The Maui news. [volume] (Wailuku, Maui, H.I.) 1900-current, 1919-12-12
Blind Editor Makes
Powerful Plea For
Curbing Extravaganza

land (Oregon) Journal, before the
California State Press Association. re-
Gently, is one of the strongest appeals
for national thrift that has been made
in months. The condition he dwells
upon is n which is giving pause to
almost everyone who has seriously
considered the matter. He says
1t is doubtful if America has ever
been confronted with conditions so
precarious. There never was a
psychology so extraordinary.
Expenditures are terrific. The peo-
pie are on a mad financial spree. Nor
NAL business principles are dead.
Thoughts of thrift are forgotten. A
mans hat at 500 has become a com
monplace. Portland dealers placed
them on sale and the supply was ex-
hausted. The dealers were plunged
into wonderment and 1--WE They are
now buying hats that will be sold at
$25 and $50.
Nothing is stable. New York man
ufacturers and jobbers no longer
quote prices of goods on future de-
livery. They tell you the price now
and say that the price on future or
ders will be controlled by the then
market. Meanwhile, operatives in the
factories demand higher and higher
wages and operators grant them. OPP
orators have found that any price ask
ed will be paid, and the advanced
wage is granted and added with in
creased profit to the price at which
the goods go to the retailer. The
public comes along and pays whatever
is asked.
And so the pyramiding goes on.
People were excited during the war.
In many ways they are crazy now.
They never saw so much money spent
before, never saw it spent so lavishly,
never saw it come and go so easily.
All have forgotten that it was gov
eminent money that we have been
spending. 1t was the great sums told
off in billions that fed the shipyards,
the munition factories, the machine
works, the spruce camps and all the
other great works of production. In
all the history of the world, money
was never poured into industry with
such prodigal hard.
The spirit Of those days has become
epidemic. Though the great supply
source hat the government maintain
ed during hostilities is cut off, the
spending goes on. 1t is without end
or shape or limit. The s%hipworker'9
$1,000 automobile, and Milady's $1,000
fur, the housemaid's $3.50 tailor suit,
the stenographer's 5000 coat, a wom-
ans handbag at $3.50, a lady's gown
displayed in a San Francisco shop
window at the price of a house and
lot. These are parts of the long array
of lavishness in this extravaganza of
expenditure.
People seem crazed with the notion
that any e~xtravagant thing, any prod
igal purchase, any figure of wage, any
measure of profit is obtainable.
Do you realize what havoc habits
of unthrift are working in America?
In Portland in 1918, with an increase
of $4,000 in population, we built 266
dwelling houses. We bought $500
automobiles. We spent something
over half a million for houses; more
than ten million for automobiles. The
mortgage Indebtedness placed on
homes for the purchase OF automobiles
was $4,000 0
Listen: SiXty-siX out of every hun
dred persons who die in the United
States leave no estate whatever, and
of the remaining thirty7four only nine
leave estates larger than $4,000. A
the age of 6S, ninety-seven out of ev-
cry hundred persons in America are
partially or wholly dependent upon
relatives, friends or the public for
their daily bread, for their clothing
and for a roof under which to sleep.
N~inety-eight percent of the American
people are living from day to day on
their wages, and a loss of employ
ment would mean pauperism for all
but two percent.
Fewer than 100000 American fam
lilies own their own homes, 100000
are carrying mortgages, and 11,OO0,-
900 are renters. Every seven years,
one-third of the population of the city
of New York applies for charity. One
person in every ten who dies in our
large cities is buried in a pauper's
grave.
Thaoa fo,,rac a,a from, Government