Oxford Democrat. [volume] (Paris, Me.) 1833-1933, 1911-04-04

utterly untrue. We know that crime
among US, like physical disease, Is OF
the wane; We know that, despite INT
yearly increasing total of expenditure
for liquors, despite the revelation o.
sordid conditions In Maine and Other
prohibition states, the habit OF hard
drinking-concomit of crime - has
not the standing, not the prevalence,
that once it had among our people. AND
We know that New England, especially
rural New England, still is reverenceo
by many as the home OF God-feariug
law-abiding men and women.
Far be it from me 10 deny the exist.
ence among US of the cider barrel, OF
miscegenation, OF illicit cohabitatiOn, OF
base and violent criminaliy. These
things are no more to be cast out oil
reckoning than the falling roof-tree, the
| brier grown door-yard, the bush-lined
walls and slovenly dens that too often
ruin our enjoyment in the tranquil
beauty of our hill towns. Signs OF age
they are, or imperfection in society, OF
millennium as yet far distant; but no
more to be construed as indexes Of de-
cadence than Is the segregated misery
IF the East Side of the most progressive
city the world has ever known. 1t Is as
unjust to estimate the life of our coun-
try people from such evidence as to con-
demn the people of New York from the
evidence Of its vicious tenements.
Let him who sees in mongrel marriage
or cohabitatiop, in the taking up OF
poorer farms by the ''scum Of Europe"
signs of q vile degeneration in morals
aud blood, bark back to the days OF
colonization. Let him read, for in
stance, the records of the Great aud
General Court of Massachusetts, through
those, years when Calvinism reigned.
LIE; him take the contemporary opinion
of Europe as to the character OF the
mass of those who settled New England
and Virginia. Let him ponder the proud
terms "Scotch-Irish," "Anglo.Du "
Indian blood" For not all our solid
folk are come from John Davenport or
Priscilla Alden. If we are to judge of
those days by the same excrescences
that so many apply to their judgment of
modern New England, then those early
comers were wretched folk indeed. IL
We are to reverence those ancestors for
aught, it is for this-that, misfits al
home, they made themselves here ut. 1t
is their descendants who have made
America; it is their descendants who
make to-day the mass of the God-fearing
people of our New England country.
And now to that cherished wall:
"The best blood has been drained from
these hills" / have here, repeat, no
statistics to offer-ouly the firmly-im-
pressed conviction Of a farmer and
teacher among the granite hills, and
what | hold to be the true reasoning
from what we premise. have found
the New Highlander kindly, shrewd,
hard working, intelligent, with love Of
his home and family. l have found the
sons and daughters of him, who have
come under my care from one Of the
most depleted regions" Of all New
England, extraordinarily eager to learn,
clean, simple, honest boys and girls.
Not long ago a well-knOwn educator
said to me-"Your first two will COM
pare not unfavorably with the first two
of our largest city high school; their
ambition makes up for what they have
lacked in opportunity" A degenerate"
lot!
/ grant, with the pride that all we
country folk feel that thousands have
gone from our farms to lead in cities, to
open to men the wonderful West. But
our people are prolific. These thou
sands have not depleted, by their exodus,
the population Of our "back towns" 1t
is the tens of thousands who have follow
ed in their wake; who have gone to the
west and to the cities-above all, to the
cities Have they gone because they
are the ambitious, the strong, the fit?
That is the question. Have they gone,
even, for the not altogether creditable
reason that work Is easier, hours shorter,
pay greater, than on the farm? Is Jim
Sanborn fireman because firing q loco
motive is less laborious than farm work?
Is Dick Jones a motorman because the
hours of a motorman are shorter than
those of a farmer? Is Sadie Richards q
"saleslady" with Houghton & Jordan
because che can earn six whole dollars
week? Perhaps. think not. Is 1t So
cial opportunity they seek? What are
the social opportunities of shoe shop?
Here, | think, Is the explanation: ::
"When the days work Is done, it's
DONE" The planning, the responsibility
are for another. 1t Is undesirable that
the average city dweller lives in the
house Of another, works with the tools
of another, works out the plans Of an
other, and thereby surrenders to an
other larger part of his morality. The
habit OF responsibility, II ever he had 1t,
falls from him, and be grows Indifferent.
Almost unanimous Is the opinion of
sociologists that in this indifference lies
the basis of that corruption and in
efficiency in municipal government
which is a by-word among US. That this
condition arises from any degeneration
Of the character OF our urban populace
would be the last to affirm. Rather, It
comes from the economic Capitalization
of manufacturing and commercial in
terests that is tho most marked charac-
teristic of our national life since the war
of the Rebellion. Construe 1t as we will,
the fact remains that your city man be-
comes, from year to year, less morally
responsible individual, becomes more
nearly a mere instrument In the hands
of another, more and more literally "a
tiny cog iu the machine"
Uniformly, too, sociologisrs maintain
that the backbone Of our institutions OF
government, as truly as of our economic
prosperity, is the country. And why?
Not merely because in the country lies
the land, which Is the first requisite OF
production, but because in our country
folk is stable conservatism that marches
steadily, that does not leap or veer or
fall exhausted. For your average eoup-
tryman Is q man of property, taxpayer
-as your city man IL not-planner "a
we'll as doer OF his work on his own farm,
in his store, his smithy. he eats, works,
sleeps, with the sense Of responsibility,
With this ever,present sense comes the
habit of responsibility. It sits easily up.
on him. And from his daily life Il
spreads into the larger affairs Of the
community Nowhere is the truth OF
this better demonstrated than in the
town meetings OF New England.
Trite and pleasing as are the sayings
concerning the peace Of the farmers life,
that peace is not the peace of mental
vegetation. The average farmer Is q
man Of foresight, q successful planner
and none, by necessity and nature, more
than the New Highlander. The average
housewife is and must be one who thinks
for herself. But "our boys and girls
flee the everlasting drudgery" of farm
work and house work. Nonsense! Nc
routine work is more varied than that OF
the farm, mono more capable of variation
than that OF the household. Compare
them with the labors OF the book keep
or. the shoe worker, the factory girl