The Washington herald., 1915-12-06
AS SEEN BY a WASHINGTON WOA1ANlI
WY ARE WE so wAsTEfUL,.


Department of Agriculture says that
Washington housewives are the most
wasteful in the country there is no
use answering back. Maybe you do
make soup out of the chop bones and
maybe you do serape the potatoes
and maybe you do save the drip
pins" The fact still remains that
Washington women Re guilty of the
crime of being the least frugal in
matters of food preparation of any
women in America, and the inference
is that with that distinction goes that
of being the most .wasteful house
wives in the world, since America had
already won her reputation of leaders
in the gentle art of wastefulness.
The Department of Agriculture
wasn't guessing Guessed impress
sions about American women arc all
very we'll for notable foreigners be-
ing interviewed on their impress
sions" after a weeks sojourn in the
States" One week we are found to
be the most hospitable, the next week
the coldest; one week the best groom
ed, the next the most carelessly shod;
one week the most charming, the
next week the least individual.
But when Secretary Houston's de-
partment makes the decision it is
based on observation. We were, lit
orally, caught with the goods or"
for when we least suspected it the in
vestigation was in process. The
agents of the department were delv-
ing into the kitchen refuse, seeing for
themselves just how closely we peeled
the potatoes, just how much nourish-
ing meat that might have been con-
verted into soup or foreemeat was be-
ing thrown away, just how much
bread was wasted because it had
grown stale. And then comparing
the figures with figures gained in
other cities they came to their con-
demnatory conclusion. And now that
we have been told the verdict the
obvious moral is to begin at once to
mend our ways.
May it not be that the reason why
VIC arc the most wasteful housewives
is because we are most thoroughly
American and so generally of the
great middle class" In cities like
New York with its enormous foreign
born population there arc whole sec
lions where as careful frugality prevails
as in any sections of France or Italy.
And SO with other cities where there
is a large proportion of housewives
Of foreign birth and training. They
may not know how to speak English;
they may not have the advantage of
even a grammar school education;
they may not be able to write any
more than their name in their own
language and not even that in the
tongue of the language of their adop-
ton. They have probably no theories
on the subject of economy; may
know nothing of the. principles of
dietctics, and may have never heard
of conservation, still they could give
our cooking school experts lessons in
the art of frugality.
OF course, with an increasing pop
ulation and food prices that are rising
out of proportion TO any possible
wage increase We ought to take this
matter rather seriously. Still there is
no reason why American housewives
should put on sack cloth and ashes
over their previous misdeeds, or why
they should think any the less of the
American housewives efficiency. The
very fact that American housewives
have not already learned the lesson
of frugality is simply another way of
saying that we have been more pros
porous than the more frugal nations.
and that our natural resources were
greater than theirs. For after all
there is no abstract virtue in peeling
the potatoes thin or in spending ten
mintues scraping the breadboard for
a mills worth of dough. 1t would
have been as foolish to talk to our
colonial ancestors about conserving
the forests when an entire continent
of primeval forest stretched out to
the west of them as to have talked to
housewives of generation or so ago
in certain parts of this country about
the kind of frugality that French or
Italian or German housewives cm-
ployed. What was the use of peeling
potatoes thin when the cellar was
stored with potatoes that would siInp-
ly 60 to waste and could not pos
sibly be used before the next sea-
sons crop was ready.
For after all the virtue of frugality
is a matter of relative values and
sometimes there is greater wasteful-
ness in spending ten minutes to peel
five potatoes so close that they will
take the place of six than there is
in the loss of single potato.