The Colville examiner. [volume] (Colville, Wash.) 1907-1948, 1915-08-21

tions, is a truth we'll said. The
increasing grasp of the mail or
der business on the preserves OF
the country dealer is an apt illus
tration of this statement, and
that farm journals, which have
pretty generally fostered the
business of "cat" houses, are
beginning to see the menace OF
the mail order houses is appar-
ent from the following by William
Allen White in Campbell's Scien-
tifc Farmer:
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
Capitalization of retail mail order
business in cities continues.
The American country town OF
from 100 to 100, 900 people, pre-
serves 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
prevailing spirit. Men come to
know one another, and when any
two human beings come to know
one another, in the one who is
intelligent and wise respect al
ways rises for the other. To
know ones fellows is to SYM
pathize with them. Neighborli-
ness spells fraternity.
The American country town
with it's broad circle of friend
ships, with it's close, homely,
simple relations between men,
with its spirit of cooperation and
with it's economic status that per-
mits the creation of no indecently
rich and no abjectly poor, the
American country town, it seems
to me, is the most hopeful of our
American institutions.
To destroy that town, furnish
ing the market for the farmer
and giving steady employment
to labor, means reorganization
of our commercial, social and in
dustrial life that will be revolu-
tionary and more, matter OF
doubtful value.
The mail order house there
fore becomes menace to this
country; the mail order house
unrestricted will kill our smaller
towns, creating great cities with
their terrible contrasts of life,
with their cruel social relations,
with their inevitable caste feel
ing that comes from the presence
of strangers who are rich and
poor living side by side.
Friendship, neighborliness, fra
ternity or whatever you call that
spirit of comradery that comes
when men know one another
well, is the cement that holds to-
gether this union of the states.
It is not created in great cities.
Great cities give much in aims,
but little in justice. Only as we
know each other we'll can we treat
each other justly; and the city isa
wilderness of careless strangers
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 smaller 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
duty to our neighbors, then we
are blind indeed to the basis OF
real patriotism, which is only
neighborly kindness. Patriotism
is not in cheering for our flag; it
is not in feeling our eyes filled
with emotional tears at hearing
'The Star Spangled Banner;
patriotism is just old-fashioned
human duty,