By Muriel Sluyter

Greetings, Gentle Reader:

Mark Pearson, Sierra Club Wilderness Chairman, worries about cows interfering with fun on the Dolores River. He doesn’t want them eating the vegetation, nor leaving any manure.

Playing is very important. He is typical of Americans who don’t remember the Depres-sion; almost none have ever been hungry and concentrate on pleasure, rather than on feeding people.

Yet, our day is astonishingly similar to the 1920s. The economy was good then; vulnerable, but good, as it is now. The stock market attracted vast numbers of speculators.

It was a time of prosperity. People worked hard and bought not only what they needed, but much of what they wanted.

They played hard. Speakeasies sprang up. My very old dictionary calls them "grogeries; an unlicensed public house where intoxicating drinks are illegally sold." these places gave organized crime a foothold in this country and contributed to the decline in morals that swept the country. The Kennedys made their fortune in both illegal booze and the stock market, as did many others.

Then in 1929, millions of Americans lost everything in the crash. Only those who had been warned and pulled their money out before the crash avoided bankruptcy. That is well documented.

The stock market crash changed the world. The Depression that followed was worldwide, creating widespread hunger. Pleasure took a back seat to being able to eat and sleep indoors.

Reportedly, about 50 percent of Americans are presently in the stock market. Speculation is again rampant. If my information is correct, many of the safeguards put in place because of the crash of 1929 have been reversed, making it easier for people to bankrupt themselves.

Before World War II, almost half our people lived on farms and fed themselves. Most built their own houses and barns. Others lived in cities and worked for wages, with which they bought food and made house payments.

There is a basic concept of economics that has to do with eating. Some people grow their own food; their work is called labor of first intent. Others work for money, with which they buy food; their work is called labor of second intent.

People who lived on farms during the Depression hadn’t any money, but those in rainy parts of our country were well fed, because they grew their own food. They were performing labor of first intent. Those who performed labor of second intent suffered terribly; there was almost no money for housing or food. People died of minor conditions, because they were so undernourished.

And now, in the year 2000, we have gone back to the ‘20s. Prosperity is widespread. We buy what we need and much of what we want. Our youngest adults have difficulty differentiating between needs and wants.

We are obsessed with money, including the stock market. Americans thought prosperity would last forever in the ’20s; we think the same. We play hard and use drugs as people of the ’20s used booze. Gross immorality and criminality have followed drug use, as they followed boozing in the ’20s.

Now, environmentalists have added another ingredient to this witch’s brew. Bugs are more important than people, and scenery more important than cattle. They babble, "With 200 cows milling around and defecating...they’ll just cream the vegetation."