Jasper County Democrat, Volume 19, Number 74, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 December 1916 — PHILOSOPHY OF WALT MASON [ARTICLE]

PHILOSOPHY OF WALT MASON

My neighbor Johnsing can afford a lot of things that I can not; yet I’m not envious or bored, beneath my collar I’m not hot. My neighbor Johnsing has a roll ’that’s large enough to choke a steer; I congratulate him, and my soul is smiling still, from ear to ear. For one thing is supremely true —as some one said, in ringing tones — that happiness has naught to do with what a human being owns. Old Masters hung upon the wall won’t bring a nickel’s worth of bliss. The rich man, in his gilded hall, 'is always saying things like this: “The gladdest time I ever spent, was when I lived in yonder shack, and had to husband every cent, to buy suspenders for my hack. I like to have enough to eat, I like to have some clothes to wear, and caskets for my shapely feet, and gasoline to feed the mare. I like to feel, in dismal times, upon the day that’s wet and dank, that I have half a dozen dimes in storage in the village bank. Let neighbor Johnsing view his roll, through tears that make his vision dim; I wouldn’t touch it with a pole, when seeing what it’s done for him.