The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1917-12-26
MEN, WOMEN
AND THINGS

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keeps many an industry going.
Among the first great industries to
utilize waste was the packing plants un-
til it is now the proud boast of the
packers that they save everything about
the hog except his squeal. Now, this old
joke has tremendous significance just
at present when Hoover is telling US
that the best way for our boys in France
to bring home the bacon is for us to
feed them pork. This is a strange para
dox, but true one.
Now, 1 am not going into the right
or the wrong of the governments in
vestigation of the packing business in
this Article. The facts from the probe
will later speak for themselves. but
do want to command their thrift in
"hogging" all that there is in the grunt-
ers who are now classed along with the
mule as among Americas most important
contributions to the allies. The sign on
the big hog which George Stuart re-
Gently saw at a fair in Georgia, stating
that II am doing my part to help win
this war stated a fact, and it's up to
us to quit eating SO much porcine dain-
ties, unless we wanted to be classed as
''rooters" for the Kaiser.
What is a by-product? 1t is something
of value derived incidentally from
main product. One of the best and home
lest instances that 1 can give is to ask
you to remember as you button your
coat that in nine cases out of ten the
button you finger is not bone at all, but
made of the CONCEALED blood of animals
killed in our great slaughter houses, and
is mute evidence that the Armours and
the Swifts are not guilty of waste, but
are practicing a species of thrift that If
followed by other great Industries and
carried into the homes of the people
would make sure victory for our Amer
lean arms.
The thing that 1 am trying to drive
home is that thrift is a very much big
ger thing than the mere refusal to spend
money for an unnecessary luxury. The
mere fact that we are nation of spend
ers does not tend toward national bank
ruptcy, but the thing that must be
pointed out as the real danger is we
are the worlds greatest MASTERS. / hope
you will get the full significance of the
difference between the two.
l am heartily in favor of true thrift.
It is a lesson that we all must learn
but let us not confuse thrift with parsi-
mcny, or think we are going to greatly
mend matters by merely practieing a few
economies in wearing old clothes or doing
without jewelry, or going thirsty to save
the "jitney" we would spend for soft
drink, or foregoing an after dinner
smoke, or passing UP matitunital cock
tail, or walking to town to save car
fare, or never entering a movie and
many other similar petty economies
We are not going to mend matters by
mere closefistedness It's got to go down
much deeper than the mere holding of
the dollar until the eagle screams, for
frequently the spending of it will in
crease it's purchasing capacity by letting
more people get a chance to finger it
at least long enough to keep it in circu-
lation. The very worst thing that could
happen in the situation now confronting
us would be for those who have money
to take it out of business where it is
earning something for it's possessor and
giving employment to others and hide it
away.
The kind of thrift that we need to
preach day by day to the American peo-
pie is the thrift of the French. have
lived among them and I know how it is
inbred and runs from the peasant to the
nobility. It's an old saying that French
family could live well off the leftovers
of the average American family in the
same walk of life This may be a bit
exaggerated, but it has a modicum of
truth in it that we ought to take to heart
when there is such a crying need for
food conservation. The waste of food in
hotels, restaurants and private homes in
the United States has been a sin and
shame when there were SO many hun
cry mouths in the world to be fed, but
the war and the Hooverites are making
US less prodigal with our eatables
The fact that Frank A. vanderlip is
at the head of the baby bond" cam
paign Is evidence that at last the great
bankers together with the government
are beginning to realize that we have
got to teach all classes the lesson SO
long and well known in France that
a nation with the true saving habit will
not hoard it's wealth, but will put it in
bonds. The world wondered when France
SO quickly paid off the great war in
demnity put on her by victorious Ger
many. 1t was because she had learned
to save and to invest in dividend pay
ing securities.
I feel sure that the ''baby bond" cam
paign to put $1,000, 000, 900 worth of them
into the hands of small investors is
going to be the greatest and best lesson
in thrift that this country has ever had,
and therefore I applaud it not merely as
war measure, but as a great educa-
ticnal opportunity to teach to those who
need most to learn the lesson that there
is virtue in judcious saving.
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