Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1918-03-19


for the Money would furnish an abun-
dance of food, goods and all of the
things demanded. However, taking
from twenty to forty million or more
men from the farms, workshops and
| industries of the world has created a
shortage in productive man-power
and here you have the unusual condi-
tions that must be solved back of the
firing line.
Take this question of food An
army travels on it's stomach. For long,
no soldier, however loyal and bra
can continue unless nourishingly fed,
so that at whatever cost there must
be sufficient food for our soldiers-and
as these soldiers are three thousand
miles away and must be transported,
that food must be of such character as
will give the most of nourishment and
can best be transported-at whatever
denial or sacrifice or change to our
selves, food for our soldiers is an in
dividual and collective duty.
Our second duty on this food ques-
ton is to feed our own people. Our
twelve men back of the firing line
travel on their stomachs as well as
the one at the front, and while we may
adjust ourselves to the larger employ
ment of foods that will not bear dis
tant transportation, the problem here
is after all more the elimination OF
waste than the curtailment of the act
ual needed supply. Right here is a
good place and an opportune time to
deny that the American people have
not been a provident and a saving
people.-Provident and Saving, not
Thrifty.-Saving Bank Deposits do
not alone furnish conclusive compari-
son. The people of the United States
carry more life insurance for the pro-
lection of dependents than all the
people of Europe combined. The
people of the United States carry more
accident and health insurance for
which they individually pay than is
carried in all the foreign countries.
In the number of policyholderS and
amount of assets accumulated and
saved in the companies and orders in
the United States we make very much
more than a favorable comparison
with the number of Savings Bank De-
poSitors and their deposits in Eng
land, France and Germany combined
and when you consider that eight out
of every ten policies of insurance are
carried at a sacrifice and denial, you
will have to admit that being provi
dent and saving has a little wider ap-
plication than merely depositing in a
Savings Bank or boarding in a sock,
and that therefore the American peo-
pie have demonstrated, by their provi-
sion for over forty billions of protec-
tion for dependents and themselves,
that they are first among all provi-
dent and saving peoples.
But the American people have not
been thrifty, and that is why the
Thrift Campaign will carry with it
such lasting and beneficial results.
Thrift is not the denial of necessities,
but the elimination of waste and eX-
traVagance. Sacrificing and denying
in the essential things you need to
live and be properly clothed to buy
L uTllI oIdIIpS Is uOI d
of Thrift, but reducing the size of the
garbage barrel, supplanting waste by
economy in food supply and use-and
in clothing-and cutting out eXtrava-
gance and the unessential things, is
what makes for the cultivation of
Thrift. And when you apply this rule
to the food question for our own
people, none of us need greatly suffer,
for we have thrown away more food
values every day than would feed
nation. What we sorely needed was
a lesson in Thrift, and with it, there
will be fewer graves dug with teeth,
tho there may be smaller incomes for
doctors.
After fully supplying the soldiers
at the front with food, and after per-
forming our second duty in feeding
our people with intelligent economy
and thrift, then we owe another duty:
to turn over the eXcess-and there
must be an excess-to the friendly
people of other nations-our allies
coming first 1t required an expert
ence such as this to demonstrate the
difference between. ''the high cost of
living and the cost of high living"
for with the Loyalty that dictates
Doing your utmost we recognize our
obligation to cultivate the habits of
Thrift, not only that there may be an
excess of food stuffs suitable for
transport to our allies, but that there
may also be an excess in the saving of
our cost of living to furnish the needed
Money TO the Government to carry
on this war to a successful conclusion.
We have got the men--we have got
the money, and we have got the food,
but only if we do not waste-if our
loyalty is genuine enough for prac-