Arizona republican., 1917-07-23
END FIRE WASTE
 AND SAVE FOOD
 ID MN THE WAR

Five billion dollars in bonds are to be issued by the United States government in few weeks for war purposes At 3 per cent the interest on those bonds will amount to $150,000, 900. That is a big sum, yet it is only a little over half of the annual fire waste in this country, says a fire bulletin recently issued. PreVentable fires alone destroy enough property every year to pay the interest on the S9,000, 900, 900 bond issue. If the war is to be won for democracy, waste must be eliminated and every resource conserved to meet the demands of war.
 But that is not all Much of the fire waste is in the food supply. With hun dreds of German submarines sending thousands of tons of food to the bottom of the Atlantic every day. the food problem is going to be d mighty serious one for the United States and her allies during the next two or three years
 Every bushel of grain. every pound of meat, every box of canned goods de- stroyed by fire reduces the already de- pleted supply and helps to increase the price of what remains. The cost to the public through these increased prices will be far greater than the direst cost of the food destroyed. It is not at all improbable that through the actual de- 1 struction, fire will cost the people of the United States $1,00. .000,0 during the next twelve months, without taking into consideration at all the cost of car rying on the insurance business and maintaining fire departments.
 l Our waste of $3 per capita per an- mum means that every man, woman and child pays $3 year for fire waste. That means that the man with the average family, his wife and three children-a family of five-pays $15 year fire tax. The United States gov ernment in its report adds to this fire waste the cost of maintaining fire de- partments, which is as much more. This means $50 year to the average family. Now, if on some blue Monday | Is every year a representative of the government were to come around and ask us each for our check for $50 to | pay our share of the national careless ness, then we should realize what we poy.
 But we do not realize that we pay it. because that tax is indirect. The big manufacturers and the big merchants know this fire expense is a tax. They equip their premises with automatic sprinklers. They put in protective ap- paratus They get the lowest insurance ldtc lHty tdH DtCduS6 II ltlpS lHeHl to compete; but the man in the street, the ordinary man, does not know how this fire waste is laid. Take wool, for example. Wool in the warehouse is in sured-that is tax. It is insured in transportation, and there it pays fire tax. It is insured in the textile factory where it is worked up into cloth. It Is insured in the clothing store, insured in the tailor shop, in the department store; and all the way along this fire tax is added to the cost, and when you buy a coat you pay it.
 Every stock of goods that is insured
 carries this tax, and it is passed along
 to the ultimate consumer. The masses do not know that they pay it. They do
 not realize that when they buy a hat
 or pair of shoes, or suit of clothes,
 or anything which goes through the
 regular channels of industry-produc
 tion, distribution and exchange-they
 pay a tax. Not realizing it, they are in !. different to fire. They think the fire loss does not affect them.