There might perhaps be other ways of measuring that prosperity. As against the above imposing aggregation of figures, I offer a simple newspaper paragraph printed in 1902, which sounds like Kaskaskia, or Alder Gulch, or the end of the Santa Fé Trail: “Potatoes have been selling for a dollar and seventy-five cents a bushel in Chicago this week,” says the item. “A year ago the price was about forty cents. This enormous advance, coupled with the corresponding rise in the prices of nearly all vegetables, presents a serious economic problem for large families with small incomes.” The same paper goes on to say: “The greatest sufferers from the high price of potatoes are the small wage-earners. They have learned to depend upon potatoes almost as much as upon bread. Yet, at a dollar and seventy-five cents a bushel, this staple food is out of the reach of many. The best thing they can do is to fall back on rice, which is an excellent substitute for potatoes and is still reasonable in price. Unfortunately, large numbers of wage-earners are incapable of making a sudden change in their diet. Many women that have depended upon potatoes all their lives do not know how to cook rice or hominy. They are as helpless with these substitutes as were many of the Irish people with the corn meal that was sent to them from America during the potato famine, or as Hindus, who are accustomed to rice, would be when they were given wheat flour to cook. This scarcity of potatoes is likely to cause a good deal of hardship before the proper use of the cheaper staples is learned.” And this is in America, in the zenith of the Age of Transportation! I fancy my man of pack-horse and cordelle living upon rice! I fancy Daniel Boone or Davy Crockett or Kit Carson using such diet as backing for his deeds! Meat and corn are the diet that built America. Good leaders of America, insist not over-much on this rice fare, as you do at present in these bubble days. Let weediness and immaturity, imported overmuch, be overrun and oppressed by organized rapacity, and then, one day, good leaders, you shall see the American man even yet fall to his well-learned task of leading himself.