The Grangeville globe. [volume] (Grangeville, Idaho) 1907-1922, 1912-03-07
OPPOSES THE
| PARCELS POST

Southwestern Zimmerman $ Asso-
o.;on held recently at Kansas
City, Says:
at am exceedingly sorry that
cannot attend your convention.
+ seems to me that the lumber
NON of this section are under
.sI;ne a work that should com
mend them to all good citizens.
"The preservation Of the home
.roae to the home town carries
Nth it the preservation of many
a. our American institutions.
'"It seems to me that a lot of
GOOD things in American life will
Dsss If the country town passes.
And il will pass just so surely
& Capitalization of retail mail or
a. business in cities continues.
1.-THE American country town,
the town of from ONE hundred to
one hundred thousand people,
preserves better than the crowd
a city and better than the lone
~ ranch and isolated farm life,
the things that make America
great.
Here in these country towns
the spirit of neighborliness is the
prevailing spirit. Men come to
know one another and when any
two human beings come to know
one another, in the one who is
intelligent and wise respect al
WAYS rises for the other. TO
know one s fellows always is to
sympathize with them. Neighbor-
| illness spells fraternity.
1.-THE American country town
with its broad circle of friend
ships, with its close homely sim
pie relations between men, with
its spirit Of cooperation and with
its economic status that permits
the creation of no indecently rich
and no abjectly poor, the Ameri-
can country town, it seems to me,
is the most hopeful of our Ameri-
can Institutions.
"To destroy that town, furn-
ishing the market for the farm
er and giving steady employment
to labor, means reorganization
Of our commercial, social and
industrial life that will be revolu-
tionary-and more, a matter of
doubtful value.
"The mail order house there
fore becomes menace to this
country, the mail order house I'M
restricted will kill our smaller
towns, creating great cities with
their cruel social relations, with
their inevitable caste feeling that
come from the presence of strang-
ers who are rich and poor living
side by side.
Friendship, neighborliness, fra
ternity or whatever you wish to
call that spirit of comradery
that comes when men know one
another well, is the cement that
holds together this union Of the
States. 1t is not created in great
cities.
Great cities give much in
aims, but little in justice. Only
as we know each other well can
we treat each other justly; and
the city is a wilderness of care
less strangers whose instincts of
humanity are daily becoming
more blunted to suffering, be-
cause in the nature of things
suffering in cities must be imper-
sonal. 1t is not the suffering of
iriehds and neighbors and kith
and kin as it is in the smaller
towns. So the mail order house
crushing out our towns is dry
ing up the milk of human kind
ness in our hearts.
And that brings us back to
iirst principles; if we who live
IN these small towns in America
cannot see that our duty to our
country lies first of all in our du-
Tto our neighbors, then we are
Dllnd indeed to the basis of real
patriotism, for after all patriot
ism Is only neighborly kindness.
ratrlotism is not in cheering for
sne flag; it is not in feeling our
eyes filled with emotional tears
a. hearing 1.-THE Star Spangled
banner" patriotism is just old
iashlonsed human duty.
TO sacrifice our neighbor-
tae man who helps the town with
nls taxes, with its public business,
WIN its myriad activities for
nelghborly righteousness-to sac
lilce that man and his bust
ness for the mere sake of saving
dollar on the purchase of a
hundred dollars worth of goods