Santa Fe daily New Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1885-1897, 1897-06-05
GOING TO THE CITY.

David Star Jordan, president of Leland
Stanford university, contributes valua-
BILE paper to a recent number of the Cali.
fornia Advocate, in which he comments
on the dangerous tendency of the rush of
young men to cities. He holds that this
is one of the disquieting features of the
social conditions of our times, from
which results the weakness and instabili-
ty of our farming population as compared
with half century ago. He contends
that we may we'll look with alarm upon a
condition in which all men of wealth and
power shall be gathered in the big cities,
while the powers of the country are left
to the weak and inefficient, or to the
peasants of other nations.
Professor Jordan's observations are
particularly interesting, coming as they do
from man of profound knowledge and
wide experience, himself son OF the soil
who struggled terribly against adverse
conditions to get an education. Profess
sor Jordan is graduate of Cornell. He
had very little money when he entered
that institution, and was forced to earn
his way by becoming waiter at one of
the college boarding houses. The key
note of his article referred to above is,
learn to do something well, better than
the average man, or else keep away from
the cities where competition in all
branches of labor and industry is keen,
and where the weak and inefficient soon
go to the wall. 1t is clear enough he
says, that fully one quarter of the popu-
lation of such city as San Francisco has
no business there at all. These people
are dong rothlng effective for themselves
Oh helpful to others, and the condition of
tie ether three-quarters, and most likely
their own condition would be distinctly
improved if these misft people would go
back to the farms. No man can succeed
anywhere unless he is willing and able to
do some one thing well, and stick TO it.
Because life in the country is simple, it is
easier for man of moderate ability to
fit into it. Life on the farm deals with
nature at first hand, while in the city it is
more complicated dealing as it does with
the shifting relations of men.
In the city opportunities to crafty am
bition are more numerous and greater
than in the country. Bnt opportunity
comes only to the man who can make use
of it. For q man who can do important
things and can do them well, the city will
always find something to do. Hence the
success of thousands of men who have
gone to the cities with their worldly goods
on their backs and no capital but their
brains.
But the great majority of those who
leave the farms are not of this type. They
have not learned to do anything well,
least of all anything that the people of
the cities want. Hence the failure of those
who 90 to the cities without capital of
any kind, or with capital of other kind
than brains.
When you have solved the labor prob
lem for yourself and are ready with the
answer, then you can 60 to the city and
wherever you 60 You will find the success
you deserve. II all men waited as you
should wait before rushing to the cities,
We should have no labor problem, no
problem of municipal government and
nothing to fear from the desertion of the
farms or from the COMPOSITIONS of the
towns. Learn to do something we'll. 1t
will make man of you, and wherever
he goes man will find that he is needed.