The Tupelo journal., 1908-05-15
NEED SMALL TOWNS
THE CuLWARk AND THE HOPE
OF THE COUNTRY.
GENERALIZATION AS AN EVIL
Building Up Of Large Cities, with
Their Crowded and Disconnected
Population, One Of the Perils
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
Eeorge H. Maxwell in the Michigan
rradesman.
There are many country editors who
lee 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
tty, the social unrest, industrial discon-
tent, moral and political corruption
and class hatred bred in the city
Sums and tenements and certain to
eliminate 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 vii
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
lie or the tenemelts, Is the one great
question that rises above all others in
Importance as a problem thatthis ma
ton must solve. Unless 1t does solve
1t, it will suffer death from human de-
importance as a problem that this ma
tons 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 1t re-
quires a current of right thought in
the minds of the people.
1t requires that everything should
be done that a 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,
n thereby taken away from the To-
cality where it originates and belongs.
is an influence that promotes lust
to that extent the growth of the evil
that is eating at the heart of our ma
tiona 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 postoffice and the mail
trade.
Then comes the question Of the
growth of towns and villages. There
Is where the country editors and
merchants a 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-get the idea plant
ed and deeply rooted so it will grow
itself-and a 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 it must be dis
seminated through a great educational
Complementary separate and apart
from politics.
Every country editor and country
merchant should be a leader in the
movement in his locality.
School Books in Philippines.