The daily Gate City and constitution-Democrat. (Keokuk, Iowa) 1916-1922, 1920-01-07
HAVING "A GOOD TIME"

Isas, rises to remark that he has looked for : a
good time'' as industriously and IN as many
places probably as anyone he knows, but that
the quest has been so frutless as to lead to the
conclusion that what he sought was phantom
and not an actual thing.
If given half an opportunity, youth can find
OF make good time; and IN tn eante-Dellum
era people of sedate age, and occasional happy
temperaments combined on red letter days
what passed for a fairly satisfactory time. vi
late, however, conditions have changed. Inc
old stock of staple good times is running low
and the cost of them is soaring out OF sight
Substitutes recommended as just good are
offered by vendors, inventors AMI others; ana
some of them may be after we have learned to
like them, but new ikings and habits, as most OF
us know, are not altogether easy to form, requlr-
ing as they do a change in us and in our att.
tude to life. Yet by accepting them on faith as
good and by trying them while stoutly affirming
that they are good, we may hope in time to
adapt our natures to them and find them quite
as satisfying as the old ones We're.
1t is within our power to mould ourselves to
our environment, to shape ourselves to any form
we Will. All life is movement from childish
JOY to more mature delight. We pass from the
joys of sensation to the joys OF the mind and on.
TIC the joys Of the spirit; and people who have
gone the path before us are encouragingly unanl-
NOUS in their testimony that each new state
attained improves upon the last. Each one OF
them, however, is of the nature OF Dutch
treat and we have to put into it all that we
can hope to get out. Inexperlence always mag
ines that wealth is always exchangeable for
pleasure; hence the fantastic valuation set uponI
it. Yet the fact is that a good time may often
L. b,f ly1nI
ket in which it can always be bought.
At variance with former notions all this is
confusing and depressing at first glance In
fact it is as puzzling as the old enigma once SO
seriously and heatedly discussed, how the
serpent of Eden had managed to get anywhere
before he was condemned to crawl upon his
belly 1t was argued that he made hoop of
himself and rolled or made a spiral spring Of
himself and locomoted by leaps. But these were
felt to be violent hypothesis, and as no demon-
strable conjecture was advanced the matter is
involved in mystery until this day. The con-
nection between this and the quest for a good
time NAV seem bit obscure. But humanity
in the mass has hitherto been crawling like thel
caid serpent, which is to say upon its belly, toI
goals that seemed to be good, and is now CON
strained to find some other means of reaching
good times of different and better kind.
There is something perplexng in the an
by the department of commerce
that our exports to Germany for the first ten
months of 1919 amounted to a little more than
fifty-two million dollars. It has been told us
on high authority that if the treaty were not
ratified and membership in the league secured
by this nation, our trade with Europe. must
practically stop It must be that we are trad
ing on the kindness of Europe which expects us