The Washington herald., 1918-02-04
THRIFT WEEK.
By DOROTHY DIX.
The Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer

This is thrift week-the week set
apart by the Young Mems Christian
Association TO preach the gospel Of
saving 10 everyone in America.
It's a fine idea. Let's all get to-
gether and push It along. Let's talk
thrift, and what is better. practice
thrift, not only this week. but all the
balance OF our lives.
Our great national vice is wasteful-
ness. Because things have come
easily In this rich, new country. they
have gone easily. and we have ac-
tually taken a silly pride in being
spenders instead of savers.
The result has been that money has
flowed through our loose hands like
water through a sieve. and at the
end OF a war. or of a lifetime, they
were empty. There was not a dollar
to show for all the hard work. There
was not even any Jewels, or fine fur
niture. or a wardrobe of elaborate
clothes as the salvage of the gruell-
ing labor.
A year or two ago a man whom
knew well committed suicide because
he lost his Job. For twenty years he
had held a position that paid him
$1,000 a year. He had no one but his
wife to support. He was a model man
morally. He had neither gambled.
nor drank. nor speculated. but he and
his wife between them had simply
wasted Sl5.000 a year. They had lit
orally fooled 1t away. for when the
crash came all of their assets were
not worth sl.0oO.
The money had not gone for any
one or two big extravagances, but in
a hundred little leaks. 1t had gone
for taXicabs and restaurant bills. for
strawberries out OF season. and for
whatever happened to strike the
fancy for the moment, and in the
stealage of servants with no careful
eye upon them. They had frittered
away a fortune. and when the man
realized that in his old age he had to
face poverty he killed himself and
left his wife a pauper dependent on
her relatives.
Oh, it's easy enough to live up to
your income whether you earn SIS a
week or $4,000 year. and by the way
you settle this question, you settle
your fate. If you save part OF your
earnings you will achieve independ-
ence. If you spend all you make you
will be a wage slave as long as you
live, for 1t is not so much what we
make as what we save that consti-
tutes our anchor to the windward.
A wise man once told me that two
years after any young couple married
he could cast the horoscope of their
future He said that IL in that time
they had saved even as much as 500
they would go on to prosperity, and
the chances were that by the time they
were middle-aged they would be well
on their way to riches. But IL in the
first few years a young married couple
had not saved a cent, but had simply
lived from hand to mouth. they would
be poor to the end of their days.
In the first case the young couple
would have demonstrated that they
were thrifty, that they looked care
fully after the pennies, that they were
willing to deny themselves the present
pleasure for the sake Of a bigger good
later on, while the second couple
would have shown that they were
wasteful and self-indulgent, and had
neither foresight nor courage enough
to look out for the future.
A great many people despise thrift
because they think 1t is synonymous
with miserliness. Nothing could be
further from the truth. Thrift is
really the mother of all generosity be-
cause 1t is only those who have been
willing to deny themselves and save
what they made who have anything
to give. When we want help we do
not appeal to the shiftless. thriftless,
ne'er-do-wells of our acquaintance, but
to the canny men and women who
have been careful with their money.
Only the thrifty can be generous.
Only the thrifty can be free. The man
and woman who have not a dollar
saved up are slaves to those who pay
them wages. They must do as they
are hidden. Independence is a luxury
that belongs only to the economically
free. The man and woman who have
saved up enough money to live on,
even for year, belong to themselves
and are in a position to dictate terms
to an employer.
And the god Of opportunity knocks
ten times as often at the thrifty mans
door as he does at the waster's. II is
the man who has saved a little nest
egg who can take advantage of the
chance that Games his way to go into
something that leads TO fame and for
tune.
How often do we hear the bitter wall
of some man. 81 saw my opportunity
and could have made a fortune II 1