“Our grand business is not to see what lies dimly in the distance, but to do what lies close at hand.” —Carlyle.

A WOMAN who has been saving money boasted of the fact that she had seven one-hundred-dollar bills hidden in the house. She was being a miser. Her husband and son are in business which requires credit and they are both borrowers at the bank. It has probably never occurred to this woman that her seven one-hundred-dollar bills deposited in the bank would provide about $5,000 in credits and thus ease the credit situation for her husband and son.

A working man secreted thirty-one hundred dollars in bills and lost his job because his employers could not borrow enough money to carry their payroll through the fall season. This man is now spending part of his thirty-one hundred dollars, while he might have kept his job and his money might have been in the bank earning for him nearly eight dollars per month compound interest.

The woman’s seven hundred dollars and the worker’s thirty-one hundred dollars would not have, in themselves, eased the credit situation, but this woman and this worker are only two of thousands of people who have thoughtlessly done the same thing.

All of the money in circulation amounts to only $40 per person, so if every person secreted or car­ried about with him $40 there would be no money in the Country with which to transact the business. There would not be a dollar in any of the thirty thousand banks; there would not be a dollar in the cash register or till of any merchant. Every business would have to close up and quit and the government, the states, the cities and all corpora­tions and firms would go into bankruptcy. This is what would happen if each person had $40 in money in his pocket or hidden in the house. And yet many misguided people are holding hundreds and thousands of dollars out of circulation, causing a loss to the whole Country but the greatest loss to themselves.

A crook was recently arrested who had in his possession $140,000, all gathered from the pockets of other people. If they had emptied their pockets into the bank, the crook might have had to work for a living.

When we have all done this, most of the robbers will either starve to death or go to work, the business of the Country will prosper and the money we have accumulated will be earning interest for us in a safe place ready for our use when needed.

In one of the large department stores a woman recently spilled twelve hundred dollars out of her handbag. Many hands helped her pick it up but she found she had only eight hundred and forty dollars. Had the money been in the bank where it belonged and had she dropped her bankbook it would have been restored to her and she would have lost nothing.

Take that money out of the pantry jar, slip those bills out of the mattress, take the money from under the carpet and with what you have in your pocket go down today and open a bank account or add it to your present account and let all your money earn interest for you.

“When I caution you against becoming a miser, I do not therefore advise you to become a prodigal or a spendthrift.” —Horace.

“It requires a great deal of boldness and a great deal of caution to make a great fortune, and when you have got it, it requires ten times as much wit to keep it.” —Emerson.

MOST evil deeds are the result of temptation and, until these temptations are removed or minimized, the evil can not be eliminated.

In recent years we have witnessed the greatest material prosperity the Country has ever known. Everybody had money. Nearly everybody had diamonds or fine furs or an automobile or all three.

The few that did not have these things wanted them because nearly everybody else had them. Those who did not have the ability or the opportunity to earn big money either had to content themselves with the commonest comforts of life or try to get the things they wanted in a dishonest way.

The very spirit of the times has created dis­honesty and some of the rest of us are almost equally guilty with those who have done the criminal acts, because we have made these criminal acts possible. More

“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? More