Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1908-02-20
DANGERS Of the Proposed Parcel Post.

| Iuall OFuGT houses. ludu Cnc issue
is not properly presented before the
country is evidenced by the fact
that the farmer is led to believe he
is benefited by being able to do his
buying without leaving his home.
The Capitalization of trade in the
great cities of the country resulting
from the growth Of the mail order
business is a national menance of far
reaching proportions.
Population follows trade. If the
business is done in country town
and village, of supplying the needs
Of the countryside for merchandise
and manufactured articles of ALL
kinds, the people who carry on the
trade, he merchants and his help
ers, will live in the town or village.
If, on the other hand the trade is
done by mail, cutting out the coun
try merchant, he is driven cut of
business, his store ceases to exist, his
village home is abandoned, aud if
he should continue in the trade, he
and his assistants must move to the
city and become employees for some
great centralized mail trade insti-
tuition, where men are mere ma
chimes, fitting like cogs into one
great wheel with which they must
day after day revolve.
The country merchant with his
self-reliance, his sturdy individu-
ulity, his broad acquaintance, his
knowledge OF local affairs and needs,
his support for local institutions, his
civic usefulness his neighborly
offices. his public services, and his
cooperation in movements for local
Improvement, has been uprooted
and driven away. There is no one
to take his place. The trade that
gave him his vocation has gone
and with it has gone the prosperity
of the town or village which was his
home.
The village life and the citizen
ship developed by it constitute the
only hope Of perpetuity for the free
institution of this country. The most
grave and serious dangers that men
ance its future result from the over
growth of our great cities and the
consequent degeneration of the aver
age citizenship of the nation.
In the place of the 'plain people
whose country environment has
made them stable, steady-headed,
self-reliant and independent in ac-
ton, thought and character, we have
the volatile city multitude, II float
ing population, anchored to nothing
either mentally or physically, and
blown about by every breeze of pop
ular prejudice or passion--ready for
any rash experiment social or polit-
ical.
The adjacent village or nearby
town which furnishes for the farmer
the social side to his life that the iso-
lation of the farm denies to him, is a
potent factor in the development of
the fully rounded out, broad and
patriOtic character that makes the
American farmer the hulwark of the
nations stability. Not the farmer
alone, but the whole life and en-
vironment of the community of
which he is Il part, the country mer-
chant, the editor Of the home paper,
the preacher, the village school
master, the country doctor, aud all
the men of many vOcations who
form the village community, bound
together dy ties Of close neighborly
affection and friendly intercourse, as
we'll as the feeling of mutual regard
born of mutual Independence in theil
lives, create social circle, welded
together by closor personal bonds
than is possible among dwellers in
cities.
Isolate the farmer from his fellow:
and he becomes different man. Elk
perience has too often proved this to
be true to permit of controversy on
that score. Isolation drives human
, sympathy out of the soul of man
, and too often brings the farmers
wife to the insane asylum. 1t was
this deadly isolation of the old farm
5 life that has driven 40 many of the
younger generation from the farm tc
p the cities. And now at this late day
!. when these evils of isolation have
been SO clearly demonstrated, should
G we Deliberately promote it by de