The Vinita daily chieftain. [volume] (Vinita, Indian Territory [Okla.]) 1902-1913, 1912-04-13
THE PUBLIC FORUM
NEED SMALL TOWNS.
The 5uIwark And the Hope Of The
cOuntry-centralization as
an Evil.

There are few persons who realize
that the mail order problem is ma
tional one, and that it is wrapped up
in and a part of the great, fundamental
question whether this nation shall be
or shall be destroyed by
the physical degeneration of humanity.
the social unrest industrial discomfort,
moral and political corruption and
class hatred bred in the city slums
and tenements and certain to culni-
nate in anarchlstic crimes, riotous
mobs and all-destroying social up
heavals as the result Of some long
continued period Of Industrial and
commercial depression.
The fact is that the upbuilding of
the country town and suburban VII
lage, as an antidote and safeguard
against the poisonous social. moral,
physical and political consequences Of
herding millions of our working peo-
pie together in the unnatural congest.
ed life of the tenements, is the one
great question that rises above all
others in Importance as problem
that this nation must solve. Unless it
does solve it. it will suger death from
human deimportance as a problem that
the nations and civilizations that have
risen in the past only to be destroyed.
Ours will be likewise destroyed un-
less we take heedsin time.
The danger arises from the conges-
tion of population in cities and from
nothing else
The solution lies in checking the
further growth of cities as the homes
o. industrial workers and scattering
those homes into and among suburban
homecraft villages and in, country
towns and rural settlements.
To do that trade and industry must
be decentralizcd. Industries of all
kinds must be established in the SUI
burbs of the cities or in the towns in
stead of In the congested ccnters. That
is something that requires an organiz-
ed campaign. but first it requires d
current Of right thought in the minds
of the people.
It requires that everything should
be done that can be done to hold in
the existing towns and villages the
trade that now naturally centors there.
Any part of it, small or large, that is
diverted to any of the huge central
mail order concerns in the big cities.
and thereby taken away from the To-
cality where it originates and belongs,
is an influence that promotes just to
that extent the growth of the evil that
is eating at the heart of our national
life. Whatever is needed to supply
the needs of every household in every
rural community should be sold over
the counter OF local store and not
through the postofIice and the mail
trade.
Then comes the question OF the
growth of towns and villages. There
is where the country editors and mer-
chants ca nhelp themselves. Once get
it into the minds of the whole Ameri-
can people that the salvation of the
union depends on the upbuilding of
the country towns and suburban vii
lages-get the idea planted and deep
ly rooted so it will grow itself-and a
thousand influences viii enter the
field and enlist for this great cam
paign for rural and country town and
village development to check the over
growth of cities with all its resultant
evils.
1t can not be done all at once The
first thing is to get public thought ae-
lively aroused and turned into right
channels. There must be complete
common conception in the minds of
of people of this new national
ideal Then there must be united,
concerted and vigorous action to re-
alize that ideal The facts and argu-
ments to support it must be dissent
mated through a great educational
campaign-entirely separate and apart
from politics.
Every country editor and country
merchant should be leader IN the
10 his locality. FARMER.