TV Lenny Leaves the Multiplication to Us

The Buzz: American TV to close all stores. (Appleton Post-Crescent, 2/18/2014)

Local Chain Stores.  (TIME, 9/5/1927)

Sorry, TIME, welcome to Anywhere USA.   A local Iowa chain of 35 grocery stores (Red Ball Corp., headquarters at Des Moines) last week bought 15 stores at Des Moines and Valley Junction, Iowa, from a National chain of grocery stores (Piggly Wiggly, Delaware corporation, headquarters at Memphis, Tenn.) 

The incident had this significance: a local chain can be so effective that it can resist hysterical battering of the independent retailer and the methodical ramming of the national chain. National chain stores have often absorbed local chains; it is possible that national chains may break down into local "lengths" such as the Red Ball Corp.