Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1918-02-02
EVERY PERSON CAN
NOW BE HOLDER OF
A NATIONAL BOND

There is no national virtue so use
kful as the virtue of thrift, so essen
tial to national success as the habit
Of saving, so necessary to ability to
meet every demand of the critical
hour as economy. ..
AS a country we have become ma
ton of spendthrifts; we have deprived
ourselves of practically nothing. We
have erected costly public buildings.
We have created many useless offices.
We have paid out to persons holding
public jobs twice the amount for
which we could hire the same talent
in any private capacity. We seem to
have gloried in the vast sums congress
has annually authorized to be paid out.
! twenty-five years ago we were pay
| ing out a million dollars a day to run
| the affairs of the nation.
A period of extra extravaganza soon
seized the mind of the national con-
gress and shortly we went to two mil
lion dollars day for public expense,
or seven hundred million dollars a
year.
!
money that we raised the estimates
and actually appropriated billion
dollars year for governmental ex-
penses, making a daily expense &C
| count in round numbers of three mil
| lion dollars every "a hours for doing
the public work
This was a national affair.
1t was at Washington we thought
and it seemed so far away from us
that little note was taken of it.
But it had its effect at home in
every household. We demanded better
houses, better clothing, better food
more costly entertainment and more
vacations.
We were in mental runaway
People forgot the thrift Of the pio
neers and their frugal life in order to
save something to buy houses ant
farms and leave legacy to the chill
dren. We began to spend all of the
salary, all of the income, all of the
products of the farm.
As nation we seemed to want tt
make brilliant show. AS individual:
we followed the copy set for US ma
tionally. We were continually striv
ing to outshow our neighbor, oul
friend, our associate.
We forgot to save.
We got so extravagant that we pur
chased and have in use five million
automobiles, mostly used for pleasure
This item represents vast sum O
money, possibly two billion five hun
dred million dollars $780, 00, 000)
a sum SO vast that the mind car
scarcely conceive of it's magnitude.
II you had saved a dollar a minut.
from the birth of Solomon to this houl
you would still be short of the sun
expended for automobiles by the cit
liens of the United States. In fact
you would have to go back and begiI
saving dollar minute from the tim,
of the erection of the Pyramids wheI
Egypt was known as the land o
Goshen to have saved this princel!
sum represented by this one item ex
pended by the American people fol
automobiles alone.
But you say why speak Of this? Be
cause It may have a tendency to show
the drift of the national mind, to SHOW
the current of national life.
We must reverse the machinery.
We must go back to the habit o
the pioneer who came here to thes,
lands four-score years ago and b,
work and thrift made a wonderful
country. The loafer. the spendthrift
the dude did not do it, 1t was done b,
honest toll. strict economy and tn,
| mr. eti <.f
tues-thrift.
We are now at war with a thrifty
'successful and arrogant nation-driy