Mountain Home maverick. [volume] (Mountain Home, Idaho) 1906-1911, 1906-08-02
Arcadia" the Trade Mark
of a National Move
ment to be Inauqu-
rated in Missouri.

day The inhabitants grew tired
-sOf peace, and no newcomers added
themselves to the apostles of SIM
p1icity- Probably the chief cause of
so many of these failures is the
Se1fishncss of the founders They
thought principally of themselves
and their own comfort or discom-
fort, whatever one chose to call it,
They withdrew from the world and
gave nothing in return for their
peace and quiet
But new Arcade is being
formed which is destined to change
the thought and life of thousands
all over the country. 1t will not be
entirely local, anyone can be Ar
Cadian in his home. The
founders will endeavor tC teach, not
merely to find the satisfaction of
their desires
The simple life must come. The
idea is gaining ground. There is
a growing feeling that there is too
much waste land in the country,
and too many waste people. The
<SII1II1s ought to be wccdcd out and
the miserable wrctchcs transplantcd
to the farm, where they could have
"a fighting chance with nature. Un-
fortunately, the city's poor will not
go 10 the country. Like tnC Oh
woman who was sought out by the
social settlement workers and sent
to the country for a week, they
prefer their squalor and their
crowds, insisting that there is
more company in paaple than in
shtumps- And company is what
they want. They like to be jostlcd
by their kind, and they want an
excuse to escape work. They can
blame their rniseries on the big
rich,'' who defraud and abuse
them, and these miserics easy
to bear. On the farm they have
nobody to blame if things go wrong,
and they cannot escape work, or
starvation will Overtakc them.
No amount of preaching the doc
trine of simple living to the desper-
ate1y poor will avail. They are
more than likely to answer the
gumcnts with the question, eff it's
so fine, why don't you do it your
self 9'' Now the idea of ''doing it
yourself is growing in favor
Thompson Seton took a mighty
stride in the right direction when
he organized his Seton indians,
little white Indians who are to hold
their first assembly, for the central
section of the United States, in the
lovely Arcade valley next summer.
There are other movements of the
same nature, all tending to bring
AS back to the soil, with the ulti-
mate purpose of leading the land
less man to the nanlcss land, but
the most noteworthy of them is the
Arcadia movement which, al
though, it is national affair, takes
its name from that same Arcadia
where the Seton Indians are to hold
annual cnCarnprnent. The name is
appropriate, and the advertiser
knows how much there is in a
name
The country is alive with ''as-
sernbIies'' in the summer, Chautau-
qua and Epworth assemblies, with
semi-re1igious, pseudocultural
motive, and an opportunity for a
rafting good time to be enjoyed by
the vavcationists who are not in
-cIined to take things too seriously
and cannot afford to go far from
home and pay large hotel bills So
the summer assembly is a real,
though perhaps indirect, benefit to a
great many city people. The Ar
-Cadia will have all the advantages
of cheapncss and proximity, and it
will have something of infinitely
greater real worth
1T was first planned to hold this
summers assembly in New York,
bat a little way from the great
city, but things shaped themselves
so that it seemed best to begin in
Missouri instead There is no Ar
scadia in New York, and when the
movement has become, not only
national, but international, 1T will
be another feather in the cap of old
Missouri when, the devotees OF the
simple life assert, This great
thing began at Arcadia, Missouri,
in August, 1906
The whole idea is Arcadian as
the Greeks of old knew it-homely
simplicity and honesty in action
and environment, pastoral life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
This idea does not include the pos
session or enjoyment of the artistic
and the elegant. 1t is aimed at