From the Rock Island Argus, March 18, 1913.
By S. E. Kiser.
“Man wants but little here below”—once that perhaps was true;
I have no right to think I know, no more, indeed have you;
Man may have once been satisfied to skimp along somehow,
But it is not to be denied that much is needed now.
There was a time when eggs were not quite worth their weight in gold,
When bacon did not cost a lot and steaks were cheaply sold.
When beans and bread and milk and cheese had not, in fact, obtained
A place among the luxuries from which the poor abstained.
Man needs a fortune here below to live in comfort now;
No wonder that the wrinkles show so plainly on his brow;
He has to have a lot to drive starvation from his door,
And month by month they still contrive to keep him needing more.