The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1906-09-15
Man About To,On

A man will live in city twent-
five years and spend most of his time
feeling that he has grievance against
tate for dropping him in that particular
spot of the universe and forgetting
him. He feels that the political man
agement is corrupt,the streets horribly
dirty the social life snobbish and
cliquey, and lots of things are not as
they should be. He wishes that his
business would make it possible for
him to go somewhere else-farther east
or farther west-anywhere conditions
might be different.
But such a man on a committee to
secure big convention and assign to
MIN the special task of getting up the
publicity. He begins to look up
statistics for talking basis, since he
must do what he can to help the de-
fusion. The water supply, that is a
matter that will appeal to the visitors.
He has always taken good water for
granted, but, gracious! he never knew
the water he was drinking was as
carefully protected as it seems to be.
The sources of supply, the filtration,
the protection of the entire system are
surprisingly interesting and important.
And the park-really, come to look
at it from that point of view, there are
lots of things to be said about it. It
might not be worth while to look at 1t.
Some of the outlying city he has
never visited in all the twenty-five
years he has been in the town. 1t
might be we'll to see what they look
like-before the convention fellows
come.
And SO with the school system. 1t
has some remarkably good points.
Perhaps those bad points he has been
grumbling about might be made good
II one took hold of the thing. Church
es-really, there is good deal of
weight in that sort of thing in a city.
And as for business opportunities
tsome of the conventioners may be
looking for permanent location),
we'll, when you take into consideration
the railway facilities and the tribu-
tary territory and the market for this,
that and the other, it isn't half bad
place. And the chances are that he
finishes his publicity campaign
changed man. full of enthusiasm for
the town he lives in and in a state of
mind which will not only make him
better citizen, but happier man.
This suggests a campaign which
should be taken up by every chamber
OF commerce or commercial club
namely. advertising a city to it's own
inhabitants. Every city has some
organization for exploiting it's advant-
ages to the outside world.-which is
all very good as far as 1t goes. But
city's real prosperity depends upon
the enthusiasm and public spirit of it's
own people. This field is neglected.
There is no exaggeration in the
statement that people will spend a
whole lifetime in a city and not know
the significant facts about it's life
which an inquiring stranger would ac-
quaint himself with in a weeks in
vestigation. The developments that
grow up naturally around a man do
not attract his attention or interest.
The result is a habit of mind which is
inert, dissatisfied and prone to the hu-
man failing of grumbling.
To attract conventions is we'll, and
to attract new enterprises Is better;
but best of all Is stirring up the local
contigent to enthusiasm for the present
and faith in the future. That ia what
makes the essential difference between
a dead town and live town-between
a town where everybody droops in a
torpid state of sOfnnolence and a town
where business is booming, where
things are adding and there is a
general feeling that it is good to be
alive.