Oxford Democrat. [volume] (Paris, Me.) 1833-1933, 1908-01-14
Extravaganza, q National Vice.
fI.oa Aurelea HARDLY

EXtravagance, Wnlcn Ii Wastoiuiuess,
IL vice. Vice 10 sin. Any vice which
through Its practice Injuries others than
those who indulge In 1t IL particularly
sinful. Recently two or three newspa-
pers published in eastern cities, prompt
ed by the disclosures of the past month
or so In financial circles In New York,
have discussed what they term the
national vice OF wastefulness. The
Washington Post declares that We waste
more than any other people on earth.
In its essay on the frugality OF the
French, more particularly the French
peasantry, the Post says:
"France Is, and for long years has been,
to the worlds bankers what Egypt was
to Israel when the lean years came. In
time of stress France is to the rescue,
and France has mortgage liens on every
country between the Mediterranean and
the Arctic circle, including Germany
even, where millions of French money Is
invested.
SIT is wonderful people. The day
the child is born the parents begin to
save, and when that boy or girl is mar
ried there is a portion, or dot that
keeps the wolf from the door and makes
the pot to boil. This is rural France
where there are peasants who are mil
lionaires.
at is not an extravagance, but q truth,
that the average family of rural France
would subsist on what the average family
of rural America wastes. A French
farmer would no more allow his pillow to
remain out all winter in the field, in rain,
in sleet, in snow, to rust and 60 to all
sorts of rack and ruin, than he would ex-
pose his daughters piano to the ele-
ments. When the crop is laid by the
French peasant takes the farm utensil to
the storehouse, cleanses 1t of all earth,
oils it and puts it away under shelter.
1t is not unreasonable to estimate that
the longevity of pillow, or hoe, or an
az, or a farm wagon in France is five
times what it is In Ohio, or Kentucky, in
Iowa or Tennessee.
"There are millions of plows standing
in the burrows in the United States, left
there when the season Of cultivation
ended last July. Doubtless more iron
wedges are rusting in the mold of the
forest in this country, thrown away as
soon as the rails were split, than there
"When a French farmer needs a tool
he knows where to find it in his store
house. The average American farmer,
the possessor of sundry hoes last spring,
will 20 to the crossroads store and buy
new hoes next spring."
The Posts structures upon the Ameri-
can farmer are pretty severe and, We be-
lieve, in some degree unwarranted. But
perhaps this critic, like the average
eastern writer, judges the entire body of
American husbandmen by those whose
fields of effort are bounded on the west
by the Appalachian system. But while
he may have borne down a triAe too
hard on farmers as class, there is plen-
ty of evidence to sustain his general in
dictment.
The wastefulness of many farmers
borders on the grossest profigacy. And
this vice is by no means confined to the
husbandman. 1t is to be seen in many
other walks of life-among mechanics,
clerks and wage earners of other classes.
1t is not confined to the field. 1t is
found in the pantry and in the dining
room, in the store and on the street.
The pace set by the well-to- do is one
of the most powerful temptations with
which the ordinary wage-earner has to
contend. The presence of thousands of
autom obiles on the streets of q city
makes thousands of relatively poor men
covetous; the sight of evidences of
greater prosperity makes them envious.
The lavish expenditure of money by
those who have plenty to spend incites
those who have 1t not to spend what
they have without regard to the future.
And the American nation has been as
wasteful as the American individual. As
a nation we have squandered most of our
splendid heritage of forest and field.
Beginning with the extinction of the
American bison, the noblest animal that
ever roamed the range, we have slaugh-
tered the elk, the deer and other valuable
game, big and little, until now a mere
pittance is left. We have permitted
gold-hungry adventurers criminally to
denude millions of acres of virgin forest
lands, with the result that not only has
millions upon millions of dollars worth
of unused timber been destroyed, but
millions of acres of once fertile land has
been swept into the sea because OF the
great floods made possible by such
denudation.
We cannot 60 back and live our nation
al life over again, but we can, by i'm
m ediate legislative and executive action,
prevent the total humiliation of what Ia
left of this sacred heritage of the people.
We can at least show that we have sin.
cerely repented for our great national
tsinning.