Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1918-06-21
SPENDING HIS THIRTY
Private Tells How He Spends
His Monthly Wage. Is
Surely Financier.

The following article is taken from
The Madison Barracks Barbed Wire,
weekly publication issued by the
Photographic corps at that post in
New York state. 1t is private'S
own story of how he expends his $50
month.
The ordinary enlisted man in this
war isn't expected to save money.
The government attends to that de-
tail.
Thirty greenbacks every thirty days,
couple of snappy uniforms, three
square meals per day, canvas cot
with plenty of covers, dental and
medical work taken care of at Uncle
Sans expense and few miles OF
travel with little adventure tossed
in-sounds like she" mans opinion
of life IDEAL doesn't it?
"Poor boy" the town ways used to
say, she gives up everything for SIS a
month" Congress saw to it that the
ante was raised to $50 month.
But how many persons have ever
paused to total up the chances a pri-
vate is given to keep his 30 simoleOns
from burning holes in the pockets of
his best uniform? Few indeed.
Yes, he gets the 30 per, but not in
the form of particularly tough pieces
of parchment colored a tantalizing
green and bearing signatures conspicu-
Gus for their illegibility which, the
barber will barter for Shaves No,
stree, the soldier ofItoday is financier
and the government paymasters are
camoufleurS.
"When does the ghost waikiki was
: the most used question In the army
at one time, but in many cases today
it recalls the troublesome thoughts to
the enlisted mans mind. The thought
of pay day is not troublesome because
he has to spend what he gets.
Take corporal, for instance. He
lis down on the muster roll for the fat
sum of Sc iron men. Out of that
Uncle Sam takes an allotment of'S15
to be sent to the soldiers mother,
with his permission of course. Then
comes a $40 instalment on couple of
Liberty bonds that will be nice and
Juicy by the time the war is over.
There goes S25 out of the S36. We
have S11 to account for. He has
out $4,000 war risk insurance policy
which all good soldiers should do, and
he is minus $3.50 more on this item.
Three dents have taken $3.50 out Of
the S36.
The corporal stalks up t.. the pay
master and is handed $3.50 in cold
+. cash at the end of each months work.
An awful lot of money to be burdened
with, isn't it? Out of this he buys
enough stationery, stamps and ink to
keep him in touch with his mother,
four or five sweethearts, half dozen
aunts, and who knows, maybe he has
score of cousins who won't speak to
him when he comes back from Berlin
unless he drops them "a line of cheer
twelve times in the year."
This month he happens to need a
new toothbrush and one of his tent
mates has suggested that he quit
borrowing other peoples soap and
buy cake of his own. He needs an
occasional smoke to help level his
spendthrift mind and he wouldn't be
zone Of the boys unless he saw Douglas
Fairbanks in the canteen movies once
ID month and drank dope once in
"a while.
But | amt no corporal" chimed in
"a ''rook" who stood by listening to
the fortunate S36 one describe his
plight, ''aDd my mother needs that
Is rocks every month, and [ stand
Just us good a chance of being popped
off over in France SO my folks can
collect that $4,000 insurance.
True enough, but how is he going
to pay $3.50 insurance, make a SIS
allotment and stow away pair of
Liberty bonds on $50 per- when these
three figures total $31.50. He'd be
owing the government $3.50 every
thirty days. The soldier of today has
to be financier to get away grace
fully with his monetary worries.
It's one sure bet that all privates
can't be plungers. But the govern
ment makes the allotment compulsory
and the war risk insurance covers
more than 80 per cent of the men in
the division With these two items
the private manages to give month
ly accounting for S2l so SO the most
he can have in his jeans is $3.50. But
they don't all have this much; the
average pay of an enlisted man is 81.
Cholera MOrbus.