Walker Lake bulletin. (Hawthorne, Nev.) 1883-1926, 1918-09-07
Buying 1t Is Merely Lending
Money to Yourself for a
Great Necessity.
U.S.. GOVERNMENT MEANS US
etupendous Amounts Are Needed to
Pay for Work and Materials, So
Our Old-Time Extravagances
Must Be Dropped.
BY JOHN PALMER GAvIT.

One of the good results that will ac-
crue TO the American people from their
participation In the war is a better
understanding of the purpose and
function of money. Also, they will
more fully appreciate their relation to
the government and the fact that 1t Is
their government-as much theirs as
their homes and farms and factories.
For purposes of poetry and sentiment
it Is well enough to talk about uncle
SAM" your devotion to him, your will
ingness to lend to him by the purchase
Of bonds, War Savings Certificates and
Thrift Stamps, and to give your own
life and the lives of your sons on the
actual fighting front; but you must not
lose sight of the fact that after all, the
United States, "Uncle SAM" U. S."
Our Country" and so on-whatever
poetic phrase we use to represent the
nation in its united action and aspi-
ration-is just US, ourselves in our
own proper persons, working and saw
ing and applying our joint strength for
ourselves, our children and our chill
dren's children.
Too much have we thought of the
government, the nation, Uncle Sam,
and so on, as something separate from
ourselves something to which we give
and lend, eagerly or willingly or
grudgingly or under compulsion, as the
case may be. We have had too little
of the practice of team work for a
great common purpose-our own pur-
pose.
The Liberty Bond campaigns fur
nish occasion for reminding ourselves
that it Is our country, ourselves in our
organized capacity, that is engaged in
the war to abolish autocracy; that
"Uncle Sam" is US, In common de-
termination to do and give all of our
selves to an enterprise as thoroughly
worth while as the American Revolu-
ton or the war to preserve the Union
and free the slaves. And one of the
ways in which we can participate d.
rectly and actively in this enterprise Is
to turn our money-all of 1t that is not
absolutely and honestly necessary to
the essential purposes of living and
keeping well and efficient for the other
things we have to do to help along the
enterprise-over to ourselves in our
organized capacity; that is, to the
government, for the work Of the war
which it is conducting for us.
Money Useful Only for Exchange.
Money is nothing In itself-just pa
per and metal 1t is useless unless
somebody else will accept it in ex-
change for something he has or some
thing he can do. The measure of its
value to you is the Other fellows need
of the materials or the labor which it
will In turn command for him. Spend
ing money is the way we have of get
ting from other people the things they
have or the work they can do-"Goods
and Services" Our responsibility,
therefore, lies in the question of the
kind of things for which we choose
to exchange money, and the time and
circumstances in which we exert that
choice.
Now, we have been a very wasteful
and extravagant people; we have not
thought much about the effect upon
ourselves and other people and upon
the nation as whole, of the ways in
which we spent our money or the time
and circumstances in which we spent
1t. But the war is compelling us to
think about that. Not even the great
est nation, or the most powerful gov
eminent, or the shrewdest financiers
can make something out of nothing.
And when war, the most ravenous kind
of waste and extravaganza that man.
kind has devised comes along to take
workers out of industry and off the
farms, and to turn them from produc-
ton to high-power consumption and
destruction-no matter If the ultimate
purpose of the war be quite worth its
cost in life and property-there simply
are not material and labor enough in
the country to permit both the contin-
uance of the old kinds of expenditure
and the taking on of the new.
Why We Must Do Without
For the purposes of the war the
government of the United States must
have stupendous amounts of materials
and work. and there is not enough of
these to give the government what II
must have and at the same time allow
the people generally to have as much
material and work for their private
uses as they have in ordinary times
Therefore we must to the greatest
possible extent keep out of the market
for materials and labor, so as "a tc