Too Much Luxury
"American people are suffering from a peculiar disease - an insatiable craving for the luxuries of life.
Time was when if you had a good home, plenty to eat, and to wear, and means of recreation and enjoyment, we were contented and happy.
But not now.
The more we get the more we want, and the more we want the more feverish our efforts to get it.
We never have enough - are never satisfied.
If our neighbor has a car, we long for one just a little better.
If Jones has a house of beauty, Smith wants one of grandeur and magnificence.
If Mrs. Smith is at the head of the social whirl, Mrs. Jones is not satisfied until she has supplanted her.
If one man is termed our leading citizen, a dozen other will aspire to the honor.
Our abundance of the necessities of life is not enough. We must have the luxuries, both of our own pleasure and to outshine other people. And the list of life's luxuries is so long and so varied that no man or woman has ever been known to reach the end.
Millions of people fore go many of these necessities of life in order to bask in the limelight of luxury. They are lavish in adoring their persons and their surroundings at the expense of their stomachs. They enjoy the tinsel of life and endure the privations necessary in order to satisfy their vanity.
The age of sanity is disappearing. That of frivolity is here.
Modern day luxury is considered a blessing.
In reality it is more of a curse, because we do not realize when economy ends and extravagance begins."
- Lovelock, Review-Miner, February 27, 1920 - News from Edna's Day
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