Rocky Mount Stores That Overcharged Customers Must Take Out Advertisements To Tell Public, Jan. 2, 1919

From The Alamance Gleaner, Graham, N.C., January 2, 1919. To keep food prices from skyrocketing during the war, the government set the amount of allowable profit. When a store was making excess profit, it was fined and the fine went to the Red Cross. Profiteering was still illegal at the end of the war, and the penalty changed.

Merchants Allowed to Advertise Their Offenses

Something new in penalties has been inflicted by the State Administrator Henry A. Page upon 10 grocers of Rocky Mount who were found by inspector E.L. Harris to be exceeding the margins of profits allowed on flour and other products. Contributions to the Red Cross are a thing of the past and the offenses were not serious enough to warrant the black list which effectively and quickly puts a merchant out of business.

Mr. Page advised the merchants in question that if they would publish a statement in their local paper explaining to their patrons and the public that they had exceeded the allowed margins and that no further action would be issued as a result of past offenses.

The merchants involved with T.L. Horsley, E.Y. Arrington, H.C. Joyner, E.T. Joyner, J.W. Davenport, Powers & Miller, R.T. Bartholomew, G.G. Levy & Brother, Jenkins & Jeffries, and O.C. Robbins.