Forest City press. (Forest City, Potter County, D.T. [S.D.]) 1883-19??, 1915-06-16
BY Walter Z. Weyi, in Aarrer's
Nava-ira

I1dStHITI0. 1
Like other nations. We are moving from
4 rural to an urban civiliza ZION and are
taking on the color of the change. Our
businesses, our governments. our thoughts.
habits. and most tenacious prejudices. are
all suffering this city change. Much hat
we account good in the newer type OF
American. az we'll as much that we es-
TEEN bad. is ascribed to this rapid tran
sition from country to city.
How rapid that transition has been it
is now difficult to realize. The America
Of Washington's day was primitively,
racily rural. The country outnumbered
the city 30 to /: it outvoted and out
Influenced the city. The country was
countrified without urban qualities or de-
tendencies. Not even the cities them
selves We're Gifted. Philadelphia, the
greatest of them all, with the finest shops,
the best houses. the most ex~travasant pco-
pie, was but a poor. small triangle or
houses with its base on the Delaware and
Its apex stretching timidly toward the
west. Its people, though reputed gay and
luxurious, went early to bed. rose early,
and were without the opportunities and
distractions of modern urban life. Theie
were no great factories, no armies of
workrnen, no extended commerce. no
horse cars: no omnihuses: no sharp diff
ferentiation of the city into business and
| residence sections. Like envious New
York and aspiring Boston, Philadelphia
! was still half rural.
A great city was not desired nor even
contemplated. To 1.-The Fathers the very
conception had in IT something unwhole-
| some. A city was a dwelling place of tnr-
| bulent. impious. ignorant mobs, of a con-
%gregation of 'unprOductive" artisans.
wastrels. criminals. Sabbath breakers 1t
was q blister on the social body; a tumor
which absorbed the healthy juices. The
I city was vaguely associated with royalties,
courts, armies, beggars, and tattered. m
solent, rascally mobs; the country was
the cradle of republican virtue and demo-
cratic simplicity. jefferson, having In
mind the squalid agglomerations of the
old countries, congratulated America on
being rural. De Tocqueville. in the Sos,
believed hat the absence of a great cap
ital city was lone of the first causes OF
the maintenance of republican institu-
tons"
1t is the industrial role of the American
city which more than any other factor de-
terfnines and explains its widening inf1u-
ence. For the most part the ancient city.
whether great or small, lived parasitically
on the country. 1t was the abode OF eX-
ploiters. princes. landlords. Rome rem
dered nothing to Egypt for the corn which
it took from Egypt. TIL modern city rem
der services commensurate with the serv-
ices rendered to it. 1t fashions in its fac
tories the PRODUCTS of the country, and
redistributes them to a wide nation. eco
nonically dependent.
The American city. like the city of Eu-
rope, is thus a part and a consequence
of a stupcndous, silent, Industrial revo-
luton, which picks up its tens of millions
of isolated humans. as a CULVER might
pick up a I.illiputian. gently takes them
out of an obsolete industrial world. and
gently places them in a totally new world
The city is the visible epitome of a young
and yenturesome civilization in which the
whole nation, united by railroad, tele'
graph, and telephone. comes together
somewhat confusedly, and works together
with some friction at the common task
Of supplying omlnon needs. Within the
nation free trade rules; cheap transporta
ZION crumbles the barrier of distance
production concentrates at pivotal points
and where production concentrates the
,ity grows. The railroad which made thu
city extends the city's influence, eco
nomic, political, and psychological, to the
J farthest confines of the land. v
AS our industry advances. as our manu-
/, featuring and increase, the i'm
pulses which lead to the settlement o
American cities become more and NOR
powerful. Primarily those impulses ar
economic. The old industrial organ