Chapter 18 - Industry and Frugality Lead to Wealth
CHAPTER XVIII
"The way to wealth is us plain as the way to market--it depends on two words, industry and frugality; that is, waste neither time nor money but make the best of both." --Franklin.
SOME merchants, manufacturers and other business men have argued that full prosperity is only possible when people stop saving and spend their money freely. Merchants sometime feel that the banks and the thrift organizations are likely to hurt business through urging people to save their money.
The only saver who hurts business through accumulating too much money is the miser who hides away his money.
Saving money and putting it in the bank where it resumes its place as part of the circulating medium never hurts or hinders business.
To whom would the real estate man sell a home or a vacant lot if no one saved money and no one accumulated funds?
For whom would the building contractor build a house if no one saved money?
And to whom would the lumber man, the cement man, the sash and door man, the dealer in plumbing fixtures and the steam-fitter--to whom would these sell their merchandise if no one accumulated a quantity of money at any one time?
Were it not for the saver, the piano dealer would never make a sale. Even the graphophone dealer and the furniture dealer would seldom if ever have a cash sale if people would not save for a long time looking toward the day when they could have that new graphophone, that dining-room set or that modern kitchen range.
The impression seems to be current that it is the spendthrift who buys the fine merchandise. Nothing could be further from the truth. The spendthrift wastes his money and seldom has value to show for it after it has gone.
Fine merchandise, costly merchandise and the substantial and beautiful things of life are the rewards of the saver, the man who can deny himself the foolish little things of today for the big and joyous things of tomorrow.
Prosperity is never hindered by the man who sets aside a goodly portion of his earnings while getting ready to satisfy the big and wholesome desires of life, whether such desire be a new home, an automobile, a fine watch or an education for one of his children.
Men and women, boys and girls who spend each dollar or each dime as fast as it is acquired do not make prosperity for the Country, for the merchants and least of all for themselves.
Prosperity for all is contingent upon the prosperity of the individual. The piano manufacturer or the dealer can never be prosperous until the masses are prosperous. If the people never saved there never would be a piano sold and the prosperity of the merchants in our own town depends upon the thrift of all of the people. Until more than half of the people in a community are savers, the merchants of that community can never enjoy full prosperity or even a very profitable business.
When the saver puts his money in the bank, the bulk of it is borrowed by the manufacturer or the dealer for use in the production of more goods, which means more wealth, because in the production of these goods, whether they are washing machines, automobiles or hogs, more labor is employed and a goodly part of the money is paid back into the community in wages and salaries. This enables these producing workers to buy more merchandise and to save more money to add to their bank accounts. This money then again resumes the rounds as before and travels from the bank to the farmer, from the farmer to the manufacturer, from the manufacturer to his employees and again back to the retail merchant and the bank.
Saving in greater volume is the only road to real prosperity and if it were possible for every person to save half of what he earns, then we would have a greater prosperity than this Country has ever enjoyed. Let each individual learn that thrift on the part of all of the people is the only road to real prosperity for all of the people. Individual prosperity is dependent upon the prosperity of others and, until our neighbors are prosperous, we can never hope for real prosperity.
A few years ago the deposits of all of the banks of the United States were ten billion dollars and now they are more than fifty billion dollars. Somebody saved all of this money. Individuals saved it and corporations saved it and all of them deposited it in the banks. The banks re-loaned the most of it for the development of the Country. They loaned some of it on farm mortgages and then the farmer saved money to pay off the mortgage. When he had saved enough more he built a new house or a new barn or bought a tractor or perhaps an automobile. Through the farmer's saving the building material men and the farm implement dealers and manufacturers and the automobile manufacturers all were enabled to do business and to make money.
Saving money instead of spending each day's income is the thing which creates business and prosperity for everybody. It was the savings of the people that built the railroads and the big buildings and the schools and the hospitals.
Somebody must save or we would never have anything better than a tent to house ourselves and a sheepskin to cover our bodies.
Beware of the man who tells you that you must spend all you earn or you are hindering the business of the Country and destroying prosperity.
When everybody- learns how to live well and at the same time save a reasonable portion of every dollar he gets, then we are assured of complete and permanent prosperity.
After money is spent, it is invested and, when it is invested, it is spent--by the other fellow. That means prosperity.
If we would bring complete prosperity to our Country we must save and then save more. As we save more, our prosperity will increase and, if each of us can save enough, everybody in our community will have everything he wants of the material things of life, which means happiness and ease and contentment for you and for us.
We will never learn to live well until we learn to save--we will never be able to live better until we learn to save more. When saving becomes a habit, the habit becomes a pleasure.
If the water of the brooks were not saved, there would never be a river or a sea.
"All habits gather, by unseen degrees, as brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas." --Dryden.