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Nineteenth Century Anti-Drummer Legislation in the United States*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2012

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Abstract

The rise and fall of discriminatory legislation against traveling salesmen is fully documented in this study of a negative vein of American business history.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 38 , Issue 4 , Winter 1964 , pp. 479 - 500
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1964

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References

1 Allen, A. P., Ambassadors of Commerce (London, 1885), p. 102.Google Scholar

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3 See Atherton, Lewis E., “Predecessors of the Commercial Drummer in the Old South,” Bulletin of the Business Historical Society, vol. XXI (February, 1947), pp. 17–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Baldwin, William H., Travelling Salesmen: Their Opportunities and Their Dangers (Boston, 1874), pp. 4–5.Google Scholar

4 Marburg, Theodore F., “Manufacturer's Drummer, 1832,” Bulletin of the Business Historical Society, vol. XXII (April, 1948), pp. 52–53.Google Scholar

5 See Wright, Richardson, Hawkers and Walkers in Early America (Philadelphia, 1927).Google Scholar

6 Atherton, “Predecessors of the Commercial Drummer,” p. 21.

7 Ibid., p. 22.

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9 Apparently Simon B. Chittenden, a successful dry goods wholesaler, later Congressman, publisher, and philanthropist. Proceedings of the Third Annual Meeting of the National Board of Trade (1870) (Boston, 1871), pp. 97–98.

10 Baldwin, Travelling Salesmen, p. 5.

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20 Third Annual Meeting of the National Board of Trade, p. 99.

21 Ala. Code (1886), par. 629 (35); Goddard, Frederick B., The Art of Selling with How to Read Character, Laws Governing Sales, etc. (New York, 1889), p. 87Google Scholar; U. S. House of Representatives, Committee on Commerce, Soie of Goods and Merchandise by Sample: Views of the Minority, 49 Cong., 1 Sess., Report 1762, Part 2, 1886.

22 Conn. Laws of 1867, Chap. 119, p. 137.

23 Dela. Rev. Stat. (1874), vol. 13, Chap. 117, pp. 131–33.

24 Act of Aug. 23, 1871. D. C. Rev. Stat. (1872), Pt. I, Title IX, Chap. 1, Sec. 23.

25 Dig. Fla. Laws (McClellan, 1881), Chap. 174, Sec. 24–26.

26 Act of Dec. 15, 1859; Ga. Rev. Code (1873), Part I, Title XVII, Sec. 1631–38. Ga. Code (Clark, Cobb & Irwin, 1861), Part I, Title 16, Par. 1566, later repealed, prohibited non-residents from selling by sample.

27 Ky. Rev. Stat. Appendix (Act of 1860), p. 805, cited in “Abstract of State Laws Relating to Non-Resident Traders and Peddlers,” Proceedings of the Second Annual Meeting of the National Board of Trade (1869) (Boston, 1870), pp. 340–46.

28 La. Ree. Stat. (1886), Art. 101, Sec. 12.

29 Maine Laws of 1866, p. 29, cited in “Abstract of State Laws,” loc. cit.

30 Laws of Maryland, 1852, Chap. 339, cited by Jones, Fred M., Middlemen in the Domestic Trade of the United States 1800–1860 (Urbana, 1937), p. 17Google Scholar; Md. Acts of 1868, Chap. 413.

31 Act 272, 1865. Mich. Gen. Stat. Ann. (Howell, 1887), par. 1257–59.

32 Act of July 22, 1879. Mont. Comp. Stat. (Webb, 1888), 5th Div., Chap. 81, Sec. 1359.

33 Neo. Rev. Act, Sec. 67 as amended, Feb. 20, 1877. Nev. Gen. Stat. (Bailey & Hammond, 1885), Sec. 1269–75.

34 N. C. Pub. Stat. (Battle, 1873), Chap. 102, Sec. 82; N. C. Act (1885), Chap. 175, Sec. 28.

35 Public Law 489, April 12, 1851. Penna. Digest (Brightly, 1883), p. 1696.

36 R. I. Reo. Stat. (1857), Chap. 119, 120.

37 Tenn. Act of 1881, Chap. 96, par. 16.

38 Act of May 4, 1882. Tex. Civ. Stat. (Sayles, 1888), art. 4665.

39 Acts of Virginia (1853) cited by Jones, loc. cit. Va. Code (1873), Chap. XXXIV, Sec. 26, Chap. XXXV, Sec. 21. Va. Acts of 1859–60, Chap. 2, Sec. 1. (Va. Code, 1860, Chap. XXXVIII, Sec. 2, later modified, provided that sales could be made only at specific locations specified on the licenses required for all sales, thereby prohibiting any form of transient selling.)

40 W. Va. Code (1870), Chap. 33, Sec. 4.

41 Wisc. Gen. Laws (1868), Chap. 177, Sec. 3. Wise. Het). Stat. (Taylor, 1871), Title XI, Chap. 50.

42 House of Representatives, Sale of Goods by Sample, Minority Views; Ariz. Rev. Stat. (1887), Sec. 2239, cited by Lockhart, William B., “The Sales Tax in Interstate Commerce,” Harvard Law Review, vol. 52 (1939), p. 621.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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44 House of Representatives, Sale of Goods by Sample, Minority Views.

45 See S. C. Rev. Stat. (1893), par. 1451–54, amending S. C. Code (1876), Chap. XVI, Sec. 64 so as to exempt wholesale commercial travelers from the state requirements for hawkers and peddlers' licenses.

46 “Commercial Traveler License Laws,” The Commercial Travelers' Magazine, vol. I (September, 1883), p. 79.

47 Illinois Compiled Stat. (1869), p. 414, cited in “Abstract of State Laws.”

48 Brockett, L. P., The Commercial Traveller's Guide Book (New York, 1871), p. 35.Google Scholar

49 House of Representatives, Sale of Goods by Sample, Minority Views, but note that N. H. Gen. Laws (1878), Chap. 119, Sec. 2, contain a specific exemption from licensing for agents “whose business is to carry samples or specimens for wholesale trade.”

50 See, for example, Virginia License and Tax Act, approved April 22, 1882, Sec. 32.

51 “Commercial Travelers' Meeting on Licenses,” New York Times, June 24, 1869; Briggs, Fifty Years on the Road, pp. 48–50; Brockett, Commercial Travellers Guide Book, p. 35; Society of Commercial Travellers, The System of Commercial Travelling, pp. 6–8, 19; “Commercial Travellers' License Laws;” Detroit Common Council Ordinance #42, March 7, 1865; Portland Ordinance #4817, March 4, 1886, cited in ex parte Hanson, 28 Fed. 127 (1886); ex parte Taylor, 58 Miss. 478; 38 Am. Rep. 336 (1880).

52 “Commercial Travelers'; Meeting on Licenses.”

53 Griffin, Harry Z., “A Convention of Traveling Men,” The Bostonian, vol. IV (July, 1896), p. 276.Google Scholar

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56 Circular issued by Hobron Drug Co., cited by Bates, Charles Austin, The Art and Literature of Business (New York, 1903), vol. 3, p. 158.Google Scholar

57 MrSupplee, , Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the National Board of Trade (1886) (Boston, 1887), p. 82.Google Scholar

58 Editorial, December 17, 1882.

59 Goddard, Art of Selling, pp. 59–60.

60 See Atherton, “Predecessors of the Commercial Drummer in the Old South,” p. 24.

61 Mr. Lathers, of Charleston, Proceedings of the Third Annual Meeting of the National Board of Trade, p. 92.

62 Proceedings of the Second Annual Meeting of the National Board of Trade, p. 37.

63 Lathers, loc. cit., p. 101.

64 31 Stockett (Md.) 285 affirming conviction in Balto. City Court; later reversed U. S. Supreme Court, 12 Wall (US) 418.

65 Forbush, George S., “Familiar Legal Talks - Discriminatory License Laws,” The Commercial Travelers' Magazine, vol. 1 (September, 1883), p. 49Google Scholar.

66 Society of Commercial Travellers, The System of Commercial Travelling, p. 15.

67 Hayes, George M., Twenty Years on the Road or the Trials and Tribulations of a Commercial Traveler by One of Them (Philadelphia, 1884)Google Scholar, Chap. VII, no p.

68 Plummer, Charles S., Leaves from a Drummer's Diary (Chicago, , 1889), p. 63.Google Scholar

69 See Atherton, “Predecessors of the Commercial Drummer,” p. 24 for the argument of a representative of a New Orleans wholesale house in the Louisiana legislature.

70 Lathers, Proceedings, p. 91.

71 Mr. Holton (of Milwaukee), Proceedings of the Second Annual Meeting of the National Board of Trade, p. 33.

72 U. S. House of Representatives, Committee on Manufactures, Report to Accompany Bill H. R. 986 (48 Cong., 1 Sess., Report No. 1321), April 15, 1884.

73 State and Local Barriers to Interstate Commerce in the United States (The Maine Bulletin, vol. 40, No. 4; The University of Maine Studies, 2d Series, No. 43) (Orono, Maine, 1937), p. 55.

74 “Report of the Controller of the City of Detroit,” Journal of the Detroit Common Council, passim.

75 Ordinance of the Common Council, approved February 17, 1870.

76 September 28, 1866, p. 367.

77 Annual Report of the State Treasurer of the State of Michigan (Lansing, 1870–1881), passim.

78 Journal of the House of Representatives of the State of Michigan, 1897 (Lansing, 1897), vol. I, pp. 583 ff.

79 “Response of Grand Treasurer George A. Reynolds to the Toast, ‘Commercial Freedom,’” The Sample Case (Order of United Commercial Travelers of America), vol. IV (May, 1894), p. 309.

80 Mr. Supplee, Proceedings of the Annual Meeting (1886), p. 82.

81 Copies of the Washington license form do not seem to have survived. However, a Cincinnati license, reproduced in the Society of Commercial Travellers' pamphlet, bears nothing to identify the licensee except a statement of his name. A similar lack of descriptive information and/or pictures on the Washington license, which seems quite likely, would, of course, have facilitated this bootlegging practice.

82 Gage, A. W., “Sketches of Traveling Shoe Salesmen of Twenty-Or-More Years' Standing and Whose Portraits Are Here Shown,” in Page, Joel C., Recollections of Sixty Years in the Shoe Trade (Boston, 1916), p. 89.Google Scholar

83 “Protest of the Drummers,” New York Times, January 23, 1886.

84 “Commercial Agents,” House Mis. Doc. No, 330, 49 Cong., 1 Sess., June 14, 1886.

85 “Protest of the Drummers.” Also note, “Petition and Remonstrance of Merchants and Traders of Baltimore, Md., Setting Forth Frauds Committed in the District of Columbia by Renting Out of Drummers' Licenses and by Drummers Pretending to be Partners in Local Firms,” U. S. House of Representatives, 49 Cong., 1 Sess., April 16, 1886, cited in Congressional Record, vol. 17, p. 3582.

86 Briggs, Fifty Years on the Road, pp. 49–50.

87 “A Veteran Commercial Traveler,” p. 28.

88 Hayes, Twenty Years on the Road, chap. VII.

89 “Protest of the Drummers.”

90 Plummer, Leaves from a Drummer's Diary, pp. 62–67.

91 January 7, 1869, quoted by The Society of Commercial Travellers, The System of Commercial Travelling, p. 20.

92 Hayes, Twenty Yeafs on the Road, Chap. VII.

93 Ibid.

94 Proceedings of the Third Annual Meeting of the National Board of Trade, p. 90.

95 The Society of Commercial Travellers, The System of Commercial Travelling, p. 5.

96 Ibid., pp. 5, 19.

97 “Traveling Agents in Virginia,” New York Times, June 7, 1882; “Decision against Commercial Travelers,” ibid. June 23; Ex parte Thornton, 4 Hughes 220, 12 Fed. 538 (C. G, E. D. Va., 1882).

98 “A Commercial Traveller Released from Arrest in Virginia,” New York Times, January 3, 1872.

99 Asher v. Texas, 128 U. S. 129, 9 Sup. Ct. 1, 32 L. Ed. 368, reversing 23 Tex. App. 662, 50 Am. Rep. 783, 5 S. W. 91.

100 Cincinnati Commercial, February 17, 1869, quoted by Society of Commercial Travellers, p. 6.

101 District of Columbia v. Humason, 2 MacArthur 158 (D. C. Sup. Ct., 1875).

102 Letter to the editor, June 12, 1882.

103 U. S. House of Representatives, 48 Cong., 1 Sess., Report No. 1321, April 15, 1884.

104 Ibid., also “The Drummer Tax in Texas,” New York Times, November 18, 1887.

105 Atherton, “Predecessors of the Commercial Drummer in the Old South,” loc. cit.

106 Mr. Seemuller, Proceedings of the Second Annual Meeting of the National Board of Trade, p. 34.

107 Briggs, Fifty Years on the Road, p. 49; Society of Commercial Travellers, The System of Commercial Travelling, pp. 19, 22.

108 “Traveling Agents in Virginia.”

109 Congressional Record, vol. 13, p. 4098; vol. 14, p. 2889; vol. 15, pp. 4654, 4709; vol. 17, pp. 2474, 3955, 4117, 4343, 7428, and passim.

110 Mr. Loring, Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the National Board of Trade (1886), p. 85.

111 “Meeting of Commercial Travelers.”

112 See “10th Annual Convention of New York State Commercial Travelers,” New York Times, January 11, 1881.

113 Michigan Commercial Travelers Association, Constitution and By-Laws (Detroit, 1878).Google Scholar

114 “Insurance and Fraternal Association Notes,” The Commercial Travelers Magazine, vol. 17 (March, 1911), p. 92.

115 See, for example, “Inception, Organization and Progress of the Commercial Travelers' Association of the State of New York,” Commercial Travelers' Magazine, vol. I (September, 1883), p. 78; “A Historical Sketch of the Order of United Commercial Travelers of America,” Souvenir Program, Natchez ( 1913 ) meeting, O. U. C. T. A. (Library of Congress).

116 Kip, Richard deR., Fraternal Life Insurance in America (Philadelphia, 1953), p. 31.Google Scholar See also, Meyer, B. H., “Fraternal Insurance in the United States,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. XVII (1901), pp. 80–106CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ibid., “Fraternal Beneficiary Societies in the United States,” American Journal of Sociology, vol. VI (1900), pp. 646–61.

117 Proceedings of the Eighteenth Annual Session of the Grand Council of Ohio, U. C. T. of A., 1907, p. 26.

118 Smith, Frank W., Beyond the Swivel Chair (New York, 1940), p. 20.Google Scholar

119 Commercial Travelers' National Association, Descriptive Handbook and Abstract (New York, C. T. N. A., 1872), p. 6.Google Scholar See also Civil Aeronautics Authority, Bureau of Economic Regulation, “History of Railroad Interchangeable Mileage Tickets,” (typescript, undated, circa 1939), Interstate Commerce Commission Library, Washington.

120 Goddard, Art of Selling, p. 92.

121 Albany Commercial Travelers Club, 1891 Directory, p. 3 (Library of Congress).

122 “A Historical Sketch of the Order of United Commercial Travelers of America,” p. 5.

123 See Hicks, Frederick C., “William Maxwell Evarts,” in Dictionary of American Biography, vol. VI, pp. 215–18.Google Scholar

124 December 17, 1882, p. 8. Apparently this was not the same organization as the Commercial Travelers National Association founded in 1870, although that body also listed “the abrogation of certain oppressive license laws” among its objectives. (Descriptive Handbook and Abstract, p. 4). Goddard (1890) says that the 1870 C. T. N. A. died “from a lack of harmony among its members, after a few years of active life.” The Times, which reported the formation of the C. T. N. A. in 1870, also reported the organization of a similarly named association in 1881. (“Commercial Travelers National Association Organized,” January 13, 1881). Thus the editorial cited above seems to have referred to this second C. T. N. A.

125 “Protest of the Drummers.”

126 “The Drummers' Convention,” New York Times, July 10, 1884.

127 Preliminary Report on Trusts and Industrial Combinations (testimony section), pp. 40–41. See also testimony of L. V. LaTaste (T. P. A. president), U. S. Industrial Commission Report, vol. XIII (U. S. House, 57 Cong., 1 Sess., Doc. No. 182), pp. 31–32.

128 “Not Constitutional,” The Sample Case, vol. 5 (July, 1894), pp. 40–41.

129 Congressional Record, vol. 17, pp. 642, 1932, 2423, 2474, 3103, 4074, 5839, 6068; vol. 18, pp. 349, 350, 385, 2051; vol. 19, p. 2464; “Objecting to Being Taxed,” New York Times, January 24, 1886.

130 U. S. House of Representatives, 48 Cong., 1 Sess., Report No. 1321; 49 Cong., 1 Sess., Report No. 1762; 50 Cong., 1 Sess., Report No. 1310.

131 LaTaste, Lucien V., “His Givings Out Were an Infinite Distance from His True Meant Design,” The TPA Magazine, vol. III (July, 1907), p. 22.Google Scholar

132 “Drummers' Licenses,” New York Times, November 7, 1887; “The Drummer Tax in Texas,” New York Times, November 18, 1887; Ex parte Stockton, 33 Fed. 95 (E. D. Texas, 1887), affirmed Asher v. Texas, 128 U. S. 129, 9 S. Ct. 1, 32 L. Ed. 368 (1888).

133 120 U. S. 489, 7 S. Ct. 592, 30 L. Ed. 694.

134 120 U. S. 498, 7 S. Ct. 596, 30 L. Ed. 697.

135 120 U. S. 502, 7 S. Ct. 655, 30 L. Ed. 699.

136 Asher v. Texas, 128 U. S. 129, 9 S. Ct. 1, 32 L. Ed. 368 (1888); Stoutenburgh v. Hermick, 129 U. S. 141, 9 S. Ct. 256, 32 L. Ed. 637 (1888, District of Columbia tax); Ex parte Stockton, 33 Fed. 95 (E. D. Texas, 1887); Simmons Hardware Co. v. Sheriff, 39 La. Ann. 850, 2 So. 593 (1887); Ex parte Rosenblatt, 19 Nev. 441, 3 Am. St. Rep. 901, 14 P. 299 (1887); State v. Bracco, 103 N. C. 350, 9 S. E. 404 (1889); State v. Rankin, 11 S. Dak. 144, 76 N. W. 299 (1898).

137 See, for example, Goodnow, Frank J., “State Taxation of Interstate Commerce,” Papers and Proceedings of the Sixteenth Annual Meeting, American Economic Association (Amer. Econ. Assoc. Pub., 3rd. Ser., vol. 5, no. 2, pp, 307–35) (New York, 1904), p. 65Google Scholar; Hemphill, John, “The House-to-House Canvasser in Interstate Commerce,” American Law Review, vol. 60 (1926), pp. 641–18.Google Scholar

138 See, for example, Isaacs, Nathan, “Barrier Activities and the Courts: A Study in Anti-Competitive Law,” Law and Contemporary Problems, vol. 8 (1941), pp. 382–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Robbins did not preclude local taxation when the goods came to rest in the taxing state prior to being sold, nor did it permanently prevent attempts to regulate retail canvassers and peddlers under the police powers of the local jurisdictions. See 39 Corpus Juris Secundum, “Hawkers and Peddlers,” pp. 784–803.

139 Palamountain, Joseph Cornwall Jr, The Politics of Distribution (Cambridge, 1955)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gould, Joseph S., “Legislative Intervention in the Conflict between Orthodox and Direct Selling Distribution Channels,” Law and Contemporary Problems, vol. 8 (1941), pp. 318–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

140 The persistence of pessimism and provincialism in American business is discussed at some length in Melder, State and Local Barriers, pp. 167–69.