Kentucky Irish American. (Louisville, Ky.) 1898-1968, 1918-11-02

pieties and heirlooms of home.
at was of immense moment to
the citizens of such towns whether
the towns were beautiful, well gov
erned and administered with JUS
tice and magnaniniity; this mattered
much more to them than half the
wars that have filled so dispropor-
tomato page in the writing of
history" The influence of CEN
tralized government was practically
very slight. parliament and Gov
eminent knew nothing of this side
of life (town goyernment). They
passed no laws and exercised no
supervision or initiative" Even the
coming of industries remained
matter of local care and control.
''The new industry had produced
problems that were general, but ex-
cept in respect of criminal law the
central government still looked upon
them as local and disclaimed all
concern The character of its local
government and the success of its
town life were therefore of even
more engrossing concern to that pop
ulation than they are to us today
with our modern GENERALIZATION"
And while form and appearance"
| Vi Iu6 DltUldCNdl tDWh NClC dioO VI
vital Importance" in the ''new
town." the factory city of the last
century, the uplift that should
come from the town, dts buildings
and its life, were also lacking. And
this is not all. There is a great
chapter in Victor Hugo's Notre
Dame de Paris describing the rise
of printing and the overthrow of
architecture as the principal Ian
guage of mankind. But we have
to remember that the population in
the new industrial districts was a
population for which literature
scarcely existed, that the boundaries
of their lives were the boundaries
of their imagination, and that the
only things that spoke to their
minds were the mill in which they
worked and the town in which they
lived. In their work they had none
of the excitement or pleasure of
the handicraftsmen; they worked
among ugly things, in ugly factories
or ugly mines, for though an engine
or a wheel may have noble beauty
and design, its beauty is obscured
for those who are tending one small
part of it and nothing else" And
the uplift that should come from
the town, fits buildings and its life
were also lacking.
The deficiencies of the new town
as compared to the old are thus
stated by the authors: perhaps
the best way to describe the new
towns and their form of govern
ment would be to say that so far
from breaking or checking the
power of circumstances over mems
lives, they symboIized the absolute
dependence and helplessness of the
mass of people living in them. They
were not so mudh towns as bar
racks: not the refuge OF civiliza-
ton but the barracks of an industry.
This character was stamped on their
form and life and government. The
medieval town had reflected the
minds of centuries and the subtle
associations of living society with
a history; these tNwns reflected the
violent enterprise tof an hour, the
single passion that had thrown street
on street in a frantic monotony of
disorder. Nobody could read In
these shapeless improvisations what
Ruskin called "the manly language
of people inspired by resolute and
common purpose" for they repre-
SeuIeu uOLHiuB uuI inc dfdihS0 VI
the capitalist
A sorry picture indeed! And yet
the picture is not overdrawn-l
neither was the new town" less
soulless than the Hammonds paint
1t, nor the medieval community
less soulful. And for all Of this
there must be a reason: Both the
medieval town and that of the
nineteenth century were, in meas
ure, the expression of current ideas,
the embodiment of the social phil
osophy of their inhabitants. The
social philosophy of the ages of
faith was thoroughly healthy, virile,
altruistic in the best sense, and reel
ognized man at his full value as an
Individual and as member Of So
ciety. But the utilitarian thought
of the period of the unrestricted
regime was neither social nor
healthy. Hence its expression could
not show characteristics which were
wanting at the source.
G. B. of the G. V.