Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1910-02-10
The High Cost OF Living

Brother Grissell takes shot at the
high cost of living showing how the for
mer days We're better than these in this
particular The Guthrian says:
The high cost of living has stirred the
people from coast to coast and from
lakes to the gulf. Congress has taken
the matter up which will lead to an in
vestigation. In some quarters people
have joined together in non-meat eat
f, ing combination, as if the meat they ate
was the only necessity that was eating
up their incomes For one we do not
believe that the producer and the middle
man are all to blame for this high cost
of living and think that the extravaganza
of the consumer has something to do
| with it, We assume that like conditions
in Guthrie Center prevail over other
communities. Let us contrast the man
ner of living now with thirty years ago.
| In those days it was the rule for every
family to keep a COW, some chickens
and pigs These domestic animals, with
the garden, about provided living for
| the family AS our population increased,
ordinances were demanded restricting
the raising of chickens, which drove
many to dispose of them. Then the
smell of live pork offended the fastidious
and the family pig had to go Pasture
that for years had been free to the fam
lily cow ON the court house square and
the street was restricted and the family
COW went with the others. Take the
housewife of today and compare the
meals with the meals of thirty or twenty
years ago and you will at once deter
mine why the cost of living has increas-
ed Take coffee, the best Rio coffee is
quoted in the market at ten to eleven
cents per pound. In the good old days
our wives and mothers bought green
coffee Drowned it in the oven and the
mornings were ushered in by the noise
of the coffee grinder heard over the
neighborhood, Now we buy it differ
: emily. We pay for haying it Drowned;
then pay for having it ground then pay
for nice tin can to put it in, with q
bright haring label. and all this with
{ the middleman's profit adds to the price
of the product which we pay. Then
) take the difference in the kind OF break
! fast now and then and it is enough to
I make the angels weep. Now we must
! have some kind of fruit to tempt the APP
petite to eat the predigested fodder that
I is set before you. No more homemade
t sausage and buckwheat cakes; these of
n late years have been discovered to be
: poison to the system and not conducive
to longevity. Still on this kind of diet
= some of our ancestors died of old age.
; Then again electric lights have taken
the place of kerosene Telephones make
9 easy communication, automobiles in
i place of the family nag. All these and
J more, added to the extravaganza OF the
I. people which is bred and fostered by
u good times" add to the sum total OF
i the cost of living. You never hear peo-
! pie kick ON the price of Injuries. It's al
e ways the necessities. The raise of ten
; cents on sack of flour raises howl
: that can be heard over the land. A man
+ buys three cigars for quarter, or a
u pint of drug store whiskey for dollar
i and he cheerfully and sometimes gladly
! pays the price with never kick. He
y goes down to the city and pays IS cents
u for big juicy steak and dollar fol-
. trimmings and he never says word
n but at home he roars his head off if he
n has to pay 35 cents for dinner at the
u hotel or restaurant. But when spring
d comes and grass grows and the hens lay
this howl will cease until another winter
comes