Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-08-20
THE CAUSES OF 1T,


The tendency toward the concentration Of
population in the cities has another illustra-
tion in the statement that the growth of
Chicago in the past decade is shown by the
census to be 90 per cent, while that ofthe rest
of the State of Illinois is but 6 per cent.
Take out the growth of the smaller towns
and of the mining and manufacturing COM
mupities in the country, and it will proba.
bly, be found that the farming population of
Illinois has actually diminished between
1880 and 1890. Such decline in agricultu-
raj population in Illinois is more striking
indication of the tendency than the same
phenomenon in the older and less fertile
agricultural districts of the, East.
The Chicago Tribune in noticing this
showing of the census, attempts an explana-
tion by first laying it down as universal
tendency ''Since Cain quit agriculture and
built him city," Then it alleges that
the demand for farm products has been for
some years so fully supplied by the use of
improved agricultural machinery that the
demand for labor has been most strong in
the shops and factories. Our cotemporary
next exhibits lack of faith in the suficien-
cy of its explanation that the tendency
of population has always been toward the
cities, by suggesting that the day may come
when "a more intensiv. cultivation, calling
for the services of greater number of men,
will draw labor from the cities to the coun-
try. But until that time comes" it says,
nothing can prevent the people from
focking to the towns in obedience to that
natural law which sends man where he is
needed the most"
This fails to give satisfactory explana-
tion. OF course it must be recognized that
people flock to the cities because that is
where they can get employment; but it does
not justify the abnormal nature of that fact
except upon the dogma that "whatever is,
is right" It does not show why the foun-
dation of all our industries being agricul-
ture, there is not something abnormal in the
abandonment of productive territory for other
fields. 1t does tell US why the industry Of
raising food products on farms adjacent to
mills and factories should diminish while
people are rushing for lands on which those
products are to be raised for transportation
of thousands of miles. Finally it utterly
fails to explain, why, when the wages of the
laborer in the city gives him the pleasures of
life in city courts and tenements, aud the
same wages in the country would Civ, him
house of his own with land enough for a
garden and even 9 COW, thei great mass of
industries now cooped up in the cities
might not be scattered throughout the rural
districts to the great advantage not
only of the operatives, but of the farmers
who raise their supplies.
When we study the subject for an answer
to these questions it is not difficult to dis
cover abnormal influences which have in
creased the tendency of population toward
the cities to the point of congestion. The
fact that railroad policy has been to charge
one rate for Eastern agricultural products
and far lower one for the products of far
Western farms, has inevitably resulted in
transferring agricultural production to the
more distant sections; and the consequent
fact that;the railroads thus force the trans
portation of grain and provisions thousands
of miles, portion of which under normal
conditions, could have been raised where it
would have required the transportation of
hundreds only, necessarily involves wasted
effort. For that wasted effort the laborers
in cities and the agricultural producers
must help to pay. Of the same nature is
the railroad policy of emphasizing the ad-
vantage of competing points SO as to concen-
trate manufacturers and commerce in the
great cities, at the cost Of stagnation in the
rural districts. These are among the causes
which are producing an unnatural growth
of population in the courts and garrets Of
the great cities, while farms are being de-
serted.
It is to be conceded that the natural
growth of cities, such as is required to trans
act the operations of their commerce and of
such manufacturing industries as could not
be performed in the country, is healthy and
desirable. But when we recognize that the
conditions of life which the wages of the
city laborer might purchase in the country,
where land is cheap, would be vastly supe-
rior to those which he actually gets in the
cities. The question whether there are no
abnormal influences crowding people into
the cities to do work that might be done in
rural districts becomes vital one. Inquiry for
such causes will leave very little doubt as to
the fact that the unnatural influences pre-
vailing in our transportation are responsible
for great share Of the over-population of
the cities.