The Kendrick gazette. [volume] (Kendrick, Idaho) 1892-1968, 1915-07-23
uePatriotisn
BY William Allen White. Emporia, Kansas

ny Whham Alien White, Empofia, Kansas
The preservation of the home
trade to the home town carries with
it the preservation of many of our
American institutions.
1t seems to me that lot of good
things in American life will pass if
the country town passes. And it
will pass just as surely as centraliza-
tion of retail mail order business in
cities continues.
The American country town the
town of from one hundred to one
hundred thousand people preserves
better than the crowded city and
better than the lonely ranch and
isolated farm life, the things that
make America great.
Here in these country towns the
spirit of neighborliness is the pre-
vailing spirit. Men come to know
one another and when any two
human beings come to know one
another, in the one who is intelli-
gent and wise respect always rises
for the other. To know ones fell
lows always is to sympathize with
them. Neighborliness spells frater-
nifty.
The American country town with
it's broad circle of friendships, with
it's close homely simple relations be-
tween men, with its spirit of CO.
operation and with its economic
status that permits the creation
of no;indecently rich and no abjectly
poor, the American country town,
it seems to men, is the most hope
full Of our American institutions.
To destroy that town, furnishing
the market for the farmer and CIV
ing steady employment to labor,
means a reorganization of our COM
mercial, social and industrial life
that will be revolutionary-and
more a matter of doubtful value.
The mail order house therefore
becomes a menace to this country,
the mail order house unrestricted
will kill our smaller towns, creating
great cities with their terrible con-
trasts of life, with their cruel social
relations, with their Inevitable caste
feeling that comes from the presence
of strangers who are rich and poor
living side by side.
Friendship, neighborliness, frater-
nifty or whatever you call that spirit
of comradery that comes when men
know one another we'll, is the ce-
ment 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 eacl. other we'll can we treat
each other justly, and the city is a
wilderness of careless stranger
whose instincts of humanity are
daily becoming more and more
blunted to suffering, because in the
nature of things suffering in cities
must be impersonal. 1t is not the
suffering of friends and neighbors
and kith and kin as it is in the small
Ter town. So the mail order house
crushing out our towns is drying up
the milk of human kindness in our
hearts.
And that brings us back to first
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 neighbors, then
we are blind indeed to the basis of
real patriotism is just old-fashioned
human duty.
To sacrifice our neighbor-the
man who helps the town with its
taxes, with its public business, with
its myriad activities for neighborly
righteousness-to sacrifice that man
and his business for the mere sake
of saving a dollar on the purchase
of hundred dollars worth of goods
is just as unpatriotic as it is to spit
at the flag.
For the flag, if it means anything
means the goden rule; the flag mean.
friendly burden bearing; it means
mutual help in trouble; it means
standing together against common
foes.
The motto of the mail order hous'
is every man for himself and thu
devil take the hindermost- yol
bet the devil will.
That spirit never fails to work
and the weak man, the unprotected
man, the man alone-the man OF
the farm, at the end of the fact
when his farm market is gone, whel
the spirit of selfishness and gree
has left this country cold and har'
and mean and neighborless-th
farmer will be the hindermost.