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Lazarus Straus & sons entered Macy's through the basement, into which they moved their crockery in 1874. Grandsons of that shrewd Bavarian emigrant are now doing their "very prettiest to buy low and sell cheap"—always for cash only—and telling the world so in such a way that every other big Manhattan store would dearly love to see them gagged. For years their slogan was. "6% less than elsewhere." until harried by the Better Business Bureau to qualify it thus: "We endeavor (though we are not infallible) to sell our merchandise for at least 6% less than we could if we did not sell exclusively for cash." Macy's competitors saw to it that the Retail Code says: "No retailer shall use advertising which refers inaccurately ... to any competitor or his merchandise, prices, values, credit terms, policies or services." When Macy's observed, "Subdivisions 4 and 5 are aimed at Macy's and everybody knows it," nobody took the trouble to deny it.
Mister Percy-Only one of Lazarus Straus's three sons stayed with Macy's— Isidor. Nathan branched out for himself. Oscar was thrice Minister to Turkey and Theodore Roosevelt's Secretary of Commerce & Labor—first Jew to sit in the Cabinet. It was Isidor's three sons who pushed Macy's sales to nearly $100,000,000 in 1929 and held them to $80,000,000 last year. The eldest grandson, Jesse Isidor, who insists on having his middle name spelled out and who contributed heavily to the Democratic campaign, resigned as president to serve another Roosevelt, as Ambassador to France. Herbert, who died last spring, was Macy's treasurer and president of Macy-owned L. Bamberger & Co. in Newark. The middle brother, Percy Selden. a precise, courteous, slightly nervous gentleman with thinning hair, is now in full command. Generally credited with being the brains of Macy's merchandising, he is always known to Macy's 8,000 employes as Mister Percy.
For his fight against the "stop-loss" provision of the code. Brother Percy has the sage counsel of Brother Jesse Isidor, who returned to the U. S. for an. operation last month.
Straus on "Fixing." At the Washington hearings, Mr. Percy first asked why the retailers did not submit a simple code which could be put through quickly and which would accomplish precisely what President Roosevelt wanted—raise wages, shorten hours, increase employment. Next he demanded some assurance that there would be labor and consumer representatives on the Retail Code's administrative board and its local committees. Neglect of consumers, he warned, was likely to be disastrous. And then Mr. Percy took a look at the disputed Article VIII: "If retail groups can fix prices at ... cost plus 10%," reasoned Mr. Percy, "they may logically raise the margin to 15%, 25% or even higher. The adoption of such a principle . . . will choke the free flow of commerce and shrink volume. . . . Sugar coating the price-fixing pill by the phrase 'to insure that labor costs shall be at least partially covered' does not alter the economic fact nor the bad social consequences."
The chief consequence, said Mr. Percy, would be to penalize the efficient merchant, who would no longer be able to pass on savings in any way he saw fit, and therefore to penalize the public.