Omaha daily bee., 1908-07-12
TIPS ON POWER OF ECONOMY
saving Power of ~seIf-DeniaI
Mounts Into Seven
Figures.

How much can the American nation save
by wearing its old clothes this year? The
report Of the census of manufactures Tor
1895 shows that the factory product OF
mems clothing for the year was valued at
1855. 1861. One-third OF this, or consid-
erably less than one-third on the basis OF
retail prices, would more than equal the
entire balance Of trade in this countrys
favor for the month of December.
There were sS6, 629, 1853 worth of felt hats
sold in 1905. BY wearing their felt hats
90 per cent longer than they have been ac-
customed to doing plain Americans can in a
year effect a saving greater than the esti-
mate of Mr.. Rockefellers total benefactions
during 1906, the record year Tor phllan-
thropy.
Yet It is not always with clothes that
people first adopt a policy Of retrenchment.
Let them, for example, cut down by only
one-third for only one-half a year the
amount they spend on fresh beef, leaving
all the other items Of the butchers bill
unaltered. That six months saving would
be greater than the sum paid last October
over the counters of the company which en-
dured the longest run in the history of
banking Institutions. Contract by the same
proportion the consumption OF all kinds OF
meat-and many ~well-qualified persons
think this would be abundantly worth while
on hygienic grounds alone-and a sum equal
to the entire government surplus of No
vember /, 1907, would be saved In less than
ten months.
AS to the commodities which are classed
as real ~luxuries, the facts are equally
striking. Enough cigars were withdrawn
for consumption in 1906 to provide about
eight and one-half cigars per week for
every cigar smoker, on the assumption that
one-fifth of the total population, including
babes in arms, may fairly be put down in
that class. Even for mere purposes of
Illustration no one would be cruel enough
TO suggest treating the cigar as the col
onists once treated their tea. But in a
great emergency like this the average
smoker might consider cutting down his
allowance to one cigar a day. That trifling
act Of abnegation would make a difference
in the country's cigar bills OF more than
1880, 600 a year. Statistics show that we
are not a whisky drinking nation at our
worst, Yet we could save SO, 100000 a year
on whisky alone and still give one-fifth Of
our population a stiff dram every Saturday
night, Beer Is another matter. In the re-
cent piping times our per capita consump-
ton of this beverage, babies and all, rose
to more than twenty gallons. Put dow
beer drinkers as one-third of the popula-
ton, ard each OF them could have APP
p~roXimately eighteen glasses a week. Re-
duce that only two a day and the margin
of saving Is over $50, 10000 Z.
1t would, Of course, be a simple matter
TO carry the calculation through every de-
Tartment of production. The figures do not
constitute in themselves an argument for
saving. That is to say, no one is likely to
deny himself pickles, for example. merely
because it has been shown to him that, II
every one else did the same, enough money
would be saved to build a cathedral every
five years. Such an argument, however, is
at the bottom of most pleas for the simple
lfe.-New York Evening Post.