Industrial freedom. [volume] (Edison, Wash.) 1898-1???, 1898-12-03

W gam Illc Tic MASTERY ONeT MY SIldI p
witted city competitor, '-regardless
of the fact that there are too many
workers in the town already,-there
will be disappointment for the new
conner or suffering for the man whom
he displaces. AS long as the city man
says to his unsuccessful brother go
out into the country and raise cab
bages. There is plenty of air and
work out there Why will you starve
in your miserable garnet in the town.
regardless of the fact that farm pro-
ducts are already drug in the mar
ket, and farm machines are daily
crowding more workers off the farm
there will be little hope of lettering
the condition of industrial lifein either
city or country. But when both city
and country workers say, eve are in
the same fix. There are too many of
us working at one thing, We must
devise methods to diversity our indus
tries, to raise the level of wages and
expenditures, to more fully organize
and perfect the system of distribution
of products so that the wants of all
men will be more fully met and the
general conditions of life be more COM
Portable" then there will at least be
greater reason to hope that in some
way men will find a solution for
problems which our age seems to find
insOluble.
1t is, / think, very desirable to lay
stress upon the great common inter
ests of town and farm at this time,
because in some important ways the
of
dustrial development have seemed to
widen the breach between city and
country life. Thus far the tide of in
dustrial success seems to have run in
the direction of vast acCumulatiOns of
wealth in the hands of few men, &C
companied with the rapid develop
ment of vast hives of industry where
these accumulatiOns are stored. Not
only is the modern city populous
it is exceedingly rich in all that can
CRAFTY the palate, the eye, the cult
waited taste of mankind. And in our
own country the pOmp and glory of
the city are no longer thing which
belongs to the state and seems to re-
fleet the greatness and power of the
community. 1t is rather the material
success of the individual which is inn
pressed upon the visitor to Boston,
New York, or Chicago. The magnif-
cent private residences, the lofty bus;-
ness houses, the great railroad depots
these represent solely the fact that
some men have been more successful
than their fellows in the fierce warfare
of modern industrialism.
In other civilizations the palaces of
kings and mobiles, the gorgeous equip
ages and ceremOnials, were, and are
still, felt to belong in sense to all the
people, and to be necessary to the
maintenance of the power and pres
tige of the nation. The peasant could
not aspire to these things, it is true,
but still he felt that ne enjoyed a GER
tain ownership of them. The farmer
coming to town nowadays naturally
feels that he has no lot or part in the
great things of the town. Ii he is to
have any, he must come and struggle
tor it with the rest,
The increase and concentration of
wealth in large towns have also pro-
duced complex social habits and dis
tinctions which make the country
man feel less and less at home there.
From close contact the poorer city
man is able to maintain at least a
weak imitation of the social life of
his more fortunate neighbors. But
the country man, coming intrequently
to town, hardly knows how to act in
the city, and is mystified and distress
ed by the unexpected situations of city
life which confront him at every turn.
This has been intensified by the efforts
of our smart set in recent years to
ape the manners of transatlantic So
ciety. In fact, we may say that in
certain quarters there has been a
studied effort to build the artificial
barriers of caste, to create here, as in
the Old World, a class of peasants,
and put into it all tillers of the soil
And so in various ways the dis
PARTIES between city and country life
have been magnihed, until many have
really thought that farm and town
had no interests in common but that
one should be set over against the
other in an eternal industrial enmity,
and that the farmer was being rele-
gated to a position of obscurity and
mental service. But | believe that
these separating tendencies which oc-
cupy so much Of the attention OF the
nOn1tla- mind today arc only s-;Dcr-