The Norfolk weekly news-journal., 1908-04-17
HOMES FOR THE PEOPLE.

There is an intense restlessness
among the people and there is a con-
slant demand that the government
provide work for unemployed. This
is especially true when times are
little slack in the factory towns, but
what is needed more than anything
else in the American situation today
is a truer prospective OF what life
means and what it should bring. The
country is growing in population as
well as wealth but in some respects
the growth is of smaller character.
1t is unquestionably true that there
is an immense amount of wealth with
in the limits of the United States and
that the per capita of values is great
err than anywhere else. But is lam
entably true also that that wealth is
very largely in the hands of few
rather than the many. What is need
ed is a better distribution, so that
more people can enjoy the blessings
which a competency brings rather
than that the many should be surfeit-
ed with the misfortunes of luxury.
The tendency of the age is such
that it only serves to increase these
unnatural conditions. The minds of
the people are diseased with a mania
for living in groups. 1t is because
of this that the great cities are more
and more becoming immense centers
of population, while the country dis
| tricts are being left to neglect. AT the
present rate of increase New York
may have a population of seven mil
lions by 1920 and Chicago, it is pre-
dicted, within fifty years will have
ten millions of people. The contrast
| with this statement is found when a
| view of the farming districts of the
| country is taken. 1t is more notice
able in the eastern states where
abandoned farms by the thousands are
noted only a few miles distant from
the great cities, but it is also true that
in the Mississippi Valley and the new
er west there is no such proportionate
growth and settlement on lands as
there is in the cities. The people
have gone, not money mad, but city
mad. They crowd into great apart
ment houses and into tenement houses
and would rather be inconvenience,
/ GU 90 tv,ey frny In ly ~ Dnh
! fresh air, than to live more isolated
lives in independence and comfort.
1t is a mistaken notion. What is
the remedy? There was never in the
history Of this country such an oppor'
tunity for men to get comfortable
homes and lands to till as there is
today. Never was the government
doing so much to provide homes
Irrigation, forestry and other depart
ments are spending millions to provide
conditions such as previous genera
lions have known nothing about, The
trouble is with the people themselves
They have wrong conception OF life
| Ihey want 10 i've on Easy street. IL
noring the conditions which make for
an Independent livelihood. They need
to have more of that initiative which
the pioneers possessed who settled
these fourishing states of the great
central west. Speaking of these the
New York Independent says: 1.-THE
men who first settled on these farms
had to walk or drive OK teams hun
dreds of miles. They had to fight
Indians, wolves and bears. The early
settlers in Kansas and Nebraska hat
to live in houses cut FROM the sod
There were no shade trees and no fruit
The drouth and grass hoppers destroy
n ed their crops year after year. They
I saw no one outside the family fol