Loyalty to Home Interests

EDITOR'S TABLE. LOYALTY TO HOME INTERESTS. It is a splendid practice to be loyal to one's own. It seems to me this truth applies not only to individuals, but also to communities. It is of fundamental practice among the Latter-day Saints, and it should continue to be, for vital and obvious reasons. Only the thoughtless will deny its efficacy and importance. And yet, we find many Latter-day Saints who appear to be very shortsighted in this respect. You have heard of the professor who tempted the child: "Here," said he, "is a box of fine candy, and here is a handful of the same candy. You may have the box tomorrow, or the handful now. Which will you take?" The child took the handful now. Such losing short-sightedness is not uncommon among elder pers ons. It is frequently witnessed in the business affairs of some people who appear only to grasp the value of things in immediate sight. They become infidel to their own interests when the temptation of an apparent immediate benefit confronts them. They are dead to the value of a little self-denial and sacrifice today, which, if engaged in, would result in vast financial interest tomorrow. Is this fact not illustrated every day in our business transactions? People run hither and thither, and do things that save them a penny today, but that will perhaps cause them the loss of a dollar tomorrow. If this or that commodity, or utility, or what not, may be purchased just a trifle cheaper, from some institution in which neither they nor their friends are interested, and from which they will never derive a general benefit, they buy at once. Their sympathy and patronage go directly where immedi-

EDITOR'S TABLE. 701 ate results apparently accrue, but in reality where loss appears in the end. Individuals thus constituted chuckle at opposition to home enterprises and institutions, and are first to desert their friends, and really their own interests, to give support to strangers and foreign enterprise. They appear always to be jealous, fearing that their friends and neighbors may gain some benefit from their help and patronage. Instead of rejoicing in the prosperity of their own, they are glad to add their weight to the disadvantage of their home institutions. Is that a cheaper pleasure-resort than the home- established one; is that a cheaper theater, a cheaper light, cheaper sugar, soap, or street car fare? If so, such people are ever ready to abandon the tried, home institutions, which have struggled to give the people good service, often at loss and great sacrifice, and fly to the support of competition which, for the present, may offer them a seeming advantage, but which in the long run is often calculated to end in financial loss. It is often the motto of new firms to kill competition, and then raise prices. Our local institutions have done great service to the people by being fair in prices, and being willing to live and let live; not going to low extremes today, so as to enable them to reach high extremes tomorrow, but pursuing a steady, business-like course. In this way, for instance, Z. C. M. I. has saved our people incalculable amounts, by acting as a general balance to the price of merchandise. And since the capital invested in the co-operative stores is also owned by the people, the community is benefited both ways by extending support to these institutions. This applies to the sugar factories, also. Do we not remember what we paid for sugar before the first factory was established? Do we not also remember how the value of land has increased factories created a market for beets? since the And have we forgotten the benefits to the farmer from the markets created, through which ready cash is paid for all the products of the farm? And yet, there are actually people who would buy imported sugar, if it could be obtained a few cents cheaper per hundred; and people, too, who would be most benefitted by the advantages which the home factories have created! If it were not for the home factories, the hundreds of thousands of dollars now