the store's service within a short time of each other, the present incumbent had been boosted from junior clerk to manager in a period of only four months.

The rapid rise had proved too much for him. He could see only his own importance and considered that he was conferring a favor when he waited on a customer. At least, that was the way it struck me.

The question of the proper greeting to accord a customer is, of course, a debatable one, and the manager may have considered that he was creating a friend for the store when he came at me so familiarly. But were I to be behind a counter once more, I shouldn't attempt any such attitude toward the people who were supporting me.

Instead, I should endeavor to call all customers by name if I knew them. If not, I should address them as "Sir," "Madam" or "Miss." There would be no "Mister," "Lady," "My boy," "Old fellow" and the like.

I dislike to be patronized.