If you can make a voter see that
the change is likely to save him ten or twenty-five or a hundred dollars
a year, you have made an argument that is persuasive. The arguments for
the reformation of our currency system are aimed directly at the
material interests of the business men of the country and their
employees; and the pleas for one or another system attempt to show how
each will conduce to the greater security and profit of the greatest
number of people.
To make such arguments count, however, you must deal in concrete terms.
A recent argument[61] for the establishment of a general parcels post in
this country presents figures to show that for the transportation of a
parcel by express at a rate of forty-five cents, the railroad gets
twenty-two and one-half cents for service which it could do at a
handsome profit for five cents. Of the validity of these figures I have
no means of judging; but the effectiveness of the argument lies in its
making plain to each of its readers a fact which touches his pocket
every time he sends a parcel by express. It is this kind of argument
that has persuasiveness, for the way we spend our money and what we get
for it come close home to most of us. Of all practical interests those
of the purse are of necessity the most moving for all but the very rich.
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