Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1919-03-20
SAVING TO STABILIZE
BUSINESS OF COUNTRY
Systematic Buying and EIimina-
ton of Waste Lead to PROMPT
Payment of Bills and
Happiness.

and TO make the pursuit Of hapDineSS
possible to oppressed humanity. Peri
Odicaliy in the United States there
have come times of financial depres-
sion; production has exceeded con-
sumption; factory doors have closed /:
workers have found themselves with
out money and the retailers who serve
them have faced the gloomy alterna-
tive of refusing credit and going out
of business because of lack of trade.
or extending credit and going to smash
because Of lack Of funds. The store
closes its doors and immediately other
stores, even those competing, feel the
unwholesome influence. Panic spreads
just as surely as when there is run
on a bank and failure stares many
merchants in the face.
Now the more thrifty the people OF
community are the more promptly
they pay their bills. and the more
promptly bills are paid the more re-
mote becomes the possibility Of fail
nre. If every worker is a systematic
saver, with savings made possible by
careful, intelligent buying and the
elimination of waste, the hard time
Will be safelHsMidgcd and will be re
mendOusly shortened. 1t is. therefore,
good business for the retailer TO Join
in a campaign against impulsive bay
ing and waste. The mechanic who, in
flush times, buys an unnecessarily
elaborate article, and who, in hard
times, repudiates his bills, is n0t as
good a customer AZ the one who used
restraint in his day Of prosperity and
had margin for the rainy day. The
former undermines business-the lat
ter stabilizes it.
The judicious buyer who exercises
care in his purchase also carefully and
conscienti0usly meets his obligations.
The man who throws money away
treats his bills as IL scrap of paper.
Waste is an enemy Of good business.
tigators found that II per cent OF the
contents of the garbage cans was per
fectly good fOodstutf. The amount Of
disable material abandoned in this
country every year amounts to mil
lions. The farmer leaves the plOw to
rust away outside the barn all win
ter; the housewife OyerheatS the
house; the factory worker throws good
material on the scrap heap, and all
those things make it possible that in
the United States today there are
l 100000 people, whose working days
are over, dependent upon charity, indi
vidual and county, to the extent Of
$500, 100000 year, dependent because
in their earning days they cultivated
habits Of waste rather than those of
thrift
Education in thrift must be an edu-
cation in values. That education must
the workers Of tomorrow. Hereafter
more of a youths precious school
hours should be devoted TO a consid-
Grafton of the principles of how to live
how to take 4 helpful and progressive
part in the problems Of a workaday
world. The biggest lack in this ma
ton is a department which will teach
the value of a dollar.
The young man who in school re-
ceived the proper training in thrift
will take account of the use of say
ings. Savings is worse than useless
if the hard-earned accommodations are
invested in some of the innumerable
gOld-brick, get-rich-quick schemes
which take millions Of dollars out of
our communities each year.
The treasury department is confident
that no safer and more attractive plan
has been offered for the encourage
ment Of small systematic investment
than that Of War Savings Stamps. II
the investor can lay aside but % cents
a week he has here the means of put
ting that amount away in a safe Sc
curity. If he can set aside four dol
lars and a few odd cents each week
that amount begins working for him
at a good rate of interest, which, with
the principal, he will receive at the
end of five years. Let the necessity
Of redemption arise through illness or
hard times-he can have the ready
cash ten days after he applies for it.
In a certain great industrial plant
where 90 per cent of the employees
were regular buyers of thrift stamps
the influenza epidemic was met with
the minimum of suffering. The men
had the funds available for doctor and
medicine and proper food. They met
their bills promptly and did not embar-
raSS the merchants of the community.
1t would be hard today to get any Of
these men to abandon the thrift habit
which the government has taught them.
SAVE IN WAR ON WASTE
Cardinal Gibbons for Savings.
An appeal for continued support of
the governments war savings cam