The Midland Journal

EXTRAVAGANCE HELPS HITLER

"Extravagance in any form, by citizens or by government, imperils the war effort," wrote Dr. Henry W. Wriston, president of Brown University, recently. "Individuals are asked to reverse their habits of spending if inflation is not to destroy their substance. The same obligation rests upon the government.

"If we proceed without waste, if we increase our productive power, if we decrease our expenditures for non-essentials, we can not only survive but survive without bankruptcy. This can be done only if considerations of political advantage are put aside, only if government curtails its own activities as it expects citizens to curtail theirs, only if the government makes its policies consistent with each other."

At the present time, government is taking strenuous steps to reduce consumer purchasing power, in order to prevent inflation. That, as well as the production of needed revenue for the treasury, is one reason for unprecedented taxation and for ever-increasing sales of War Bonds and Stamps. It is forecast in some circles that a system of enforced savings will be eventually adopted.

Yet government spends "as usual". Government will not swallow the medicine it prescribes for the people.

Every dispassionate survey indicates that Federal expense can be reduced billions a year without imperiling the war effort. The cuts could be made entirely in non-war expenditures. But that will never be done until the people demand it---and kick out every public official who refuses to cooperate.