The Falls City tribune. (Falls City, Neb.) 1904-191?, 1910-07-15
THE HOME Village PROBLEM
J. o. SHRCYER ON THE SHORT
cOmINCS OF THE CITY.
The So-caIIed Sane Fourth Dis
cussed in a Mast Interesting
Village Bosses.


1t seems as if we are living so very
strenuous a life that we are up
against an unusual lot of questions
that need immediate solution.
Some people are discussing country
life in all the phases, others are con-
centrating their attention toward edu-
cational methods and are working on
plans for country high schools that
win give the farm boy an agricultural
education and not educate him away
from the farm, but train him to love
a country home and prepare him for
useful life on the farm.
We are getting a little saner on the
things that concern country life and
are learning that the youth of the
farm is of more value than the pigs,
cows and chickens that have had the
biggest share of the spaces in farm
journals.
While the public is hammering
on all these very interesting topics, we
might give just little attention to
the country village. 1t is a dependent
on the farm; it could not exist but for
the support of the rural community.
The patronage of the farmers sur
rounding it is almost the only source
of income it knows. It's banks are
filled with cash of the farmers. The
grocers sell him the merchandise of
their shelves, the carpenters, black
smiths and other tradesmen would va
cate the town in six months were the
farmers to withdraw their patronage
Yet we have no right to say any
thing about what kind of a village We
shall do our trading in. 1t may be a
quiet, peaceful place where decent
people rule and where an element
that tends for the betterment of the
community may hold control. 1t may
not be that sort of a place, but may
be veritable hotbed of iniquity. 1t
may license the saloon, tolerate the
dance hall and invite the sharper and
gambler to its environments. Far
too often this is the case.
They rail at us for sending to the
larger cities for supplies from the
mail order houses, but they import
the street fair company allow the
lowest strata of humanity to hold car
niyal for days and invite the youth of
the farms to come down and spend
his money and get bunch of corrup-
tion for the outlay. They get a little
license money for this and also a
chance to share with the carnival
crowd in skinning the farmer and his
children out of few dollars.
What do they care if the carnival
crowd carries off lot of cash. They
share in the spoils. In most of these
little towns there is some back room
where a nightly game is in progress
and the hired man and the farm boy
that works hard for his money, is
lured into this Fleeing shop and be-
sides losing his cash, is led several
degrees downward into the shiftless
strata of under life. The village
powers know about these places and
could suppress them If they would but
for a few votes and a little influence
about election time, they close the
near eye and allow the den to lure
the hest of the land into a degraded
life
Humboldt advertises a sane Fourth,
no boy will be allowed to shoot a
cracker upon the streets, no cane will
snap it's explosive. We load up our
children and go down to meet our
friends There the saloons are run
ming full blast. Forty or fifty drunken
sots gather in a crowd in front of
the saloon. Women and girls that
pass along the streets are leered at
or elbowed in true slum fashion.
saw drunken sOt sit on box and
slobbcr great gobs of saliva over the
sidewalk for an hour while women
dragged their way past him as he was
swaying in half unconscious condition
If this is sanity, where does insanity
begin?
A fine band discoursed good music
from stand and in ten feet from the
steps, and in plain sight of SOC
people, many of them boys and girls
in their tocns, sat a young man in
drunken stupor for two hours.
Our state passes laws protecting
the child. from the greed of parents
but the village licenses a Snowman
to compel a four-year-old and six
year-old girl to assist him in doing
stunts for the amusement of the peo
pie at this "sane Fourth" Hour after
hour these innocent children perform