The Kalispell bee. [volume] (Kalispell, Mont.) 1900-192?, 1903-05-29

for the people, who, of all others we
can least afford to see grow discon-
tented with their lot in life-the peo-
pie who live in the country districts.
The excessive. the wholly unheard
of rate of our industrial development
during the past rs years, together
with the good sides has had some
evil sides. 1t is a fine thing to see
cur cities built up. but not at the
expense of the country districts. The
healthy thing to see is the building
UP of both the city and the country.
But We cannot expect the best, the
most eager, the most ambitious young
men to stay IN the country. to stay on
the farm, unless they have certain
advantages. If farm life is life of
isolation and mental poverty, a life
in which it is matter of great diff
Guilty for one man to communicate
with his neighbor, you can rest as
sured that there will be a tendency
to leave it On the part of those very
people whom we should most wish
to stay on the farm. 1t is good
thing to encourage in every way any
tendency to check an unhealthy flow
from the country to the city. There
are several tendencies in evidence.
The growth of electricity as applied
to means of transportation tends to
certain degree to exercise a cen
trifugal force to Offset the celtripe-
tai force of steam. Exactly as the
uses of steam have tended to gather
men into masses, SO now, electricity,
as applied to transportation, has
tended to scatter them out again.
Trolley lines running out into the
country are doing a great deal to
render it impossible to live in the
country. and yet not lose the advan-
tages of the town. The telephone is
not to BE- minimized as an instrum ent
with a tendency in Nhe same drec-
ton. Rural free delivery is playing
its part along the same lines. But
no one thing can do as much to offset
The tendency toward an unhealthy
trend from the country into the city
as the making and keeping of good
roads.
They are needed for the sake of
their effects upon the industrial con-
dtons of the country districts, and
| am almost tempted to say that they
are needed even more for their eff
fects upon the social conditions of
the country If winter means to the
average farmer the existence of a
| long line Of liquid morasses through
which he has to move his goods If
| bent on business, OF to wade and
swim if bent on pleasure: if winter
means that. if an ordinary rain COMES
the farmers girl or boy cannot use
| his or her bicycle; if a little water
means a sto0page of all cOmmunlca-
ton, why you have got TO expect that
there will be a great many young peo-
Dle of both sexes who won't find farm
| life attractive.
It is for this reason, among Gany
others. that I feel the work you are
doing is so pre-emimantly one for the
interest of the nation as a whole.
congratulate you upon the fact that
you are doing it. In our American
life it would be hard to over estimate
the amount of good that has been ac
compished by associations of indi
viduals who have gathered together
to work for a common object, which
was to be of benefit to the communi
ty as a who'll And among all thu
excellent objects for which men ant
women combine to work today, there
are few indeed who have better
right to command the energies OF
those engaged in the movement ant
the hearty sympathy and support o.
those outside, than this movement il
which you are engaged.