THE WOMAN WHO SPENDS 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 A Study of Her Economic Function 
 
 By Bertha June Richardson, A.B. 
 
 Holder of the Mary Lowell Stone Fellowship for 1903 
 
 With an introduction by Ellen H. Richards, A.M. 
 
 Author of" The Cost of Living" 
 
 " In America, 'where tradition and family play 
 an unimportant part, the great educator is the 
 spending of money .'' 
 
 Mrs. Van Font, in "The Woman Who Toils." 
 
 Second Edition Revised 
 
 Whitcomb & Barrows 
 Boston .'. IQIO 
 
GENERAL 
 
 f O' 
 
 Copyright 1904, 1910 
 ELLEN H. RICHARDS 
 
 Thomas Todd Co., Printers 
 14 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass. 
 
INTRODUCTION TO REVISED 
 EDITION 
 
 Six years have passed since this little book was 
 published, years which have emphasized the need of 
 thoughtful spenders in the life of the busy world. 
 Efficiency is the word of the day. Knowing how to 
 work is the test of daily effort and " theories " must 
 meet this test. 
 
 The author finds no reason to change the theories 
 as offered in the following chapters, but feels that the 
 question of " How " must be met, however falteringly. 
 The last chapter has been added to meet that just 
 demand, with the hope that those who have patiently 
 read the theories may find some practical help in the 
 application of them to the daily life of spending. 
 
 BERTHA JUNE RICHARDSON LUCAS. 
 FEBRUARY, 1910. 
 
 292098 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 THE emergence of women from the sphere of 
 production into that of consumption of wealth has 
 brought with it a disturbance of the economic con- 
 ditions of the Anglo-Saxon world. 
 
 During the period of readjustment many upheavals 
 and subsidences have left most women in a very inse- 
 cure position, and with a great uncertainty as to the 
 right line of action. It is in the hope of clearing 
 the ground of some inherited rubbish and of opening 
 a new vista to thoughtful women that these pages 
 have been written. 
 
 Social economics is preeminently a woman's prob- 
 lem, especially if Munsterberg's assertion is widely 
 true that in America it is the women who have the 
 leisure and the cultivation to direct the development 
 of social conditions. 
 
 With this opportunity comes corresponding respon- 
 sibility, and it is as an appeal to the conscience of 
 the women of the land to think on these things that 
 this little book is sent forth. 
 
 ELLEN H. RICHARDS. 
 BOSTON, 1904. 
 
8WEfiAL 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER I. Sight and Vision ... 9 
 
 CHAPTER II. Vital Needs . . . 31 
 
 CHAPTER III. Imitation versus Independence . 55 
 
 CHAPTER IV. Choice ..... 83 
 
 CHAPTER V. Satisfaction . . . .107 
 
 CHAPTER VI. Responsibility . . . .129 
 
 CHAPTER VII. How? . . . . . 151 
 
SIGHT AND VISION 
 
True economical progress lies in society getting control of 
 natural powers outside of man not cheap labor, but powerful 
 and adaptable motors, machinery, and transit. This is a kind 
 of cheapening cheapening of nature, not man, which can go 
 on indefinitely. 
 
 The resources of the world, natural and historical, may be 
 applied to maintain society generally in beautiful and healthful 
 and good life, or to provide passing gratification, if not worse, 
 to the desire of a few. In either case the consumption circle 
 will be filled with the same value, but the real wealth in the 
 two cases will be widely different. 
 
 " Studies in Economics" William Smart. 
 
 / 
 
 To woman it is given to add many fold to the enjoyment 
 which the wealth products of industry are able to secure. 
 
 " The Economic Function of Woman" Edward T. Devine. 
 
 The economy of right uses depends largely upon the 
 homemaker. 
 
 " Elementary Principles of Economics" Ely and Wicker. 
 
THE WOMAN WHO SPENDS 
 
 T 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 SIGHT AND VISION 
 
 I HE RE are many old-fashioned women 
 in the world today, and we are glad of 
 it. One of the correct tastes at present is 
 an appreciation of the " old-fashioned." The 
 world likes old-fashioned things houses, 
 furniture, china, brass, silver, and women. 
 Yes, we do. Why deny it ? And it is not 
 all sentiment, nor is it a fad. In the real 
 love of the old-fashioned, there is always 
 a touch of the personal. Grandfather de- 
 signed the old bouse, superintended the 
 building, owned the woodland where the 
 great beams were cut, and made with his 
 own hands many a nook and corner. It 
 may be his only monument, but it stands 
 for grandfather. The tall clock why, that 
 was one of your earliest friendships. When 
 you were good, what a comfortable tick it 
 had ! When you were bad, what moral and 
 spiritual upheaval that know-it-all, I-told- 
 
 9 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 you-so comment could produce in your soul ! 
 It voiced so many things and people ; it was 
 grandmother when she read to you on Sab- 
 bath afternoons ; it was the Bad Man com- 
 ing right upstairs after you in the dark ; 
 it was Santa Claus on Christmas Eve, a 
 dozen ghosts on Hallowe'en; it was joy; it 
 was sorrow ; it was your better self ; it was 
 the voice of God himself. That clock ! It 
 will never be consigned to an antique shop. 
 But though the love of the old-fashioned 
 house and the old-fashioned clock may not 
 have behind it an association with our own 
 lives, yet there is still the personal touch. 
 We love the work of men's hands, under 
 any conditions, because it is thus we come 
 to know the workers. The old china marks 
 an epoch ; the brass candlesticks introduce 
 us to artists of another time. William 
 Morris, that master workman, gives the 
 essence of the love of the old when he says, 
 " In looking at the old house, we please our- 
 selves by thinking of all the generations of 
 men that have passed through it, remember- 
 ing how it has received their joy and borne 
 their sorrow, and not even their folly has 
 
 10 
 
Sight and Vision 
 
 left sourness upon it." l In love for the old- 
 fashioned we are not blind to the mistakes, 
 to the evil conditions of men and things of 
 other days, but we see the best of the past 
 in its relation to the workers of the past, 
 and its possible significance for the workers 
 of today. When we see this, we are look- 
 ing through the doorway of grandfather's 
 house to the old-fashioned woman standing 
 by the tall clock. What was she ? Where 
 does her representative stand today? 
 
 Opinions disagree at this point, but out 
 of the strife we are able to gather some 
 interesting facts. The old-fashioned wo- 
 man was, as we look back to her, a woman 
 who made the most of life as it came to 
 her, who understood her conditions and 
 needs however limited her horizon, and 
 whose wise adaptation to the same had an 
 important place in the work and progress 
 of her time. Her representative in the 
 life of today is the woman who follows 
 these principles in her larger world of op- 
 portunities. She is not narrow-minded, 
 nor out of touch with life; she does not 
 
 lu William Morris." By Elizabeth Luther Gary. 
 
 II 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 cling to old, useless mark the word 
 customs and fashions. She believes that 
 grandfather's house with its big rooms is 
 more comfortable with steam heat than 
 without it. She is living the larger life, 
 the life that does not end at her own 
 hearthstone, but begins there and goes out 
 in sympathy, in interests, and in helpfulness 
 to the world of people and things beyond 
 her threshold. 
 
 Not bound, but free, she lives in a com- 
 munity, patient under the criticism such 
 independence is sure to bring. She will 
 not copy her neighbor's lace curtains be- 
 cause they are her neighbor's. She fre- 
 quently has a dress made over in the house, 
 and, strangest of all, she is wont to have a 
 liking for housekeeping. She is a woman 
 who spends her money carefully, judiciously, 
 as her grandmother did. In olden times, 
 women thought and thought and thought 
 before they spent, often making the spend- 
 ing a burden. Now women often spend, 
 and then think and think and think. Nor 
 does the lack of thought beforehand ease 
 the burden of the results of her spending. 
 
 12 
 
Sight and Vision 
 
 The old-fashioned woman of today gives 
 to the world some of the best things the 
 past offered, but she works with different 
 materials to satisfy different standards. 
 The old mahogany bed seems out of place 
 in a tiny apartment-house bedroom, and the 
 old tall clock is no longer a necessity. For 
 truly times have changed. Every evening 
 at the stroke of nine grandmother stopped 
 on her way to bed and pulled up the 
 weight of today's time, starting tomorrow's 
 on its way. Now noiseless anniversary 
 clocks, wound once a year, keep time's 
 record perfectly. 
 
 Yes, conditions have changed, and the 
 whole content of life is different. We are 
 glad if we are wise. Problems now present 
 themselves to women, and are attacked as 
 nobly as were those which terrified and stim- 
 ulated our grandmothers. But the lesson 
 from the past is ever the same. Success 
 comes only through intelligent understand- 
 ing of conditions and wise adaptation to 
 them. Woman's success with the problems 
 which the multiplied demands and increased 
 responsibilities of life have brought will 
 
 13 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 depend upon her understanding of them, 
 her honest effort to meet conditions with 
 the best equipment, and upon her readiness 
 to adapt herself and her methods to the 
 present. Her grandmother's problems will 
 never be hers, but grandmother's dealing 
 with conditions as she knew them may ever 
 be a source of inspiration. 
 
 There are many women in the world 
 today who have no claim to be called " old- 
 fashioned "; who have not brought from the 
 past the best, and who seem to stand before 
 the present empty-handed, bewildered, tried, 
 and sorely vexed. They are leaving the 
 high schools and colleges, and taking their 
 places in the life of the world, in city, town, 
 and country; they are young married women 
 struggling with the first problems of home- 
 making; they are mothers whose first and 
 greatest care is to provide a family living 
 out of a fixed allowance, and they are 
 all experiencing failure or discouragement, 
 either through lack of right ideals of life, 
 or, as is far more often the case, through 
 ignorance of the way to make practical 
 application of their ideals. In spite of all, 
 
 14 
 
Sight and Vision 
 
 sometimes because of all, the progress 
 shown in the estimation and higher educa- 
 tion of women, they are finding themselves 
 without a firm grasp of the practical side 
 of life. This is seen in the increasing 
 numbers who attend cooking schools and 
 domestic science classes. 
 
 When the " servant problem " was first 
 agitated, there prevailed an attitude of con- 
 demnation of the servant and sympathy for 
 the mistress. Years of patient study of this 
 subject have wrought a great change. The 
 need of sympathy and understanding be- 
 tween maid and mistress was the first step 
 to be insisted upon by the women who gave 
 careful consideration to the problem. This, 
 to their minds, was to be gained by training 
 of both mistress and maid. The mistress 
 had no right to a servant until she knew 
 the value of time and strength in relation 
 to the work to be done. She could not 
 understand her servant's problems until she 
 understood a servant's duties. On the other 
 hand, the great stream of foreign help flow- 
 ing into this country needs a guiding which 
 the mistress alone cannot give. Housekeep- 
 
 15 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 ing is no longer a matter of intuition, but 
 of trained minds and hands. The practical 
 side of life must be given time and thought 
 and study by the women who serve it, and 
 this includes all. 
 
 This is an age of confessions. We can 
 imagine some very useful and helpful con- 
 fessions which might be given to the world 
 of women by women. No one but a woman 
 knows the motives, the plans, the hopes, 
 which actuate a woman in the spending of 
 all she has. Time is generally spent lav- 
 ishly ; effort is seldom given grudgingly. If 
 women see results ahead, they hold nothing 
 back; the hard lessons come when the re- 
 sults prove unworthy of the time, money, 
 and effort spent. Here is where the real 
 economic waste comes in the spending world, 
 not money waste alone, but the waste of 
 time and effort. The latter waste is seldom 
 considered, and until it is the former waste 
 will not be checked. Women have been 
 told for a long time that they do not know 
 the value of money. Granting this, there 
 lies beyond it a lack of knowledge of time 
 value and of effort value. Women need to 
 
 16 
 
Sight aud Vision 
 
 connect all three ; need to be honest with 
 themselves and learn to put into actual 
 figures the amount of time, money and 
 effort they are constantly spending, and 
 leave the next column for results. The 
 proportion between them will be more con- 
 vincing than any theorizing. 
 
 Here women can help each other. Com- 
 parisons of the ways and means of women's 
 spending, a schedule of time, money, and 
 effort, to establish a firm relation between 
 these three to gain the best results for all, 
 are most needed in the woman's spending 
 world. Such a schedule should be formed 
 deliberately, and held to as steadfastly as 
 any law of health. Then there would be 
 visible economic gain. There are women 
 to whom no true and good proportion of 
 these three fundamentals ever comes, be- 
 cause their spending is governed by neces- 
 sity which drives them hard and fast. But 
 the majority of women are permitted to plan 
 their expenditure of all these things, and a 
 keen realization has come of the importance 
 of intent in the spending of all they have. 
 
 Many a woman of training and education 
 
 17 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 is having edifying experiences, for it is not 
 pleasant to feel, the first year after gradu- 
 ation, that one had better be honest and 
 answer " not prepared." To spend perhaps 
 fifteen years preparing for life, only to find 
 at the end of her first year at home that she 
 has wasted time and energy and has little 
 to show for them is unsatisfactory enough. 
 Her dreams of what seemed so simple those 
 last June days have been proved to be 
 almost chimerical in the face of the world 
 of things which surround her. She finds 
 the old song true, " Things are seldom what 
 they seem." She has not been successful 
 in applying her knowledge to this new 
 world. She has a secret feeling that her 
 mother thinks her more of a hindrance than 
 a help in household matters, and that her 
 father smiles a trifle sarcastically when she 
 has to confess that, although she has kept 
 an account of every penny, she has little to 
 show for the money spent. Thus she be- 
 gins the hardest lesson yet to be learned, 
 making all the old lessons help her in sat- 
 isfying the new demands made upon her. 
 Once more she takes down the old, faded 
 
 18 
 
Sight and Vision 
 
 apron and enters the laboratory to make 
 for herself new experiments, taking with her 
 the dusty notebooks, which seem to suggest 
 between their covers some help for the 
 practical, everyday life. 
 
 Courses in economics many girls take 
 them, but the memory of a few vague 
 phrases and a wonder how they ever 
 passed the "exam" is about all that is 
 left to them. One does not overlook the 
 few who are intelligently interested, and 
 who are not only able sometimes to answer 
 a question, but to ask one as well. Those 
 who teach this subject to women find few 
 students whose efficiency or attainments 
 along this line show what woman might 
 do with this subject if she would. 
 
 But women have entered intelligently and 
 scientifically into the study of the various 
 branches of biology. The study of life 
 interests everybody, and a knowledge of 
 environment is of practical value to every 
 woman. The biological point of view is, 
 therefore, a good starting point for women's 
 training in other fields. First, because it 
 can be presented simply; and, after all, it 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 is the great value of any science that out 
 of the maze of special terminology and 
 complex laws principles can be drawn, to 
 be successfully worked out, not in a labora- 
 tory, but in the life of the world. Second, 
 because the subject-matter, "life," is that 
 with which in its many forms, physical, 
 intellectual, social, and spiritual, we are con- 
 stantly striving. The first step from this 
 point of view brings us to the entrance to 
 that other science which deals with the 
 same material. 
 
 Economics why does the term seem 
 forbidding? It has always been a man's 
 subject, dealing with the problems of his 
 activities, a study of the way in which 
 man produces, exchanges, and distributes 
 his wealth a great field for theory and 
 experiment which has fascinated great 
 thinkers for centuries. But it has not 
 been considered a woman's field. The 
 short chapters in orthodox treatises as- 
 signed to the consumption of wealth do 
 not interest women because they are usu- 
 ally clothed in the language of the science, 
 which women as a rule do not understand, 
 
 20 
 
UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF / 
 
 Sight and Vision 
 
 simply because they have not been trained 
 to understand it. 
 
 It may not be necessary for all women 
 to understand the laws of production and 
 exchange, but the time has come when 
 women feel the need of study and training 
 in the economics of consumption, otherwise 
 known as the spending of their money. 
 As long as men were the spenders, women 
 were excused for knowing nothing of the 
 laws of spending. Conditions of life made 
 this a natural position for women. Their 
 lives were largely cut off from the outside 
 world of economic activity. The men made 
 the money and retained the right to spend 
 it for the demands of home and family. 
 The idea that women might have the wis- 
 dom to make money and to spend it care- 
 fully is very recent. When men were the 
 spenders it was but right, for women had 
 then no training beyond that of their own 
 homes, knew little of the work of the world, 
 and no doubt would have wasted much that 
 was saved. Today it is the woman who 
 spends, and upon her rests the responsi- 
 bility for the standards that govern the 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 spending for home and community. It is 
 for women to build up that department of 
 economics, so long neglected by the econo- 
 mist, the science of consumption. This, in 
 the woman's world, means the spending of 
 money for life's environment, home, travel, 
 books, music, food, dress, all things included 
 in the living of life. 
 
 No one can tell what woman will do with 
 the subject. She may refuse the old termi- 
 nology. Her first attempts may be laughed 
 at and called unscientific. But nevertheless 
 it will be an earnest endeavor on her part 
 to solve her own hard problems in the best 
 possible way. The results may be simple ; 
 that is surely to be desired. Women seem 
 to have a dread of new terms for old famil- 
 iar things and phases of life. Well-known 
 methods of work become strange and far 
 removed when first renamed. The woman 
 who objects to the application of the bio- 
 logical point of view because of the termi- 
 nology is not wholly unreasonable. We 
 can all sympathize with the woman who 
 exclaimed : " The laws of consumption are 
 Greek to me. What I want to know is 
 
 22 
 
Sight and Vision 
 
 how to spend my money." A most famil- 
 iar instance of this feeling is the reluc- 
 tance with which the revised version of the 
 Bible has been accepted by the majority 
 of people. The new language seemed to 
 hide completely the old meaning for many 
 readers. 
 
 Women do not find fault with the way 
 they have come. They wanted what the 
 men had and it was given to them. They 
 want more. When the sweet-faced New 
 England woman, living her quiet life in 
 the old town of Hatfield, stretched out her 
 strong, helpful hands to all the generations 
 of girls to come, by making a woman's col- 
 lege a possibility, she was called a dreamer, 
 a visionary woman, who had better be looked 
 after by some strong-minded man who could 
 put her money to some practical use. That 
 vision realized has given to hundreds of 
 women ideals and standards which have 
 made life full and rich. We would not 
 give up our chance of gaining a vision, but 
 we want to develop with our vision good, 
 clear sight. 
 
 There remains the present problem of 
 23 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 the thousands of women whose opportunity 
 for technical training in any school or class 
 has passed ; women who have already taken 
 up the responsibilities of the home, who 
 have neither the time nor the inclination 
 to go into any formal work along these 
 lines ; women who are spending yearly any- 
 where from fifteen hundred dollars to ten 
 thousand dollars, the great class of present 
 day spenders whose influence is so strong, 
 whose power in the economic world is be- 
 ginning to be very keenly felt, and who 
 establish the standards of life for the larger 
 part of society. 
 
 How can these spenders be reached ? 
 The Federation of Women's Clubs of 
 America represents thousands of women. 
 The organization has struggled up through 
 years of ridicule and criticism. In spite of 
 mistakes it has proved its usefulness, and 
 a study of the growth and progress of its 
 interests makes the scoffer cautious in his 
 condemnation. An "Afternoon with Brown- 
 ing," or an " Evening with Chopin," delight- 
 ful as such entertainments were, no longer 
 satisfies a woman's club as the sole aim and 
 
 24 
 
Sight and Vision 
 
 purpose of the organization. From subjects 
 of general culture for themselves, the clubs 
 have turned to objects of practical interest 
 to community life, with good results. 
 
 The club that has for its object the light- 
 ing of the town is to be praised for its 
 spirit of civic responsibility. The club that 
 maintains a model tenement to show the 
 poor women of the community how to have 
 a home, clean, healthy, and pleasant, on 
 their limited incomes, is of positive edu- 
 cational value to society. The club that 
 started to take the interests of its members 
 out of their homes, to give women broader 
 interests, to take them out of themselves, 
 has found that such a journey has only led 
 them back to their own homes.. The in- 
 terest in the broader life of the community 
 has given to women a keener realization of 
 the importance of each individual home and 
 life in that community. The woman's club 
 is teaching women mutual helpfulness as 
 the stepping-stone to mutual advantage 
 along every line, and wise spending of 
 time, effort, and money is now the first 
 consideration of these organizations. 
 
 2 S 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 Professor Patten, in his " Theory of 
 Prosperity," makes the following assertion: 
 "The greatest problem for men, after all, 
 is the problem of woman. ; Men do the 
 work and bear the burden of today, but 
 women shape the men of tomorrow. The 
 outgo of energy toward them creates a 
 store upon which the future can draw."\ 
 This is true. But women of today shape 
 also the women of tomorrow, and in the 
 light of this responsibility the question of 
 spending is one of their greatest problems. 
 Women have had the vision, and have 
 worked for its realization. Many of the 
 world's most helpful activities have been 
 the results of the visions of women. Could 
 the poor of London, indeed of all England, 
 ever measure the blessings of Mrs. Bosan- 
 quet's work and study for the betterment 
 of their condition? How few of the great 
 reforms in the living of life have been apart 
 from the influence of women ! Lady Somer- 
 set and England's liquor question, Maud 
 Ballington Booth and America's prison re- 
 form, the settlements, the day nurseries, the 
 nurses' settlements, all bear witness to their 
 
 26 
 
Sight and Vision 
 
 unsparing activity in the interest of their 
 sisters and their brothers. Great and worthy 
 indeed are such movements, and helpful 
 alike to individual and to society. 
 
 Yet the pursuance of these larger aims 
 should not blind the woman to the nearer 
 demands of her own home sphere. We 
 would none of us wish to trip over the 
 small obstacle in the way because our faces 
 are set only toward the end of the road. 
 That end would be gained more quickly 
 and with fewer hurts and mis-steps if we 
 would take heed to our feet that they 
 stumble not over little hindrances. It is 
 sometimes easier to let the vision of the 
 mountain-top on the distant horizon veil 
 our eyes from the commonplace, everyday 
 sights near at hand in the valley. But it 
 is these that we need to look at, to which 
 we must open wide our eyes, if the mani- 
 fold matters of practical life are to receive 
 the attention they deserve. Let us then 
 train our eyes for both, to behold the vision 
 and to store it up in heart and brain, but 
 at the same time to have the power of clear, 
 uncompromising sight. 
 
 27 
 
VITAL NEEDS 
 
Strength of desire determines value; hence value is indi- 
 vidual and not universal. 
 
 Demand means desire backed up by means or purchasing 
 power. Ely and Wicker, p. 97. 
 
 The disturbance or catastrophe called disease, excluding 
 accidents, is not simply to be met by treatment, although that 
 may be necessary and beneficial, but is to be prevented, and 
 that with so much perfection that it shall altogether become 
 extinct, or remain as a mere historical ghost. 
 
 ... in the earnest hope of the day when men . . . shall 
 find in the study of the natural body the grandest work the 
 liuman intellect can command. 
 
 "Vita Medica^ Sir B. W. Richardson. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 VITAL NEEDS 
 
 "T ET your needs rule you; pamper them, 
 *-' you will see them multiply like insects 
 in the sun. The more you give them, the 
 more they demand." These words are from 
 that wise discussion of the "Simple Life," 
 by Charles Wagner. But these needs do 
 not necessarily mean vital needs; rather, 
 the multitude of wants that men develop. 
 By vital needs we mean the primary needs 
 of the physical life, the material things 
 which men must have in order to live, such 
 as food, clothing, shelter, air, and sunlight. 
 We sometimes lose sight of the fact that 
 such vital needs are very simple, and that 
 life will exist when they are most crudely 
 supplied. A rose bush in the garden often 
 surprises us by the way in which it keeps 
 life in its branches long after all care of 
 it has ceased, when the weeds have grown 
 taller than itself and seem to choke it, when 
 little sunlight reaches it and the tiny buds 
 
 3 1 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 never bloom. Thus men are able to live 
 under bad conditions, with impure food, 
 dark and unsanitary homes, with perhaps 
 never a ray of sunlight, but only a reflection 
 of it from some narrow court. Not only 
 are men able to live under such conditions, 
 but they toil for money to enable them to 
 spend for these conditions. 
 
 The word life, however, in the biological 
 world, implies growth and development in 
 some way, along some line, either ascending 
 or descending in the scale. Whether it be 
 the movement up or the sinking back will 
 depend upon the conditions under which 
 the life is lived. Therefore, for our purpose 
 in the question of spending, we may take 
 vital needs to be not only primary needs 
 under any conditions, but those created 
 and supplied under the demands of the 
 very best development of physical life. 
 This extends vital needs to conditions of 
 life, and will include those material things 
 which men must have in order to live 
 under the best conditions, such as pure 
 food, healthful clothing, sanitary houses, 
 sufficient air and light. These are essen- 
 
 3 2 
 
Needs 
 
 tial to the best development, and in the 
 effort to secure them the majority of people 
 spend two-thirds of their income. Why, 
 when so much time, money, and effort are 
 expended, we do not have the best results 
 in health and happiness is the problem for 
 the spending woman. 
 
 One reason for the failure seems to be 
 in the conflicting opinions as to just what 
 the vital needs of life are. The word 
 "needs" has become so closely connected 
 with "wants" that it is hard to discrimi- 
 nate between them. The whole matter is 
 in a hopeless jumble of false values and 
 standards. The woman who spends five 
 thousand dollars a year thinks she has 
 hardly enough to live decently on; one 
 with ten thousand considers that with exer- 
 cise of proper caution she is just comfort- 
 ably well off. Yet tomorrow you may meet 
 a woman who has but fifteen hundred dol- 
 lars, and she actually tells you with con- 
 viction that life is worth living now that the 
 question of need is behind her! "Needs," 
 to such, have become a variable, determined 
 by the number of desires the size of their 
 
 33 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 incomes permits them to satisfy, and the 
 satisfaction of these desires may or may 
 not supply rightly the vital needs of life. 
 
 From this we learn that while the phys- 
 ical standards are the same for all, i. e., the 
 physical needs of life are the same, yet 
 the standards of life are widely different, 
 depending upon the education and training, 
 advantages and opportunities, of the indi- 
 vidual. Physical standards were permitted 
 to grow up haphazard, as the result of the 
 experiments of former generations, or as 
 natural consequences of habit and custom. 
 Sickness and death were states men could 
 not escape and could in no wise control. 
 But the last century has developed an en- 
 tirely new point of view. First, that it is 
 possible to know exactly the means required 
 for the best satisfaction of physical needs, 
 and then, most important and inspiring to 
 the woman who is ready to learn, that any 
 one with fair opportunity and appreciation 
 of the value of this knowledge may gain it 
 through the necessary education and train- 
 ing. A real necessity to meet the demand 
 for this knowledge rests upon the women 
 
 34 
 
Needs 
 
 who today spend for physical needs. Eco- 
 nomically, a woman's chief function is the 
 spending of her money, and physical needs 
 become of great importance to the eco- 
 nomic world because of the large amounts 
 of money that will always be put into 
 circulation through expenditure for these 
 needs. 
 
 In the relation of women to the getting 
 and spending of money, the world has seen 
 a most interesting development. Years ago, 
 when our nation was a nation of country 
 folk, women did little of the spending, but 
 helped much in the production of wealth. 
 This was the result of the conditions of 
 living which obtained in those days. Before 
 the invention of machinery, before even the 
 hand machinery, such as sewing machines 
 and farm implements, came into use ; when 
 transportation was slow and expensive, being 
 entirely by coach ; when communication be- 
 tween cities and towns, between home and 
 a possible market, was by slow post or by 
 word of mouth, which meant a long jour- 
 ney, production of most of the needs of life 
 centered about the home. Women very 
 
 35 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 naturally came into close touch with this 
 production, which called for little circula- 
 tion of money, but for the work of men's 
 hands. Men raised sheep and cattle ; women 
 did the spinning and the weaving. Men 
 tilled the soil and harvested the crops; 
 women "did their own work," which did 
 not end with the preparation of three meals 
 a day, but covered the actual manufacture 
 of many useful wares, such as candles for 
 lighting the house and soap for the family's 
 use. Often the dairy and the poultry were 
 her especial charge, and the " butter and 
 egg money " her only spending money. The 
 economist says, " Those were days when 
 women together with men produced, helped 
 to make the wealth of the nation, and that 
 was economic." Then there were spinning 
 wheels, now there are factories. Then the 
 home loom was part of the furnishing of 
 almost every house, now the mills do the 
 work. The country has moved to town. 
 Women can now buy all the necessities 
 they at one time had to manufacture. Con- 
 sequently, living is easier. Today women 
 are not spinning and weaving ; they are 
 
 36 
 
Vital Needs 
 
 buying dress goods by the yard and linen 
 by the bolt. They are not producing ; they 
 have thrown off the yoke of economic pro- 
 duction. They only spend. 
 
 Yet this is only partly true. Woman is 
 not producing in the same ways that she 
 once did. She does not work with the raw 
 materials. She may not turn wool into 
 yarn, but she buys blue yarn and knits a 
 shawl. That is still production. She buys 
 a sixty-two-cent kitchen chair, stains it with 
 a Flemish oak stain, tacks a cushion into 
 the seat, and puts the chair in the dining 
 room. That is also production. She buys 
 a dollar's worth of lace, combines it with 
 other materials, and has, as a result, some- 
 thing which represents what she might have 
 paid ten dollars for. Or she converts a 
 packing box into a dressing table with the 
 aid of tacks, hammer, and a few yards of 
 gay cretonne. That is economic produc- 
 tivity. Call it by what name you choose, 
 " harmonizing of products," " combining of 
 materials," such production takes the place 
 of a series of activities which would produce 
 the articles identical in use to be purchased 
 
 37 
 
7/^^ Woman Who Spends 
 
 in the shops. Many women, therefore, have 
 not lost their function as producers of eco- 
 nomic commodities, but still possess it, per- 
 haps with even greater power, because of 
 the expansion along all lines of demand 
 and supply. On account of the change in 
 the economic conditions of production, how- 
 ever, women have gained a whole new field 
 of economic activity, that of consumption. 
 
 For women, economic consumption is the 
 spending of money. Their problem is not, 
 What shall be produced to supply my 
 needs? but, How shall I spend to satisfy 
 my needs ? The greater the opportunities 
 for spending, the wider is the field of choice ; 
 and the very complexity which the many 
 sides of life present makes us realize the 
 importance of recognizing the things that 
 are vital and therefore needed. We are 
 told that life is too complex. That is true, 
 but what can we do about it ? The answer 
 comes that men should live more simple 
 lives by cultivating simple pleasures, simple 
 habits, by having only simple needs. This 
 seems at first to be a very easy solution of 
 our problem; but when we attempt to put 
 
 38 
 
Vital Needs 
 
 it into practice, we find that the fight has 
 only been transferred from the word need to 
 the word simple. There is as much theol- 
 ogy in the simple life as in religion ; and 
 although all men agree that it is, like the 
 kingdom of heaven, within you, to be real- 
 ized it must come out, and few agree on its 
 expression. 
 
 As life is inseparable from its environ- 
 ment, some of the vital needs must depend 
 upon the creating and developing of the 
 environment. What do we mean by envi- 
 ronment ? " Surroundings, conditions, in- 
 fluences, or forces, by which living forms 
 are influenced and modified in their growth 
 and development" 1 This would represent 
 first of all, then, a satisfactory treatment of 
 the practical side of life, all the things 
 which make for physical well-being. This 
 side of life is represented by our food, good, 
 bad, or indifferent ; by our clothes, thick or 
 thin, loose or tight, cheap or expensive ; by 
 our houses, small rooms and bad air, or large 
 rooms and pure air ; dark, stuffy apartment 
 in a "desirable neighborhood," or sunny 
 
 i Webster/ 
 
 39 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 upper apartment on the edge of respecta- 
 bility, without an elevator. The practical 
 side of life represents all the many sets of 
 conditions and influences which surround 
 human life. Today it is the woman who 
 ^spends largely to bring about the fulfillment 
 of some idea or other of what these con- 
 ditions should be, for herself and others, 
 and her methods are being studied and criti- 
 cised as her results are praised or con- 
 demned. She asks a practical question, 
 "Are there not some needs of life which 
 are universal and of which I can be sure ? "j 
 Ttn the biological world, the development 
 of an animal or plant organism is not a 
 matter of chance, but of laws regarding 
 heat, light, food, protection, etc., which 
 govern the life growth, j In man, the high- 
 est organism, it is the same. There are 
 laws upon which agreement is now sure, 
 as the result of years of study and experi- 
 ment. Our muscles develop in strength 
 according to the use given them. An arm 
 tied too long at one side becomes useless. 
 The blood is the great source of supply for 
 our bodies, and the strength of lungs and 
 
 40 
 
Vital Needs 
 
 brain, in fact of all the organs, depends 
 upon the good or bad circulation of the 
 blood. This, in turn, depends upon the 
 purity of the air we breathe, the food we 
 eat, the protection or exposure we give 
 our bodies. All these facts are known 
 to women. No woman who is content to 
 remain ignorant of such facts should be 
 intrusted with money to spend for the 
 maintaining of what she conceives to be 
 the proper life environment. The trouble 
 lies in seeing these facts in relation to 
 one's own spending. 
 
 Take, for example, the general ignorance 
 on the subject of ventilation. Many people 
 expect pure air only out of doors. The 
 possibility of having pure air in their liv- 
 ing rooms requires a more thorough under- 
 standing of the system of heating, with the 
 theories of draughts, than most people will 
 take time to learn. As long as so much of 
 life is spent indoors, ventilation ought to 
 interest everybody, and it would if people 
 realized its close connection with their 
 health. Good ventilation is a vital need. 
 The science of plumbing, as it is rapidly 
 41 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 developing, is another instance of the grow- 
 ing appreciation of the importance of those 
 things so long regarded as mere conven- 
 iences. Good health and bad plumbing 
 cannot exist under the same roof. Today 
 no sensible man invests his money in a 
 house which fails to meet this test. 
 
 Women have failed and are still failing 
 to meet the requirement in these physical 
 matters of pure food, healthful dress, proper 
 ventilation, sufficient exercise. The Italian 
 mother who insists upon giving her six 
 weeks old baby macaroni is pitied for her 
 ignorance by women who know no more 
 about the physical needs of a six weeks 
 old baby than does the foreign mother. 
 Yet often much more serious mistakes are 
 made by the woman who ought, from her 
 superior advantages of birth, education, and 
 environment, to know better. The average 
 woman's reason or justification for the food 
 which appears upon her table is either the 
 memory of what she always had at home or 
 the suggestions afforded by the shops she 
 visits. Few have any real knowledge of 
 food nutrients and their proper combina- 
 
 42 
 
Vital Needs 
 
 I 
 
 tions. Food is to many rather a question 
 of amount and variety than a question, as 
 it should be, of nourishment; and it is 
 often the case that where most is expended 
 for food, good health is not the result. 
 Doctors grow plainer spoken every year, 
 and more than one woman is being told 
 today that the sickness in her house is 
 caused by lack of proper nourishment as 
 the result of her own ignorance. The 
 " macaroni baby " is not the only one to 
 be pitied. The child who is allowed to eat , 
 first what he likes, be it chocolate candy or j 
 a breakfast food, is on a sure road to later! 
 suffering. 
 
 The woman who spends must know not 
 only that pure food is essential to a well 
 body, but what pure food is as well. 
 Women are apt to buy first what is wantech 
 and liked, or what will meet the possibilities ^ 
 of their purses. If it happens to be what 
 is needed for the best physical development, 
 well and good, but if not, waste of money 
 and strength result. The principal aim of 
 modern medical science is to prevent disease, 
 to force upon people conditions conducive 
 
 43 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 to health. The home is the first place 
 where such measures should be put into 
 effect. Poor ventilation, uneven heating, 
 food, good and wholesome, perhaps, when 
 brought into the home, but deprived of 
 much of its nutritive power from careless 
 keeping or wrong preparation these are 
 some of the hindrances found in the homes 
 for which women spend. 
 
 It is easy to frighten the ignorant foreign 
 mother into coming to the milk depot for 
 pure milk for her baby by telling her that 
 the baby will die if she does not come. 
 But it is not so easy to tell the mistress 
 of a ten-room apartment that the room in 
 which the children sleep is too small to 
 give them the proper amount of good air* 
 or that in choosing their clothes health and 
 comfort have been sacrificed to fashion. A 
 sleeping room with but one window open- 
 ing on a court, the room so small that to 
 open the window causes a draught and to 
 keep it closed makes the air heavy and 
 close, is not conducive to the health of a 
 i little child or of a grown person. A sudden 
 change from the wearing of the long stock- 
 
 44 
 
Vital Needs 
 
 ing to the fashionable half hose has cost ] 
 more than one little child a hard sickness. 
 Such things as these are a positive menace 
 to life. 
 
 Good care presupposes a knowledge of 
 the needs of the person cared for. That is 
 common sense; it is also biology. Life 
 does not develop to the fullest when hin- 
 dered at every step by outside forces, or 
 when cut off from some of the supplies 
 most necessary to its existence. If women 
 will grasp the connection between the spend- 
 ing of their money and the results in just 
 the physical needs of life, and not be satis- 
 fied until through exercise of knowledge 
 and care they are able to make their tables 
 wholesome as well as attractive or econom- 
 ical, their surroundings clean, their clothes 
 properly protective as well as ornamental, 
 there will be hope that they will become 
 competent to offer a wiser scheme of satis- 
 faction for other needs. 
 
 This is not a day of the privileged. Any 
 woman who cares to think, who wishes to 
 know, has opportunities to acquire a knowl- 
 edge which will enable her to present a 
 
 45 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 proper satisfaction for these vital physical 
 needs. There are free lectures on such 
 subjects given often in all cities and large 
 towns. There are classes, public and pri- 
 vate, in all departments of the subject, in 
 cooking, in housekeeping, in home economic 
 problems of all sorts. The newspapers and 
 weeklies, magazines and books, are filled 
 with articles on these practical subjects; 
 and if lectures and classes are out of a 
 woman's reach, she may always read. 
 
 For dress, for house, for hundreds of 
 " little things " from a paper of pins to a 
 prayer book, women spend, and there is so 
 little connection between effort and result. 
 We either over-emphasize the importance of 
 a result and throw away time, money, and 
 energy to secure it, or we undervalue a 
 result and give but a feeble effort to gain 
 it. We fail to get a proper proportion 
 between effort and result. If we live be- 
 yond our physical means, that is, our supply 
 of life, the best development is impossible. 
 This is a simple law of Nature, and it acts 
 upon some very practical matters. A heavy 
 fur collar and a large muff plus a thin 
 
 4 6 
 
Vital Needs 
 
 walking suit and paper-soled French boots 
 is a dangerous combination of materials 
 for winter use. The woman who stamps 
 her foot into a shoe two sizes too small 
 need send no pitying glances toward China 
 as long as she remains ignorant of or 
 indifferent to her own physical needs. 
 The college girl whose major subject is 
 biology often fails to connect the knowledge 
 she is storing up with the best development 
 of her life, her best physical life, and re- 
 mains indifferent to the helpful application 
 to her own living she might make of the 
 laws of life she is learning. She treats her 
 laboratory specimens with more care and 
 intelligence than she would dream of giving 
 to her food and exercise and work. She // 
 eats when she feels like it, takes a certain 
 pride in the boast " that she really has had 
 no exercise for a week," and sits for hours 
 studying in a hot, close room. [ The school 
 girl who lunches on cream puffs five days 
 of the week soon is living beyond her phys- 
 ical income and has to drop some of her 
 studies^ 
 
 Biologically, then, spending stands for ihe 
 47 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 process assimilation. It is the " nutritive " 
 process of life because it is the source of 
 the supply for life's essentials. Spending 
 is the province of woman. She can be 
 sure of the vital physical needs, of those 
 things essential to the best development of 
 life, however her methods may differ from 
 her neighbor's. The results will be the 
 same, for health is health. When a woman 
 spends her money on what she considers 
 physical needs, and sickness is the result, 
 if she thinks at all she seeks the reason. 
 
 All this does not sound like economic 
 function, and yet it is. We hear a great 
 deal about supplying the demand in all 
 departments of life ; the phrase is not con- 
 fined to the industrial world. The econ- 
 omist says, " The consumption of wealth 
 indicates the line of production." The 
 supply is dependent upon the demand. 
 Women think of themselves as buyers, not 
 as demanders. The supply seems to be 
 fixed in character at least, and they buy 
 what is offered to them. But the de- 
 mander not only creates the supply, he is 
 responsible for the character of the sup- 
 
 4 8 
 
Vital Needs 
 
 ply also. The spending woman will not 
 have the best supply until she understands 
 how to make the best demand. This is a 
 woman's true economic function : not merely 
 to demand, but to demand wisely and in- 
 telligently. She cannot do this and remain 
 ignorant of or indifferent to the vital phys- 
 ical needs, and of their importance over the 
 secondary wishes, the non-essentials of life. 
 It will not be possible to satisfy all wants. 
 That quaint philosopher in " The Spenders," 
 Peter Bines, says, " The mis-a-b'lest folks I 
 ever saw was them that killed all their 
 wants by over-feedin' them." 1 It is good 
 to have wants and wishes, but we are not 
 getting our money's worth when these alone 
 create the demand for production. Ideals 
 must come at last into the economic world, 
 and women, as spenders, must have ideals. 
 To many women, being " economical " means 
 getting the most for as little money as pos- 
 sible, regardless of the character or efficiency 
 of the goods. Such an ideal does not hold 
 in any other side of life. The best moral, 
 spiritual, or intellectual results depend upon 
 
 1 " The Spenders," by Harry Leon Wilson. 
 49 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 the best effort. We do not expect great 
 results from ignorant, desultory methods. 
 We should not expect them in the spend- 
 ing world. The problem is not solved by 
 merely living within your means, merely 
 keeping out of debt. That is a compara- 
 tively easy thing to do. Life must be lived 
 in proper adjustment to the income ; that 
 is, spending for the physical, as well as for 
 the intellectual and moral, needs of life 
 must be in proportion to the whole one 
 has to spend. 
 
 To work out a scheme for oneself in 
 which the amount one has to spend is 
 divided between the vital needs, the wants, 
 and desires in such a way as to give the 
 best and most satisfactory results this 
 seems an ideal worth putting forth effort 
 to attain. What we think we need we work 
 hard to obtain, and often we find we have 
 much that we do not need or. even want. 
 Dissatisfaction comes not so much from a 
 lack of income as from the misuse of in- 
 come. The woman who longs to get where 
 she " won't have to count every penny " will 
 never have her longing satisfied until she 
 
 50 
 
Vital Needs 
 
 first makes every penny count. The burden 
 of life is not lifted when every desire is 
 gratified, but when the needs of life are 
 satisfied to the best possible advantage. 
 
 In our discussion, vital needs have been 
 confined to the physical needs of life, be- 
 
 I cause those are universal in their demand 
 and because this is universally recognized. 
 Women will spend for these needs whether 
 they recognize any higher needs or not To 
 recognize the demands of the physical life, 
 and to be able intelligently to supply these 
 needs, is but the beginning of a better real- 
 ization of other needs. Wise spending for 
 physical things will be, as it were, a train- 
 ing in spending for the highest needs of 
 the intellectual and spiritual life. It will 
 develop qualities which are necessary in all 
 sides of life. The ability to grasp essential 
 facts, to see them in relation to one's life, 
 to give thought, study, purpose, and under- 
 standing to any problem, is to gain the 
 highest and best in return. The supply is 
 determined by the demand. 
 
IMITATION VERSUS 
 INDEPENDENCE 
 
When a nation devotes a large amount of its labor and capi- 
 tal to the production of commodities which in their consump- 
 tion cause more misery than happiness and weaken the nation's 
 future resources of energy and intelligence, there is a departure 
 from economical consumption so serious as to call for the 
 severest condemnation. If society would forego such injurious 
 consumption bread would be cheaper, higher wants would find 
 satisfaction, and man would be working away from the beast's 
 low level of sensual gratification. 
 
 Ely and Wicker, pp. 108-109. 
 
 54 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 IMITATION VERSUS INDEPENDENCE 
 
 IMITATION, in its biological sense, is a 
 * means of development which is protective 
 in purpose. Imitation of color, form, habit, 
 and environment in the biological world is 
 always for the preservation of the life of 
 the imitator, and therefore aids its chance 
 of development. This is the biological limit 
 of the process. If imitation became a men- 
 ace to the best growth of an organism, 
 Nature would quickly drop it from her 
 book of life. Independence, likewise, in its 
 biological sense, is a means of development, 
 because the independent organism, while it 
 draws strength, beauty, and life from its 
 environment, still contains in its own roots 
 or being the essential life requirements, and 
 in using its own power to the utmost adds 
 to the strength of its life. A parasite is a 
 low, dependent form of life, but it is not 
 imitative ; it never becomes like the life that 
 feeds it. Independence does not exclude 
 
 55 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 imitation. Imitation does not destroy the 
 independence of the organism. These two 
 / processes of life development are not op- 
 posing forces, but forces of which the true 
 combination makes a mighty weapon in 
 the struggle for life. If imitation destroyed 
 independence, or independence scorned the 
 aid of imitation, organic life would lose 
 much of that variety which is its strength. 
 In the life of the world today these two 
 processes seem opposed, and in their oppo- 
 sition they are deteriorating and losing the 
 strength both have to give. In the spend- 
 ing world the value of imitation has become 
 strangely distorted, and independence has an 
 unhealthy sound. The American woman is 
 independent. It is usually the first thing 
 mentioned in the long list of her character- 
 istics. She is not bound by precedents, 
 except of her own making. She can think, 
 do, or say almost anything a man can, and 
 a good many things he cannot or will not. 
 It is her greatest source of power, and 
 makes her helpful, earnest, energetic in 
 things of moment today. From all coun- 
 tries of the earth the eyes of women turn 
 
 56 
 
Imitation Versus Independence 
 
 to this country where women are free, in- 
 dependent. Dark Oriental eyes, tragic in 
 their longing; sullen eyes, in whose depths 
 lie generations of submission to the decree 
 of fate ; hopeless eyes, which tell of physical 
 suffering, so long a burden; patient eyes, 
 without a gleam of hope for a possible 
 change, meet the American woman as she 
 travels round the world. Thankfulness that 
 she is not as they are is one of the constant 
 sensations of her journeyings. 
 
 Independent " to be free, unrestrained " ; 
 yes, women are independent. But that they 
 are independent in the truest sense of the 
 word, able to draw from the life around 
 them all that aids in the development of a 
 greater freedom, leaving all that is unfit to 
 die of its own littleness, that will have to 
 be proved, j As opposed to the downtrodden, 
 abused, degraded life of the women of the 
 far East, the life of the woman of America 
 is independent. But whether it is so with 
 relation to that of the woman just across 
 the street or on the floor above, one doubts, 
 because one sees in the life of any com- 
 munity the repetition of habits, customs, 
 
 57 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 and possessions which are clearly barriers 
 in the line of progress of a better living 
 of life. Now independence, like most other 
 things, ought to begin at home if it is to 
 be of any real value to the world at large. 
 But we must define the word before we can 
 discuss it. Independence is as difficult to 
 define as need or simple. Independence, 
 like reason, " is a weapon in the struggle 
 for existence, and a means of achieving 
 adaptation." 
 
 With the mention of adaptation we come 
 to the consideration that it demands, of the 
 necessity of weighing influences. Is the 
 woman spender subject to bias and influ- 
 ence, or not? If she is, what are the in- 
 fluences, and how far are they helping her 
 to the independence she needs for perfect 
 adaptation ? 
 
 We may as well begin with the influence 
 women feel most keenly and admit so sel- 
 dom, man's influence. Men do influence 
 women in their spending. This discussion 
 is not of his right to influence the woman 
 who spends his money, but of the effect, 
 good or bad, which his influence may have 
 
 58 
 
Imitation Versus Independence 
 
 upon the woman. It is but natural that 
 a woman should desire to please the 
 man whose income she spends. Yet this 
 influence is more or less general and in- 
 direct in its power. Women are given so 
 much freedom in spending, and men are 
 so inclined to give the whole burden, at 
 least of household expenditure, into the 
 woman's hands that the man's influence is 
 but spasmodically felt when the purchase 
 is something important, like a new rug 
 for the house, or Tommy's winter overcoat. 
 The man's influence is often good, and it 
 gives the woman more independence in her 
 spending because she feels the value of his 
 larger experience in the buying world. Not 
 that he buys more, but he usually knows 
 more about the production of goods offered 
 to buyers. He prides himself upon know- 
 ing a good thing when he sees it, and his 
 influence could be of the greatest aid if he 
 considered the results worth the time he 
 would have to give. But the average man 
 does not wish to be bothered with such 
 details of living, and often his extreme con- 
 fidence in the woman is the result of in- 
 
 59 
 
ft* 
 
 * 
 
 The Woman Who Spends 
 
 difference, rather than the indication of a 
 recognized basis for such confidence. 
 
 Many men are of no help whatever in 
 a woman's spending. Their standards are 
 shallow and blind, and their influence is 
 to push women farther and farther from 
 the independence which they need. Their 
 pride, perhaps, urges extravagance and dis- 
 play. The spirit of competition enters even 
 into homes, and fosters the desire to be a 
 little better than one's neighbors, at least 
 in outward appearance. 
 
 But a woman's husband, or father, or 
 brother is by no means the only man who 
 has power to influence her spending. The 
 influence which can be profitably studied, 
 because it is daily, almost hourly, felt, is 
 the influence of the man behind the counter. 
 The remarkable variety of things this man 
 is supposed to know, judging by the ques- 
 tions he is asked by the shopper, would fill 
 a library of universal knowledge. To prove 
 this, all one has to do is to visit his counter 
 and listen. Women refer to the shopkeeper 
 or clerk, for their judgment and approval, 
 some of the most important interests in life. 
 
 60 
 
Imitation Versus Independence 
 
 The training the average woman receives in 
 economics is gathered from these sources. 
 Her ideas of value, cost, price, the forming 
 of her economic demand, the apcepting of 
 the supply, all begin and end with the 
 counter. There she is taught to save, by 
 reduced sales and bargains. There her 
 money is apportioned out for her, and econ- 
 omy becomes a problem of making a little 
 go as far as possible, too often without re- 
 gard to the quality of the goods obtained. 
 
 Her biological interests, which should 
 center in drawing from the world of goods 
 the proper service which a healthy life and 
 right environment demand, receive their 
 strongest, if unconscious, influence from 
 the shop. 
 
 In the spring, the woman's question to 
 the clerk of whom she buys is, " Will it 
 wash ? " The supposed graduate from a 
 school of laundry answers, " Perfectly, 
 madam, perfectly, these are all fast colors." 
 He may have sold boots and shoes only ten 
 days before, but the woman does not think 
 of that. He is behind a linen counter, 
 therefore he knows whether the goods will 
 
 61 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 fade or shrink ; he knows whether the table- 
 cloth will retain that nice, attractive, shiny 
 look which makes it such a bargain on the 
 counter, such a rag when it is washed. 
 Women put a premium on the salesman's 
 lying. He is paid to agree with them ; it is 
 his business. Another question asked con- 
 stantly is, " How many yards do I need ? " 
 The inevitable answer, " We are selling from 
 twelve to fourteen yards, madam; it would 
 be safer to take fourteen," is the influence 
 which usually determines the quantity pur- 
 chased. Your own dimensions, the style 
 in which the goods is to be made, seem to 
 have little weight before that answer. The 
 man, who does not know a ruffle from a 
 tuck, or a five-gored skirt from an all-over 
 shirred creation, smilingly tells us the amount 
 needed, and we buy accordingly. There 
 may be dressmaking classes for these sales- 
 men, but if so the fact has not yet been 
 made public. 
 
 Thus, in many ways, this strong influence 
 is felt by the woman spender. The shops 
 depend upon their clerks to sell as many 
 articles as possible and as much of any 
 
 62 
 

 Imitation Versus Independence 
 
 given article as they possibly can. Every- 
 where women meet the bribe to spend a 
 little more. It is not in any sense limited, 
 but extends from dress goods to groceries, 
 from furniture to eyeglasses. The remnants 
 which contain more yards than are needed, 
 but at a price such that " you are really 
 getting two yards for nothing," few women 
 can resist. 
 
 Another strong influence, which must be 
 very effective if its great prevalence signi- 
 fies anything, is advertising. No one ever 
 finds this given as one of the departments 
 of psychology, but it is a practical illustra- 
 tion of a great psychic law which is playing 
 such an important part today in thought, 
 the law of suggestion. The energetic ad- 
 vertising manager may not know that such 
 a law exists, but he obeys it nevertheless. 
 Not long ago, at a banquet of some of 
 the leading textile manufacturers of New 
 England, a speaker, whose subject was 
 advertising, said : " In the first place, psy- 
 chologically considered, it is necessary to 
 understand woman because she does ninety 
 per cent of the buying. The way to reach 
 
 63 
 
w 
 
 The Woman Who Spends 
 
 the woman is through the daily newspaper 
 and the magazines." Just about one-half 
 of our magazines today are filled up with 
 advertisements, and two-thirds of these are 
 for women's wares. This is natural because 
 women have more leisure to read and are 
 more open to suggestion because of this 
 very leisure. The cheaper the magazine, 
 the more advertisements there are for 
 women. This influence has its legitimate 
 place in the business world, for it is through 
 the acceptance of suggestions and the wise 
 adaptation of them that the world pro- 
 gresses along both these lines. But the law 
 of suggestion acts upon the mind, whether 
 it be wise or unwise, empty of knowledge 
 or full of understanding. In this lies the 
 danger. No one cares or dares to contem- 
 plate the number of things women buy as 
 the result of a suggestive advertisement, 
 which are of no use to them in any way, 
 because the suggestion received found no 
 background of knowledge against which to 
 measure worth. The independent woman 
 is sensitive to suggestion, but the sugges- 
 
 64 
 
Imitation Versus Independence 
 
 tion received must submit to the test of 
 her life's demands. 
 
 Stronger than printing, because more 
 convincing than a picture, is the influence 
 of the shop window. There one sees the 
 marvelous combination of bed, bookcase, 
 dressing table, and hatrack actually worked 
 by an attendant who moves too rapidly for 
 you to grasp the mechanism, but conviction 
 follows. There one gazes into parlors, bed- 
 rooms, bathrooms, kitchens, and many sug- 
 gestions are received and acted upon which 
 are useful and helpful, many which are 
 not. In these windows women see them- 
 selves as they resolve others shall see 
 them, and to some it is a lesson well 
 learned; to others it brings a wrong dis- 
 content. Sooner or later women learn the 
 truth of old Peter Bines's philosophy : " In 
 this world of human failin's there ain't any- 
 thing ever can be as pure and blameless 
 and satisfying as the stuff in a bakeshop 
 window looks like it is. It's just too good 
 to be true." 
 
 Nevertheless all these influences will re- 
 main, and will be good or bad according 
 
 65 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 to the place they will have in building up 
 a woman's independence or in tearing it 
 down. To gain independence, knowledge is 
 required. Let women read up on fibers as 
 well as on sixteenth century china. How 
 to know a well-woven, properly dyed piece 
 of goods may be of more value at times 
 than " How to know the wild flowers." 
 The study of the process is as interesting 
 as the methods of Persian rug making, and 
 nearer home. No one would underestimate 
 the aesthetic or intellectual enjoyment of 
 knowing many interesting things which may 
 be far removed from one's own life. But 
 more emphasis must be put upon the great 
 value of an intelligent understanding of 
 simple, practical, everyday matters for which 
 we spend time, effort, and money, often with 
 poor results. We try to provide for life 
 without knowing its needs. We make our 
 physical development hard instead of easy 
 because we do not know the strength or 
 purpose of its demands. Our environment 
 is a burden to be borne instead of a source 
 of vital power to be enjoyed. An independ- 
 ent organism in Nature's world draws from 
 
 66 
 
Imitation Versus Independence 
 
 its environment everything that strengthens 
 its independent sturdiness, and casts off all 
 that would cripple its development. 
 
 This does not mean isolation from its 
 fellows, for some of the most independent 
 organisms live in large societies. From its 
 strength and independence, from the depth 
 and ramification of its roots, perhaps from 
 the shade of its branches, life is given to 
 hundreds of other organisms in their de- 
 velopment. A knowledge of ourselves does 
 not separate, but binds us to our fellow 
 beings. We like to think of ourselves as 
 very special individuals who require, each 
 one of us, our own special environment. 
 We turn to Nature and find most beauti- 
 ful parallels. I heard a woman address a 
 Mothers' Club on this subject very im- 
 pressively. She said: "Our children are 
 like the little flowers in our gardens. Each 
 little plant has its own needs, and Mother 
 Nature is a wise gardener who knows and 
 supplies all. So we as mothers must under- 
 stand each child's needs." It was true and 
 the speaker meant every word of it, in spite 
 of the fact that she herself supplied the 
 
 67 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 needs of her own little " plants " by con- 
 stantly scrutinizing her neighbor's garden. 
 This brings us to the subject of imitation, 
 to the question of its purpose in life. How 
 far is it safe to scrutinize our neighbor's 
 garden ? 
 
 Independence based upon knowledge of 
 individual needs leads to variation. Pro- 
 fessor Senior tells us that man's "first de- 
 sire is to vary his food; the next desire is 
 variety of dress; last comes the desire to 
 build, to ornament, and to furnish." Some 
 mistaken people in the world are inclined 
 to put these three primary objects at the 
 beginning of man's upward climb, to con- 
 sider them as past stages in his develop- 
 ment. But just a glance into the world 
 shows us these objects stronger than ever 
 before and increasing all the time. They 
 are the cause of our wide field of choice 
 today; of our many needs, many pleasures; 
 of more specialization in our work, and 
 better adaptation in our results. Just a 
 small collection of menu cards gives a con- 
 vincing illustration of the intensity of the 
 desire to "vary his food." From the big 
 
 68 
 
Imitation Versus Independence 
 
 hotel to the tenement this desire prevails. 
 As for "variety of dress," there is a story 
 told about one of our leading universities 
 which asserts that in that institution the 
 professors' wives have new dinner gowns 
 every sabbatical year, and only then. It is 
 to be feared, however, that such disregard 
 of fashion, such lack of desire for variety, 
 is forced upon these gentlewomen by the 
 size of the professors' salaries. It does not 
 necessarily signify independence of mind. 
 No, our clothes are among the shortest- 
 lived of our possessions. Professors' wives 
 are hopelessly in the minority. We look 
 to past centuries and a certain style of dress 
 covered a long period, sometimes fifty or a 
 hundred years. Now a style manages to 
 exist about six weeks, sometimes longer if 
 it is particularly attractive. Variety in style 
 means variety in dress. One needs more 
 gowns at a time and more frequent change 
 of dress as new styles are constantly intro- 
 duced. Ornaments, buildings, and furnish- 
 ings have more lasting styles, but still not 
 in proportion to the time and money spent 
 in securing them. 
 
 69 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 In the biological world, variation is an 
 important process in life development, gov- 
 erned by certain laws, the fulfilling of which 
 brings progress in all life, the abusing or dis- 
 torting of which means backward steps, even 
 death. In the practical spending world we 
 recognize the process of variation. The 
 question is, How far is it of service in our 
 industrial and social development? Varia- 
 tion has its place in the economic world. 
 The value of imitation is also recognized 
 in the economic world. By imitation, it is 
 possible to make many things of exact shape 
 and size, where years ago there could be 
 but few produced, and consequently but few 
 possessed. Imitation has brought cheap- 
 ness and larger quantities, thereby making a 
 larger distribution possible. But too much 
 imitation will result in poor variation, and 
 poor variation weakens the independent life 
 of individual and community. 
 
 In the " Letters of a Chinese Official," we 
 find this criticism of our poor variation : 
 " Look at your streets ! Row upon row of 
 little boxes, one like another, lacking in all 
 that is essential, loaded with all that is 
 
 70 
 
Imitation Versus Independence 
 
 superfluous." We resent this very much, 
 because no one expects a Chinaman to dic- 
 tate to us, or to understand American needs 
 and environment. At the same time we 
 recognize a certain truth in the statement. 
 There seems to be a great deal of imitation 
 in our environment, and much that seems 
 destructive. For the latter, we must fix the 
 blame. As long as the American woman 
 allows the shops to choose what she shall 
 wear and what she shall put into her house, 
 and permits her neighbors to dictate her 
 food and habits of life, there will be no 
 healthy progress in wise spending. Some 
 one has said that man only is tending to 
 uniformity, to the brick machine type, not 
 because of grinding poverty, but because he 
 is lazy. I hope this applies to men only. 
 How can one tell women that they are all 
 little bricks, no matter how fine the bricks> 
 and that it is because they are lazy! No, 
 far better say they are all peacocks, and 
 spend their time and money busily match- 
 ing colors. The imitation is often not posi- 
 tively bad, but many times negatively good 
 because it takes time, energy, and money 
 
1 <- k f Vt~t ; 
 
 '(< 
 
 ; ;^;' : 
 
 ^ v 7%* Woman Who Spends 
 
 which could produce positive good. Thus 
 it is a social, economic, and biological waste. 
 The desire to vary and imitate becomes 
 more or less of an ethical question, a ques- 
 tion of how much variety we are justified in 
 striving for and how much imitation ought 
 to be followed by thoughtful spenders. It 
 is so easy to point out to others their faults 
 along this line. It is far easier to feel sure 
 that we are independent, whatever others 
 may be. But if we are honest, we cannot 
 fail to see the weak spots in ourselves. So 
 much of our imitation is without rhyme or 
 reason. It begins with the schoolgirl who 
 is unhappy unless her hair ribbon is just 
 as big and floppy as the " other girls'," no 
 matter how unbecoming it may be to her. 
 To so many of your most reasonable and 
 sensible ideas for her she has but one 
 answer, " Oh, none of the girls do that, 
 Mother." You give in, reluctantly to be 
 sure, because she is so young and sweet, 
 with her enthusiasm and her shining eyes. 
 But ten years later, that habit may result 
 in the harsh criticism, " She has no ideas 
 of her own; a woman of little force." 
 
 72 
 
Imitation Versus Independence 
 
 But all imitation is not ridiculous or waste 
 of time. There is an imitation that is a 
 protection. This is not only common sense 
 but biological fact. It is a law applied by 
 Nature constantly in the life of animals 
 and plants. A certain harmless species of| 
 butterflies imitate the color and markings 
 of the poisonous ones of another genus, 
 and thus escape a hungry bird. This is 
 advantageous, protective imitation, and such 
 imitation has a big place in the woman's 
 spending world. It is not always an indi- 
 vidual consideration. Often the advance- 
 ment of the whole social group is gained 
 by a sympathetic imitation. It enables men 
 to move forward together, where a lack of 
 imitation would dissipate their energies and 
 delay their progress. No one can stop such 
 imitation in the spending world, and no one 
 cares to do so if women will realize the 
 importance of it. But the social aspect of 
 it must not be overlooked, the inevitable 
 fact that the demands of the individual de- 
 termine the demands of the social group, 
 just as in the life of a plant or animal 
 group the strength lies not only in numbers, 
 
 73 
 
Woman Who Spends 
 
 but in a sympathetic regulation of the life 
 as a whole. 
 
 To possess things worth imitating is the 
 office of the woman of taste. It is part of 
 her economic function. Every woman who 
 contributes better standards of dress, food, 
 home, and habits for others to imitate is 
 adding to the economic prosperity of the 
 nation, to say nothing of health and happi- 
 ness. If your neighbor's house is sanitary, 
 if her food is pure, if her spending seems 
 to have the best results, copy, woman 
 spender, your neighbor's methods ! That 
 is positive protective imitation because it 
 will add strength to your own individual 
 development. It is also a sympathetic imi- 
 tation which will move the whole com- 
 munity a step farther along the way of 
 progress. 
 
 But woman too often imitates destruc- 
 tively, and what she destroys is her own 
 peace of mind and joy in living, and she 
 also puts a barrier in the path of the 
 community. Father Duncan, who has been 
 forty-seven years among the Indians in our 
 Alaskan possessions, has always tried to 
 
 74 
 
Imitation Versus Independence 
 
 keep them away from the influence of the 
 white man, because, he says, the Indian is 
 only a little child who takes the thing with- 
 out the reason. As long as the Indian 
 lived in his shack or wigwam, with his fire 
 in the middle and a hole at the top, his 
 home had good ventilation and the Indian 
 had good lungs. When he imitates the 
 white man's house, he copies the windows 
 for light only. This results in no ventila- 
 tion, and the Indian gets consumption. 
 This is destructive imitation from a lack of 
 independence which requires knowledge. 
 
 Purposeless imitation ! You see it every- 
 where. Buy a thing because some one else 
 has bought one like it. The shops imitate 
 each other and dictate to the woman just 
 the line of imitation she shall follow, with- 
 out a thought for her needs. The Fourth 
 Avenue shop says to the Fourth Avenue 
 buyer : " Behold my clever imitation. For 
 less than you could pay in a Fifth Avenue 
 shop, I can give you a perfect imitation. 
 You would not be behind the styles, I know. 
 I can make you look like the real peacock, 
 so buy here." The Third Avenue shop 
 
 75 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 scans the windows of the Fourth Avenue 
 shop and returns to say the same to its 
 customers. The First Avenue shop has a 
 still cheaper imitation, and in Hester Street, 
 on the pushcarts, ghosts of the real are 
 " Going, going, going " for thirty-nine cents. 
 Some argue, Why not ? All cannot have 
 the real. Are they to be cut off from all 
 the beauty of form and color just because 
 they cannot afford to pay high prices? 
 Surely not. No one would object to the 
 imitation if it accomplished that purpose. 
 But to possess the clever imitation of a 
 worthless thing, women sometimes miss the 
 essential. We are out of patience with the 
 woman who covers her walls with life-size 
 crayon portraits of all her family, when to 
 do it she is forced to go without necessities. 
 Poor, ignorant thing, we say, what can you 
 expect? To the poor who have no money 
 and who have no business trying to look as 
 if they had; to those who have little and 
 try to look as if they had more, we teach 
 morals and standards. But for those of us 
 who have plenty and who spend our lives 
 trying to imitate those who have too much, 
 
 76 
 
Imitation Versus Independence 
 
 there are always excuses. " Would you have 
 me conspicuously out of style ? " " What 
 can we do, when the shops offer us nothing 
 else?" Learn of Nature, woman spender, 
 and she will teach you to match your en- 
 vironment. She will teach you to struggle 
 for and to imitate those things which make 
 for life, the highest life, the best life, not for 
 yourself alone, but for all to whom you are 
 bound by the common ties of life. Pea- 
 cocks strutting the green velvet lawns of 
 Warwick Castle are a delight to your eyes. 
 Peacocks dragging their gorgeous plumage 
 in the mud of Cheapside are a sorry sight. 
 
 Did you ever go down to one of our city 
 settlements full of the desire to help and lift 
 up the poor shop girl ? Do you remember 
 the chill that came over you when the head 
 worker introduced you to the "girls of our 
 Ivy Club ? " There must be some mistake, 
 you thought. These could not be poor 
 girls, earning five or six dollars a week. 
 They looked better dressed than you did! 
 Plumes on their hats, a rustle of silk petti- 
 coats, everything about them in the latest 
 style. You went home thoughtful about 
 
 77 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 those girls who wasted their hard-earned 
 money on cheap imitation, who dressed be- 
 yond their station, and you failed to see 
 what enjoyment they got out of it. In time 
 you learned that it was only an attempt " to 
 bridge the difference " between themselves 
 and those with larger opportunities by imi- 
 tating all they could see. 
 
 What then shall we say is true or real 
 independence? Its social significance is 
 certainly clear. We cannot live or spend 
 to please ourselves alone. We must draw 
 from life the best that it holds for ourselves, 
 only to give it back to others the richer for 
 our having used it. We cannot separate 
 our independence from the independence of 
 the whole. It requires powers of discrimi- 
 nation to live and spend independently with- 
 out revolution. Socially, true independence 
 of the individual brings unity to the whole. 
 It has ever two aims the highest life, phys- 
 ical, mental, and moral for the individual, 
 and the best development of all for the 
 group, and these can never be separated. 
 As Jane Addams, of Hull House, in " De- 
 mocracy and Social Ethics " so truly said, 
 
 78 
 
Imitation Versus Independence 
 
 " We slowly learn that life consists of proc- 
 esses as well as results, and that failure may 
 come quite as easily from ignoring the ade- 
 quacy of one's method as from selfish or 
 ignoble aims." To gain this real independ- 
 ence and true power of imitation, our 
 methods must not lie in theory alone, how- 
 ever logical it might seem, however ethical 
 its concepts, however economically prosper- 
 ous the carrying out of such a theory ought 
 to make individuals or nations. Methods 
 must stand the test of practice. It is then 
 that our theories become not alone crea- 
 tions of the mind, but habits of life. It is 
 through practice that we progress. When 
 independence becomes vital, it will give us 
 the strength to stand alone ; when imitation 
 becomes helpful, it will enlarge our sym- 
 pathy rather than our vanity. We will 
 have proved by experiment the value of 
 our theories. 
 
 79 
 
CHOICE 
 
Consumption furnishes the motive to production. 
 
 Ely and Wicker, p. 83. 
 
 Luxury and harmful consumption both violate the rule of 
 right choices. Inclusive, harmonious, and varied consumption 
 is most economical. Ely and Wicker, p. in. 
 
 It is the present duty of the economist to magnify the office 
 of the wealth expender. . . . There is no economic function 
 higher than that of determining how wealth shall be used. . . . 
 More discriminating choice necessitates more discriminating 
 production. 
 
 " The Economic Function of Woman" Edward T. Devine. 
 
 82 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 CHOICE 
 
 IT is only a lazy mind that would shirk 
 the responsibility of choosing. Of all 
 the acts of the will, there is none more 
 important in its bearing upon the living of 
 life than the act of choice. Nor is it only 
 in the individual development that choice 
 is the determining factor, but in the life of 
 peoples and nations as a whole action along 
 any line is the result of choice. Choice 
 cannot be separated from the reaction or 
 the result. The individual who chooses to 
 commit crime rather than to do good deeds 
 pays the penalty by death or imprisonment. 
 The nation that chooses unfair dealing with 
 a weaker people pays the penalty in the loss 
 of its own keen moral sense as a people. 
 The person who chooses to drink water 
 from an impure source pays the penalty in 
 sickness. The city that chooses to ignore 
 the spreading of vice among its people 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 develops a moral sickness as well as a 
 physical sickness hard to cure. 
 
 The history of the world records in- 
 stances where individual choice has acted 
 directly upon the larger group interests. 
 Napoleon's choice, the gratification of his 
 own ambition, led to the confusion of 
 continental Europe. Today, however, such 
 choice by individuals affects smaller groups. 
 The president of a manufacturing plant who 
 chooses " no arbitration with his men " pro- 
 longs the strike that involves thousands. 
 The walking delegate who chooses to preach 
 the doctrine of discontent quickly stirs up 
 trouble among the laboring class. Indi- 
 viduals who choose to follow the red flag 
 of anarchy reap revolution. Revolution for 
 good or evil can only result as the choice 
 of individuals. Again, the choice of the 
 individual may not connect him with the 
 life and interests of all, but may tend to 
 isolate him. Few men have been able en- 
 tirely to sever their connection with their 
 fellows, but from the choices resulting from 
 habits and ideas of life we have the develop- 
 ment of groups of individuals more or less 
 
 8 4 
 
Choice 
 
 isolated from the life of the world, such as 
 the Hermits of the early church or the 
 present day Shakers. 
 
 When the field of choice stretches out 
 before us, we cannot fail to recognize the 
 privilege as well as the responsibility of 
 the power of choosing. It is a privilege 
 to be free to choose as one wishes in all 
 the departments of life. It is a privilege 
 to be able by one's own choosing to assist 
 the choice of others. This applies in the 
 most practical sphere of life, the spending 
 world. To choose standards of dress that 
 are simple and inexpensive for oneself 
 makes it easier for another whose natural 
 tendencies are toward extravagantly elabo- 
 rate dress to choose the simpler style. If 
 one dresses simply in these days, the chances 
 are that he will live simply in most ways. 
 To choose food that is plain and wholesome 
 rather than rich and indigestible is not only 
 good for the individual, but helps to estab- 
 lish standards that conduce to the health of 
 the group. Mr. Ruskin says, "You may 
 grow for your neighbor, at your liking, 
 grapes or grapeshot; he will also, catallac- 
 
 85 
 
Woman Who Spends 
 
 tically, grow grapes or grapeshot for you, 
 and you will each reap what you have 
 
 sown." l 
 
 Today this social significance of indi- 
 vidual choice is clearly recognized. With 
 a recognition of the privilege and responsi- 
 bility of choice comes the inevitable ethical 
 consideration of the use to which we are 
 to put this power, and of its relation to all 
 life. Consciously or unconsciously, we sub- 
 scribe to an ethical standard in our choice. 
 It is either worthy of approval or merits 
 disapproval, and the reaction or result is 
 directly dependent upon the character of 
 the choices which it leads us to make. 
 
 In practical matters of buying and spend- 
 ing, our standard of choice is the result of 
 what is commonly called "taste." Taste 
 means personal opinion, individual liking. 
 At first thought it would seem almost im- 
 possible to vary it when once it was fixed 
 and difficult to determine on any elements 
 in a general standard of taste, since it might 
 differ from individual to individual. Yet, if 
 we stop to think, we can easily see that 
 
 this Last." John Ruskin. 
 86 
 
*>7* 
 
 Choice 
 
 there are acknowledged standards in taste. 
 We feel justified in saying of another wo- 
 man that her taste in dress is good, or that 
 in her house furnishing she shows poor 
 taste. Nor do we feel that in making such 
 judgments we are gauging what we con- 
 demn by our own ideas of what is fitting 
 as sole criterion. For we can determine to 
 some extent, at least, the principles accord- 
 ing to which we agree that any portion of 
 our environment is an evidence of good or 
 of bad taste. 
 
 In all art, civilization has long since estab- 
 lished the principle that to be good a thing 
 must serve some purpose of use or necessity. 
 The architect who overloads his building 
 with ornament and decoration, which is the 
 result of nothing but his desire to embel- 
 lish, has not added to but has impaired the 
 beauty of the whole. When we go into a 
 parlor crammed with knick-knacks and with 
 furniture so that there is hardly room to 
 move about, we are justified in disapproval 
 because use has given way before the desire 
 for show. 
 
 Besides the result of overcrowding, to lose 
 87 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 sight of this fundamental principle of good 
 taste may affect our choice of quality in 
 what we buy. Many of the wares designed 
 to catch the eye of the shopper were made 
 with no thought of usefulness flimsy fur- 
 niture, pitchers that one cannot pour from, 
 vases that offer no space to be filled with 
 the needed water for their burden of flowers. 
 It is not worth while, economically, to put 
 our money into these things ; if we have at 
 heart the idea of use, we go armed against 
 the temptations of the shops. 
 
 In dress, the tendency is more and more 
 to violate this principle. Seldom have 
 clothes shown so much needless overelab- 
 oration as in the present styles. Yet the 
 woman who for reasons of economy, or any 
 other reason, wishes that she might cling 
 to the more simple vogue has good taste 
 on her side, did she but know it, and could 
 she but summon sufficient independence to 
 feel justified in making her own choice. To 
 be "simplex munditiis" is as much a part 
 of refinement now as in the days of Horace. 
 
 But all these things that make up our 
 environment dress, house and table fur- 
 
 88 
 
jL*. T*V r- j ^ju i * 
 
 ; A**M-* 
 
 i 
 
 Choice 
 
 nishings must, to be in good taste, do 
 more than serve some useful purpose, though 
 that comes first and most important. They 
 must be pleasing to the eye. We would 
 not of choice dress ever in burlap, or spend 
 our days surrounded only by kitchen furni- 
 ture. And right here does the scale of 
 taste begin its slide; it may move so far 
 to the side of "good" that it is out of 
 reach for many of us; it may move sadly 
 far to the side of "bad." 
 
 But here, too, happily we may find some 
 middle ground that rests on recognized art 
 principle. The two elements which render 
 an object pleasing to the eye are its color 
 and its form. ^Esthetics lays down very 
 decided rules as to what constitutes good 
 taste in color. If individuals would only 
 consult these rules before forming their 
 standard of taste, we should be saved many 
 hideous perpetrations in dress and house 
 furnishing which combine reds and purples, 
 or something equally distressing. Form, also, 
 as reducible to a matter of lines, curves, 
 and angles, is determinable as good or bad 
 on definite and accepted principles. If a 
 
 8 9 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 realization of these two elements which con- 
 stitute the beauty of any object, fitness to 
 the use for which it is designed and pleas- 
 ing quality, could only come to manufac- 
 turers and the shapers of our styles, good 
 taste would be far more prevalent than it 
 is. The hat that extends a full foot upward 
 from a pompadour of ridiculous height, the 
 sleeve that falls so far from the wrist that 
 it is impossible to keep it neat, the strange 
 requirements in figure that lead to hope- 
 less artificiality and menace health such 
 offenses against art and taste alike would 
 be done away. 
 
 It is easy to see to how great an extent 
 our choice of these things that surround us 
 is determined by our taste, natural or ac- 
 quired. Even if we have but little to 
 expend, good taste will tell ; and though 
 we put forth vast amounts of money, bad 
 taste, or a violation of the principles re- 
 ferred to, will vulgarize and render shoddy 
 all our belongings. /This being the case, 
 the spending woman can do few things 
 more worth while than to inspect her own 
 standards of taste in an impartial way and 
 
 9 o 
 
Choice 
 
 see if they be praiseworthy. Nor need she 
 feel that a cultivation of right standards 
 and a change from bad to good in taste 
 is too much to undertake. If we can re- 
 duce this matter of taste to principles, as 
 we have seen is after all simple and easy; 
 if we can steer safely through the whirlpool 
 of conflicting notions, we can reach the 
 smooth waters of sane thinking, and guide 
 our craft till she comes into the haven of 
 sound judgment and a confidence in our 
 canons of taste that will insure independ- 
 ence and lead to the making of right choices 
 in the selection of the thousand and one 
 material things that go to make up our 
 environment. 
 
 Taste is too often a matter of chance or 
 pig-headedness, and where there is little in- 
 dividuality to express, it varies with the 
 varying mode found good in the world's 
 eyes. It is plain that this quality which fur- 
 nishes our ground of choice among things 
 material must, in order to meet the neces- 
 sity of testing the value of the wares brought 
 to our notice, be as stable and well founded 
 as we should wish to have our code of 
 
 9 1 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 ethics and morals, by which alone we can 
 test the value of things immaterial in the 
 realm of thought and spirit. In the life of 
 our mind we like not to be swayed by every 
 wind of doctrine, an easy prey to the pro- 
 mulgators of any fantastic and novel view 
 of life and conduct. Nor are we so, the 
 most of us; for, with or without thinking, 
 we all formulate some theory to stand as 
 the test of values. How then can we, in 
 the life of the body, the life practical, deter- 
 mine value if we have not a firm basis, a 
 definite set of tests that anything must be 
 able to stand before it can recommend 
 itself to our consideration? Yet granted 
 that we have mastered the canons of good 
 taste, we have more to do to provide our- 
 selves with the bulwark that we seek. For 
 values are shifting and changing, and who 
 shall say what the true mark of value is? 
 What definition is there of value that 
 would be of practical assistance to the 
 spending woman ? We agree with the 
 Austrian school of political economy that 
 the theory of value is the beginning of 
 economic science, for a study of its history 
 
 92 
 
Choice 
 
 shows how the entire development of any 
 given theory depended upon the idea of 
 value. The very word suggests centuries 
 of controversy, numberless theories, thou- 
 sands of pages of dry argument. It is 
 almost a bigger bugbear than "economics 
 of consumption," and a much more difficult 
 term to translate. Men have not agreed in 
 their attempts to define value, in spite of 
 Mr. Mill's statement, " The word value when 
 used without adjunct always means, in polit- 
 ical economy, value-in-exchange." l This has 
 a definite sound, and might lead one to 
 suppose that the definition of value was 
 fixed and unchangeable. The " without ad- 
 junct" is the important part of that state- 
 ment, since both terms, value and exchange, 
 may be used in countless combinations all 
 differing in meaning. 
 
 Perhaps before we attempt to get from 
 the world of political economy a definition 
 for the purpose of guiding a woman's 
 choice in her spending, it would be well 
 to investigate this world of spending in its 
 relation to the economic world, to see 
 
 1 ' Principles of Political Economy." John Stuart Mill. 
 93 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 whether it is a part of it, how important 
 a part of it, and whether we have any right 
 to expect a recognition of it by economists, 
 and if it is possible to have that recognition 
 take the form of some practical working 
 ideas. 
 
 The woman's world of spending centers 
 very largely in the home and its interests 
 and demands, and this is a big, vital part 
 of the economic world. We base this claim 
 first upon the very derivation of the word 
 economic from the Greek oucovopos, mean- 
 ing " one managing a household." The old 
 definition of the word is, "the science of 
 household affairs," showing that the science 
 began with the home and its interests, and 
 so making the claim for a consideration of 
 those interests a reasonable one at least. 
 The current definition of economics is, " the 
 science of wealth." Is this change in form 
 of expression so much a change in real 
 meaning, or does it make an unconsciously 
 sad comment on the trend of development 
 in the home life of today? 
 
 In time, however, with the growth of in- 
 dustry which became of great importance 
 
 94 
 
Choice 
 
 to whole peoples and nations, with inven- 
 tions which made greater activities possible, 
 with the development of new trades, the 
 work of the world passed out from under 
 the control of the household, and economics 
 as a science went with it and soon became 
 a strange language to the new " manager of 
 the home," the woman. 
 
 This change, or rather this early develop- 
 ment of economics, was in accordance with 
 the development in its subject-matter. The 
 world was then beginning its long life of 
 production ; exchange meant at that time 
 transference of actual commodities pro- 
 duced, and not until later came the me- 
 dium of exchange which today we call 
 money. So the development of the science 
 by economists has been along the lines 
 of production, the making of things, for 
 centuries. 
 
 But other men beside the economist 
 struggled with the science, and dared to 
 point a new way for its development by 
 insisting that a science of production was 
 not enough. Men were " using things " as 
 well as "making things," and their use of 
 
 95 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 them was determining the well-being of in- 
 dividuals. These thinkers were not scien- 
 tists, but prophets, who saw little good in 
 the hard science of wealth, because their 
 standard of judgment was the result of the 
 effect of wealth upon human life, rather 
 than the mere progress of the industrial 
 world. 
 
 Ruskin studied men, not production, and 
 his cry, " There is no wealth but life," l 
 was the result. How that prophet of the 
 nineteenth century was sneered at by the 
 economist for his assertion that " that 
 country is the richest which nourishes the 
 greatest number of noble and happy human 
 beings; that man is richest who, having 
 perfected the functions of his own life to 
 the utmost, has also the widest helpful in- 
 fluence, both personal and by means of his 
 possessions, over the lives of others." l Yet 
 who can say that the important change tak- 
 ing place in the economic treatment of 
 life is not the outcome of the spirit of such 
 prophets as Ruskin and Carlyle, such dream- 
 ers as William Morris and Count Tolstoi ? 
 
 1 " Unto this Last." Ad valorem. John Ruskin. 
 
 9 6 
 
Choice 
 
 There is certainly a change in economic 
 science if an economist of today, Mr. Edward 
 Devine, can make this statement : " If polit- 
 ical economy is the science of wealth, it is 
 as much concerned with the way in which 
 wealth is consumed as with the way in 
 which it is produced. If, as some are 
 already preferring to call it, political sci- 
 ence be the science of human wants, then 
 it is even more fundamentally concerned 
 with the consumption than with the pro- 
 duction of wealth." 1 In this new develop- 
 ment lies the strong connection of women 
 and their world of spending with the science 
 of economics. To use things produced, to 
 direct the use of things for food, drink, 
 dress, for travel, music, books, to determine 
 those things that shall come into the home 
 and those that shall not all this is today 
 the power of the woman, and it is her eco- 
 nomic function. 
 
 What must be her standard of value in 
 developing her economic function ? Can it 
 be the one accepted by and belonging to a 
 past stage in the development of the science 
 
 *" The Economic Function of Woman." Edward T. Devine. 
 
 97 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 "value is power in exchange"? This p*en- 
 eral economic definition has been treated by 
 every economist, and therefore we prefer to 
 give Walker's description, " Value is the 
 power which an article confers upon its 
 possessor, irrespective of legal authority 
 or personal sentiment, to command in ex- 
 change for itself the labor or the products of 
 others." l We do not deny the strength of 
 this statement or the truth of it, or the real 
 significance it has in the world of produc- 
 tion, but we fail to see how it can stand as 
 the only meaning of value necessary for the 
 woman in her world of spending. Women 
 recognize value largely along lines of " per- 
 sonal sentiment," and this cannot be ignored. 
 Value depends upon, is measured by, her 
 aims in life, and ideals play a large part in 
 the spending world. Mr. Devine, who has 
 recognized the economic function of woman, 
 says, " Those consumers whose ideals are 
 high, whose tastes are developed harmoni- 
 ously, and whose demands call for a wide 
 variety of physical, mental, and social re- 
 sources, will win a commanding place in 
 
 1 " Political Economy." F. A. Walker. 
 
 9 8 
 
w* .J ' 
 
 the unconscious struggle which continually 
 goes on." 
 
 A woman's desires form tire basis for her 
 spending ideals, and they are her criterion 
 for value. Lewis Clark, in his " Trip Across 
 the Continent," tells many instances of the 
 effect the white man's possessions had upon 
 the Indian ; his eager desire to have the 
 string of beads the trader brought would 
 often cause him to give a fine horse in 
 exchange for them. To him the value was 
 in possessing not what he needed but what 
 he desired, and the power the simple string 
 of beads had in exchange, quite out of pro- 
 portion to its real worth, was measured and 
 determined by the strength of the Indian's 
 desire. 
 
 Value for women is determined more or 
 less by the "degree of desirability," and 
 much of her spending is for what finds a 
 figurative description in " blue beads." All f 
 sorts of desires control her purse. She 
 values the things she longs for, and will 
 sacrifice time and strength to gratify a fancy 
 ten times more quickly than to supply a 
 need considered pressing by somebody else.j 
 
 99 
 

 The Woman Who Spends 
 
 Value in this way becomes " the measure of 
 effective utility," according to Mr. Devine, 
 "the utility of any commodity being its 
 power to satisfy desire/' 1 and the value of 
 a thing increases with the rise of its power 
 to satisfy desire. 
 
 Such a conception of value at once intro- 
 duces ethical considerations, and we begin 
 to build upon what ought to be the aims 
 and desires of women upon which their 
 ideas of value are based. Considering the 
 things for which she spends, the place of 
 an aim in life in her money calculation is 
 easily seen. Her aim may be to buy pure 
 food for a family. What is the average 
 woman's attitude toward that department? 
 To get it done as quickly as possible and 
 with as little thought as possible. A very 
 large proportion of her income goes to the 
 butcher. But if her desire or aim is to buy 
 pure food for her family, what influence 
 would such a desire have in the market 
 place ? Her desire for pure food arose per- 
 haps from a study of the effects of impure 
 food, or from actual contact with sickness 
 
 1 " Economics." Edward T. Devine. 
 
 100 
 
Choice 
 
 and death. She therefore studies the sub- 
 ject of food, its relation to the health of 
 individuals, to the happiness of the whole, 
 and as a result the standard of food value 
 is based upon the power of any given article 
 to satisfy her pure food desire. She knows 
 when her money expended has brought the 
 best value by the results in health and 
 strength, for these are perfectly tangible. 
 When she chooses the food, her choice is 
 based upon her knowledge of the value of 
 different food stuffs. It will be the same 
 with her house, dress, books, travel, anything 
 and everything for which she spends. If 
 she has such aims and ideals she will 
 " choose the best instead of the good," and 
 the results will show better taste, more 
 desirable adjustment of life to income. 
 
 Patten, in his " Theory of Prosperity," 
 says : " Misery is ^^^-adjustment, due to a 
 lack of harmony between effort and result. 
 That many people regard life as a burden 
 cannot be doubted, but the state of mind is 
 due to a misuse of goods, not to a lack of 
 them." Here again the practical " ought " 
 is suggested, and wise choice, based upon a 
 
 101 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 worthy aim in life, will result from a knowl- 
 edge of values. Many people believe that 
 one's aim in life should depend upon the 
 income one has to spend. That is only 
 partly true. Very often our incomes de- 
 pend upon our aims in life, and we show a 
 surprising lack of shrewdness in this matter 
 when we make our aims general, when we 
 put the goal far ahead, only to be reached 
 by an increase of income. 
 
 Some women feel that power of choice 
 comes only with a large income, which is 
 not true, however much more attractive the 
 field of choice may seem viewed from the 
 standpoint of plenty to spend. However 
 small our means, choice is ours. We fail 
 to let our aims in life influence us suffi- 
 ciently in our daily spending, and this re- 
 sults in a " non-adjustment " of expenses to 
 income, or a lack of harmony between effort 
 and result. 
 
 " To aim high " has been a valuable 
 motive, but in the spending world it is a 
 dangerous one. We have made value a 
 relative term, dependent upon the aims and 
 desires of life, which in turn develop our 
 
UNIVERSITY 
 
 Choice 
 
 tastes and determine our choices. It is 
 reasonable to expect that these aims and 
 desires must not be beyond our means of 
 supplying them. Women, if they aim at 
 all, aim too high ; spend for food, dress, 
 houses, which do not fit their incomes. 
 When a woman can buy a chair for her 
 parlor which does not harmonize with any- 
 thing in the room because it is so much 
 finer, she feels that she has pushed her 
 household a little higher, that they are 
 really getting on in the world. On the 
 contrary, she has made everything else in 
 the room look shabby, and to do this she 
 has probably cut herself off from several 
 simpler pieces of furniture which could have 
 been in harmony with the whole. Such a 
 woman's aim in life is evidently to possess 
 those things which are in proportion to an 
 income three times as large as her own. 
 In the matter of dress it is far worse. We 
 see the wearer of an elegant gown, which 
 belongs in a carriage, climbing weary flights 
 of stairs to dingy little apartments. To 
 have such gowns, many women sacrifice 
 the better things of life. 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 In the spending of an income, wise choice 
 will depend upon the development of good 
 taste which our spending will express. To 
 acquire this taste, we must possess a stand- 
 ard of value, practical and ethical, resulting 
 from the satisfaction of desires and the ful- 
 fillment of aims which bring results worth 
 while to the individual and of help to the 
 community. Truly for the woman spender 
 the standard of value may well be, "those 
 things which avail toward life." l From such 
 a standard, choice, wise choice, will follow. 
 Such a perspective will cause to sink into 
 insigrtificance and out of sight many of 
 the fads, whims, and fancies which "avail 
 not," at the same time leaving clear and 
 undimmed the broader horizon, which is 
 strength and power "to choose the best 
 instead of the good." 
 
 1 " Unto this Last." John Ruskin. 
 
 104 
 
SATISFACTION 
 
The direct satisfaction of human wants by the enjoyment of 
 the utilities in goods is called consumption. 
 
 Ely and Wicker, p. 84. 
 
 Want satisfaction forms the motive to all economic activity, 
 however reprehensible the want. 
 
 Ely and Wicker, /. 85. 
 
 We should cultivate enjoyment or consumption that is in- 
 clusive or inexclusive rather than exclusive in its nature, in order 
 that a great real satisfaction may flow from a comparatively small 
 expenditure. Ely and Wicker, p. 109. 
 
 1 06 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 SATISFACTION 
 
 '""PHIS subject cannot be avoided. We 
 1 must show, or at least indicate, the 
 results of all that we have discussed. Wo- 
 men have learned through sad experience 
 to be cautious of new schemes and methods 
 for their betterment. We face determined 
 resistance without even a trial or hearing 
 unless we can give a promise. If women 
 gain a clear knowledge of practical things; 
 if they understand vital needs ; if they learn 
 a new independence in buying ; if they estab- 
 lish firmly their economic function, that is, 
 power to demand what they want produced, 
 founded on a thorough knowledge of the 
 best values ; if women who spend accom- 
 plish all this, are the practical results going 
 to be worth the effort ? 
 
 Such a question is perfectly justifiable. 
 
 Women have been deluded too often by 
 
 short cuts to happiness. " Aids to light 
 
 housekeeping " have often resulted in heavy 
 
 107 
 
, u x .^A fK 
 
 \\ *" a (*^ T^ 
 
 \\ Crt^~VS \W- 
 
 The Woman Who Spends 
 
 bills to be paid, and the frequent invitations 
 by schemers to free women from some of 
 the tiresome responsibilities of life have 
 usually meant the loss not only of responsi- 
 bilities, but of large amounts of money. 
 No, indeed, women want assured results 
 before they undertake any new method, 
 however attractive. 
 
 We must promise satisfaction. To satisfy 
 our wants is the only economic reason for 
 spending ; whether they be necessary or un- 
 necessary, foolish or sensible, has nothing to 
 do with economic satisfaction. You make 
 a choice, demand certain goods, and when 
 your demand is supplied you are satisfied, 
 says the economist But in our promise of 
 satisfaction we must go beyond the purely 
 economic conception, and this can be done 
 without taking our promise into the realm 
 of theory alone. 
 
 Satisfaction will depend upon the aims 
 in life which are gained through the spend- 
 ing of money. We aim first to gratify our 
 desires, and the quickest way to that end 
 is to spend with a purpose. To possess 
 this first element of satisfaction, one must 
 
 108 
 

 Satisfaction 
 
 not drift in and out of stores, influenced 
 by every bargain sale and reduced goods 
 counter, but one must spend with a definite 
 purpose. Gratification of desires has the 
 widest of fields, because aims in life are 
 innumerable. A shop girl, earning seven 
 dollars a week, has a desire to appear as if 
 she had no connection with the conditions 
 and life which would be consistent with her 
 earnings. I know one whose determination 
 to own a silk petticoat led her to buy a ten- 
 dollar skirt on the installment plan. It took 
 purposeful spending to gratify her desire, 
 whatever one may think of the aim. 
 
 Every year hundreds of school teachers 
 travel abroad, not luxuriously to be sure, 
 but comfortably. Ten years ago it was 
 the rare exception to whom the opportunity 
 seemed possible. The change is not due 
 to possession of more money so much as to 
 purposeful spending of what is possessed. 
 The time when all the good and desirable j 
 things in life seemed to be possible only to ( 
 those of large income is gone forever. The 
 poor own houses and lands, possess the 
 comforts of life, because the possibilities of 
 109 
 
*>> f I'VT* I fc - 
 
 The Woman Who Spends 
 
 the spending world have been opened to the 
 spender through greater and cheaper pro- 
 duction, through invention and discovery 
 along all lines of living. " How we bought 
 a house on eight hundred dollars a year" 
 no longer surprises the reading public. 
 People have come to believe that much is 
 possible where money is spent with a pur- 
 ,pose. We may not always agree with the 
 aim or the methods used to attain the end. 
 We may feel that the struggle for five or 
 ten years to own a house is a very bad 
 investment of our money. To some of us 
 the possession of a house may not be worth 
 all the sacrifice made to get it. But we 
 all recognize one thing, that the first step 
 toward satisfaction is the gratification of 
 our desires, and to accomplish this we must 
 spend with a purpose. 
 
 But satisfaction considered from the spend- 
 ing point of view is not all gratification of 
 desires. There is a far more important side 
 to satisfaction which we expect " content- 
 ment in our possessions" but it is much 
 harder to attain. Why we are not content 
 when desires are gratified is a question for 
 
wv 
 
 batisjaction 
 
 ethical and spiritual consideration. There 
 are as many satisfactions as there are de- 
 sires. For man, none of the satisfactions 
 are permanent because the ends or aims are 
 constantly changing. The world of sport 
 has as a foundation stone the satisfaction 
 to be gained by just playing the game. 
 Every healthy normal boy loves his game 
 of ball or his football scrimmage because 
 of the satisfaction it is to him to meet the 
 demands these games make upon his mind 
 and body. Of course he plays to win, but 
 there is great satisfaction in just the play. 
 There is always possible satisfaction in the 
 mere doing of things, in processes them- 
 selves, without regard to results, in means, 
 with no thought of ends. 
 
 Opposed often to this satisfaction found 
 in action is the satisfaction taken in results, 
 the contemplative enjoyment of work well 
 done, the feeling of pleasure in the end 
 gained, though the doing be but an irk- 
 some task. The artist who works with 
 quick, impatient stroke of brush on canvas 
 finds his real satisfaction when he throws 
 his tools from him and gazes upon the 
 in 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 finished picture. There are women to 
 whom the labor itself is irksome, but the 
 clean, restful home resulting gives satisfac- 
 tion. There are scientists to whom proc- 
 esses are nothing, results everything. 
 
 Again, we find our effort to gain satis- 
 faction of a purely personal, individual na- 
 ture playing a large part in life, and the 
 outcome of this brings both good and evil. 
 The man whose satisfaction can only lie in 
 the gaining of his own ends, regardless of 
 the aims of others, seeks a dangerous grat- 
 ification. The man whose satisfaction, al- 
 though the personal pleasure is not wanting, 
 as it is the result of his effort, standards, 
 and ideals, yet includes a consideration of 
 the good of others finds that he has taken 
 a progressive step. Today, these two kinds 
 of satisfaction, the individual and what might 
 be called the group, are constantly pitted 
 against each other in the struggle of life. 
 In questions of municipal reforms, in the 
 development of civic advantages, in the 
 schools, in the churches, in the homes, 
 these two kinds of satisfaction are enemies 
 instead of friends. The rights of the indi- 
 
 112 
 
Satisfaction 
 
 vidual against the good of all! How to 
 reconcile the interests of both is the ques- 
 tion the twentieth century has to solve. 
 How to gain satisfaction from the building 
 of a rapid transit subway which depreciates 
 the value of your property, but which gives 
 better service to the people who must leave 
 the city at night and return in the morn- 
 ing; how to gain satisfaction from seeing 
 life made easier for a larger number, with- 
 out regard to the effect upon one's own 
 likes or dislikes, are practical questions 
 which show the necessity for a new and 
 broader conception of individual satisfac- 
 tion, for making it a part of the satisfaction 
 of the larger group. Given such a concep- 
 tion, the result would not bring individual 
 sacrifice, but individual gain. 
 
 To the working of this change, the great 
 stumbling-block is habit. We cling to what 
 we are used to, not only in material posses- 
 sions but in ideals and standards, in ways 
 of thinking and methods of judgment. 
 " What has been " is a stronger influence 
 for most of us than " what might be." The 
 beaten path, we think, promises a surer 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 satisfaction than a scramble through the 
 underbrush, in whose shadows may lurk 
 the stinging serpent where we thought to 
 pluck the sweet wood violet. Yet the sat- 
 isfaction that comes with the possession 
 of the old and tried is not what seems to 
 all people a worthy aim. To many the 
 new has. greater charms, and the scramble 
 through the underbrush is alluring. To be 
 first along a new path for the sake of those 
 who may come after brings a sense of satis- 
 faction which is one of the greatest influ- 
 ences in the progress of civilization. 
 
 Thus we could go on, enumerating the 
 different kinds of satisfaction which deter- 
 mine life, showing how they are related to 
 one another, noting the interaction of some, 
 the separation between others. But our 
 question is of spending, and of the satis- 
 faction women find in it. All the types we 
 have remarked may be shown as exercising 
 a motive influence over women in their 
 spending. There is the woman who loves 
 to spend as the boy plays his game, her 
 pleasure lying in the act itself ; there is the 
 woman who finds but dull and hard any 
 
 114 
 
Satisfaction 
 
 expenditure which does not result in direct 
 personal gratification to herself or some of 
 her family, great as may be the worth or 
 need of the particular group satisfaction, 
 to insure or procure which her money is 
 given. And how many are the women 
 whose spending is regulated by habit, by 
 what others have done before them, or what 
 others are now doing around them, who 
 do not take the time, and who cannot or 
 will not take the thought, that might lead 
 to the perception of possibilities of satis- 
 faction in spending for the hitherto new 
 and untried, if only they had the courage 
 of conviction and would dare take the initi- 
 ative. For, after all, satisfaction, economic- 
 ally at least, means contentment in one's 
 possessions, in those material things for 
 which one spends; and if a woman finds 
 herself discontented and full of unrest, her 
 spending must have much to do with it. 
 As we have discussed knowledge we have 
 found that it led to true independence in 
 a woman's spending. How far will the 
 exercise of this independence bring con- 
 tentment ? 
 
 "5 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 Contentment has to many ears a sound 
 that implies permanency. It is a state that 
 once reached abides forever. It presents 
 always a fair picture, like a beautiful garden 
 which one may enter, closing the gate be- 
 hind one, and resting within the shade and 
 fragrance the remainder of one's days. But 
 life and experience show that contentment, 
 like satisfaction, is but transitory. This 
 means not that it is impossible to be always 
 contented, but that the sources of content 
 will be constantly changing, just as satis- 
 faction changes at the fulfillment of each 
 fresh desire or need. 
 
 Perhaps the best way to find the means 
 to the end of contentment is to discover 
 the causes of discontent. The influence 
 which seems strongest, regarding discontent 
 solely from the economic point of view, 
 comes from without, and is what the econ- 
 omist calls "the prevailing sentiments of 
 the community." Not alone in matters 
 economic do we feel the pressure of these 
 sentiments, and it is not possible to disre- 
 gard them. They must be studied, weighed, 
 accepted, or rejected as they further or 
 116 
 
Satisfaction 
 
 hinder the development of individual and 
 of community. 
 
 There are two ways of following these 
 sentiments, blindly and intelligently, and 
 these two ways result in two kinds of dis- 
 content. An intelligent understanding and 
 acceptance of a sentiment or standard, which 
 means a wise adaptation of it to one's own 
 need and environment, brings a discontent 
 which is necessary in all advancement to- 
 ward content. To follow a standard blindly, 
 simply because it prevails for a time in a 
 community, without a thought as to the 
 value or good that may result, brings a 
 restless discontent that seeks only change, 
 no matter of what sort, a state from which 
 contentment never grows. 
 
 When the spending woman lacks con- 
 tentment in her possessions, " the prevailing 
 sentiments of the community " are probably 
 the cause. If she accepts a new standard 
 intelligently, independently, her present dis- 
 content is only a matter of time and energy. 
 She will have to study the new standard in 
 its relation to her needs and those of others ; 
 she will have to give her best energy to a 
 117 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 careful application of it to her life and 
 interests, and her ultimate acceptance of it 
 must depend upon the success or failure of 
 her experiments. If she follows " prevailing 
 sentiments " blindly, her discontentment will 
 be the matter of a lifetime. 
 
 Fifteen years ago, people living in cities 
 were envied by those who must perforce 
 remain in the country, and the latter were 
 more or less pitied by the city people. 
 How changed is the attitude today ! The 
 majority of men and women forced to live 
 in the city the greater part of the year have 
 as an aim in life a "place in the country," 
 large or small. To own a house in the city 
 and board in the country for a few weeks 
 in the summer is no longer the aim of the 
 average spending woman. Rather is it to 
 take an apartment in town for a few months 
 in the winter and have a country home for 
 the rest of the year. 
 
 A distinct change of sentiment has taken 
 place, in this instance, of the way in which 
 the income is spent for a home. The 
 change came as the result of advance along 
 many lines. Invention did much to make it 
 118 
 
Satisfaction 
 
 possible. The effect of rapid transit spread- 
 ing a network of suburban steam and elec- 
 tric lines over whole sections of country 
 was to make hundreds of new places avail- 
 able for homes because they could be easily 
 reached. The perfecting of the cold storage 
 system made the question of food an easy 
 one to solve. The telephone banished the 
 sense of isolation, and made " burying one- 
 self in the country " an impossibility. Thus 
 an intelligent following of a new sentiment, 
 at once recognized as a change for the 
 better in the living of life, has brought 
 such contentment into the lives of men 
 that no one fears a return to the old way 
 of living. In following a " prevailing senti- 
 ment " women need knowledge, independ- 
 ence, and power to choose the best; for if 
 they do this, contentment in their posses- 
 sions cannot fail to result. 
 
 Fashion is the word applied to many of 
 the prevailing sentiments which are sup- 
 posed to be without reason, and which 
 undergo frequent change merely for the 
 sake of change. If a thing is foolish, bad, 
 useless, a passing fad, fashion is responsible. 
 119 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 But fashion has held much that is good, 
 and is not infrequently a means of advance- 
 ment. Herbert Spencer defined it as "a 
 form of social regulation analogous to con- 
 stitutional government as a form of politi- 
 cal regulation " ; and in our country, where 
 constitutional government is thoroughly be- 
 lieved in, fashion as a social regulation has 
 almost equal force. There have been many 
 sensible fashions in dress for women. The 
 short skirt, instead of a train which fashion 
 decreed should be allowed to drag in the 
 dust and dirt of the streets; and heavy 
 walking boots, instead of paper-soled French 
 kid shoes, have been fashions worth follow- 
 ing, because they brought better health, 
 freer outdoor life, and, we believe, more 
 contentment. There have been fashions in 
 houses which have brought greater content- 
 ment to all who could follow them. The 
 old notion of having two or three rooms in 
 every house which were merely for show, 
 and which the family never used except on 
 special occasions, is gone, we trust, forever. 
 In the modern house, every inch of space 
 is for the use of the family. In place of 
 
 I2O 
 
^ I .A/r-tA^""'^ 
 
 Satisfaction 
 
 two small rooms, a parlor for company, a 
 sitting room for common, one finds a big, 
 airy living room which serves both purposes. 
 Thus we see that as ideas and standards of 
 living progress they find expression in our 
 environment; and as they meet the needs 
 of life, which are constantly unfolding, they 
 bring greater contentment. 
 
 As knowledge serves independence, so 
 independence serves contentment. There 
 is a story told of three women who decided 
 to try this " independence idea." They de- 
 termined to buy one handsome winter suit 
 once in three years, instead of a new one 
 each year, which a slight change in style 
 had always, to their minds, necessitated. 
 They confess now that it was dreadful for 
 the first three years ; but their friends have 
 become used to this "eccentricity," and 
 once in three years these women have the 
 satisfaction of purchasing the best, and they 
 are much admired by the weaker sisters 
 who dare not depart from the ways of 
 fashion. Independence will involve choice, 
 and much of our contentment will depend 
 on how we choose. There are so many 
 
 121 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 fashions, so many styles, so many senti- 
 ments which are changing from month to 
 month, most of them harmless, but all more 
 or less expensive. 
 
 Content is not a state of stagnation, 
 neither is it a constant whirlpool. Biolog- 
 ically, change is absolutely necessary to life 
 development. The new is stimulating, re- 
 freshing to the mind ; and as long as 
 change of methods, of aims, of environ- 
 ment is adding to the strength of the life 
 it is good. The higher the organism, how- 
 ever, the more sensitive it is to change, and 
 the point is quickly reached when change 
 may become destructive in its power. It 
 might be that it came too rapidly, not giv- 
 ing the life time to take a new and firmer 
 hold upon the sources of its strength; or 
 the time might not have been ripe, and the 
 change have sapped the life blood. 
 
 Economically, too, change is necessary to 
 our development, given wisdom in choice. 
 We sometimes fail to grasp the significance 
 in the industrial world of these countless 
 changes in the fashion of things pro- 
 duced. The tremendous waste involved 
 
 122 
 
Satisfaction 
 
 when fashion demands feathers and not 
 flowers for our hats is seldom considered. 
 Hundreds of dollars lost in materials, in 
 machinery, hundreds of workers without 
 employment, or forced down to a wage in 
 a trade they do not know, under conditions 
 that often cost the life of body and soul, 
 constitute some of the results for which the 
 unreasoning changes in fashion, to which we 
 subscribe without so much as a thought, are 
 responsible. 
 
 If the first step toward satisfaction is to 
 be accomplished by purposeful spending, 
 the second step, "contentment in our pos- 
 sessions," will be dependent upon a wise 
 choice in following the "prevailing senti- 
 ments" in the spending of our money. 
 The third element in gaining satisfaction 
 is enjoyment of possessions, and this, in 
 turn, will depend upon the first steps. In- 
 dependence which is based upon knowledge 
 of our own needs and wants and a develop- 
 ment of individual standards will be the 
 greatest factor in our enjoyment. Unrest 
 comes to all, to him who has much, to 
 him who has little, because all are sus- 
 123 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 ceptible to the influences that cause dis- 
 content. The important influences in the 
 spending world are from without. " Not 
 what we lack, but what others have," causes 
 us unrest, and it is for this reason that we 
 miss enjoyment. 
 
 In the old part of my city there is a big 
 old-fashioned house, the home of a happy 
 family, where I love to go. One day I 
 told her who has made that home for thirty 
 years that it rested me to come there be- 
 cause there seemed to be so little unrest 
 and so much satisfaction, and I asked her 
 to tell me why it was so. This was her 
 answer : " When we began the home we 
 decided upon one purpose in spending our 
 money, and it was that the physical health, 
 the intellectual and spiritual development 
 of the children should be the first consider- 
 ation. In carrying out this purpose, we 
 determined to know the value of all influ- 
 ences that presented themselves before we 
 changed our methods. Books, music, travel, 
 country life part of the year have come 
 before Turkish rugs and fine clothes. We 
 have had such good times carrying out the 
 124 
 
Satisfaction 
 
 purpose that even now, when we could 
 manage both, we are content with the old 
 home, the old-fashioned furniture, and the 
 out-of-style street." Purpose, wise choice, 
 independence, had brought satisfaction of 
 many kinds. 
 
 Whatever the result, city house, tiny apart- 
 ment, crowded tenement, suburban home, or 
 distant country farm, for which we spend, 
 satisfaction will result as we spend to ex- 
 press our own purpose, our own choice, 
 our own standards. Our failure is due to 
 lack of purpose, of choice, because we know 
 not the value of things we buy; to lack 
 of individual standards, because we follow 
 blindly our neighbors. We are often told 
 that satisfaction, like happiness, is one of 
 the things that money cannot buy, and we 
 believe it. But we may assert this, that 
 satisfaction in the things we buy depends 
 absolutely upon how we spend, upon the 
 ideals we have in mind when we spend. 
 
RESPONSIBILITY 
 
So much is made and waiting for us that we are seldom 
 called on to order goods. We put money in our pocket and 
 look at the shop windows before we become conscious of what 
 we want. Forgetting that the industrial world is our servant, 
 and, like any good servant, is only forestalling our wishes, we 
 get into the habit of thinking that we have no responsibility for 
 what we buy. Thus the responsibility, which the consumer 
 could not have escaped if he had kept the direct guidance of 
 industry in his hands, is avoided by leaving it in the hands of 
 the producer. . . . 
 
 Now, in this matter of the buying of goods, there are two 
 distinct responsibilities which must not be confused; one is 
 responsibility for the conditions under which goods are made, 
 the other is responsibility for their being made at all. . . . 
 
 The serious fact is, that the shape in which a community 
 allows or directs its wealth to be embodied makes the greatest 
 possible difference to the well-being of that community. As a 
 good is, so must it be used. While it is wheat, the grain may 
 be seed or it may be food. But, once it takes the shape of the 
 loaf, it has lost forever the potency of the seed, and, moreover, 
 if not used quickly, does not even remain food. 
 
 "Studies in Economics" William Smart. 
 
 128 
 

 T 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 HIS is the question above all others 
 where one hesitates to suggest or to 
 criticise, to praise or to blame. To the 
 woman of large income, as well as to 
 the woman of small allowance, one shrinks 
 from pressing home the subject of responsi- 
 bility. The idea is comparatively new in 
 practice, and suggests to many women a 
 disagreeable aspect. It seems to limit and 
 bind them in a matter that appears to some 
 as a personal and private affair. The idea 
 of a broad responsibility has not yet become 
 common. Theoretically, women know that 
 they are responsible to the source of the 
 income for the spending of it. But to the 
 woman whose income is an inheritance or 
 whose allowance is her own salary there is 
 always a delightful sense of freedom in her 
 spending. " The money is mine. I am not 
 responsible to anything or to anybody in 
 the spending of it." Unfortunately, this 
 129 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 sense of freedom does not stop with the 
 independent woman. The woman who 
 spends money given to her by others often 
 feels little responsibility beyond the keep- 
 ing of accounts. To be able to say where 
 every cent has been expended, without 
 thought about the wisdom or necessity, the 
 value or the satisfaction in the spending, 
 is many times all that seems important to 
 the spender. 
 
 Women also have strange ideas about 
 money as money. You hear talk about 
 house money, pin money, birthday money, 
 allowances, etc. Some women are respon- 
 sible for the house money, and spend that 
 with great wisdom. But pin money sug- 
 gests thoughtless spending. An allowance 
 is defined by one young girl as " the money 
 I never have to think about or count on 
 when spending it. It's mine." However, in 
 a well-ordered life, the question of respon- 
 sibility must cover everything. If women 
 are to claim true economic independence 
 and to develop a power of choosing, they 
 cannot ignore the opportunities thus created 
 for economic responsibilities. If any good 
 
 130 
 
,, 
 
 * 
 
 - 
 
 Responsibility 
 
 is to come from the realization by women 
 of their economic function, their power to 
 affect economic conditions of production in 
 many vital ways, these responsibilities must 
 be studied and met. It will not be an easy 
 thing to accomplish when one realizes that 
 the two main causes of irrespon$ibility are 
 selfishness and ignorance. 
 
 Usually it is the ignorance of the spend- 
 ing woman that causes her selfishness. 
 Women do not connect the things that 
 they buy with any one but themselves. If 
 they wish to buy cheap goods, they fail to 
 see how it affects any one but themselves. 
 They do not see that the acceptance of 
 cheap goods makes the possibility of having 
 fine goods offered them less and less. As 
 long as the store where she shops is clean 
 and attractive, it does not occur to the 
 woman that the articles offered for sale 
 may have come from conditions of unspeak- 
 able filth and poverty. 
 
 Take the much-talked-of bargain counter 
 as an illustration. It is almost impossible 
 to make a woman see that she could have 
 any influence or responsibility there. Even 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 the intelligent woman, who knows that the 
 firm does not give away two dollars' worth 
 of goods when an article marked three dol- 
 lars is sold for one dollar, feels that it is a 
 personal matter. If she wishes to crowd 
 in and buy the so-called bargain, she can- 
 not see what business it is of any outsider. 
 She does not realize that there are thou- 
 sands of women who believe absolutely in 
 the weekly or yearly " sacrifice " or gener- 
 osity of the stores which advertise bargains, 
 and that to these women the supposed re- 
 duction in price is the greatest influence 
 in their spending. To these women great 
 satisfaction comes with the feeling that they 
 have saved money. The article offered by 
 the bargain counter may have been some- 
 thing which they never would have dreamed 
 of buying if it had not been marked re- 
 duced, but the fact that it was selling for 
 less than the usual price created the desire 
 to buy it. To prove this, all that is neces- 
 sary is a comparison of the way in which 
 the " reduced sale " and bargain counter are 
 used in different communities. In St. Louis 
 one is impressed by the absence of such 
 132 
 
Responsibility 
 
 signs in the stores, and one who knows the 
 people there states that the reason for the 
 lack of such inducements for the spenders 
 lies in the fact that the great mass of buy- 
 ers are people of French or German de- 
 scent, whose hereditary shrewdness and thrift 
 lessen the power of the bargain counter to 
 such an extent that it is often not a paying 
 venture. 
 
 Great profits are made at the weekly bar- 
 gain counters. The " sacrifice " is there, 
 but it is experienced by the buyer who, 
 in her effort to get something for next to 
 nothing, carries away a cheap imitation or 
 a poorly made article, whose glory fades 
 quickly when subjected to hard use or wear. 
 
 There are such things as legitimate bar- 
 gains. If you buy shopworn goods, you 
 take the risk with your eyes open. If in 
 the soiled tablecloth the crease fails to 
 disappear after washing, that is your fault. 
 You bought it at a reduced price with the 
 defect shown you. Out of style goods are 
 often sold at a reduction, and if you buy 
 them you do so, not feeling that you are 
 getting this season's goods cheap, but that 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 you are getting last season's goods at a 
 price which may reduce a little the profits 
 of the owner. Such goods are valued as 
 transient goods, the demand for which will 
 be heavy but limited. This consideration 
 enters into the price the owner pays for 
 them, and also affects the selling price. 
 Permanent goods, the demand for which is 
 steady and constant from year to year, are 
 not sold at a reduction unless there chances 
 to be a flaw in the goods. White goods 
 offer great bargains. The goods are cheap 
 and are sold cheap, and considering the 
 wear they give you get more than you 
 paid for. The sacrifice is not with you or 
 the store. The latter bought them cheap 
 and sold them cheap to you. But there is 
 a sacrifice, real, vital, and economic, which 
 is felt back in the factory or sweatshop, 
 where the life and toil of men, women, and 
 little children are bought cheap. 
 
 Women are responsible first for the 
 quality of the goods offered to spenders, 
 if they are to create better standards in the 
 economic world. " Goods " here includes 
 all for which women spend, house furnish- 
 
Responsibility 
 
 ings, silver, food, and dress. Satisfactorily 
 to affect the quality, every woman must 
 realize the power of her individual demands 
 in her spending. She has an economic 
 right to demand good quality, instead of 
 allowing the producer, not only to supply 
 the demand, but to have the greatest power 
 in creating the demand, and to offer her 
 worthless, cheap goods whenever it is pos- 
 sible. There is a striking example of this 
 in ready-made clothing. Not long ago a 
 woman said to me, "Why, I never expect 
 ready-made waists to stay together until I 
 have restitched all the seams and sewed on 
 all the hooks and eyes." That is just the 
 trouble: women do not expect or demand 
 anything else. What ought to be done 
 persistently is to return such, poorly made 
 garments until the demand for better made 
 ones is firmly established. 
 
 But some one says, " If you pay enough 
 for such things they will be satisfactory." 
 That is not quite true, for often such things 
 happen with the most expensive garments* 
 If you pay but seven dollars for a waist, 
 you have a right to demand stitching that 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 will hold together and hooks put on to 
 stay. You cannot expect fine quality of 
 goods, but you can demand of the man 
 who stands between you and the maker 
 work that is worth the price he asks. In 
 this way one may hope to lighten the 
 burden of those who toil for a starvation 
 wage. 
 
 Toy shops offer another flagrant illus- 
 tration of poorly made goods. The buyer 
 never expects toys to hold together longer 
 than just to get them delivered, and this 
 cheapness escapes notice because the child 
 is always blamed when his toys fall to 
 pieces. Of course dolls' furniture is not 
 made to hold the weight of a plump five- 
 year-old maiden ; but when it will not sup- 
 port even the tiniest doll, it is not worth 
 the money paid for it. 
 
 This general acceptance of cheap goods 
 is far-reaching in its results. It is forming 
 a national habit of dealing with worthless 
 imitations of the real which affects not only 
 the person buying, but also the worker. 
 President Eliot of Harvard strikes a high 
 note in his plea for joy in labor. The 
 136 
 
Responsibility 
 
 world needs such a conception of labor. 
 Wages must cease to be the only satisfac- 
 tion the toiler gains from his work. To 
 accomplish this, those who labor must be 
 given a chance to do their work well. 
 There is no joy in creating the cheap imi- 
 tation of the imperfect real. A good work- 
 man takes pride in making a thing well, in 
 putting in good materials, and in turning 
 out an article worth the time and effort he 
 has spent in perfecting it. But when all 
 is valued cheap, his materials, his tools, his 
 time, his effort, his life, there can be no joy, 
 no dignity, in his labor. The buyers are 
 responsible for this cheapness of goods 
 offered to them, because it is the result 
 of their acceptance of such goods, if not of 
 a conscious demand for them. When they 
 demand the real and the genuine they will 
 receive it. 
 
 The struggle for existence, biologically, 
 is not against odds which are hopeless to 
 start with, but against natural enemies, 
 which only strengthens the life and makes 
 development possible for those who sur- 
 vive. The cheap valuation of human life, 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 the forcing of men and women into condi- 
 tions which make the living of life always 
 a losing fight, leaves the survivors weak 
 and diseased, physically and morally ; under 
 such conditions, the fight to save one's life 
 is only to lose it. 
 
 There is a great deal of agitation today 
 about the evils of adulterated food products; 
 and as some one has said, " The dealers in 
 these products not only cheat every cus- 
 tomer to whom they sell something sham 
 instead of the genuine thing they are bound 
 to furnish and for which they are paid, but 
 they are lowering the general standard of 
 health and efficiency throughout the coun- 
 try." This statement may be applied with 
 equal force to the dealers in shams of all 
 kinds which are offered to the spending 
 public. But the responsibility rests with 
 the spenders. When women cease to con- 
 sider economy as "getting things cheap," 
 and begin to realize that cheapness begets 
 cheapness; when they know from a study 
 of life and its demands, both physical and 
 moral, that the poor food, the cheap imita- 
 tions of all sorts, only make their own 
 
 138 
 
vJt 
 
 Responsibility 
 
 struggle for life, as well as the struggle of 
 others, harder, the quality of the goods 
 offered to them will be changed for the 
 better. So many women, even when this 
 fact is pointed out to them, take a resigned, 
 helpless attitude toward the question, " What 
 can we do ? " The reason for this is that 
 they have so far failed to recognize the 
 existence of a mighty economic weapon 
 which is theirs to use with effect, for the 
 mere realization of it their power to 
 demand a better quality. To raise the 
 quality of goods produced to a higher and 
 better standard is to educate the woman 
 spender who does not know the sham 
 from the real. Women must meet this 
 responsibility. 
 
 But there is a still greater responsibility 
 women must accept, which will follow nat- 
 urally the demand for better quality the 
 responsibility for the conditions of produc- 
 tion. Science has done much to inform 
 the people of the dreadful consequences 
 of unsanitary conditions of production, but 
 science has not been able to do away with 
 such conditions. Much has been accom- 
 
 139 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 plished, but as long as there are homes 
 turned into sweatshops; as long as every 
 city, large or small, has a dark spot upon 
 its fairness where misery and want mark the 
 faces of those who live within its shadow; 
 as long as life and labor are cheap, the 
 burden of responsibility for these awful con- 
 ditions rests upon those who demand the 
 work of another's hands. It will be one 
 mighty step forward in the economic world 
 when women succeed in drawing out a 
 better quality of goods, a purer produc- 
 tion. But when women make possible for 
 their brothers and sisters conditions of life 
 that make their labor a joy, their life worth 
 the living, the word justice will begin to 
 have a new meaning in the world of life. 
 
 As the world has lately been shown, it 
 is not easy to change such conditions. 
 The task seems a giant one, and to many 
 people the whole subject is so far removed 
 from their own lives and interests that they 
 feel helpless, powerless to give any aid 
 whatsoever. First there must be a sym- 
 pathy among all those who would help; 
 the producer, the middleman, the maker, 
 140 
 
Responsibility 
 
 and the buyer must be united by a common 
 sympathy before they can help each other. 
 No scheme of reform, no lasting betterment 
 of conditions, can be accomplished without 
 this bond. Without it, a change of con- 
 ditions comes slowly. The National Con- 
 sumers' League is fighting its way to the 
 front. Its effort to fix responsibility upon 
 producers has been and is a great task, but 
 it has been easier than to force a sense 
 of responsibility upon consumers. Charity 
 organizations for years have made their 
 appeals for the relief of conditions in the 
 homes of the toilers, in the tenements of 
 city and town ; and from the emotional, 
 religious, and truly brotherly they have re- 
 ceived hearty support. But the miserable 
 conditions steadily increased, and men began 
 to investigate, not only home conditions, but 
 toil conditions. It was none of their busi- 
 ness, but persistence revealed unspeakable 
 horrors, and the public became anxious. 
 
 It was not until the spender was told 
 by unquestioned authority that from the 
 crowded, disease-breeding rooms of sweat- 
 shop and factory, where the other half 
 141 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 toiled, a pathway led by way of the shop 
 counter straight to their own sheltered, 
 much-loved homes, and that along it sick- 
 ness and death passed quickly, that the 
 spender acted. The National Consumers' 
 League has as one of its principal demands 
 decent sanitary conditions for working men 
 and women, and it has accomplished much 
 by direct inspection of and legislation against 
 all places failing to meet such requirements. 
 But even the motive to preserve and protect 
 one's own has brought slow results. A few 
 cannot fight the battle alone. The women 
 who do " ninety per cent of the buying " 
 must realize their power in creating a 
 demand for better conditions. 
 
 When women read Mrs. Van Vorst's 
 book, " The Woman Who Toils," they are 
 strongly impressed, and their first desire is 
 to do something to help; but unless a 
 practical means of accomplishing some real, 
 lasting good within the reach of all women 
 can be suggested, indifference will follow as 
 time causes the strong, vivid pictures that 
 book gives to fade from their minds. This 
 work cannot be done by any organization, 
 142 
 
. 
 
 _^ 
 
 YL-* -) 
 
 Responsibility 
 
 but it must be accomplished by the gradual 
 education of women in the spending of 
 money. The idea that all help must be 
 organized is not true, and tends to under- 
 value individual effort. Not long ago a 
 young college graduate said to me, " I am 
 very much interested in all the problems 
 of settlement work, but father won't hear of 
 my going into a settlement to work, so I 
 am deprived of the chance of helping." 
 This is not modesty, but ignorance. A 
 woman does not have to go to a settlement 
 or trade school to help. It is comparatively 
 easy to secure workers for such places. 
 
 Women, as a rule, are quick to respond 
 to an appeal, and are most generous in their 
 gifts to charity. But it is not so easy to 
 make women form the habit of responsible 
 spending. What does responsible spending 
 mean ? It means spending for house, for 
 dress, for children, for servants, with a clear 
 knowledge of the highest physical, moral, 
 and spiritual needs. It means spending un- 
 selfishly, helpfully, with a thought for those 
 who sell life's wares, and a sympathy for 
 those who toil. It means spending to con- 
 143 
 

 The Woman Who Spends 
 
 struct higher standards of living, worthy of 
 imitation, " choosing the best instead of the 
 good." 
 
 Such spending is giving, royal giving, of 
 oneself to others. The need of such spend- 
 ing is great. It is a most practical way of 
 helping the thousands of women who en- 
 dure conditions pictured by Mrs. Van Vorst, 
 for the sake of earning extra money to spend 
 upon clothes, and at the same time it lessens 
 the work for the settlements. The sacrifice 
 these women make for clothes is of the 
 greatest importance. Mrs. Van Vorst sug- 
 gests industrial classes and hand work at 
 home for these girls who sacrifice life for 
 money to spend for the "mere semblance 
 of luxury." This would better physically, 
 at least, these willing toilers, and at the 
 same time raise the wage of those who 
 work for the necessities of life. 
 
 But the woman who toils cries out to the 
 woman who spends at costumers, over bar- 
 gain counters, in the crowded market place, 
 and she must be answered. It is the old 
 question of demand and supply. Women 
 must come into intelligent association with 
 144 
 
Responsibility 
 
 those, who supply their demands. This may 
 seem impracticable, but there are women 
 who are today reaping the reward of such 
 methods ; women who have given time and 
 strength and thought to the interests of 
 those who serve them, and in return receive 
 the more perfect service. I met, not long 
 ago, a woman of large, forceful mind and 
 bigness of heart, who " shops " from such a 
 basis; and in reply to my question as to 
 the value of the method, she said : " It pays, 
 if only in a purely selfish way. The people 
 with whom I trade know me and I know 
 them, and the common interest gives me 
 the best results in my spending. It saves 
 time, effort, and money, and I receive the 
 best in return. I make it my business to 
 know the conditions under which articles 
 I buy are made, and in consequence I am 
 offered goods I can buy with a clear 
 
 conscience." 
 
 This idea of responsibility is not a dream 
 of a possible Utopia, but a suggestion of a 
 practical business method which would give 
 better results in spending for the whole 
 range of life. It will give the woman with 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 the vision of helpfulness a means of reali- 
 zing her vision. It will make it easier for 
 her to supply the vital needs of those for 
 whom she spends. It will make her inde- 
 pendence a blessing to those less free. The 
 power of wise choice will make her influ- 
 ence among women more noble, more up- 
 lifting. Satisfaction of body, mind, and 
 spirit will follow the living of the larger 
 life, the life in which the brotherhood of 
 man is no longer a creed, but a living 
 spirit; the life in which the common task 
 is done joyfully; the life in which x the prac- 
 tical side has become a means of perfecting 
 the highest moral and spiritual development. 
 But the assumption of such a responsi- 
 bility will come slowly, as women are grad- 
 ually educated in their spending powers. 
 Ignorance of possibilities and results keeps 
 many from the path. But ignorance is not 
 the greatest barrier. Knowledge of things 
 and conditions is comparatively easy to 
 acquire today, when the results of investi- 
 gation, the problems to be solved, the pos- 
 sible solutions, are within the reach of the 
 majority of people. Selfishness will make 
 146 
 
Responsibility 
 
 the progress in responsible spending slow. 
 It will not be because a woman does not 
 think, does not know, but because she does 
 not care. 
 
HOW? 
 
&. 
 
 
 
 + r 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 HOW? 
 
 A CCOUNTS! I know this is a most 
 ^* dangerous way to begin. The reader 
 may toss the book aside at once. To be 
 faced by that word in which one's faith has 
 been shaken so often ! But be patient with 
 me. Surely it is reasonable to suppose that 
 the way to make a fair test of our theories 
 is to collect positive data in regard to them. 
 How can we know how we are spending, 
 with what degree of satisfaction or respon- 
 sibility, if we do not know for what we 
 spend ? 
 
 After coming to a most keen realization 
 of what an obstacle I was in the way of 
 proving my own theories, I found two dis- 
 tinct attitudes toward keeping accounts, and 
 as I have held rigidly both attitudes, I feel 
 free to criticise. The first one was this 
 that keeping accounts in the " proper " way 
 meant too much time ; to keep a daily 
 account in a large book with a column 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 dedicated to each conceivable expenditure 
 became a study. I was lost in a system ; 
 different colored inks for each vegetable, 
 the discouraging emptiness of columns ar- 
 ranged for " Art," " Amusements," " Books," 
 all the things I longed to spend for and 
 had so little to devote to them. The food 
 column seemed so greedy. Then, too, I 
 couldn't remember for minutes at a time 
 anything but car fare that I had spent. I 
 could not carry a large account book under 
 my arm constantly, and I was so impressed 
 with the fact that keeping daily accounts 
 was a serious and most weighty affair that 
 nothing but an elaborate system could pos- 
 sibly serve me. It looked so workable and 
 seemed planned to save me time and money 
 and thought. But it did not. It took more 
 time than I had to give, and I found myself 
 saying what many had said to me, " That 
 is all very well if one has nothing else to 
 do, but I have not the time to give." 
 
 There are women whose brains seem to 
 divide into systematic columns without the 
 slightest effort, and who find it easy to keep 
 such a daily specialized account book. To 
 
 152 
 
How? 
 
 them I need not appeal, but to those who 
 " have no head for figures " I dare to make 
 this suggestion keep a daily cash account 
 in a small book which you can carry with 
 you. At the end of the month you can 
 take down the large book and enter the 
 different items under the heads assigned 
 to them, picking them out from your daily 
 accounts. But keep the daily account as 
 you spend. It may make you conspicuous 
 at first. You may be thought a reporter 
 or an investigator. One afternoon I had 
 bought a veil in a big shop and was leaving 
 that department to go to another when the 
 floorwalker said to me, " I beg your pardon, 
 but would you mind telling me what was 
 wrong at that counter before you report at 
 the office ? " When I assured him that I 
 had merely entered the amount of my pur- 
 chase, his expression said more plainly than 
 words : " Well, you are queer. You ought 
 to be watched." 
 
 The daily account is most convincing. 
 
 So many women have said, " Why, I had 
 
 no idea how much I was spending for trifles 
 
 until I kept an account" Or, " I had no 
 
 153 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 idea that another course at dinner made 
 such a difference in the month's expendi- 
 tures." If we know what we have done 
 with our money we are then able to meas- 
 ure our spending by our theories. If we 
 really care about knowing how to be most 
 useful and forceful in the spending of what- 
 ever sum of money may be ours to spend, 
 we will stop guessing about it and know 
 definitely our successes and our failures. 
 
 But some say, " My check book is all 
 I need in this matter of accounts." The 
 check book does account, in the most final 
 manner, for all bills paid in that way, but 
 we find in it no record of the checks cashed 
 for our own use. It does not account for 
 our cash expenditures, and to many those 
 are just as important to know as the large 
 bills paid by check. The check book is 
 but part of a whole, and for this reason 
 is incomplete and unsatisfactory. 
 
 The daily account adds to one's sense of 
 responsibility, not only for the money we 
 spend, but for the things for which we 
 spend. When the figures spell waste, ex- 
 travagance, foolishness, if we think at all, 
 
 154 
 
How ? 
 
 we try to avoid repetition. A teacher once 
 said to me : " I went abroad for my vacation 
 the summer after my first winter of keeping 
 track of my money. I began to keep ac- 
 counts just to prove to my friends that I 
 was not as extravagant as they claimed. 
 The result was most gratifying to them, 
 but I assure you it convinced me abso- 
 lutely how valuable and instructive such 
 an account was." 
 
 The other attitude toward the daily 
 account book which is very difficult to 
 meet is found in the emphatic statement 
 of many women : " I never can balance. 
 What is the use of keeping accounts ? " 
 The feminine scorn of accounts which do 
 not balance is as unreasonable as it is 
 humorous. Why, because you do not know 
 what you have done with fifty cents, it is 
 of no value or consequence to know where 
 you have put fifty dollars, is most ridicu- 
 lous. " But," says my excited friend, " do 
 you mean to tell me that you advocate 
 keeping accounts when you cannot balance 
 them ? Why do you keep accounts if you 
 don't intend to balance them ? " Then we 
 155 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 both laugh, because we really care a good 
 deal about this subject. That is just the 
 difficulty. We do not keep accounts pri- 
 marily to balance them. We like to have 
 them balance there is a most exquisite 
 satisfaction in such a result ; but if " they " 
 refuse to and that is the way inanimate 
 figures on a page always seem to delight 
 in behaving our accounts still retain for 
 us all the original value we claim for them. 
 There is no necessity for locking oneself 
 in a room until the fifty cents is found. 
 That is a method used in a bank, but is 
 not necessary in the keeping of household 
 and personal accounts. The daily accounts 
 are a record not only of amounts of our 
 expenditures, but of the things for which 
 we spend. If this were not the case, we 
 would simply number our purchases and 
 save time, instead of entering the thing 
 purchased. The great educational value of 
 knowing how our money is spent cannot 
 be overestimated. The daily account book 
 is the best text-book for us, because it is 
 so practical, so accessible, and so adapted 
 to individual cases. A usual complaint 
 
 156 
 
How? 
 
 against any text-book on such subject is, 
 " Very true, perhaps, but it does not fit my 
 case." You cannot so dismiss your own 
 book on the subject. You can feel sure 
 of the facts. 
 
 This is a time of agitations. Many 
 causes claim our attention and so many 
 things seem so much more worth our 
 time and effort than a daily account book. 
 When we hear the cry of the underpaid, 
 underfed, unskilled working girl, we long 
 for money to place behind her efforts to 
 get a chance to work under decent condi- 
 tions for a wage that will enable her to live. 
 When we hear the reports of the National 
 Child Labor Committee, we feel the need 
 of money to press home the rights of the 
 children of this nation to the things that 
 make for life, to the right to live, to learn, 
 to laugh, and to play. Because we have 
 but little, perhaps, to give, we feel that we 
 can only look on and cheer the efforts of 
 others. If we could but see in our daily \ 
 account book the mighty weapon which / 
 lies behind its pages ; if we could grasp 
 the tremendous possibilities of responsible 
 157 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 spending and look upon our money, what- 
 ever the amount, as the greatest gift we 
 could give when we spend it with a true 
 appreciation of its power to change the 
 conditions we deplore, some change vital 
 to the life of the nation would surely come. 
 It is not a sensational method of helping 
 and for that reason it is overlooked by 
 many. It is so quiet that many think it 
 ineffective, but any study of the power to 
 demand is most convincing. Any manu- 
 facturer, any storekeeper, any dealer in the 
 world of things to buy and sell will tell you 
 how keenly he listens for the "demand." 
 Indeed it is so important a part of any 
 business that the entire matter of adver- 
 tising is only another way of creating the 
 demand, of educating (?) public opinion in 
 the direction of particular commodities. 
 The way of demand is slow, but it is 
 steady and sure. We are an impatient 
 people. We have accomplished so much 
 in a comparatively short time that slow 
 processes are, in a measure, scorned. We 
 want things done quickly, and we have 
 fallen more or less into the habit of sub- 
 
 158 
 
How? 
 
 jecting everything to a speed test. Respon- 
 sible spending is a slow educational process 
 which must surely come if we are to have 
 any lasting betterment of conditions of 
 labor. 
 
 In the world of those who woik directly 
 with the problems of such conditions we 
 find two groups of thinkers; first, those 
 whose minds and hearts are so stirred by 
 the facts which their work reveals to them 
 that any suggested cure for the evils which 
 takes time fills them with a divine impa- 
 tience, and they array themselves with the 
 radical reformers for whom the " ought " in 
 life has far outstripped the practical " how." 
 The second group is largely recruited from 
 the first, and we find in it those who have 
 learned that no reform, however splendid, 
 is secure until it rests upon the intelligence 
 of those it seeks to benefit. In the life of 
 William Morris we find a most forceful 
 illustration of this. That wonderful, crea. 
 tive workman, whose hidden fire was his 
 love for his fellow-workman, was so moved 
 by the injustice which he saw in the world 
 of work, so filled with the passion to help, 
 159 
 
The Woman Who Spends 
 
 that he flung his splendid talents and 
 strength into the radical group, demanding 
 revolution, if necessary, to change the con- 
 ditions which were so truly deplorable. But 
 the time came when he realized that force 
 could not change human nature, that the 
 very ones he sought to benefit were block- 
 ing the way by their inability to use the 
 weapons which he sought for them. And 
 we find Morris withdrawing from the active 
 warfare, sitting patiently by his workman, 
 and teaching him at his own workbench 
 the value of his work and his toil. 
 
 Therefore let us not despise the slow, 
 quiet method. Those of us who have what 
 are called " average means " are the ones 
 after all who have the greatest power to 
 demand. The fallacious argument that we 
 do not count in the spending world unless 
 we have much is responsible for the lack 
 of force we have had. Our ignorance has 
 made us ineffective. 
 
 So, after all, the suggestion this chapter 
 has to make is just this keep a daily 
 account of what you spend, whether you 
 balance or not, and study it thoughtfully. 
 
 1 60 
 
How? 
 
 It will teach you much about yourself that 
 you never knew before. It will suggest 
 more to you in matters of spending than 
 half a dozen books. It will be a most con- 
 vincing proof of your wastefulness if you 
 are wasteful, of your extravagance if you are 
 extravagant, of your independence, of your 
 good sense, if you possess these qualities. 
 It will deepen your sense of responsibility 
 for what you have, which leads to a closer 
 sympathy for those who have not. And 
 that seems to the writer of this little 
 book the great privilege of the woman who 
 spends much or little. It is in her power 
 to so spend that the woman who toils may 
 have her chance to earn a living wage under 
 decent conditions. 
 
 161 
 
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