The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1917-06-05
The Economy Bug.
From the oklahoman.
lie economy bug has got us.

The economy bug has got u.s.
Let's admit 1T. Let us also admit that it
were futile task to denounce the economy
bug as vile, venomous viper. For far too
long the world has been hymning the prais-
es of the economy bug and advising every
one to get one of those bugs and cherish
it tenderly. And now that everyone has
taken this advice and has got himself an
economy bug and is teaching the bug all
kinds of tricks it i'll becoems anyone to
change front suddenly and declare that the
economy bug is a deadly scorpion which
must be chased out of the house.
The truth is the economy bug is a noble
type of insect provided we keep him within
reasonable bounds. But when we defy him,
when we let the economy bug occupy all
our waking hours, when the first thing in
the morning, on opening our eyes, we look
for the economy bug to see how he has
spent the night, when the last thing before
going to sleep we wrap the economy bug
up In sllken draperies, give him a fond. ca
ressing pat and wish him pleasant dreams
well, when we get "dippy" about the econ
omy bug and lay all kinds of sacrifices at
his altar and burn incense to him twenty
four hours per diem, when we do this,
friends, Romans, countrymen, we're in
wrong, that's ALL
And that's what we're doing. And if we
keep 1t up, why, very shortly, there will be
nothing doing.
Probably we are all more or less respon-
slble for this penurious state of mind we've
gotten into. Certainly, the responsibility
can be charged to lot of people who ought
to have known better. Men of big affairs
have sounded the alarm and told us the wolf
was just around the corner, and headed
straight for the door. Women of wealth
and fashion have declared with a fine glow
OF virtue that they were going to cut out
stead OF silk hose and eat victuals instead of
viands.
They started something, Hermione. which
they did not wot of, if that's the word
Let US try to look at things as thew are
neither painting them in falsely bright col,
ors, nor gloomlng them over with the black
of foolish fears
First, so long as the present prices pre-
van a great many people will have to cur
tail their buying. If man hasn't the money
to buy things with he simply can't buy them
That is the situation of every man in this
country whose earnings have not increased
IN proportion as the cost of living has adj
vanced. You can't get away from that. and
all the eloquence, all the memorials, all the
resolutions and all the printers ink between
the well known rockbound coast of Maine
and the equally well known golden sands
OF the Pacific cannot alter that fact.
1t is vitality essential that people buv
goods, vitality essential that merchants sell
goods, but minimum profits, not maximum
profits, must be the watchword.
Now for the rich and the we'll to do, the
people to whom the'necessaries of life, such
as food and clothing, do not consume the
greater part of their incomes. What is their
DUTY? They ought to hit the economy bug
on the head, bury it a hundred fathoms
deep and go forth and spend as they never
spent before. If ever extravaganza were
virtue, it is a virtue now for the rich and
comfortably circumstanced