The Breckenridge news. (Cloverport, Ky.) 1876-1955, 1920-01-21
> 80 .
: THRIFT is STILL A VIRTUE .


The time has come for the people
OF this country to get their spending
off war basis and on a peace basis.
II is time for a revival of thrift, a
return to the good old ideathat there
is something immoral in the wasting
of money; IL is time for season of
money-saving.
No one, OF course, will think for a
minute that we are advising any
policy of tight-hstedness, any endea-
vor to save money by doing without
things that are really needed on the
farm. The making of money must
come before the saving of money in
every case, and the farmer who
saves" by doing without the things
that would enable him to earn more
is really very extraxagant citizen.
But there can be no question that
we have all been wasting money of
late.
During the war we could not afford
to stop to count the cost OF winning
IT and we had to win it, or all our
moneysavings would have been worth
nothing. So we put our money into
it without regret and almost without
thought. Unfortunately, too, we &C
quired the habit of putting il into other
things, not so essential, in the same
way. The result was that we soon
found ourselves paying prices we had
never thought of paying and often
for things we had never before
thought of buying. This gen.
eral willingness to spend without
hesitation or consideration has I'M
questionably been one of the great
reasons for the height to which prices
have scared.
Apples were sold in this city all
last winter for ten and fifteen cents
apiece. Everybody knew that those
prices were robbery, but everybody
bought the high-priced apples just the
same Men who used to be satisfied
with paying five dollars for pair of
shoes or one dollar for a shirt did
not stop with paying ten dollars for
the same shoes or two dollars for the
same shirt; they bought fifteen-dollar
shoes and four-dollar shirts. So all
along the line.
1t is time for this foolishness to
stop, or it is going to be the worse
for all of us. The farmers, withtheir
inherited traditions of thrift, are the
people to stop tat least, it is up to
them to stop their part of it,. to get
back to their old realization of the
value of dollar, and to their old
realization that the dollar that he
saves or wisely invests is the only
one that will be worth anything to
a man tomorrow or next year.
The conservative farmer will be shy
of the present inflated land prices
They are inflated, in many sections
because they have outrun earning
capacity of the land The man who
can buy for cash may take a chance
on them at present prices, If he choos-
es; but the man who must buy large
ly on credit should be very careful in
deed about assuming heavy burden
of debt at this time.
Thoughtful farmers will of course,
hold on to their Liberty Bonds and
War Savings Stamps. They are safe
investments and almost certain to in
crease in value. Money can be bor-
owner who must have money will us
ually find it to his advantage to bor-
row on them rather than to sell them
at a discount Of course, no thought
full farmer is going to throw away
good money on the wildcat stocks
now so freely offered and extensively
advertised.
Finally, the prudent farmer will
keep his living expenses, his expendi-
lures for things that are not essen
tial and for essentials that do not add
to his productive capacity, down to a
reasonable figure. He will realize that,
since the prices of his own products
are going down, he cannot afford to
pay wartime prices for the things he
eats or wears out or amuses himself
with
Nearly all of us have been living
above out incomes just because it was
the easiest thing to do. We must get
back to the ground again. The man
with three or four-thousand-d dollar in
come who pays ten dollars for a shirt
and fifteen dollars for pair of shoes
is the man who is going to be pres
emily talking hard times and clamor-
ing for more money. What such a
man really needs is not large income
but to be bored for the simples.
Everyone of us who attempts to
go on at a wartime spending gait will
need the. same thing-Southern
Agriculturist