Piggly Wiggly Man

Piggly Wiggly stores, as many a U. S. housewife knows, are cafeteria-groceries. Instead of dealing with salespersons, the customer tours the store with a large basket, makes her own selections from neatly-stocked shelves. In spite of its apparent latitude to shoplifters, the Piggly Wiggly idea has proved extremely successful, partly because of its novelty, partly because neat packages and large advertising appropriations have made retail grocery selling almost an automatic procedure.

In none of the Piggly Wiggly stores does Clarence Saunders, the original Piggly Wiggly man, retain an interest. Instead, he now heads a competitive chain of 400 Clarence Saunders Stores, serving 225 towns and cities in 18 states. Last week the Saunders chain was extended to the Pacific Coast with a million-dollar stock issue offered in Clarence Saunders Pacific Stores, Inc.

The story of Clarence Saunders' disconnection with Piggly Wiggly is the story of how Piggly Wiggly went to the Stock Market and wound up in the stock yard. In November, 1922, when Mr. Saunders was Piggly Wiggly's successful president, Wall Street operators started a bear movement in Piggly Wiggly stock. Angry, Mr. Saunders hastened from his native Memphis to Manhattan. They would sell Piggly short, would they? Well, he'd show them, and he did. He ran Piggly Wiggly stock up from 40 past 120, realized some millions of paper profits. Then, unfortunately, the Stock Exchange Governors decided that a corner had been established in Piggly Wiggly and took the stock off the board. With trading suspended, there was no market, no quotation on Mr. Saunders' stock. Mr. Saunders discovered that Wall Street has a cemetery at one end and a river at the other. After an unsuccessful attempt to unload his Piggly Wiggly stock, an attempt featured by a full page newspaper advertisement entitled "Fighting for My Life," Mr. Saunders turned over a fortune estimated at nine million dollars to the bankers who had financed his disastrous corner, and got out of Piggly Wiggly.

The collapse came in the spring of 1923 Now, after six years, Mr. Saunders is back.