My maternal grandfather was born in southeastern Pennsylvania in 1903 and told me when I was a boy that in the 1920s, times were so good that saloon owners would offer a free lunch, consisting of bread and butter, cheese, cold cuts, pickles and the like. “Sure, they were hoping you’d buy a glass of beer for a nickel, but they really didn’t mind if you didn’t and simply scarfed down a free sandwich.”

He went on to tell me that nowadays, there’s a popular slogan: There’s no such thing as a free lunch, “but believe me, there was at the time.”

From today’s perspective of greed and selfishness, this whole story sounds like a fairy tale.  Corporations and the congresspeople they own want one thing: to suck the life out of us.

A Lesson from the Early 20th Century