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BEN FRANKLIN AND THRIFT

BEN FRANKLIN AND THRIFT
This is National Thrift Week and
Monday was the 2l5th birthday ami
versary of Benjamin Franklin, one Of
Americas greatest men, great because
he practiced thrift in its truest mean
ing.
Benjamin Franklin reached an envi-
able pinnacle in early American life
because of his sanity of living. He
was proud man and was stirred by
ambitions, but that sense of false
pride, the downfall of so many men
and women, he carefully eliminated
from his manner of living. That others
might eat from silver, placed on cloths
of fine linen when his own table affored
no more than pewter and earthen bowls
did not bring worry to his mind. Ar
rogance in manner and speech was dis
tasteful to Franklin. Yet he was the
colonial diplomat, and by gentle sug
gestion he was able to bring those
around him in accord with his views
on numerous subjects.
Reing thrifty does not mean being
miserly and parsimonious. 1t does not
mean living unto oneself A life of
true thrift is a life Of usefulness. The
man or woman who would pursue the
course Of Benjamin Franklin would not
only eliminate a waste of the material |
substance of life but would also prac
tice conservation of mental effort. |
Franklin amassed no mean personal |
fortune. yet he had time for the pub
lie welfare. His activities toward the
public veal, however, were not sought
for personal aggrandizement, to salts
fy the pride of power attained.
A man may be thrifty in the sense
that he learns how to save money and
yet permit himself to be chained by
pernicious habits. Time may make
him a slave to habits that rob him of
health or prestige at a prodigious
rate. Benjamin Franklin searched
himself on occasion and set about to
eliminate bad habits.
America is in great need today Of
the principals on which Franklin based
his life. If every American family /
could by some means inculcate into the
children of that family an adherence /,
of waste and wanton display, these /
would grow all the more hap |
PLY into better citizens of the nation.
How often have you seen children Of !
a school age, of one family really 8
suffer because their fellows of another a
displayed more fine clothes or were II
able to entertain more layishly? How ;,
)ften does matron yearn after money d
% buy fine clothes simply because some b
leighbor's wife expends her resources
hus? How often does the head of a =,
amilY keep himself chained to debt, II
n order to maintain a club rating of il
rs some fellow business man? Without u
'eal pride and ambition, men and
women would settle back to degrad- .,
ng level, but the wise man and woman, al
IS did Benjamin Franklin, will distin-
-uish between pride ard false pride "
nd thus will save himself or herself @(
much bitterness and be enabled to give m
nd get far more from life. Is
When Benjamin lived, the Atlantic az
oast was the nations frontier, and ~
erhaps in this age Of pioneering he la
Ias able to practice his tenets of thrift or
rec from the obstacles that beset men 80
nd women of more modern times. ~
Conditions themselves, of pioneer no
ays, necessitated some such principal
)r the very preservation of life 1t WI
as so in the Middle Western frontier AZ
rat produced Abraham Lincoln. We mC
lay find the same thing true if we ca
.udy the lives of our own pioneers. =
ioneer living produced a type of ab
.urdy Americanism that has brought no
le nation to the van in world affairs th'
day. The frontier. however, and its lhi
lforced teachings have vanished.
ut, unless we would grow decadent sti
e should search those times and apply ge
.e lessons they teach. lh'