Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 94, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 April 1914 — ECONOMY SOUGHT FOR [ARTICLE]

ECONOMY SOUGHT FOR

POINTER FOR WORKERS IN THE RAILROAD OFFICES. r : ' Eastern Line Estimates That a Saving of $30,000 a Year Might Easily Be Effected by Care of Little Things. - Reducing operating expenses by eliminating waste is only a rational procedure and yet the cultivation of that carefulness of habit that leads to an unconscious conservation of supplies is all too little engaged in, in the affairs of the individual, while evidence in the matter of small economies as applied to others’ expenses is painfully suggestive of a natural human tendency to carelessness and extravagance. Teachers complain of the spirit of prodigality of youth in school; business finds its workers almost equally heedless as to the cost of waste. The estimate of an eastern railroad that the elimination of waste in the use of paper, pens, pencils and so forth, on the part of the heads of departments, clerks, agents and other employes in the 2,000 offices of the system could easily result in a saving of $30,000 in a year is probably not overestimated. The average saving of each office asked for is only sls and yet, in the immensity of the business, the sum total would be well worth striving for. The lesser proportionate saving possible through carefulness in the smaller business concerns of any community would be equally worth while, rendering a percentage of reduced expense that would correspond to increased earning, under the old qmle that a penny saved is a penny earned. Heeding economy in the use of paper, hanging on to a pen while there is good in it, getting the most out of a pencil, curbing recklessness' with ink and blotters and typewriter ribbon, with pins and elastic bandß and putting mentally a worth while value upon every item of desk equipment may seem like small business to folks to whom lavishness Btands for success and prosperity. But it ie just the opposite of lavishness, when lavishness is uncalled for and so becomes waste, that success and prosperity are built upon. Economy in the use of supplies is getting the most possible for the money. Sensible people will do that for themselves; and if they do not do it for their employers they are neither sensible nor considerate.