Business: Chain Convention

“The chain store is the outstanding development of the last 20 years in merchandising. We are now facing a crisis, due to the unwarranted attacks of a militant minority.” So last week spoke Albert Henry Morrill, President of National Chain Store Association, President of Kroger Grocery & Baking Corp. His speech, opening the N. C. S. A. convention in Chicago, sounded the defensive note that rang forth again & again throughout the meeting.

Confident of the ultimate outcome of chain methods was Silas Hardy Strawn, chairman of Montgomery, Ward & Co. “The agencies attempting to create public distrust in the chain methods of distribution should and must be counteracted,” said he. “. . . An enlightened public will be a friend and not an enemy.” He carefully examined the legal end of the situation, said legislation against chain stores is in almost all. cases unconstitutional.

Outlook. With profits down, agitation rising, the outlook for chains last week was sufficiently beclouded to justify the term “crisis.” Yet while the conventioneers were enroute for Chicago, Moody’s Investors Service published an analysis of the outlook that cheered chain store men. “Just as there was a tendency toward an impatient anticipation of future growth, so there is now an almost complete loss of perspective,” said Moody’s. Descriptive of Moody’s opinion on grocery chains were such paragraph headings as: Grocery Stocks no Longer Market Favorites; Long Expansion Broken by Period of Consolidation; Effect of Commodity Price Drop Temporary; Mixed Showing in Six Months Net Statements; Balance of Year May be Better; Anti-Chain Agitation Active; Little Actual Legislation; Chains’ Portion of Retail Trade Growing; Chain Store Growth Merely Retarded; Chains Not Grossly Over-Capitalized; Substantial Appreciation not Expected.