Looking forward.

THE NEXT 100 YEARS I am enclosing $4.00 on my account that is much past due, but wish to inform you that the present shattered condition of my bank account makes it impossible for me to send you my check in full in response to your request. My present financial condition is due to the effect of federal laws, state laws, County laws, incorporation laws, by-laws, brother-in-laws, mother-in-laws and out-laws that have been foisted upon an unsuspecting public. Through these various laws I have been held-down, held-up, sat-on, walked-on, flattened and squeezed and broke until I do not know what I am, where I am, or why I am.

These laws compel me to pay a merchant's tax, capital tax, income tax, incorporation tax, real estate tax, light tax, water tax, cigarette tax, school tax, syntax, liquor tax and carpet tax.

In addition to these laws, I am requested and requited to contribute to every society and organization that the inventive mind of man can invent. Give to the Society of St. John the Baptist, the Woman's Relief, the Navy League, the Children's Home, the Pro-Freeman's Benefit, the Dorcas Society, the Gold-Diggers Home; also, to every hospital and charitable institution in town, the Black Cross, the White Cross, the Purple Cross, the Red Cross and the Double Cross.

The government has governed my business so that I do not know who owns it. I am suspected, expected, inspected, disrespected, examined, re-examined, informed, required, commanded and compelled until all I know is that I am supposed to provide an inexhaustible supply of money for every known and unknown need, desire or hope of the human race, and because I refuse to donate to all and then go out and beg, borrow or steal the money to give away, I am ousted, cussed, discussed, boycotted, talked about, lied about, held up, held down and robbed until I am just about ruined. ~ ~

The only reason that I am clinging to life at all is to see what is coming next.

A Hundred Years of Progress. A History of the First 100 Years of Edgar, Nebraska.