Too many people spend money they haven’t earned, to buy things they don’t want, to impress people they don’t like.
Will Rogers (via minimalmac)
In 1885 Senator Henry Dawes made a tour of Indian reservations in Oklahoma and delivered his report to the Lake Mohonk Conference – an annual gathering of influential whites who called themselves ‘friends of the Indian’, and were dedicated to advancing their red brethren towards white civilisation. The senator brought dispiriting news: ‘There is no selfishness, which is at the bottom of civilisation.’ The tribes were still living within communal social structures. They were still sharing all their food and possessions with their kinfolk. They were more impressed by displays of generosity than the accumulation of private wealth.
‘We need to awaken in him [the Indian] wants,’ said another conferencee. ‘In his dull savagery he must be touched by the wings of the divine angel of discontent… Discontent with the teepee and the starving rations of the Indian camp in winter is needed to get the Indian out of the blanket and into trousers – and trousers with a pocket in them, and with a pocket that aches to be filled with dollars! … this is the first great step in the education of the race.’
From Ghost Riders: Travels with American Nomads by Richard Grant
