Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1920-01-22
NATIONAL EXTRAVAGANCE.

The cost of living is what it costs
 to live. It is not limited to the bare
 necessities of life. It is not to be
 confined within arbitrary schedules
 It is not the same for one person as
 for another. 1t is governed by in-
 dividual earning capacity, by indi-
 vidual tastes, by varying conditions
 and associations. It costs one man
 more to live than it does another
 because connections and surround
 ings demand more expensive style
 of living. It is truism that the
 more man makes the more he
 spends--the more he thinks he must
 spend; and what man spends for
 personal or family use whether it is
 for bread or diamonds, is the cost ot
 living for him. What is true of an
 individual is true of a group and is
 true of a nation. When the average
 of incomes is advanced by general
 prosperity, the average of expendi-
 lures increases proportionately, may,
 indeed, increase much faster than
 the incomes, for the desire to spend grows with the capacity, and the temptation to extravaganza is strong Fer when the means, to satisfy it are at hand. There is no doubt what ever that there is more extrava- gance in the United States today than
 has ever been known before, more perhaps than has ever been known in any nation at any time. Ancient Rome in it's days of greatest pros
 perity could show examples of in- dividual extravaganza far beyond anything known in this age, but the masses or the people were poor and could not be extravagant. In Amer say that extravaganza is national l. Everywhere, in city and country, people are buying things they never thought of buying before and de- manding qualities in their purchases that were beyond their dreams in the past.
 This is not the result of high prices, but of expanded incomes. As has been often said, it is not so much the essential high cost of liv- ing that is troubling us as the cost of living high. Prices of the essen 'tials of life have gone skyward, it is true, and to millions the advance in incomes has no more than kept pace Swith these advances in cost, if it has done even that. Yet, there arc re- latively few who, are not earning q great deal more, measured in dol lars, than they did two years ago, and the receipt or these larger earn ings is temptation to expenditures for things not formerly bought, a temptation that not many resist. Even among those who, although re- ceiving more money, are relatively no better off than in 1915, the general tendency to extravaganza is appar- ent, and naturally this tendency isI more marked in those having larger .mcans for it's satisfaction, par ticularly among those who have not heretofore had the means. It Is the uniform testimony of merchants throughout the country that their customers are demanding the high est prices goods and that low-priced goods are practically unstable. The claim is so general that there must be truth in it that low-priccd goods that will not sell can be quickly sold by the simple expedient of marking up the prices and thereby giving the goods an appearance of greater value.
 In proof of this attitude Miss Edith Strauss. representing the de- partment of justice, gave some ex- amples in her talk to the women's mass meeting, held at the Odeon, Saturday, to form an organization to combat the high prices. She told of m eastern merchant who displayed in his window complete outfit ot dress for d woman, materials of good quality, for sl0o. He reported that women looked at it, but mot single one ever inquired about it" "A Boston merchant, she said, dis nlaved shoes in windows on opposite sides of the street. exactly the same shoes in each window, marking the shoes in one window at Se.5o and in the other at $l1. He sold more shoes at $14 than at $s.5o. Some time axo we received letter from mer- chsnt in a little town in Illinois telling us us of somewhat similar eS- pertinent with similar results, and the evidence of this general attitude come from all parts of the country showjng disposition to eNtravagance tbat needs to be curbed ii the coun-