The Greenville journal. [volume] (Greenville, Ohio) 1850-1918, 1908-05-14
NEED SMALL TOWNS
THE DULWARK AND THE HOPE
OF THE COUNTRY.
GENERALIZATION AS AN EVIL
Building Up Of Large Cities, with
Their Crowded and Disconnected
Population, One Of the PeriIs
That Menace Nation.

There are many country merchants
who see their trade gradually slipping
away from them-leaving the country
and going to the great cities by the
channel of the mail-order trade, writes
George H. Maxwell in the Michigan
Tradesman.
There are many country editors who
see the prosperity Of their towns de-
pleted and circulation and advertising
income reduced for the same reason.
There are very few, however, who
realize that their problem is a nation
al one, and that it is wrapped up in
and a part of the great fundamental
question whether this nation shall be
perpetuated or shall be destroyed by
the physical degeneration of human
Ity, the social unrest, industrial discon-
tent, moral and political corruption
and class hatred bred in the city
slums and tenements and certain to
culminate in anarchistic crimes, riot
GUS mobs and all-destroying social up
heavals as the result of some long
continued period of industrial and
commercial depression.
The fact is that the upbuilding of
the country town and suburban viii
lage as an antidote and safeguard
against the poisonous social, moral,
physical and political consequences Of
herding millions of our working people
together in the unnatural congested
life of the tenements, is the one great
question that rises above all others in
Importance as problem thatthis ma
tion musi solve. Unless it does solve
it, it will suffer death from human de-
Importance as problem that this ma
tions and civilizations that have risen
in the past only to be destroyed. Ours
will be likewise destroyed unless we
take heed in time.
The danger arises from the con-
gestion of population in cities and
from nothing else.
The solution lies in checking the
further growth of cities as the
homes Of industrial workers and scat
tering those homes into and among
suburban homecroft villages and in
country towns and rural settlements.
To do that, trade and industry must
be decentraliZed. Industries of all
kinds must be established in the SUI
burbs of the cities or in the towns
instead of in the Congested centers.
That is something that requires an
organized campaign, but first it re-
quires current of right thought in
the minds of the people.
1t requires that everything should
be 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 diverted to any of the huge central
mail-order concerns in the big cities,
and thereby taken away from the To-
cality where 1t originates and belongs,
is On influence that promotes just
to that extent the growth of the evil
that is eating at the heart of our ma
tional life. Whatever is needed to sup
ply the needs of every household in
every rural community should be sold
over the counter of a local store and
not through the postoff1ce and the mail
trade
Then comes the question Of the
growth of towns and villages. There
is where the country editors and
merchants can help themselves. Once
get it into the minds of the whole
American people that the salvation
of the union depends on the up.
building of the country towns and
suburban villages--gct the idea plant.
ed and deeply rooted so 1t will grow
itself-and thousand influences will
enter the field and enlist for this great
campaign for rural and country town
and village development to check the
overgrowth of cities with all its result.
ant evils.
1t can not be done all at once. The
first thing is to get public thought
actively aroused and turned into
right channels. There must be a COM
plete common conception in the minds
of millions of people of this new ma.
tional ideal. Then there must be unit.
ed, concerted and vigorous action to
realize that ideal. The facts and ar
guments to support 1t must be dis
seminated through great educational
campaign-entirely separate and apart
from politics.
Every country editor and country
merchant should be leader in the
movement in his locality.
School Books In Philippines.
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