The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1915-08-19
UNNECESSARY THINGS

Devout divines, imaginary states
men and cocky writer's have exhausted
the wide vocabulary of our mother
tongue in decrying the tendency of
the people to make expenditures for
unnecessaries and in urging them to
confne the same to essentials.
This is sure case of wisdom gone
wool gathering. The dividing line be-
tween civilization and savagery is
the use and utilization of unnecessary
things and the enlightment of a peo-
pie can be measured by the amount
they spend outside the actual neces-
sites of life.
"A savage is a savage because he
confines his efforts to the. bare es-
.sentials of existence. A breech clout
and piece of raw meat for the male;
a gee string, a nose ring and a dinner
of roots, for the she stuff.
Railroads, telegraphs, steamships,
telephones, automobiles, monographs,
and thousand and other things were
not even dreamed of by our great
grandfathers, yet they lived and got
along fairly well. None of these
things are necessities of life, yet they
were not any better, wiser or happier
than we of the present day are.
1t is curious fact that the more
people spend for unnecessaries the
richer they are. The more money they
waste, measured purely by an essen
tial standard, the more they have and
the more they spend, the more they
accumulate.
The people of the United States
spend more than twice as much per
capita for unnecessary things as do
those of any other nation yet their
per capita average of wealth is five
times greater than any other, and the
masses of men and women enjoy more
of the necessities and luxuries of life
than any other people beneath the
stars.
Russia's expenditure for unneces-
sary things is less per capita than
that of any other civilized nation, yet
her average of per capita wealth is
less than that Of any other, while ig-
norance, squalor, poverty, wretched-
ness and vice is the heritage of the
multitudes.
This curious anomaly exists in ev-
cry phase of human life. Pleasure
consists of doing things we don't have
to do and paying big price for the
privilege, and labor consists in doing
the things we have to do, often not as
laborious as the things we pay to do,
and getting paid for our work.
James j. Hill goes on fishing trip
to the coast of Labrador each year,
the average cost of which is over
100000 per trip. He works like a
fiend on these trips, puts up with all
the hardships of common fisherma an,
gives away his catch and thinks he
is having the biggest kind of time.
If he had to do the same work and en-
dure the same hardships to earn his
daily bread he would bemoan his hard
lot, as do the fishermen who gather
the finny denizens of the deep from
the same fishing grounds for the mar
ket. 1t is fun for Jim, because he
don't have to do it and has to pay a
round price for doing it.
Men tie themselves together with
ropes, hire expensive guides and risk
life and limb in climbing the Alps for
pleasure. Putting roof on silo is
not quarter as hard work nor one
tenth as dangerous, yet no one thinks
of doing it for pastime.
The sporting editors complain loud
ly of the endless monotony of report
ing baseball games and work every
subterfuge known to the reporter to
get shut out of the job. Yet they
would pay half a dollar to set in the
sun on the bleachers, shout themselves
hoarse over the fine plays and be
as tickled as a girl with her first
beau.
A young man will buy an expensive
box of confectionery, visit girl when
the night falls, hold her hand, feed
her the sweets, and stay, and stay and
stay, till the old man chases him.
wend his way home in the dark chill
of midnight, walking on air and think
earth is heaven. Yet If he were a
trained nurse, and had to set up with
the same girl all night, feel her pulse
every minute or two, and feed her
medicine every ten minutes instead of
chocolates, he would charge the old