WHERE AMERICA FELL SHORT WITH ME When I came to the United States as a lad of six, the most needful lesson for me, as a boy, was the necessity for thrift.

I had been taught in my home across the sea that thrift was one of the fundamentals in a successful life.

My family had come from a land (the Netherlands) noted for its thrift; but we had been in the United States only a few days before the realization came home strongly to my father and mother that they had brought their children to a land of waste.
Where the Dutchman saved, the American wasted.

There was waste, and the most prodigal waste, on every hand.

In every street-car and on every ferry-boat the floors and seats were littered with newspapers that had been read and thrown away or left behind.