The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1925-09-15
ENORMOUS IS COST OF
THE NATIONAL VACATION
is ESTIMATED THAT 80 MIL
LION PERSONS SPENT THREE
BILLIONS OF DOLLARS.
FARMER is SOLE EXCEPTION
Resorts Have Had Most Prosperous
Season Ever Known. Flood of
Money Poured Out by the Holiday
Throngs During the Summer.

Throngs During the Summer.
Americas vacation during 1925,
drawing now to close, has cost about
three billion dollars That, in round
figures, is the best available measure
of the flood of money that has been
poured out by holiday throngs during
the summer at seaside, mountain and
other vacation resorts. 1t stands, per-
| haps, as record spending for the an
nual vacation
Approximately 300O0O00 persons,
ii is believed, have taken an average
OF fortnight off to play, says Harden
! ColfaX, the well-known Washington
writer, in an article to the Savannah
| News. The number is larger this year
than usual because the country has
been singularly free of strikes and in
dustrial strife, and almost everybody
who wants to work has had a Job. To
this general rule the farmer alone
stands as an exception; anyhow, from
the nature of his work summer is not
| his vacation time.
Vacationists Swell Traffic.
The estimate of 30,000,000 vacation
lists allows for two persons out OF ev-
cry three gainfully employed, as shown
| by census bureau estimates. It does
not consider the perennial vacationists
! of the moneyed class who fit from
Maine to Florida with the seasons. No
line is possible for measuring their
outlay for holidays.
Railroads show on their monthly
reports to the Interstate Commerce
Commission a passenger traffic this
summer considerably above the aver
age. The transcontinental movement
has been particularly heavy and pull
man reservations hard to get except
far in advance California and the
great national parks welcomed this
year, it is believed from this showing,
far greater holiday crowds than ever
before
Summer resorts generally have new
er had a more prosperous season. Res
ervations have been impossible during
August at several of the more popular
Atlantic coast resorts except at the
great hotels which cater more to the
tourist than the two weeks vacation
spender. Mountain resorts have shared
with the seaside in the spending of
the holiday crowds.
Cost Uncle Sam $15,000000.
At Washington it is estimated that
! the annual vacation of Uncle Sans
home and field forces have cost the
nation about $15,000.000. That sum
represents salaries paid employees on
annual leave Nearly all federal en-
ployes have had vacation, refresh
| ing contrast to recent years when the
stress of postwar adjustment has held
thousands of their desks without the
customary summer relief.
Free tourist camps throughout the
east have been overlooking, in almost
every instance. this summer to an ex-
tent never before attained. A few
years ago there was room to spare at
nearly all of them. Now the rule APP
pears to favor line formation of appli-
cants. More persons have LACED along
the open road in 1925 than ever before.
An average estimate of the spend
ing of each vacationist during his time
off this summer has been placed, for
this correspondent, at approximately
800 by welfare workers Such an es-
innate is hard to make, they admit,
but the figure arrived at is considered
ultra conservative Assuming that it
applies to the 100000 vacationists
the total spendings run to $4,000 OO0,-
600.
Huge Figures Tell Tale.
This figure is checked loosely by es-
timated totals of sums paid wage earn
ers and salaried workers annually
throughout the United States. Various
economists have placed this annual
sum at from 100000 900 to SIS, 100000,
figuring the average annual income at
about 1900. The weekly payments,
under these estimates. run from about
| 81. 100 100000 to 81 ,500000000 for
wages and salaries
The two weeks wages and salaries,
therefore. would amount TO from ST.,
800. 000,000 to $1,000 100000. If the
average vacationist spent only his two
weeks pay the vacation spendings
would run to more than 0000O,000.
When to the vacation spendings are
added the fortunes spent weekly by
the American people for sports and
in other forms of play, including thea
tres and motion pictures, the cost OF
play this summer has run to sums
which cannot even be estimated.
The development OF the idea that
everyone needs vacation once year
has given employment to hundreds of
thousands OF persons who cater to va
cation needs and has founded great
manufacturing and other plants for
supplying paraphernalia for pleasure
parks and resorts-a phase of indus
trial life that was almost wholly lack
! ing some twenty-five or thirty years
ago when few persons looks vacations.
eonrE AHYT1mAyc ANN pTp0c