The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1895-05-29
EFFECT OF GREAT CITIES.
How They Demoralize the People

the subject of an instructive article
in the April Forum. 1t shows that in
the older and richer agricultural
states of the west-taking the five
states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa
and Michigan together-more town
ships lost In the population than
gained between the census of 1880 and
1890. That grist mills, -four mills,
wagon shops and furniture factories.
are disappearing among the indus
tries of the small tkRn, is fact that
has bsap1 kalled to my attention in
special tances. but which this arti-
Gle prslVg to be general. The dis
elimination by the railroads in favor
of the larger towns and cities, and
against the small village, is assigned
as the principal reason for the steady
concentration of population, wealth
and manufactures in the cities. OF
the evil results of this stagnation of
the life of the towns, the Forum
writer says:
One of the serious consequences of
the drawing away Of the youth and
energy Of the villages and towns is
found in the benumbing effect it has
upon those left behind. There is lit
tie incentive to start new enterprises,
and especially is there small en-
couragement for the boys to- learn
skilled trades. Hence the prospect be-
fore the boys Of these villages is de-
pressing in the extreme. There is
practically no chance for boy to be-
come skilled In any trade except the
building trades. the blacksmith shops
and in the c0mmOnest handcrafls.
The late awakening to the value OF
manual training schools is confined al
most exclusively to tho largest cities.
Nothing is done in the smaller towns
to teach skill or general experiences in
the use of tools, and the idea of any
public effort to encourage the educa-
tion of highly skilled mechanics in
any department is not even thought
of. A boy may learn to hold pillow, to
shovel dirt, to do common carpenters
work, to paint house, to shoe a
horse; he may learn how to clerk in a
store, to become lawyer, to sell life
insurance, but the country towns are
absolutely dead to the need of culti-
waiting the mechanic arts, and teach-
ing the American youth that general
knowledge and special skill, without
which our native workers are being so
rapidly driven out of the high
branches of industrial activity.
So far as it goes this is indisputable;
but it by no means goes to the bottom
of the question. Manufactures that
have been spread over a large terri
hail ~ fnA Il,
the large cities, because the big fish
aire manufactured drives the man
who employs few men out the field.
The concentration of wealth in fewer
and fewer hands, which is steadily GO
ing on in this country, inevitably re-
suits in the concentration of people
and their work in the cities. And the
larger the city the keener. the strug-
gle for existence and the more COM
pletely the capitalist has the laboser
at his mercy. AS rule the larger
the factory the more economically can
the work be turned out. The ma
chinery of production is being perfect
ed, but at the expense of the pro-
ducers who are Withdrawn from the
pure air of the country to the crowded
and unwholesOme tenements Of the
cities; from the comparative indepen-
dence of home owners in the villages,
with their little gardens aud shade
and unlimited blue sky, to the dreari-
ness and desolation of rented flats In
monotonous wooden rows. Did you
ever think how this tendency to over
crowding and all the evils that flow
from great aggregations of people in
large cities might be overcome II We
had government ownership of rail-
roads and cooperative organization
OF industry? Factories could be To-
Gated in the country better than in
the city, for land would be less In de-
plat Of ground to cultivate and keep
a0T. Without composition between