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*[EDITORIAL NOTE: Any business man who is willing to take the time to think and analyze can get a valuable lesson out oj the vicissitudes which have beset the vacuum cleaner industry. To establish on a sound financial basis a class of goods for which no previous demand has existed requires the most delicate manipulation, an extra-conservative merchandising policy, and a very liberal margin of profit. The typewriter, the piano-player, the talking machine all had hard sledding at the start. Why? Because out of every dollar spent in promotion ninety cents must go toward creating a demand for that general type of article and only twenty cents are left to bring the demand home to your particular factory. If you start as a manufacturer of clothing or canned goods, your problem is simply that of capturing a part of the floating demand. You do not have to argue that it is a good thing to be clothed or to eat food. People are bound to buy hosiery and crackers it is simply a question of which brand they will buy. But let a new idea like a vacuum cleaner be launched, and a lot of men dash into it as they would into a bonanza gold field. Instead of nuggets lying around on the surface, killing work is necessary to unearth them. In their efforts to try to make the thing go the different manufacturers vie with each other in cutting prices, not even knowing that they are getting far beyond the danger line. Advertising is resorted to as though it were a miracle-worker. '. is asked to accomplish the impossible and blamed when it fails to overcome unsound merchandising policies. If the article itself possesses sufficient merit and vitality, the industry will eventually right itself when the rainbow-chasers have been eliminated....