Problems no one worries about anymore

The concern over the rising cost of living, which reached an acute stage about 1909, was the basis for much of the criticism directed against cold storage.  In the search for a reason for the greater cost of food, a vocal segment of the public came to believe that the refrigerated warehouse was largely responsible…

It went so far that commissions were appointed to look into the problem.  Which of today’s issues will someday seem equally ridiculous? 

And how did this all happen?

This very human tendency to blame the new and strange may have been stimulated by politicians with ulterior motives…beginning in 1910 the Republicans had blamed cold storage for the high cost of living in an effort to save the high tariff…

Both passages are from Oscar Edward Anderson’s excellent Refrigeration in America: A History of a New Technology and its Impact.