Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1918-10-23
THE WESTERN
FRONT AT HOME

people of America have been coached
In thrift. Instead of the old problem
In the arithmetic book. IF Mary's
mother gave her three apples, Jane
gave her two, and she ate one. how
many would she haveT the third grade
girl is now sent to the blackboard to
solve, ''How many Thrift stamps at
25 cents apiece will Mary own at the
end of IL months If she saves 10 cents
a week ?",ayKs
The girl Mn the grade above her is
learning in her arithmetic lesson how
many Thrift stamps it takes to buy the
yarn for 500 helmets for the soldiers
In France. Still farther on the eighth
grader is told to figure in terms of War
supply regiment of Uncle Sans men
with shelter tents.
And now the Earn and Give club Of
the younger girls of the Young Wom-
| ems Christian association is organ
ICED to turn those Thrift lessons into
been turning in pennies and nickles
and pasting green stamp on their
Thrift card. The Earn and Give club
can now use some of those cards and
War Savings stamps in their campaign
among the younger people for the
united war fund.
This fall when the war council of
the Y. w. G. A. made plans for the
| 1913 war drive, 1t included in its pro-
gram the rule that no young girls un-
/ der eighteen can do any soliciting,
| on the streets or otherwise. They can
give, but they can only give by earn
ing. Consequently in order to co-or-
dinate the efforts of the girls in all the
districts over the country, the Earn
1 and Give club is enrolling members
and has given out an estimate, of IS
apiece to be earned for the war fund
campaign by the American girls who
still count their age in teens. Five
dollars apiece from the younger girls
of the country will mean that the ma
ton as a whole will fill its charitable
organizations war chest.
Some high school girl in New York
city is going to earn her SIS by shining
her own shoes instead of stopping at
the Greek stand on her way to school
and by making her own sandwiches for
her noon lunch. Out in Iowa the girl
who has been spending Is cents plus
war tax for movie three nights a
week is going to draw a line through
| the movie habit except when there is
an especially good bill. More than one
| girl plans to clean all her own gloves
this winter and to salvage all the pa
/ per and collections of junk about the
| house which should be sold to the junk
man to be worked over into some pro-
ductive industry. The girls in their
teens are going to earn instead of
ask others for the money. They are to
sacrifice and give in their own names
and older women will make the public
requests for money elsewhere. n
Many of the girls who are waiting
to join the Earn and Give club are al
ready Patriotic leaguers, and they have
learned several practical lessons in the
thrift that will make them effective
members Of the new club by their con-
servation of fruits and vegetables.
They have canned and picked. Now
when the end of summer brings the
beginning of school they will change
their thrift into winter thrift and be-
gin saving their SIS for the Y. VIC. A.
war fund. ere
wherever You Are Is the Western
| Front" Is the slogan which the Earn
and Give club has adopted Anna, one
wiry thirteen-year-old daughter of New
York's East side, who was one of the
first and youngest members to join the
campaign at New York settlement
house, had to have 1t explained to. her
that instead, of western front meaning
fight and fight meaning fists, the west
tern, front means work and work means
save In order to give.
! The girl who joins the Earn and
Give club will discover that In con-
| junction with her working and saving
| In order that her club will furnish its
quota of the money that Is going to
help the girls like herself In France
and Belgium, she will also find numer-
! Gus ways in the community to help the
war that she had never dreamed of.
She will see that all the fruit pits and
stones that can be saved from her own
| dining table and from those Of her
neighbors, are dropped into the little
red barrel at the corner, In order that
the carbon which the seeds contain can
be used in making charcoal for the
| American soldiers gas masks. She will
save all the tin foil that she sees for
the Red Cross. She will help collect
clothing for the French and Belgium
orphans and perhaps send them some
of her own.
School girls In India, children from
squalid. dingy homes, with absolutely
no spending money, gave last year to
Belgian and Armenian relief when
they themselves were not getting
enough to eat. They gave up their
meat once week for the Belgians
though they only had it twice wees
themselves, and for the Armenians
they set aside the handful of fresh
grain that otherwise each girl would