The united American : a magazine of good citizenchip., April 01, 1925, Page 11, Image 11

APRIL 1925
THE UNITED AMERICAN
said that local advertisers rarely concern themselves
with publication value in considering advertising space.
Had the United American, for purposes of wielding un­
due influence upon the advertising public made an al­
liance with some factional group or organization, fra­
ternal, religious, social or political, it would, perhaps,
have fared better from an advertising patronage view­
point. Regardless of the mythical strength of organiza­
tion backing, there seems in most places to be no diffi­
culty even for a publication without a reasonable cause
for its existence, to obtain a liberal quota of advertis­
ing patronage.
The United American has steadfastly held to the
opinion that it is as bad for a publication as it is for a
firm or an individual in business to resort to opportun­
ism. For this opinion it may have suffered a material
loss, but the editorial policy has not suffered from any
undue influence and what has been a loss in its immedi­
ate confines has proven to be a gain beyond. In this
connection it is proper and fitting to place the credit for
its very existence with a few altruistic citizens of
prominence in Portland, Oregon, whose straight Ameri­
canism and belief in its mission and purpose has been
responsible for their friendly co-operation and continu­
ous advertising patronage.
The United American is an Oregon product. The
honor that comes to it comes also to Oregon. Through
it Oregon will stand represented at the National Educa­
tion Association meeting as sponsoring a new departure
in public education in America—adequate training for
citizenship to precede the Naturalization of the foreign-
born.
National opinion is fast crystalizing into a hearty
and unanimous response. Oregon will thus stand
honored with the United American for the influence it
has been wielding for a momentous national movement
for a higher standard in citizenship and American
national security.
“COMMON SENSE APPLIED TO SPENDING”
A PRACTICAL definition of thrift may not be
limited to one set phrase or combination of
words only, but when J. Robert Stout, president of
the Educational Thrift association, at the recent Inland
Empire Education association meeting, defined it as
“common sense applied to spending,” he probably
described it as well as anyone who has coined sayings
defining thrift.
Mr. Stout’s observations, we are led to believe,
are unbiased, hence, when he speaks on the subject
of individual and national conservation of earnings,
there is something authoritative in his remarks. Here
are three points from his speech that we will do well
to consider:
The people of America should return to the habits and
customs of our forefathers and a more thoughtful analysis
of individual problems.
The spending of money by the younger generation with­
out a thought for the future will put a mortgage on the
future which should be free from even petty financial
stringencies^
Responsibility for the teaching of thrift must be placed
with the public schools of the country.
There is a note of alarm in Mr. Stout’s remarks
which no doubt are elicited by the results of his analy-
Page Eleven
sis of present-day recklessness and financial irresponsi­
bility on the part of the younger generation.
The economic habits and customs of the Amer­
ican forefathers were basic ingredients of admirable
immigrant virtues.
The modern tendency to disregard and even dis­
credit, by flighty thought and speech, these ingredi­
ents in our fundamental culture is tending to set us
adrift, without rudder and compass, and removes our
American picture away from its background in a
menacing degree.
The immigrant people of today, to a large extent,
are still standing out favorably against the immi­
grant forfathers’ background of application, conserva­
tion and thrift. Their pro rata influence on our eco­
nomic, financial and industrial life, as a nation, is for
that reason far greater than the influence of their
contemporaries of long-line native American origin.
The maddening pleasure chase is the Nemesis of
today’s youth in America, the finest flower of man­
hood and womanhood ever produced through all the
ages on record. The poisonous craving for excitement
is taking a toll among America’s youth that is
appalling. Oh the broad lane where the milling
throng of youth is indulging in “the pace that kills”,
Mr. Stout’s definition of thrift is an unknown code of
individual conduct.
Some of our immigrant qualities are as good to­
day as they were yesterday. If we busied ourselves
intelligently with turning them into American channels
of life and thought, the blend might be helpful in
restoring the background to our picture.
Again the public school of the country is looked
to for a remedy to a weak point in our structure. It is
evident that we have much to learn before we shall
have overcome some fatal notions and practices of a
more recent development in our progress as a people.
At any rate, our scheme of public education is
fundamentally sound and many defects in our body
politic may be remedied when we fully realize the
necessity for broadening its scope.
SMALL PREDICAMENTS OF GREAT MAGNITUDE
'THERE MAY not be much in a name but sometimes
there is a noticeable difference in the way people
regard the same name on the strength of the esteem
in which they hold those who bear the name.
Respectable Mr. and Mrs. Newsbummer may be
too respectable, socially, to be alluded to as “gossip­
peddlers,” banker Bacon may not be subject to taunt­
ing because his name is something analogous tó “a
porkers main foundation,” and cotton merchant Lazy’s
daughter, the social belle of the town, though financially
situated so that she does not have to do any work, is
not apt to have anybody shout at her with derision:
“What’s the secret how to become popular though
Lazy ?” Social prestige, business standing and political
prominence, of course, these are valuable means to
raise any name above cheap contempt and scorn, no
matter what its literal prototype happens to be, but
aside from all this, it is true that the funniest name
with the funniest meaning, if attached to a native-
born American, is not apt to cause any amusement
or subject the bearer to any humiliation on account