Clearwater Republican. [volume] (Orofino, Idaho) 1912-1922, 1915-08-13
MAIL ORDER FIRMS
HURT SMALL Town
IF UNRESTRICTED WILL DESTROY
THE MARKET FOR FARMER
AND LABORER.
REAL MENACE TO COUNTRY
Will Create Great Cities Where Friend
ship, Neighborliness and Frater-
nifty Is Not Considered in
Big Commercial Centers.

That the preservation of the home
trade to the home town carries with
it the preservation of many of our
American Institutions, is a truth we'll
said. The increasing grasp of the
mail order business on the preserves
of the country dealer is an apt illus
tration of this statement, and that
farm journals, which have pretty gen.
orally fostered the business Of "cat"
houses, are beginning to see the men
ace of the mail order business is ap-
parent from the following by William
Allen White in CampbelPs Scientific
Farmer, which the Trade believes that
every merchant would do well to have
his local paper publish:
1t seems to me that a lot of good
things in American life will pass II
the country town passes. And it will
pass just as surely as Capitalization
continues.
The American country town, the
town of from 100 to 100000 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 prevail
ing spirit. Men come to know one
another and when any two human be-
ings come to know one another, in
the one who is intelligent and wise
respect always rises for the other. To
know ones fellows is to sympathize
with them. Neighborliness spells fra
ternity.
The American country town with
it's broad circle of friendships, with
it's close, homely, simple relations be-
tween men, with it's spirit of co-opera-
ton and with it's economic status that
permits the creation of no indecently
rich and no abjectly poor, the Ameri-
can country town, it seems to me, is
the most hopeful of our American in
situations.
To destroy that town, furnishing the
market for the farmer and giving
steady employment to labor, means a
reorganization of our commercial, So
cial and industrial life that will be
revolutionary-and more, a matter of
doubtful value.
The mail order house therefore be-
comes a menace to this country, the
man order house unrestricted will kill
our smaller towns, creating great
cities with their terrible contrasts of
life with their cruel social relations,
that comes from the presence Of stran-
gers who are rich and poor living side
by side.
Friendship, neighbQrliness, frater-
nifty or whatever you Call that spirit
of comradery that comes when men
know one another well, is the cement
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
each other well can we treat each
other justly; and the city is wilder
ness Of careless strangers whose in
stincts of humanity are daily becom-
ing more and more blunted to suffer
ing, 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 1t Is in
the smaller town. So the mail order
house crushing out our towns is dry
ing up the milk of human kindness
in our hearts.
And that brings US back to first
principles; II 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 peighbors,
then we are blind indeed to the basis
of real patriotism, which is only
neighborly kindness. Patriotism Is
not in cheering for the flag; 1t is not
in feeling our eyes filled with emo
tional tears at hearing "The Star
Spangled Banner" patriotism Is just
old-fashioned human duty.
To sacrifice our neighbor-the man
who helps the town with it's taxes,
with Its public business, with its myr-
lad activities for neighborly righteous
ness--to sacrifice that man and his
business for the mere sake Of saving
a dollar on the purchase of a hun
dred dollars worth of goods is just
as unpatriotic as it is to spit at the
flag.
For the flag, IL it means anything,
means the golden rule; the flag means
friendly burden bearing; 1t means mu-
tual help in trouble; it means stand
ing together against common foes.
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, when his town Is gone,
when the shirt of selfishness and