The Washington herald., 1915-05-19

The great cities must be abandoned and allow.
cd to fall into ruin before have the millen-
MUM. This is the opinion of recent witness be-
fore the Commission Industrial Relations. II
this opinion is correct long way from
the millennium, since the great cities are growing
more rapidly than the small cities and the urban
population increased three times much the
rural population in the last decade. 1t is a
favorite homily that the cities the ccnters of
poverty misery. ignorance and vice. and the coun-
try paradise OF prosperity health, virtue and
happiness But the census statistics indicate a
condition to the contrary. There is more wealth
and better distribution OF wealth in the cities
than in the country universal employment,
more money spent education with better results,
more churches and church members. larger at
tendance on public schools and Sunday schools.
more attention given to health and better aver
age of health in the cities than in the country The
Christian Church had its first success in the cities
and the origin OF the word pagan" in its modern
sense, is said to have been its application to the
rural villages where the people held to old super
Stitions and old idolatres The development of
Christian civilization has been along these lines
for nearly two thousand years, spite of the old
impression or old superstition that the cities were
the centers OF vice, ignorance and misery.
In this country have had the most rapid
development of this Christian civilization that has
ever been recorded. and some have attributed that
development largely to the virgin soil and the pro-
duction of the farm. But the growth of our cities
has been the marvel Of the world. There grain
fields and orchards and vineyards in other parts
of the world but nowhere has there been such in
dustrial development, such enterprise and such
progress in city building. large part OF the in
in the city population has been attributed to
immigration from other countries, but statistics
show that another large part of it has been due to
the immigration of our own people to the centers
of population The government has introduced at
cost. rural free mail delivery and par.
eel post: made appropriations for good roads.
spent millions of money to improve conditions in
the country, and make that life more acceptable
10 the people The railroads and the electric roads
have introduced service which did not always pay
and the telephone wires have been run to the
farms but there is still discomfort and migration
the cities the nearest approach to the millen
MUM we have 1t may be all wrong, but it is so
and we have to deal with conditions they are.
And there is movement setting in all over
the country to trust these city people with home
rule just as they have in the country. They rep
resent more progress, better health, higher STAN
dard of living and they also bear the burden of
taxation than do the people in the country.
They are therefore. beginning to insist that they
oe allowed to conduct their own local govern
nents, instead of having the farmer legislators |
conduct these for them. |
The city man is Of equal stature in the distri- |
,ution OF population with the farmer and the vii |
ager and he insists on having his government |
dictated by the majority at home rather than by |
he minority who live where the millennium ought |
o be but is not