Evening star., 1934-09-09
AMERICANS ITCHING FEET
BY FREDERIC J. HASKIN.

Travel. the Bureau Of the Census
has estimated, in normal years con-
stitutes a greater industry than any
other in the United States with the
exception of the food manufacturing
and textile industries. In an average
year. Americans, urged onward by
their itching feet. spend in the neigh
borhood of $1,000 ,000, 900.
No other people in the world have
ever travelled so inveterately and so
extensively. Not even the nomadic
tribes of Asia, not even the wandering
bands of primitive North American
Indians ever travelled so much as
average Americans.
Business is responsible for vast
amount of travel. The fact that so
large a Nation is peopled homogene-
| ously, the high standard of living
which enables people in New Eng
land to buy the products Of the South
west and the reverse and many other
factors result in an incessant parade
of travelling statesmen, as we'll as other
| types of business representatives. But
even were the business travellers sub
tracted, it still would be found that
Americans are almost constantly on
the move 1t Is true that most of
| the travel is concentrated in the Sum-
mer, the holiday period, but vacation
months account for by no means all
: of the travel merely for travels sake.
Each Winter sees migration of
northern-dwelling individuals to Flo
rida, California, and other sunny re-
gions.
Americans feel under the necessity
| to go somewhere to spend Christmas,
the New Year. Easter. Every holiday
beckons away from home and in
duces travel. Almost any normal
American, when asked what he would
do were he endowed with leisure and
little money, will answer instantly
that he would travel. He may have
no positive longing to arrive at any
particular place; indeed, he may feel
no special urgency to leave where he
is. 1t is almost an inchoate and un-
organized impulse. He merely wants
to travel.
Philosophers have suggested that
this is a heritage which has come
down from our first European ances-
tors. A very large number of them
came to America as fugitives Some
were very definitely fugitives from
| justice. Not a few we're political
fugitives. Any number were fugitives
from what they regarded as religious
intolerance or at least refusal on
the part of the people whence they
came to permit them to exercise re-
ligious intolerance against others.
Perhaps the greatest number of all
were fugitives from economic hard
ship, from the overcrowded condi-
tions and limited opportunities of the
older lands.
Causes Variety of Expenditures.
The idea is that these early Ameri-
cans were such thorough fugitives
| that they never got over the idea of
running. Their inheritors, the Amer
leans of the present generation, keep
up the pace and continue in flight
/ out Of innate instinct. Whatever the
cause, Americans do get around and
their determination to do so has
created this vast industry of travel
Travel involves a wide variety of
expenditures. Quite number of
| these result in the creation of indus
tries regarded as separate, but which
really are the result of travel An
alyZing the distribution of the domes-
! tic tourists dollar it is found that
only 20 cents of it, is spent directly
for transportation, although that is, of
course, the prime essence of travel
A second 20 cents goes to hotels,
boarding houses, tourist camps.
1t is always necessary for the trav-
eler to spend more money than the
stay-at-home. He must purchase
things more or less on the wing
=! Twenty-Five cents of his dollar finds
its way into the tills of retail stores.
This share may buy anything from