OCR Text |
Show CREATURES OF HABIT The American people may not be so soft as some folks think, but they form strong habits of comfort and ease. If the shortage of rubber should deprive many people of the use of their automobiles for a time, there will be some groaning and grumbling. Our people will make quite a fuss over any disarrangement dis-arrangement of their ordinary habits. Even in the small details of daily life, whether they get the right brand of coffee, or the eggs are not cooked just right, they are capable of .blowing off considerable steam over slight disappointments. So on this question of the possible disuse of many automobiles, owing to failure to get tires, some people peo-ple will think a moderate amount of walking a real hardship. Where their ancestors could go out in the forest and cut down great trees and root the stumps out of the ground, many of their physically deteriorated deteri-orated descendants won't perhaps be able to walk a mile. Our people do have a grand way of rising to emergencies. If their old habits are suddenly disrupted, disrupt-ed, they recover their power of action to a remark-- remark-- - able degree. The young folks enjoy the luxury of modern mod-ern automobiles and the conveniences of summer resorts. re-sorts. But if these attractions became inaccessible for some reason, they could go out in the wilderness and live in a tent by some lake and subsist on fish and canned stuff, and have a grand time. The experience of the young men in military training camps is a wonderful thing to break up old habits of inaction, and teach them that they' can again live a life of energy and toil. Our people have never been accustomed to lie down in defeat. When an emergency comes to them, they say the hill simply has to be climbed, and they climb it with a shout of victory. |