Jasper County Democrat, Volume 19, Number 76, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 December 1916 — PHILOSOPHY OF WALT MASON [ARTICLE]

PHILOSOPHY OF WALT MASON

The poorhouse has no Persian rugs, no costly chandeliers; and there we'll dwell and chase the bugs in our declining years. On bread and meat and spuds and pie there’s an unholy price; the cost of coal has gone so high the poor are burning ice. The butchers used to give away the liver of the cow; today they wrap it up and say, “Cough up a quarter now.” The poorhouse has no movie stage, no joyous minstrel troupe; and there we’ll spend our wintry age, and live on cabbage soup. When o’er the daily sheet we glance, we drop it with a frown; the price of everything’s advanced, and nothing has gone down. The printer howls because his stock more precious is t|an gems; the tailor wets with tears the frock which drearily he hems. Man wears his sweater in bed t because he has no shift, and cries aloud, while seeing red, “Oh, whither do we drift?” The poorhouse has no plutocrats, no closed or open cars; and there we’ll dwell and swat the rats until we climb the stars.