Brookville Democrat, April 12, 1925
And Yet We Kick
I am writing this in my living room of my home on a typewriter that weighs no more than a moderate sized book.
Light is provided by a lamp in which burn two incandescent bulbs.
In an adjoining room is a telephone from which I can talk to any city on the continent.
On the wall is a thermostat which regulates the flow of gas in my furnace and keeps the room at an even temperature of 70 degrees.
Almost within an arm's reach are several shelves of books filled with the most profound and beautifully expressed thoughts of the ages.
The floors of my home are cleaned with a suction sweeper, operated by electricity, while the clothes are put through an electric washer and ironed in an electrically driven mangle.
My children attend a school where they are given a better education than the sons of kins could command a century ago.
I enjoy all these things and yet I am just an ordinary citizen with an ordinary income, living in an ordinary way. Tens of thousands have as much as I have and more.
And yet I kick and wonder what ails the world.
Were the good things of life ever so easily at the command of the ordinary man as they are today? Don't we all do a lot of welching that we haven't any right to do. And if we are not careful, isn't there a danger that we will upset the greatest civilization the world has ever known?
-- William Feather in the Philadelphia Public Ledger