Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1912-01-24
SMALL TOWN EVILS.
[.Monticello Express.]


a professor in the economics or So
Geological department of the state uni
versity is reported as advocating an
Investigation into the social conditions
of the small towns of Iowa. If he is
rightly quoted he assumes that there
are some glazing defects in the social
organizations of the villages, and that
there must be some investigation and
publicity work done, that such defects
may be remedied. The professor will
not have TO send out squad of stu
dents like a botanizing expedition TO
! learn something of the small towns Of
Iowa. Let him interview his own stu
dents, the greater percentage of whom
come from the hamlats and sa1nll
towns of Iowa. Thru them he can
learn that the social conditions of the
villa gers OF Iowa will rank higher than
those of the cities of the state where
organized vice is active and bold.
He will find in the small towns a
common brotherhood among men that
eScites sympathy that is foreign to
the self satisfied and exclusive classes
of the city. He will find the people
arc interested in the same things-the
church. the lyceum, the lodge. possibly.
and the school and its work-an in
terest that is not perfunctory Or pa
troniZing. but a real interest. He will
find an absence OF the class distinction
/ that fosters jealousy. envy and hard
ness of heart, for in the village those
who have not cast themselves out by
immortality are as one in social affairs.
He will find an intelligent and respon
sive people who take more papers and
magazines and sustain more lecture
courses than any other equal number
OF people in any state in the union. He
will find in those villages and in the
country districts of Iowa a nearer APP
preach to honest, TEN perate life, with q
greater degree CT religious RESPONSE
hility than he car find in the cities of
the state, where wealth and the power
incident to it's conservation and selfish
use has created class distinctions rs
strong as those existing where there is
hereditary oxidation.
Ii has become the fashion in some
educated quarters. particularly among
those who have made a fad of sociol-
ogy, to pity the condition of the coun-
try people. This was one of the dis
turba noes in Elk President Roosevelt's
mind when he appointed commission
to look into the condition and make
lis nnQlngS puDllc. VINO mas heard OF
its report since it was madeo Had
there been a commission appointed at
the same time to report upon city life,
It would have been found that the con-
ditions reported from the country, and
the contentment discovered, would
have been as far above the city report
as home is above the refuge of n
tramp.
40 doubt there are some bad coun-
try and village conditions Of life in
some states, and in isolated regions,
IN the better states where help, guild
ance. instruction. even social revolu-
| ton is needed. But when it is assumed
| that such conditions are general in
Iowa. sufficient to call for the investi-
cations and reports Of self appointed
sociologists, the assumption is based
upon ignorance of the localities that
furnish US with our best citizenship
The communities will resent the nos
/ ing of the peripatetic scholars. and will
plainly ask them to go home and
.sweep before their own doors.