The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-10-04
TURN BACK TOFARMS
EXODUS TO RURAL DISTRICTS IS
 EXPECTED.
Lure of Independence fin Country Draws Many From Hot Competition For Places
 In The Cities.

Chicago, Oct. 3-(Special)-Has the stupendous growth of urban popula- ton in the United States at the ex- pense of rural reached the turning point? When Washington was Presi- dent only S.4 per cent of the 4,000. 900 people were in cities; today at Ieas, 50 per cent of Uncle Sam's 9O,0OO, GOO people are in cities. But an era of change Is noted the country over; the overcrowded cities are sending forth armies of people as settlers to the new country" the rural life again is potent
 The cities are overcrowded; the re- action has begun declares Herbert Kaufman in The Woman's World for October. "A new America is in the making. The next ten years will see a century of progress squeezed into decade. Cost of living has so in- creased-the struggle and the striving and the back-break and the heartache, Tor the right to exist, have bred a revolution.
 The great chances no longer lie among the crowds. but where the crowds are in the making. America has become land-mad-the sanest mad ness that ever stirred a people. Men are leaving spots where building lots are sold by the foot and are bringing the same price Into country where 1t will command acres-where they can live in the open-where there are no fences to ambition--where they can plan a bigger future for themselves and for their children.
 "The city dweller has awakened to the realization that he is entitled to more out of life than the mere right to exist through it. Competition for every, post from entry-clerk to fac- tory foreman is so intense that his im- mediate earning powers are limited by the long string of men ahead, and his increases are controlled by a longer string of men behind who are willing to underbid for the bigger posts"
 Figures tell how the urban popula- ton has grown since the days of Washington, how the crowding of the cities has gone on, the urban percen- tage of the total in 1790 having grown slowly from 3.4 to 6.7 per cent in 1880, when the United States boasted 12,866,02O people. to 16.1 per cent in 1860, to 20.9 per cent in 1870 and to 33.1 per cent in 1900, when population reached 75,468.000. From 130.000 people in cities in 1790, the urban residents have increased to 25.000, 900 in 1900.
 There was never @ time when a young man had less show in the old towns and where he had a bigger play for ability than he will find in the new irrigated and drained lands. and in the hitherto inaccessible ranch sections now available for culture, be- cause coming of the railroads has made feasible their development" Mir Kaufman continues. '"The same oppor- tunity which lay before the first set tiers of Iowa and Kansas exist today in Florida, in Louisiana. in Texas. In New Mexico, in Oklahoma, in Southern Missouri. in Arkansas, In Southern Alabama, and in the superb orchard and grain countries of the Northwest. The same chances without the same hardships and privations which the other generation undetwent-crude transportation. a rude sodhouse. un- utterable loneliness for the women, and years and years of uncertainty before the silver lining turned.
 "This is another century,. another era. and things are being done in an- other way. The railroad and the har- vester, the needle and the thread of civilization. are stitching a new robe for prosperity. Tn their trail are mer- chant and builder. Wherever the smoke of a locomotive Is seen, there follows the smoke of communities.
 fThe farmers wife no longer lives in exile. starving for the sight of friends, with no recourse and no re- source to break the blank, blind lonely stretches. She does not feel the con stant, haunting dread that one by one, with their maturity, her boys and girls will leave her side to seek better and a bigger future in distant town"