Jasper County Democrat, Volume 7, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 July 1904 — POTENCY OF LOOSE CHANGE [ARTICLE]

POTENCY OF LOOSE CHANGE

It la the Nickels aat Dime* That Build Up Great Fortune*. When the crusader* against policy made the statement that the gross dally receipts from the game in Chicago aggregated 130,000 the community was astounded. Thirty thousand dollars In pennies. and dimes gambled away each day! Impossible! But such is the truth. Most persons never, stop to think of the power of loose change. They .hold It so lightly that they fling it about recklessly, and that Is the chief reason for its power. The pennies and dimes give chief support to the churches of the nation. The magnificent contribution of the millionaire dwindles to the proportions of the widow’s mite when compared with the great total. It is the loose change carried up to the altar rail which meets the mortgage, pays the pastor’s salary and sends missionaries to the four corners of the earth. Go through the books of the big charitable Institutions, and you will find how dependent they are on the small givers—on loose change. From Sunday school classes, sewing circles, church Collections, church entertainments and the penny boxes which stand in drug and grocery stores comes the greater portion of the revenue. The millionaire philanthropists of the nation would be appalled at their responsibility If the support of the small givers was withdrawn from the charitable institutions. Close to $14,000,000 a year in nickels flows into the coffers of the local traction companies and creates a business to attract a Morgan or a Vanderbilt In the end it is the housewife’s nickel which pays for the harvests of the millions of acres of golden grain. It is the loose change which keeps the wheels going and the world moving. But how loosely do we throw it about!—Chicago Journal.