The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1896-08-22

is also greater by reason of the IN
ternal and local immigration from the
rural districts into the towns and
cities. Our farming is falling more
and more into the hands of foreign
tenantry, and our cities are ruled more
and more by the slums. Human ma
ture is gregarious. 1t has an unlim-
tied tendency to cohesion. 1t abhors
isolation as nature does a vacuum
Hence the impulsive tendency to
pair in families, in tribes, in clans
and nations. And hence the complex
inner tendency within the tribes, the
clans and nations, to concentrate IN
hamlets, in boroughs, villages, towns
and cities. The drift toward central
ization often amounts to an absorbing
passion. A human being will some
time face dangers, plaques, hard
ships, poverty and nameless prlva-
tions for the sake Of city companion
ship. DR.. Josiah Strong tells OF an
IMPOVERISHED Irish woman for whom
some benevolent New York people
secured industrious comforts in the
country. But in a few weeks the
homesick woman was back again.
And they asked her,-"Couldnt you
find work." "Yis." didn't you
have enough to eat and plenty to
wear2" "Yis." "And weren't you
cared for and surrounded with COM
forts?" "Yis." "Then, why did you
come back to the woes of great
city," peoples is more company
than sthumps." And the Doctor also
reminds us of some old time English
legislation to keep the population
out of the cities, and that Virgil la
mented the urban impulse when he
sang,-"The pillow is no longer hon
ored. The husbandmen have been
led away, and the fields are foul with
weeds" But neither law, nor bsnev-
olence, nor poetry, makes Roadway
against persistent tendency OF hu-
man nature. Hence there always has
been and always will be plethora OF
human life in the cities and dearth
of it in the country.
Congestion of the Cities.
Our census tables classify the cities
from 5000 inhabitants and upward.
Hence the figures which l select
would appear much worse had the
classification included cities of 1000
and upward. One hundred years
ago Q790) only three per cent of our
population lived in cities of 5000 or
more. Twenty years later about five
per cent lived in the cities. In TWEEN
ty years later almost seven per cent.
At the end of the next twenty, twelve
per cent. In 1870 about twenty
one per cent. And in 1890 the per-
centage had gone up to over twenty
nine per cent. Here is regularly
increasing scale of proportions. And
it is hazardous problem to even
guess when the ratios will find a
check. As a country, the United
States are rapidly increasing in pop
ulation.
Nevertheless sections of the coun-
try are retrograding as to population.
During the last decade the cities in
the States of New York, Massachu-
sets, Vermont, Maine, Rhode Island,
MARYLAND and Illinois, increased
by two and a half millions of people.
And during the same period there
was a decline in the rural inhabitants
of 100000 souls. And this change
and loss is so general, that out of 25,-
900 townships in thirty-nine States,
over ten thousand of them declined
in population during the, last ten
years, ending 1890
Moreover as our steam communi-
cation and electric communication in
crease, greater and still greater
mobilization of the inhabitants will
be possible. In antiquity great cities
were practical only on the water
fronts and waterways of the earth.
Otherwhere they could not be fed.
In our country and our century the
car so largely supersedes the ship,
that a magic city may rise in the
desert, ON the prairie, or in the noun
tains, wherever the commerce of the
nation or of the world calls for
city, and thousands and hundreds of
thousands shall be watered and
clothed and housed and fed. Famine
shall not be there, and they need no
gates and walls for defense.
Foreign Population.
Now look at our increase of popu-
lation from foreign immigration. A
foreign population has been pouring
upon us since 1920. In 1880 the
census showed that we had 15,0O0,-
nnn r ono kbir1 anA