The Grangeville globe. [volume] (Grangeville, Idaho) 1907-1922, 1915-03-04
EXPRESSES OPINION.

10 the Good Peopi0 or Grangeville and
Idaho County:
As 1 am about 10 leave Grangeville
for a short time owing to my health;
before leaving I desire to express a few
thoughts on the parcel post and mail
order business which Dis of such vital
Importance to our community and the
preservation of the home trade to the
home towns, carrying with 1t the pres
ervation of many of our American in
sutntlons. 1t seems to me that a lot
OF good things in American life will
pass II the country town passes, and 1t
VIII pass just as surely as centraliza-
tion of retail mail order business in
the cities continues, and the amount of
money sent from Grangeville alone is
8 IMPLY stupendous
The American country town, the town
OF from 1000 to 10000 people, preserves
better than the crowded city and better
than the lonely ranch and isolated farm
life, the things that make America
great. In the country town the spirit
of neaghborliness is a prevailing spirit.
Men come to know each other and when
any two human beings come to know
one another and the one who Is intel
ligent and wise, respect always arises
for the other and to know ones fell
lows, always is to sympathize with
them. This spells fraternity. The
country town with its broad circle of
friendships, with it's close homely re-
iations between men and with a spirit
OF cooperation and economic status
that permits the creation of no indie
Gently rich and no abjectly poor; the
country town it seems to me Is the
most hopeful of our American institu-
tions. To destroy that town means a
reorganization of our commercial social
and industrial life that will be revolu-
tionady and be a matter of doubtful
value.
The NAH order house therefore is
becoming serious menace to this coun-
try. The mail order house If not re-
strlcted and supported by our citizens
will positively kill our smaller towns.
creating great cities with their terrible
contrasts of life. With their cruel So
cial relations; with their inevitable
class feeling coming from the presence
of strangers who are rich and poor liv-
ing side by side. Friendship, neighbor-
lness fraternity or whatever you will
call that spirit of comrading that comes
with men knowing one another well is
the disqualification that holds together
this union which Is not created from
great cities. Great cities give much
In aims and little in jutsice. Only as
we know each other well, can we treat
each other justly And the city is a
wilderness of careless strangers whose
instincts of humanity are early becom-
ing more and more blunt to suffering
because suffering in cities is impersonal.
1t is not the suffering of friends and
neighbors and kith and kin as it Is in
smaller towns. So the mail order house
Is crushing out our towns; is drying up
the milk of human kindness in our own
hearts and this brings us back to the
first principle If we who live in these
smaller towns cannot see that our duty
to our country lies first of all in our
duty to our neighbors, then we are
blind indeed to the basis of real patriot
ism, for after ALL patriotism is only
neighborly kindness. 1t Is not cheering
fer the flag; it is not filling our eyes
with emotional tears at the hearing
of the Star Spangle Banner. 1t is
simply just old fashioned human duty
to sacrifice our neighbor, the man who
helps the town with his taxes, with
his public business, with it's myriad ac-
tivities for neighborly righteousness to
sacrifice that man and his business for
the mere sake OF saving a dollar on the
purchase of $4,000 worth of goods is
just as unpatriotic as 1t is to spit on
the flag, for the flag means the Golden
Rule. 1t means friendly burden bearing.
1t means mutual help in trouble; 1T
means standing together against COM
mon foes The motto of the mail order
house is every man for himself and the
devil take the hind most and you. bet
the devil will. That spirit never fails
to work. The weak men; the unprotect-
ed men; the man alone; the man on
the farm at the end of the fact when
his farm market is gone: when his town
Is gone; when the spirit of selfishness
has left this country cold and hard
and mean and neighborless, the farm
will be in the hinder most