Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1921-current, 1922-09-04
The HQSkin Letter 81 ' : Rsssz
LIVING COSTS AND STANDARDS.

This is an addition to, not an increase
in, the cos of living.
These instances could be multiplied
almost ~endiessly. The country is
flooded with novelties in the way of
new foods, new sorts of wearing ap-
parel, new amusements and a thou
sand and one other new things totally
unknown to and unused by the man of
only one generation ago..
The magazines furnish ar interest
ing example. There are thousands of
periodical publications in the United
States today, most of which have large
circulation; most of them so large as
to stagger the Imagination. A large
circulation means that the people are
buying the papers and magazines.
Ninety per cent of this circulation
is additional. 1t represents, not an
increased expense, but an added ex-
pense, compared with what people dis
rsed a generation ago. The prices
Of the commodities have not so much
increased: the people buy more com
modities and, especially, a greater va
riety of them.
What Automobiles Cost
Perhaps the single biggest addition
to the cost of living is the automo-
bile. Not so many years ago the
horseless carriage was a curiosity re-
garded as practical only by Missionaries.
Today every tenth person in the
| United States has one. This means
low average cost of running an auto
mobile is 81 a day. This means that
the American people spend $10,000,0 U0
a day for automobile upkeep, as there
as 100000 automobiles. This
! amounts to $3,650,000,000 a year, adj
I mittedly a conservative figure.
A fair average price for an auto
mobile is 81 900 and an automobile
will last, on an average, 5 years.
Then, if a 81 ZOO car lasts five years,
it costs $500 a year, in addition to
the upkeep. There are 10,0QO,0O0
cars in use. This makes $4,000, 900, 900
a year. Add this to the upkeep cost
and you have a total of $5,650,000 a
can people. This, of course, is not
an increase in the cost of living, but
an addition to the cost of living.
On the other hand, some of the i'm
portant commodities have decreased
in value. Electric light is a wholly
new and added expense. Before its
advent oil lamps were used. kerO-
sene oil cost % cents a gallon. 1t
was not nearly SO good as that which
now costs from five to seven cents a
gallon. White sugar, throughout the
country, was a luxury which not every
every one could procure, brown sugar
being the table staple and mOlasses or
long sweetening. as it was called,
being widely used. But where white
sugar was procurable, it cost from %
cents a pound up. During the war,
it rose to that height again for q
brief period, but Immediately before
the war and shortly after, it was
~procurable at from four to 10 cents d
pound.
What the economists point out is
that the American standard of living
is so high that it misleads many
people. Our people spend a lot but
they get a lot. Recently two Scandi.
navian- born Americans met. One haC
been to his old home and was telling
the other of the good fortune that hac
befallen one of their mutual friends
He said that the man had become
rich. He had done so well, the mar
explained, that he had bought himself
a bicycle.
There is a concrete example of wha'
is meant by saying that the cost o,
living has not increased in America 81
much as the scale of living has in
creased. Americans have more thar
any other people in the world; the!
are surrounded with a bewilderin!
variety of goods, most of which ar
within reach of the comparativel.
deep purses of the wage workers. /
is an old adage that he who pay.
the piper is entitled to call the tune
Americans call an expensive tune.