Loading ...EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION
UNTIL quite recently the term ” Thrift ” conveyed meagre conceptions to the aver age mind. There have been, it is true, individuals now and then who, because of so-called peculiar characteristics, or possessing dispositional make-up, unusual or rare, have practiced thrift. These, for the most part, however, have been looked upon as mercenary or miserly. To be thrifty was, in popular thinking, to drive a sharp bargain to demand heavy usury. Thus, the thrifty were characterized as narrow-minded, self -centered, not always the most satisfactory community members. Society frowned upon them, and, while tolerated, they were taken into fellowship reluctantly, or not at all.
Until recently, too, thrift was understood in its narrowest sense only that of money saving. Anyone frugal in money matters was characterized as thrifty, as opposed to the wasteful or extravagant. Hence, to be thrifty implied living on the least possible, with the corresponding larger saving and investment. A close buyer, one who could drive a sharp bargain, who had foresight to invest to advantage, who managed to sell on a big margin, who spent little and saved much such was the thrifty person.
In our own country, rich in opportunities, with unlimited possibilities in her natural resources and tremendous physical expanse, it early became less of a problem to ” make a living,” or even to accumulate considerable stores of wealth, than it was found to be in older and more established countries. Money was easily earned, and freely was it spent. More and more, people began to live up to the limit of their incomes. Because saving and thrift were held up rather to ridicule than to emulation, the habit of thrift came slowly into favor, and was not subject to regular, systematic practice. It takes moral courage to save in the face of a generally practiced policy of wastefulness.
Here and there a man has dared assert the righteousness of thrift and to practice its doctrine. No man in our century has done so much toward bringing the people to a realizing sense of the crime of wastefulness, and of the absolute necessity for the proper practice of economy, as has the author
of the present book. A member of a large family, and with a father who had to make his own way in the world, he early absorbed lessons of honesty, of industry, of tenacity of purpose, of economy; of making the best use of what is available, and of shaping conditions to meet future needs, such as has made him careful for himself not only, but concerned for the welfare of others.
With thrift as precept and practice entering into the very warp and woof of the commercial, the moral, the spiritual life of the man endowed by nature as wise and far-seeing, with an inherent desire to serve there early came to Simon W. Straus, as his writings and public utterances clearly reveal, and as those who know him most intimately can well testify, a broadening of the social horizon, and an appreciation of individual and national needs. He clearly saw the wasteful tendencies of our people, and deplored the results, bound, he well knew, to come from them. He saw the problem in its totality. He appreciated thoroughly the distinction between proper spending and useless wasting; between common-sense saving and narrow parsimony.
Thrift there must be in money matters proper saving and investing and spending; thrift in modes of living and of dress; thrift in health, in time-saving, in proper use of strength and energy; in character development and moral attitudes; thrift in the home, in business, in society, in individual and personal dealing, in community practises, in national development. Thrift in its human and physical aspects, with emphasis upon conservation of natural resources, is alike important to the individual to-day, to the family to-morrow, to society constantly, and to the future welfare of our own people as a nation.
All this Mr. Straus sees and appreciates. But, unlike most philanthropists, he has gone about his work quietly and with nothing of the spectacular of the typical reformer, which brings so many into the public eye. 1 His work, therefore, has been well foundationed, and will be enduring. Repeatedly declining offers of financial aid, lest the thrift movement become a commercialized rather than a humanized development, and the very purposes of his work be thus defeated, he has held steadily to his way. His contact with the schools being that possessed by the well-informed man of large affairs, rather than that of the educator, his vision is the more marked that he saw the future working out of these plans as possible only with the proper training of the rising generations. Such training, said Mr. Straus, must be given in the schools.
So clearly has the author of this book brought before the members of the National education Association, the National Council of Education, and the Committee on Thrift, his enlarged point of view, and so thoroughly has he persuaded the members of the Committee on Thrift Education of the necessity for introduction into the schools of proper instruction in thrift, that the efforts of the past few years have resulted in an awakening such as has been created by no similar movement in a century.
The coming of the great war, and the severe lessons taught by the conflict, have served to stimulate and accentuate the principles enunciated. The next decade, owing to the needs for re-education and continued development, will see a change; and progress, impossible but for application of the thrift doctrines, thoroughly begun and successfully carried forward in certain fields of human activity during the war.
That the work of Mr. Straus is appreciated is shown in the fact that insistence was made by the Committee on Thrift Education that he take time from an already over-full life to write this book. It was pointed out that it could be done by no one else, because no other person in America has accomplished for thrift what has been accomplished by Mr. Straus. He alone could write the history, indicate the need and significance and point the way of the thrift movement, of which he is the apostle. It is with a thorough appreciation of his great work that the editor adds these words to what is the most significant contribution to one of the most vital problems of the day.
It is a matter of special gratification to the Author and Editor tp be able to present the cartoons prepared especially for the book by Mr. Rolliir Kirby, the famous Cartoonist of The New York World. Appreciation is offered the publishers of The World as well as to Mr. Kirby for this most valuable contribution to the work, and for their cordial cooperation.
ARTHUR H. CHAMBERLAIN.
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