Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1912-01-06
TOWN UPBUILDINe'
congested Population In Cities a
Menace to country's Welfare.
MAIL ORDER PLAN RUINoUs.

Whatever IL Needed to Supply Needs
of Households In Rural Communities
Should Be Bought Over the Counter
of the Local Merchant.
There are many country merchants
who see their trade gradually slipping
away from them. leaving the country
town and going to the great cities by
the channel. of the mail order trade.
There are many country editors who
see the prosperity of their towns de-
pleted and circulation and advertising
income reduced for the same reason.
realize that their problem is a national
one and that it is wrapped up in end
part of the great fundamental ques-
ton whether this nation shall be per-
petuated or shall be destroyed by the
physical degeneration of humanity, the
social unrest, Industrial discomfort, NOR
al and political corruption and class ha-
tired bred in the city slums and tene-
mentS and certain to eliminate in an
archistic crimes. riotous mobs and all
destroying social upheavals as the re-
suit of some long continued period of
reasons Maxwelps Talisman.
The fact is that the upbuilding of the
country town and suburban village as
an antidote and safeguard against the
poisonous social. moral, physical and
political consequences of herding mil
lions of our working people together In
the unnatural congeSted life of the ten
ements is. the one great question that
rises above all others in Importance as
a problem that this nation must solve.
Unless it does solve it 1t will suffer
death from human degeneracy-the
fate of so many nations and civiliza-
tons that have risen in the past only
to be destroyed Ours will be likewise
destroyed unless we take heed in time.
The danger arises from the conges-
ton of population in cities and from
nothing else.
The solution lies in checking the fur
Their growth of cities at the homes of
industrial workers and scattering those
homes into and among suburban home
croft villages and in country towns
and rural settlements.
To do that trade and industry must be
decentralized. Industries of all kinds
must be established in the suburbs of
the cities or in the towns instead of in
thing that requires an organized cam
paign. but first it requires a current of
| right thought in the minds of the peo-
| pie.
1t requires that everything should be
done that can be done to hold In the
existing towns and villages the trnde
| that now naturally centers there. Any
part Of IT, small or large. that Is di-
verified to any of the huge central mail
order centers in the big cities and
thereby taken away from the locality
where 1t originates and belongs is an
influence that promotes just to that ex-
tent the growth of the evil that is eat
ing at the heart OF our national life
| Whatever is required TO supply the
needs of every household in every rural
community should be sold over the
counter of local store and not through
the postoffice and the mail trade.
Then comes the question of the
| growth OF towns and villages. There
is where the country editors and mer
chants can help themselves. Once gel
it into the minds of the whole Amert
can people that the salvation of the nu
ton depends on the upbuilding of the
country towns and suburban Villages
get the idea planted and deeply root
ed so it will grow itself-and a thou
sand influences will enter the field md
| enlist for this great campaign for rurn
and country town and village develop
ment to check the overgrowth of cities
with all its resultant evils.
1t cannot all be done ut once. The
first thing is to get public thought &c
| lively aroused and turned into righ
channels There must be complete
common conception In the minds ot
millions of people of this new nat1ona
ideal Then there must be united. con
certed and vigorous action to realize
that ideal. The facts and argument.
to support 1t must be disseminated
through a great educational campaign
entirely separate and apart from poll
tics