The excuses of the St. Louis firms quoted by the Consumers’ League of
that city are all too familiar to those who have been interested in the
Saturday half-holiday elsewhere. There is always one department at least
under the roof of every reluctant merchant which positively cannot be
closed on Saturday afternoon and evenings for the two summer months,
either because of the heavy trade on that day, or because competitors
among the single-line stores keep open. Then there is the alleged
hardship to working people in that their only shopping time would be
taken away.
The one thing which is not heard from such employers in discussing the
question is that Saturday is the day when clerks most need a respite,
especially in cities where it is not only the weariest day, but the
longest.
Has it occurred to the St. Louis League that the day of heaviest trade
bears some relation to advertising? Their reactionary firm probably
makes an advertising feature of Saturday bargain sales. This firm ought
to realize that in cities where the Saturday half-holiday is most
general and successful the Saturday trade has not been lost but has been
readjusted by a shift of bargain sales to other days.
The argument based on the working-men’s need has a semblance of truth
and might have more if the early closing were for more than the eight or
nine Saturdays of July and August. Most working-men can arrange to do
necessary shopping at some other time for those few weeks. Many of them
in trades which have the eight hour day have the hour from five to six,
in addition to the noon-hour daily—and in the case of family-buying
there is the wife who is the natural shopper. When the matter came up in
Syracuse labor leaders assured the Consumers’ League that the argument
had no real basis.
Let us hope that the Consumers’ League of St. Louis may be able to
convince its reactionary firm that the approval and consequent patronage
of the public the year round is worth as much as its trade in men’s
furnishings on Saturday afternoons of July and August.