Norwich bulletin., 1918-06-21
CINE OF THE MOST ALARMING SYMPTOMS

An over-rapid pulse is not a dis ease. Nor is an abnormally high tenn perature. But, as symptoms, they in- dicate to the physician the probable nature of the real disease which, from it's hidden intrenchments, sends them out towards the surface.
 A headache, for instance, is rarely disease, but the indication of a dis eased condition which manifests itself by the headache as symptom. There are plentyy of things which will re- lieve headaches for the time being; opiates mostly, which deaden the nerves and stop them from their bene- ficent work of reporting trouble But the wise physician seldom resorts to these, willingly. His business is to search out the deep seated disease which is causing the headaches and, eradicating that cause, thereby re- moving the symptom.
 Intelligent and civilized generals don't make war on Signalmen alone. It is the army behind the signalmen which they seek to destroy When that is wiped out there will be nobody for the signalmen to signal for. Til that is wiped out, one set of signalmen will be sent after another in it's behalf
 
 men of intrenched, ambushed and really dangerous foes. They may be annoying, but they are not in them selves serious. It is the armed force their presence indicates which is to | be dreaded
 The economist is dead right when | he classes the away from -the-coun try movement as a symptom" and an | alarming one.
 l It is not, in itself, either wrong or | challengable. No more than a head ache is, in itself, fatal. But as the ] headache may be the first symptom of an incipient fever of deadly charac- ter, so this national tendency is the ! symptom of a national morbidity which is a national danger and threat l Also, as usual with too many short sighted empirics, the chief talk which we hear about it is not of it's warn ing nature as a symptom, but of it. self, as though it were itself, the dis 1 ease.
 And most of the' plans proposed for 1 it's removal fail to take into account l the cause, but foozle aimlessly around 1 the edges, seeking to alleviate the symptom.
 Why is it that people flock away from the country to the city and the factory village and the railroads and the mines? To almost anything be- sides farming?
 There are two common answers. One is that they can get more pay elsewhere than on the farm The other is that they can live easier, have more modern conveniences, and grater "sociar' opportunity.-The first motive is usually ascribed to the mas culine and the second to the feminine deserters.
 And they are both accurate enough as describing symptoms.
 But they both utterly fail to search out and reveal the real disease, the hidden infection
 i It is probably true that the city worker can get more money for his work than the country laborer. He can get more,-and he has to spend more.
 It is perfectly true that the farmer with, say, 5000 invested in farm doesn't get as high an interest on his investment as the city merchant with a similar amount invested in busi- HeSS.-f1e also runs much less risk Oi bankruptcy and the sudden loss of all his capital
 Anyway, if the city worker is real
 ly be1er off at the end of the year and this has never yet been shown
 the reason for the difference is large
 ly the fault of farmers themselves
 Not yours or mine, individually. but
 in the conduct and management of the
 whole farming community, as bunch
 If we farmers used the foresight and the sumption and the horse-sense
 which merchants and traders and the whole world of so-called business
 uses, with the vast power of the na.
 tion's production in our hands we
 could command such rewards for oul
 work as to equal any from city in vestments. Or even the wages ol intuition workers!
 No, it isn't solely in higher cit, , wages or handler city "movies'' oI
 running water and electric light tha
 the cause of the migration lies. . It is in the spreading, .ulcerating