Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1908-07-23
STAY IN HOME Town
Why Plunge Into the Maelstrom
of Life In a Large City?
sHOMECROFT" BEATS FLATS.

People In Villages and Small Cities
Should Work Together to Build Up
Such an Environment That the
Young Folks Will Remain There.
George 81. Maxwell, who believes in
rural and small town life as greatly
preferable to the city, offers this con-
vincing argument In Maxwelrs Tails
man:
This nation today is enjoying pleth-
ora of prosperity and figures that daz-
gle the imagination.
But there is another side to this fruit
Of material wealth which now seems so
luscious that some day, when bitten
into, it may prove Dead sea apple.
1t Is the abnormal concentration of
trade, industry and population In the
great cities, where all the influences
that degenerate humanity, rich as well
as poor, have full sway and grow
apace.
And when we study seriously and
soberly the effects of this unnatural
city life on the mental and physical
character of our people it is a serious
question whether the gigantic strides
we are making in the accumulation of
material wealth is not at the expense
of human wealth and whether it may
not turn out In the end to have been
too dearly bought.
1t has been strikingly said of the civ
ilizations of ancient times, which were
destroyed by the degeneracy of their
people, that they grew rotten and
ripe for destruction not in the fields,
but in the narrow lanes and crowded
city streets and in the palaces of their
nobility"
If any one will walk through the
slums of the east side of New York or
the shacks of Pittsburg or the tene-
ments of Chicago and see the swarm
ing myriads of children that are grow
ing to manhood and womanhood in
those evil environments. he will be
startled by the revelation that not
few only but the great majority of our
working people in the great centers of
population live in surroundings that
are unfit for children to be reared in
and must inevitably deteriorate the
race From every life lived under such
conditions something is taken that can
not be replaced by any figures showing
only human activity that has not con-
tributed to the Improvement of human
life.
The saddest and most depressing
thought that can find place In the
mind when contemplating the wretched
conditions under which so many mil
lions of lives are lived in this country
is the realization Of the fact that II c
greater proportion Of human industry,
the same laborious work of human
hands that builds the palaces of the
millionaires and the millions of flats.
tenements and shacks that are occu-
pied by the working people, could be
devoted to building the right kind OF
suburban or rural homes for those
same workers, what different nation
this would be q generation or so hence.
While the people are crowding into
the cities, the villages and small towns
are being depleted not only of their
population, but their trade as well. In
stead of working together to realize
the real joys of village life. with all it's
possibilities of human sympathy, close
friendships, love of natures beauties
and the inspiration of the ideal home
life that Is possible In such an environ
ment, the spirit of unrest possesses
many, and as soon as opportunity of
fers they plunge into the maelstrom of
the city life.
Those who stay in the village, In the
majority of cases, do not work together
as they might to create an environ
ment so attractive that the city would
have no temptations to offer that
would lure any human worker away
from the safe anchorage of a rural
home to the artificial life of the tene-
ment or fiat
The people of other nations are far
ahead of US in the realization Of the
joys of life next to nature and ''far
from the madding crowds ignoble
strife" In the orient both the Chinese
and the Japanese have for 5000
years realized for the great ma
jority of their people the pleasure Of
q life in a homecroft, In an environ
ment that developed the dignity, the
mental and physical strength and the
tireless and patient energy which are
the underlying motive forces that are
lifting those nations forward and up
ward today in the great contest for
national superiority in which they are