Jasper County Democrat, Volume 22, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 June 1919 — A Nation of Spenders, We Must Become Instead a Money-Saving People [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A Nation of Spenders, We Must Become Instead a Money-Saving People

BY THE WIFE OF THE SECRETARY OF WAR

As a people we have always been regarded as extravagant, and the accusation is not unjust. We . have been wasteful in many different ways, and in I looking for compensation for all the cruel sacrifices we have been forced to make during the war one’s attention is called to the material benefits we can derive from the bitter experience if we are willing to learn , the lesson. If we become a nation of savers instead of a nation of spenders some of the sacrifices will not have been in vain. When the actual fighting was over ! our interest in our country’s welfare rather “slumped.

It was, perhaps, the natural reaction from a long period of strain and excitement, but it was none the less to be regretted. Our country needs our assistance just as truly today as it did a year ago, and it is the plain duty of every citizen, man, woman or child, to ask himself the question: “How can I help?” One of the most obvious ways is to give our financial support. This, however, differs from most of our war service in that it involves no sac’rifice. It is absolutely the safest and most paying investment one can make, and one is no longer forced to argue that he should do this thing i for his country’s sake, or for his soul’s sake, but it can now be put on i the lower plane of a thing done for one’s own interest which incidentally I helps the nation’s credit No amount of money is too small to be put away profitably In Thrift stamps, and there are always conveniently at hand places where the investIment can be made, including the postman at our doors and the schools I where we send our children. When we open our purses we should address to ourselves the quesItion: “Am I spending this money wisely, or could I make bqfter use of ■it?” The trouble is that if we do not take this matter under more serious consideration than we have in the past our country’s credit may be at /take. With an apology for the bad taste of a personal allusion, my children spend a portion of their money allowance each week for Thrift stamps, and the competition involved in seeing who can possess the largest number has run the aggregate to a surprising extent. Thrift stamps and War Savings stamps have the value not only of creating a fund for a definite purpose, such as the education of a child, but teach the value of money I and the. lasting returns which can be gotten for it, at the same time inculcating all the traditional virtues which flow from saving a part of all the money coming into one’s possession. One of the permanent benefits that we can extract from this cruel and wasteful war, beyond the determination that it must never happen again, is the consciousness of a personal responsibility to our government, without which it cannot hope to hold the respect of the rest of the world.