The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1924-03-13


on Dayton street:
"Can a workingman live In Kenosha? For
nearly two years have been living in fiat on
Dayton street which does not claim to be al
"style street" / have been paying thirty-five
dollars month rent. My landlord tells me on
the first Of April he will raise the rent to-
forty dollars per month"; and taxes and other
things have advanced SO in Kenosha. So please
tell me what can the working man do?''
Now lets look at this other letter. 1t bears
the postnlark of distant state - state
that is much advertised as the paradise where
all men and women find it easy to live and
wonderful to live there. 1t reads:
Don't you think that it would be possible
to find me some where to live in Kenosha and
something to do. do not expect to get the
same kind of job | had before, but | am
willing to start over in order to get back to
Kenosha. I'm not kicking, and | am probably
doing as well as anyone else is here, but it
is hard for me to get accustomed to half living
and half working. | have a nice nine room
house here which i rent for twenty-five dol
lars and half month, but this is more
than one-third of my earnings in month.
Then we haven't any conveniences. The i'm
provements are poor, the house has running
water, but an outside toilet, it's a long way for
the children to go to school and when they get
there, the school does not amount to much, the
church we attend is little like and small and
it never does anything to make religious work
interesting. ], am making twenty dollars al
week. and | guess that a lot of the people
think that | am we'll paid. Sometime / only get
four days work week. can stay here, but II
do not want to and if you get me a "job' y
will try to work my way back into "posi-
ton" later on. would like to sell my automo-
bile and start for Kenosha tomorrow, but you
can't sell automobiles here. The people for the
most part have no money to buy them, and II
guess I will have to wait until the roads get sol
that I can drive back This is the land flowing
with milk and honey all right, but the milk
is tainted and sour, and the honey is only bees
food. want to get back into the land of red
blooded men, to the place where you can get
food even if you have to pay for it, and to the
place where can feel that am the Citizen of
no mean city"
Now put them together and think it over.
Don't let the spring wander-lust get tool
strong with you for there are lot of places
worse than Kenosha and there are compensa-
tons for the gains as well as the losses.
Just recall that old poem-possibly we have
forgotten just how it goes but it was some-
thing like this:
Amidst the meadows sweet with hay,
a lao is signing all the day;
Oh could but fly away,
From this dull spot-the. world to see,
How happy, Oh how happy l would be-
And then the other verse:
Amidst the city's constant din,
A man who round the world has been
Keeps thinking, thinking all day long,
Oh could but tread once more
The old path to the cottage door,
The old green meadows could l see
How happy, Oh how happy l would be-"
Contentment is the hardest thing in the
world to learn but if most of the people could
learn it the world would be much happier 1t
may be that you think that Kenosha is not all
that you might want it to be, but just remem-
Der that in lots of the lands flowing with milk
and honey, the milk is tainted and sour and the
honey is only bees food.