The Hattiesburg news. (Hattiesburg, Miss.) 1908-1917, 1913-08-11
THE MORAL INFLUENCE OF
SAVING.

naturally leads to crime. Hugh Nc
Culloch, First Comptroller of the Cur
rency.
"the true measure of a mans abil-
ity is the power to help others and to
contribute to their advancement. The
effort to make money is an important
incentive to social service and indus
trial progress. president A. T. Had
ley of Yale.
Saving has a beneficial moral effect,
but extravaganza, as it usually is act
ing lie, is essentially immoral and
breeds many other irregularities and
sins. On the other hand, temperance
and integrity go hand-in-hand with
thrift. This course is the harder one
but it is doing the hard things that
develops strength and character.
Successful resistance, at the tempta-
ton to extravaganza, at the same time
that it stiffens your mental and moral
backbone, increases your mental re-
sources.
savings bank account represents
more than so much money saved. 1t
stands for purpose, decision, firmness,
persistence, unselfishness, prudence
forethought, courage, temperance. con-
thence, ambition and achievement on
the part of the one who has it.
The actual amount of money accu-
mulated and earning interest for you in
such an account is a very valuable re-
source, but it does not exceed in value
the lifelong benefit you will derive from
the exercises of such qualities of char
acter as those mentioned.
Reckless extravaganza is the pace
that kills. A fearfully large number
OF men and women in this country are
today running a neck-and-neckss race
with ruin in their desperate efforts to
keep up with their demands of fashion
and foolish extravaganza. Can you
doubt that the opposite course is the
one more conducive to the moral well
fare of the individual and society as
a whole?
The Rev. DR.. James r. Day, the able
and eloquent Chancellor of Syracuse
University, in a baccalaureate sermon
said:
1.-THE balance which self-denial holds
in the home is balance of prosperity
and peace. Here woman has her place
and her office. Ia she equal to self
denial? Can she wait? There is
nothing so persuasive so irresistible
as the love Of a man for a wife whom
he loves. No money is spent with so
much joy as the money that goes to
her and the children. Happy, thou
sand-fold happy, is that man whose
wife loves him too much to permit him
to be foolish when he should be wise,
who is so judicial in her temperament,
so prudent in her domestic economy,
as to add her decisive voice to the
months allowance, and so brave as
to insist that the expenditure must
always be at least a little less than
the income. She ought to say: 4 am
not seeking or consenting to support
There will be two of us. If | cannot
earn as much as you, l can save more.
We will plan together. will be the
home side of your life"
There is a division somewhere be-
tween expenditures that are wise and
those which are foolish. Each indi.
vidual must discover that line for him.
self.
What ever may be said of the drink
habit there is certainly a point where
1t becomes injurious. The same Is
true of smoking, and of eating also.
Amusements swallow up millions an
hually. A few afford pleasurable enter
tainment and mental and physical re-
Taxation. The great majority of them
are yapid, inane and silly, entailing a
waste of time and money.
Fashion in it's ever-changing forms
exacts its costly toll from the purses
of men. Vanity in endless varieties
demands larger and larger share Of
our earnings each year.
Were it possible to divert the flood
of wasteful and harmful expenditures
into channels of legitimate produc-
tive industry-to the furnishing of
comfortable homes, the production of
food and clothing-we should hear
less of the high cost of living and
there would be less poverty.
But it seems impracticable by leg
islation or by any sudden revamping
of human nature to make the mass
Of men spend money wisely instead
of foolishly. Yet each individual can
for himself Immediately examine his
expenditures, classifying those that
minister to his real welfare and
those which do not. BY diminishing
the latter mr. nv cutting them off al