ng the change from business as usual to economy, Europe suffered
hardship, because although the retrenchments suggested were fairly
democratic it had not created channels into which savings might be
thrown with certainty of their flowing on to safe expenditures. Europe
was not ready with its great thrift schemes, nor had the adjustments
been made which would enable a shop to turn out a needed uniform, let us
say, in place of a useless dress.

Definite use of savings has been provided for in the United States. The
government needs goods of every kind to make our military effort
successful. Camps must be built for training the soldiers, uniforms,
guns and ammunition supplied. Transportation on land and sea is called
for. The government needs money to carry on the industries essential to
winning the war.

If a plucky girl who works in a button factory refuses to buy an
ornament which she at first thought of getting to decorate her belt, and
puts that twenty-five cents into a War Saving Stamp, all in the spirit
of backing up her man at the front, she will not find herself thrown
out of employment; instead, while demands for unnecessary ornamental
fastenings will gradually cease, she will be kept busy on
government orders.

Profiting by the errors of those nations who had to blaze out new paths,
the United States knit into law, a few months after the declaration of
war, not only the quick drafting of its man-power for military service,
but methods of absorbing the people's savings. If we neither waste nor
hoard, we will not suffer as did Europe from wide-spread unemployment.
There is more work to be done than our available labor-power can meet.

There is nothing to fear from the curtailment of luxury; our danger lies
in lack of a sound definition of extravagance. Uncle Sam could get more
by appeals to simple folk than by homilies preached to the rich. The
Great War is a conflict between the ideals of the peoples. 'Tis a
people's war, and with women as half the people. The savings made to
support the war must needs, then, be made by the people, for the people.

There has been no compelling propaganda to that end. The suggestion of
mere "cutting down" may be a valuable goal to set for the well-to-do,
but it is not a mark to be hit by those already down to bed rock. The
only saving possible to those living on narrow margins is by
cooeperation, civil or state.

It is a mad extravagance, for instance, to kill with autos chi