Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1894-02-01
REMEDY FOR HARD TIMES.


Fresh Ideas Advanced-Ben Franklin's
HOarding Attacked.
Never keep money which is due to
another. Simple as is this rule. there
is none SO generally disregarded. We
have large class in this community
whose bank accounts would allow them
to owe no man anything save charity
and good will, yet who make it a mat
ter of pride to pay no small debts save
by lordly courtesy or at such times as
it may please them to mail check to
the marketman or the mechanic. TO
them it appears as though the good
name they have always borne puts
them above suspicion. They would
pay instantly on being dunned by the
humble creditor, and the latter would
await their pleasure months, and
borrow money rather than ask
for his due, since to demand
his own would be to lose their custom
in future. If you can not pay what you
owe. or owe nothing, you have no duty
in this respect; but if there is the least
sum due for work or purchases see to
it that the sun does not set tonight I'M
til that sum is put into circulation.
2. Spend all you can possibly afford
to disburse. l give this advice boldly,
although it is just the contrary to that
usually offered. But one does not have
to be a political economist to see that
the relief would be instantaneous.
Debt is always to be avoided, but the
proper disbursement of ones income to
its last availa BILE dollar is blessing to
the community. What possible aeod
does money do which is boarded in
stead of being put into circulation?
Suppose a man in the possession of an
income of ten thousand dollars year
were to enter one OF our suburban viii
lagos and daily spend amongst his
neighbors that proportion which he
would receive each day? l do not mean
giving it right and left for the support
of the poor or shiftless, but buy
ing the labor or products of his
poorer brethren. Does it require any
instruction in political science to see
that he would at once turn that town
into 4 very paradise of prosperity? And
if all those in comfortable circum-
stances would scrupulously do this. the
dissemination of comforts would in
crease in proportion to the money
spent. The philosophy of Benjamin
Franklin has cursed this country with
a mania for boarding; we fail to realize
that the identical economy which may
be commendablei in the young mechanic
may be 4 positive wrong in the retired
merchant.
Did you ever calculate the amount of
good done by Get us call it in the
Franklin phraseology) the useless eX-
travagance of inviting a lady to the
theater? In the first place, in accept
ing, she will probably disburse for
gloves, millinery or seamstress work
quite pretty sum, each payment being
a blessing to the one who receives it,
sometimes representing to the en-
ploye the very means of life. Then
your own disbursement will help
support the hack-driver, the florist,
the hotel where you dine together,
while it would be impossible for the
large and worthy corps of the en-
ployes of the theater to get their daily
bread We're it not for just such OK
travagance as that of which you are
guilty.
To rigidly economic at such times
as the present, SO that you may have
the means to give for benev client pur-
poses, is simply to withhold with the
one hand that you may disburse with
the other. If the two rules herein
recommended were observed by every
person in the community, only the in
ebriate and the culpably shiftless
would be charge on their fellows.
AS intimated here, l do not in the
least share the general commentator
of Benjamin Franklin. His maxims
are worldly, sensual, selfish, entirely
ignoring chivalrlc, spiritual or lofty
ideals The effect of his parsimonious
ideal of human conduct is to be seen
in just such stringency as that which
is now felt by the American people,
Boston Transcript.