[D8903AAH], Letter from Pacific Phonograph Co, Louis Glass to Albert Blake Dick, April 6th, 1889

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Title

[D8903AAH], Letter from Pacific Phonograph Co, Louis Glass to Albert Blake Dick, April 6th, 1889

Editor's Notes

Enclosed we send you draft on Chicago for $112.21, for which, please send us receipt in full. # In making this remittance I wish to review our relations in the Mimeograph business. I came into it through Major McLaughlin who held a contract from you covering California, Washington Territory and Oregon. This contract was exclusive in character and believing the Mimeograph to be an instrument which would grow in popularity, Sabin and myself agreed with Major McLaughlin to put up the necessary funds for its introduction in return for which we were to have the profits. Individually, I had had but little business experience, my previous life having been spent in mining, but I soon found that although TAE's name attached to the Mimeograph gave it recognition, still at the same time it was apparent that every instrument sold must supplant some machine of the same character which already occupied the field. I also found that your prices were higher than any similar device and your terms to agents very much more exacting, in as much as under the contract we must have paid for all instruments before they could possibly be delivered in California. # In our experience we did not discover that the number of instruments you required us to sell each month in California was a gross absurdity and of course was violated the very first month and had you determined, you could have voided it at that time, but you did not do so. You made slight reduction in some of the percentages and after we had spent a good deal of money in advertising the machine, you allowed the Caligraph Company to offer your machines for sale here directly in conflict with our contract. When I complained to you in this matter, you graciously wrote me that in your opinion it would assist our business. # Sabin and myself have put in the Mimeograph business $1020.94; our profits have been since the beginning $487.23, leaving us net losers of $533.71. # Nothing could possibly be more unjust than to ask us on surrendering our agency to turn over the material on hand and lose the freight on same from Chicago to San Francisco; a large part of this material, as you know, came by express and the charges were very heavy. I had determined a week ago that under no circumstances would I allow you to defraud us out of this item, but in consequence of that fact that we are all under obligations to TAE and he has allowed you the use of his name, and the further fact that we do not find many Dicks in this world, I have concluded to make a remittance and trust that this may end all relations between us.

Recipient

Date

1889-04-06

Type

Folder/Volume ID

D8903-F

Microfilm ID

125:69

Document ID

D8903AAH

Publisher

Thomas A. Edison Papers, School of Arts and Sciences, Rutgers University
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