Lexington gazette. [volume] (Lexington, Va.) 1871-1962, 1908-09-23
NEW NAT|ONAIl|D
UpbuiIding of Town Ind Village
UpbuiIds the RCe.
SALVATION OF TI9 COUNTRY.

It Depends Upon Checking the Tend
ency of the People to Gather In
Coneested Centers-How the Mail
Order System Kills Rural Life.
From an editorial article by George
Fl. Maxwell in Maxwelrs Talisman the
following pertinent e tracts are taken:
There are many country merchants
who see their trade gradually slipping
away from them, leaving the country
town and going to the great cities by
the channel of the mail order trade.
There are many country editors VINO
see the prosperity lot their towns ue-
Melted and circulation and advertising
| income reduced lori the same reason.
There are vely few. however, who
realize that thei' D roblem is a national
one and that it is wrapped up in and
part of the e'eft fundamental ques-
tion whether tlisl nation shall be per-
netuated or sialli be destroyed by the
physical degeTerab ton of humanity the
social unrest industrial discomfort
|
moral and poitichl corruption and class
hatred bred N the city slums and ten
ements and certain to eliminate IN
lanarchistic crimes, riotous mobs and
all destroying social upheavals as the
result Of some long continued period
of industrial and commercial depres-
sion.
The FACT - that the upbuilding OF
the couary town and suburban vii
laqe rs an antidote and safeguard
against thej poisonous social. moral
physical AMID political consequences OF
herding millions of our working peo-
ME together in the unnatural congested
life of tho tenements is the one great
question that rises above all others in
importance as a problem that this ma
ton must solve. Unless it does solve
II If will suffer death from human de
ceneracy-the fate Of so many nations
and civilizations that have risen in the
past only to be destroyed. Ours Will De
likewise destroyed unless we take heed
in time.
The danger arises from the conges-
tion Of incubation in cities and from
nothing else
Tho solution lies in checking the fur
ther growth of cities at the homes OF
industrial workers and scattering those
homes into and among suburban home
croft villages and in country towns
and rural settlements.
To do that trade and industry must
I; he decentralzed. Industries Of all
| kinds must be established in the sub
urbs of the cities or in the towns IN
stead of i'm the congested centers. That
Is something that requires an organized
campaign. but first it requires cur
rent of right thought in the minds OF
the people.
1t requires that everything should De
done that can be done to hold in the
existing towns and villages the trade
that now naturally centers there. Any
part of it. small or large that is Ill
verified to any Of the huge central mai
order concerns in the big cities and
thereby taken away from the LOCALITY
where it originates and belongs Is an
influence that promotes just to that
extent the growth Of the evil that Is
eating at the heart of our national lie
Whatever is needed to supply the needs
of every household in every rural COM
munity should be sold over the counter
of n local store and not through the
postofice and the mail trade
Then comes the question OF th'
growth of towns and villages. There
is where the country editors and mer
chants can help themselves. once ge
II into the minds of the whole Amer
lean people that the salvation OF TN
nation depends on the upbullding o
the country towns and suburban VII
lages-get the idea planted and deepl.
rooted so it will grow itself-anu
thousand influences will enter the iiel'
and enlist for this great campaign 70
rural and country town and ylllag
development to check the overgrowt
of cities. with all its resultant evils
1t cannot all be done at once. Th
first thing is TO get public thought nc
lively aroused and turned into RICH
channels. There must be a complet
common conception in the minds o
millions Of people Of this new nationa
IDEAL Then there must be united, cor
certed and vigorous action to reaiN
that ideal. The facts and argument
to support 1t must be disseminate
= through a great educational campaign
entirely separate and apart from pol
tics