Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1913-11-05
Using Up Working Capital.


by one of the worlds greatest econo-
mists. Assuredly he has much to
support his contention. Apparently
If we reason from the familiar facts
of daily existence, America is using
us its working capital. We are
spending instead of saving. We
must soon come to the day of rec
koning, and the cost of reckoning
will be heavy. The nation must pay
in years of privation and pinching
sordid economy for it's violation of
the sound rules of private and pub
lie economy.
But there is something to be said
on both sides. This startling subject
is discussed with the utmost frank
ness by Edward Sherwood Mead, the
financial expert, in the August num-
Der of Lippincotts. 1t is subject
of vital Importance not only to all
financiers, but to every one who has
even small amount of money in
vested or to invest.
1--WE are accustomed to regard the
ture of assured and increasing pros
perity, prosperity in which even
the humblest immigrant laborer will
each year have larger share" says
DR.. Mead. ITO be plainly told that
we as a nation, have been violating
the rules of business conduct, OBJ
servance of which alone will insure
our future prosperity, is to receive
an unpleasant shock.
Are these gloomy prognostica-
tons founded on fact, or do they
represent merely a flight of scienti-
fic fancy, rising far above the ground
into the thin air of speculation and
hazardous conjecture?
LAS soon as attention is directed
to our problem, number Of facts OF
superficial observation tending stron-
gly to support this conclusion imme-
diately energies. Every one is ia
miliar with the vast increase in per-
sonal expenditure during the last de-
cade. 1t is a poor home which has
no sanitary plumbing, or which is
still half heated by stoves, be it in
the country or in the city. Even a
humble mechanic expects these con-
veniences in his twenty-dollar-a-
month house. Turkish rugs have
taken the place of ingram and rag
carpets. Clothes are now made to
measure, and people, especially wo-
men, have more clothes than ever be-
fore. Men, too, are more careful of
their personal appearance. They pat
ronize the haberdasher and the tall
or, the barber and the bootblack, to
an extent which their fathers would
not have ventured, and which their
grandfathers would have condemned
as wasteful extravaganza. The
servant problem" did not become
problem until the middle class, up
per and lower, began to keep domes-
tic servants. The expenditure upon
food is far greater than formerly,
when an adult could be well fed at a
total cost of $3.50 per week for raw
materials and fuel Today not only
have the prices of foodstuffs advanc-
ed, but a large number of expensive
novelties, which quickly become re-
garded as necessities, are each year
being introduced.
THE automobile is no longer con-
sidered luxury for the man of
$4,000 income. He can buy, on
time, for $500 or 5000, car that is
very good, even compared with the
high priced machines; and thousands
of these cars are being bought each
month Immediately the owners
expenses increase. Tires, toll, gaso-
line, oil and general repairs, besides
interest and depreciation, represent
a large monthly outlay.
80 we could go indefinitely: char
ity, organizations, clubs, politics,
magazines, and newspapers, liquor
and tobacco, bridge whist, golf, thea
tres, moving-picture shows, base ball,
education, which costs this genera
ton at least twice as much as 1t did
their fathers; the government ser
vice, which does or tries to do so
many new things for us-the list OF
new expenditures and of increased
expenditures could be expanded far
beyond the space here available"
This is indeed funny old world.