Grand Forks herald. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1916-1955, 1922-03-30
NONSENSE ON LIVING COSTS,

1t may be wondered if those who compile ex.
aggerated figures on living costs and family needs
realize gust how ridiculous they make themselves
and how they injure the cause which they seek to
support by publishing conclusions which every in
Itelllgent person knows. to be absolutely false. Here,
for instance, is B. NJ. Jewell, who is engaged in max
ing medicine for the railroad shop crafts workers.
and who has just informed the railway labor board
that $3.50 a year is needed for the maintenance OF
the average railway mechanics family, and that this
sum will provide merely "a sane supply of food and
only the barest minimum in other respects"
If Mr.. Jewell is a man of ordinary intelligence
and observation he knows that such an estimate is
absurd. He may not realize that everybody else
knows 1T to be absurd, Outside the large cities,
where extremes of all kinds are massed in ways
which create for those cities their own special prob
lens, American people generally live~lives of rea-
sonable comfort and are able to rear their families
IN comfort and self-respect, and most OF them did
it on incomes not more than half what Mr.. Jewell
alleges to be necessary.
The Herald has in mind one family, which it
could name If it were proper to do SO. in which there
arc now fourteen living children. The father is not
a railway employc, but he is a mechanic. and a very
capable onc.' We are not informed as to his 'carn-
I1gs, but they are about the earnings of other indus
trlous men IN his calling. His work is subject to
seasonal fluctuations. and it is quite certain that the
earnings OF men of his type in the occupation which
ne follows have not averaged, 500 d month since he
began to raise a family. The childrc,i in that fam
ny nave Deefl we'll ted and clothed. They have at
tended school regularly. Some of the older girls are
married, and preside over comfortable homes OF
their own. The Older sons are men already taking
their places i'll a crcditable way in the life OF their
community, and the younger ones are going through
the schools and making good records. The family
is a happy one, normal, sensible, with no. apparent
thought that theirs has been a hard lot.
The Herald is quite we'll aware that it would be
easy to draw a picture OF this kind without any
facts on which to base it, so long as no names are
mentioned. We can only give assurance that this
case is a genuine one. But the reader is invited to
look around his own community and check up on
his own acquaintance. He will not find many du-
plicatcs of the case cited, because that is an excep-
tlonal one on account of the size. of the family. But
he will find cases here and there a~pproximating it,
enough to demonstrate that the facts cited arc pos
slble and real. He will find many among those
whom he knows we'll who arc rearing smaller tamil
les on incomes no larger, and who are doing so
credltably and comfortably.
Statistics in such a case do not count for much.
Personal tendencies are infinitely more important.
The larger income is a pleasant thing to have. 1t
can be made to supply perfectly legitimate pleasures
winch would be unattainable without it. But the
individual who has the right sort of adaptabnitv can
mt himself into almost any circumstances save the
most extreme, and do so with a very appreciable
measure OF comfort. The man who, barring acct
dents, cannot live respectfully on 500 a month will
not live nationally on ten times that sum.