THE AMERICAN
JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
VoLUMr.V NOVEMBER, 1899 numbers
AIMS AND PRINCIPLES OF THE CONSUMERS' LEAGUE.
The underlying principles of the Consumers' League are few and simple. They are partly economic and partly moral.
The first principle of the league is universality. It recog- nizes the fact that in a civilized community every person is a consumer. From the cradle (which may be of wood or of metal, with rockers or without them) to the grave (to which an urn may be preferred), throughout our lives we are choosing, or choice is made for us, as to the disposal of money. From the newsboy who fosters the cigarette and chewing-gum trades, and is himself fostered by our failure to give the preference to some one-armed father of a family in the purchase of our papers, to the self-conscious patrons of the Kelmscott sheets, we all make daily and hourly choice as to the bestowal of our means. As we do so, we help to decide, however unconsciously, how our fellow-men shall spend their time in making what we buy. Few of us can give much in charity ; giving a tithe is, perhaps, beyond the usual custom. But whatever our gifts may be, they are less decisive for the weal or woe of our fellows than are our habitual expenditures. For a man is largely what his work makes him — an artist, an artisan, a handicraftsman, a drudge, a sweaters' vic- tim, or, scarcely less to be pitied, a sweater. All these and many more classes of workers exist to supply the demand that is incarnate in us and our friends and fellow-citizens.
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