| Show W THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE 5 STTKD AY MORNKf OCTOBER '4 il 1931 Ur FANNIE HURST Machine - things Gramophones with painted tin morning glories for bom Instalment-purchase- d pianos of cheap bright wood Execrable factory made furniture of Machine scroll work and upholstery made objects created In quantity by iron men without even knowledge of what they were turning out by the gross the hundreds or the hundred thousands Made Tawdry Objects Without Beauty Qr Art Are Our The so called prosperous after Things w ar era brought them into being by the million They cheapened and made horrible dally life Objects of no art Objects of pretentious and pretended art Record for Gadget Overproduction of caps Girls' sweaters leatherette bags Frame lithographs rink celluloid hair combs Imitation w eathdrproofs ’Red enamel kitchen Imiutensils Imitation silk garment tation kid gloves A country able to afford to buy this truck of overproduction encouraging the avalanche of things by its patronagel It Is said of us that our period of depression of deflation and unease Is chastening us into a kinder nicer people Be that as it may certainly it Is to be hoped that this cessation in the buying power of the average purse will tend to reduce to minimum the production of superfluous and pretentious gadgets For posterity to interpret us by our objects would be to read into our daily lives tawdriness lack of taste lack of tense of beauty lack of restraint and even civilization No era as guzzled with useless badly made and stupidly executed object as ours can boast an inherent sense of beauty There Is that sense of beauty reflected In a Greek urn which was cieated out of somebody's love of this work or an Italian bit of sculpture even though executed by a humble artisan still reflects something of the creator’s feeling for form But what 1 there reflected In the factory turnedwase or machine turned table or vividly woven rug that go to make up the environment of the average middle man's home In America today Speed Production Pretentiousness Fortunate for us that we are not to be Interpreted to our posterity by things lone And the sole hope for the stemming of the avalanche la the 111 wind of national depression which may blow good in this direction Fewer atrocious objects! Fewer snide things to tempt the snide mind And with the ability to buy fewer of them may come an Interim of breathing space that will curb the desire There can be dignity and a culture and an esthetlcism In things The inanl-maobject which go to make up the dally scene do their share toward de- veloplng the mind and the Imagination The home which Is the catch-a- ll of the age factory output of this of ours must make Its imprint- - against the tninds of those who dwell in that Geegaws clothing Posterity of the world' history down comparatively recent times ha been written by way of Inanimate objects Excavations archeological explor-atiohave unearthed testimony concerning age that have left little other Imprints for humanity to study Arrow heads objects buried In tombs strangely resurrected earthenwares dug up bit of Jewelry revelations of Egyptian tombs burled cities entombed implement of one form or another have been keys to the past MUCH ns of cases in the museums of the world Interpret those yesterMile ON THINGS WE’LL LEAVE gliil days for us We gasp at the "modernity" of Egyptian Jewelry marvel at the dexterity of cavemen who seemed to chisel dt utedl out ofitm will out apparent instrument wherewith to ehlsel Faint la Sural Things tell nmth of the history of the world Fortunately the history of our day will be handed along by media oilier than things The printed page the there celluloid record (undoubtedly will be found a way to preserve photographic fUm for posterity) the recorded voice and the carefully planned archive will aee to It that tomorrow understands today more clearly than today comprehend yesterday But what a record of "things" this sge of ours will leave! In no small measure the modern mania for "things” has helped bring about the state of economic depression which at the moment has America In Its grip Overproduction of things Not overproduction of objects of the Imagination mind you Not too many paintings or statues or objet d'art Not objects of beauty out of which the Greeks built their civilization Not the stark utilitarian Implements of primitive man But gadgets geegsws snide luxuries imitation and makeshift articles designed for no real need neither esthetic nor utili- tarian During the recent period of so called prosperity the average American home was a burlesque museum of such futile Boys’ Archeologists of the year 3000 gather trig " things ” from a buried ' city of this age — Artist Louis Beider -- in an it peeps into the future to v illustrate Miss Hunt's in- dictment I of present-da- y of limi- tation things te thlng-obsess- calch-al- And the surest way to accomplish that downfall la to reduce buying power and difficult as that condition may be it is the automatic curb to our growing and flamboyant national tawdriness a tawdriness which after the war was intensified by the sudden affluence of million L Down with overproduction of meaningless geegaws of objects that destroy rather than create beauty of extravagance generated by that economic bugaboo overproduction who found themselves with more spending money than spending discretion Impecunioslty makes a wary spender The pocket whose nerve twitches from every demand upon It does not empty itself indiscriminately It is fair to assume that he who buys carefully rather than In the Insanity of overstuffed pocket buys more wisely Present-da- y America Is still in the after throes of overproduction the mood is still abroad over the land and is taking national consciousness some tuna to simmer down to the reality of leaner purses and more selective expenditure The 111 wind of it all however Is sure to blow a real and sustained good The overproduction of snide thing must automatically recede (Copyright King Features 1931 Ine) HARD TIMES HAVE' THEIR SILVER LINING No Fortune Ever Made That Did Not Begin With The First Saved Dollar this Indomitable woman “We ere buying a home a radio and a gas stove so our overhead is exactly $61 per month with taxes and insurance included of course Our table costs exactly $43 per month and we live welL Now that all four children are In school I have a part-tim- e Job which brings me in $18 a week but this is saved every cent of it for that annuity you wrote about some years ago “A quart of milk a day for children to gulp down with their other meals!” she goes on indignantly "Great big children In high school and college too If they're so delicate they have to have invalid treatment then they ought to stay at home and save school books and hoe leather anyway” Another woman this one in the town of Berkeley adds en excellent suggestion uni-vers- weeks ago a woman who live north California rural community wrote to a San Francisco newspaper that she could not manage the table expenses for a family of six on an allowance of $10 a week Her children ere n "two in high school two In Junior college” tnd their teacher had told them that each should have a quart -— of milk a day 'T distracted mother appealed SOME a half-grow- to the newspaper manding de- advice as e to budgets and Her complaint was that 110 a week would hard ly buy more than? "milk and oatmeal’ much less meat and vegetables and des sorts and so on for a bills-of-far- family of six Having only twt novels two novel ettei several shor1 stories some hun of letters dreds and 52 Sunday edl- - odds and ends of food an American woman calls a meal A great pUte of hot macaroni with a bowl of salad and a bit of cheese satisfies her family 350 lights a year e With the French woman it is the that Is the staple the rich thick soup filled with beans or potatoes or onions or rice and again the salad bowl and the sour delicious bread and the great cheese In Ireland they give the group about the evening table a bowl of hot fresh boiled potatoes with lot of butter salt and milk in England pot-ag- con- troversy about the budgets for poor families with great amusement” she writes in e cultivated clear hand "My sister and I both widowed and with a joint income of $2400 a year have five small children to raise and an Invalid father We manage very as an added charge well for eight persons on $13 a week and are constantly having treats and sur-- pi Ises at the table "The government allowance for eight person cornea out $120 per month Of course we had to better that But we ere surprised ourselves sometimes at the ease with which we cut it exactly in half "Does It occur to you as astonishing” this letter goes on “that the women who have been protesting through the newspaper columns at the Idea of e a meal budget so constantly use the nt In speake' terms 'menus' or ing of feeding their families? Surely these aie not word for persons of limit- ed means to use “Food is what these families need-- not menus and There Is no question here of tempting appetites d there Is only the age-olquestion of We don t keeping healthy and alive we have in our house menus oiscuss good filling simple food end the perboiled son who la tired of milk-toapotatoes rice macaroni beans apple sauce eggless gingerbread prunes pancakes and bread pndding Is always ” privileged to akip a meal She la quite right Thme is too much fuss made nowadays about course dinners la plain homes A bowl of onion soup at a cost of 3 cents e plate toasted etule bread and a baked apple form a fur more satisfying meal than ham from the delicatessen store filed onions hot biscuit tomato salad sweet potatoes wi'b marshmallows doughnut and coffee jelly Mai nroni and cheese are a meal not port of a meal Fork and beans are a A heavy soup with vegetables meal and rite In It is a meal Milk toast is a meal Baked potatoes with bacon are meal The Europeans are smarter about this Uiuq we uiu An Italian wuuiru would KatMcrll Norrll st 4 it Is the less digestible but more delicious toast and tea with a herring or Jam or a bit of cake to add variety Everywhere else but In America It is toward securing just food not and menus that the householders It Is only here direct their efforts that the poorest meals must have meat soup salad vegetables dessert every night It is only m America that bakery made pie cake bread canned stuff delicatessen store foods are constantly called in And to my critics who say that the game isn't worth the candle and that a bllls-of-fa- re -- But there Is no fortune in America that didn't begin with the saved dollar And the rule always works Live over your Income today and you’ll be living over income In 1960— no matter whkt it jour is Live up to your income and you’ll be breaking even m 1960 But put aside $10 a mohth beginning this month and you and your children will be rich in 30 years Shiftless persons never know "where the money goes to” Thrifty folk are equally bewildered to discover “where it all comes from” Ask any really successful person if you don't believe it For the rest do I think it is fun to bo poor and never to be able to have caviar steaka champagne cream broilers alligator pears and fruit cake? “We Ilka nice things as much as you do!” some letter says angrily every day Yes I know But every woman in the world has her problem poverty illness childlessness uselessness homli-ncage unhappiness in marriage unhappiness out Of marriage The point is for you to solve yours— and if It happens to be a temporary shortage of money and nothing more serious you may thank God Some day civilization will take a great forward leap and aome state in this great glorious Union will begin to feed its people It will destroy a high school or a college or two maybe and on one-hof the money saved— public money of course — it will remove that terrible primary fear that has accounted for so much crime and squalor and war in the history of the world — the fear of hunger for oui selves for our children Then you and I will feel no more shame in letting our children go to the great public refectories for their meals than we feel today In sending them to public schools No man ever stole or murdered for his children’s education but thousands of murders have been d men committed by and women Feed them first take away first— and teach them about hunger-fea- r Caesar and the crusades $nd algebra aftss Thousands of women are managing a table for $10 a wetk and giiing their families delicious btlls-of-fa- re writers were angry One-th- li d of them were angry bn ause they are bad managers know nothing of thrift domestic $ icnre or budgeting hate econom v and kitchen work and resent suggestions from older and richer folk were equally 'Jhe other aroused because they do understand they are managing their budgeting HU hens on vei y small sums and they don't need me or anvnne el-- e to Instruct them they could tearh me a tr! k or twol The letter of a mailman s Wife living In San Francisco was tj pltal ftl many wrote Ma have four children too d ere following th newspaper feel great contempt for the unsatisfying 'billi-of-far- tor la Is annually to take up my time I Immediately wrote to the newspaper answering thta woman It waa a foolish thing to do perhaps for actual hundreds of letteis poured In about it and moat Of the two-lhlr- "W By KATHLEEN NORRIS table cant be managed for five on $10 a week nor for eight on $15 week I can only say that hundreds — thousands of women are doing It all the time giving their families delicious meals putting money in the bank and so beginning to work their way out of that poverty that most of us have known at one tune or another in our lives My own life held about 12 years of it 12 years when every ounce of butter and every crust of bread counted and so I am not merely theorizing when I urge younger women to get out of thia slavery with all the speed they may There were no budgets in 1900 when my hard times began— between ignorance youth stupidity convention my father's orphaned half dozen wasted a long time in learning meals And it can be done if necessary by any woman uJk is made of the right stuff Jb IZ - ’ df hunger-maddene- erward When we do that a good father and mother won't be sorry there Is going new baby when we do that to be women won’t have to write me letters of budgets when we do that one won t experience such an odd little revolutionIn ary pang upon hearing that children Arkansas are hungry while other children a few miles away are feeding the pcncorka angel cake We'll do it we Americans some day well (c-- d our people on our surplus produce — and It won't be pauperizing ard It won't be charily It will be simple obvious common sense We do a lot of more expensive things — we just haven t thought of doing this Meanwhile IX money Is scarce foiget "hlllx-o- f fare” and “menus" and try Just food for a while (Copyright 1931 by the Bell Syndicate Inc ) |
