The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1918-09-20
VILLAGE CLUB DISPERSED.
One Result of the Closing of the
 Village Store at O'clock.

Finder war orders, the stores Tn rural villages close now at ' o'clock in the evening. will somebody who knows tell us where the village club meets now to decide the fate of nations?
 In other days the store was the Vil- lage gathering place. Seated on boxes and barrels, with the few chairs re- served for magnates. the elders or the village solemnly revolved on mind ana tongues the state of affairs in general, with the youngsters occasionally hanging on the outskirts drinking It all in, but seldom venturing the pre- sumption of participation.
 Village affairs, county affairs, state affairs, national affairs, world affairs nothing was too small, nothng too vast, to be debated and decided In thls assemblage at the village store Though doubtless the busy fiend Cos sip occasionally ventured into this grave gathering, and bestirred 1t to the discussion of personalities, usually the field was wider; for there was nothing small about the ambition or | this local debating club. Daily ex- cept Sunday the affairs of the unl- verse were duly chronicled, discussed, ! and decided. Local oracles held forth at length and with keen relish.
 And now, in the time of war when | there is so much to be discussed and decided, the government steps in and orders the meeting place closed at sharp [; and the place that knew the village debating club knows 1t no more. What are "the boys doing | these evenings in this tensest of all times in mans history? Where do | they meet, and how do they manage | to decide the affairs of state Of this ! little neighborhood called the world? :? ! You may be tempted, MT. City Man, | to become facetious. You may be | inclined to ask, with mighty sarcasm,
 how Wilson and Lloyd George and | CIemenceau and Foch and Pershing | and Haig and Petain manage to get
 along without the advice and counsel
 of these village forums. Don't do 1t! l It would be very cheap humor, and il
 would be unjust and foolish.
 For there was very real value in
 these gatherings, and we wish city l rOlkS would SaLner III InelE AelSApoI- hoods, as the village neighborhood gathered in the village store, to dis cuss the affairs of state. The test of logic, the matching of information
 and knowledge and debating powers,
 kept wits brightly sharpened. The
 hot discussions of candidates and is-
 sues were very real aid to the in-
 telligent determination of political questions in nation, state, county and
 community. The men who gathered
 nightly in the village store, around the fire in winter, on the sidewalk in
 summer, were better citizens and more
 intelligent voters because of their free exchange of thought.
 Tonight the door is closed and lock-
 ed at ', and the nightly gatherings is
 disbanded. Where do "the boys the quotation marks are because we
 know where the real boys are; they
 are at Wadsworth or Grant or Cody
 or Dodge or in France-where do ''the boys" gather now? Or do they gather
 at all? If they don't, it is real loss,
 and an interruption to a very useful institution, a forum very helpful to
 our democracy. - Duluth, (Minn.) Herald?.