The Washington herald., 1922-06-12
The Consumer.

THE seats of the mighty have been gradually
j circumscribed through the ages. In the ebb
and flow of organized governments the tide OF au-
tocracy has been gradually .receding these 1000
years. Perhaps some day the will wake up
and find itself actually in the long g-dreamed-of
Utopia A recent editorial in Golfers takes both
the optimistic and logical viewpoint. 1t reads:
THE American audience loves personality
Let US, therefore, remind ourselves often of one
who though heroic figure, is destined for great
ness His name is small. He dresses quantity in
ill-fttng garments much patched and out OF shape
He carries many bundles, and usually umbrella
His mien is harried doleful, and he is continually
peerng about through thick spectacles if fearful
of sudden onslaught No, he is neither Adonis
an Apollo, yet Georges Carpenter. Yet
his portrait is drawn often and most fondy
by the highest paid and most powerful artists IN
the world-the cartoonists. You have seen him in
Mr.. Darling's pictures the page. He is
labeled The Consumer.
Humble now and set upon, he shall yet be
first among
Coined words are often spurious. When as
sayed they lack the pure gold of true meaning,
But here is one, minted by engineer named
Sidney A. Reeve, which looks like legal tender.
AS the bank tellers say, it stacks. The word is
'Consumerism.'
NO DOUBT you Deleve tnat tnere arc dlIeduy
too many isms' loose in the world. They hunt in
pairs fighting they go: commercialism, Social
ism; indvidualism, coectvism; capitalism, union
ism. We put our money on Consumerism to drive
the whole pack into limbo.
"In that ideal world toward which we set our
course, men will be weighed and measured. not by
what they take away from the consumer, but by
what they contribute to his support and happiness.
There viii be plenty OF chance TO- individualsn.
But when the individual producer comes up against
the rights Of the consumer he will have to step
aside:
"We have been passing through period in
which there has been too much thinking about the
rights of this that individual group, too much
about the rights of the worker or the employer, OF
the farmer the merchant or the banker.
Too many offices and factories with
just one ambition-to make money, without regard
to the real usefulness of the product. Henry Ford
says: "The manufacturer who doesn't think first
of the consumer isn't business man; he's nut; ;
and some other manufacturers will acknowledge
that Henry knows what is good for business.
Too many ordinances and statutes are passed
too many tariff schedules. taxes, subsidies, YER
botens set up, to take of this that par
ticular interest
1--WE are coming to time when every public
question be settled in the interest of the
sumer. This is not going to happen, Mr. Reeve
expects, swiftly and violently, nor will it end in
sweeping reordering of the worlds affairs. There
will be no sudden revolt of consumers angered by
the price of potatoes the high wages of carpen-
tiers. The sovereignty of the Ultimate Consumer
will come about through the steady pressure Of
public opinion, which, Lowell said, is like the
pressure of the atmosphere; you can't it, but,
all the same, it is sixteen pounds to the square
inch.' ,"