Imperial Valley press., 1919-01-08
NATURES INVITATION STANDS.
GALLEY oNE-EDIToRIAL- :.

NATURES INVITATION STANDS.
GALLEY oNE-EDIToRIAL- ..........
NATURES INVITATION STANDS.
What must be the essence of the appeal that
finally calls men back to the soil?
For more than so years now fnanciers, poll
ticians, pubcists, sociological workers and
others interested in the welfare of this country
have been discussing the question of the growing
unpopularity of farm life in America
Why do boys leave the farm?
Why do so many older men get off the farms
as soon as they can afford to do so? Why is farm
labor so difficult to obtain? This and dozen
kindred topics have been the subject of search
ing analysis in field and forum. Ministers,
teachers, editors, farm organizations and others
have been trying to get at the of the matter.
Farm labor has been more and more difficult
10 obtain. Wages have gone higher and higher,
but still the supply has always fallen short of the
demand.
Conditions of rural life have been bettered
immeasurably. The telephone came first. This
was followed by rural delivery and the advent
Of the daily newspaper into almost every country
home. Then the automobile appeared and slowly
good roads are making their appearance. The
trolley, too has done much to annihate space
in the country. Electric lights and power are OBJ
tainable in many places and even gas in more
favored localities.
And during all this period prices for all farm
products nave advanced, and improved machin-
cry and better farming methods have increased
the yields. Farm life was never so attractive
as today.
And yet the trend toward the cities has con-
tnued unabated.
In all the large centers there are hundreds
of thousands of people huddled together in the
most abiect squaor. Take the East Side of New
York City and all that section in Chicago 'back
of the yards" and many miles of territory in
Philadelphia and Baltimore Pittsburg has its
full share and with the single exception of Wash
ington and Los Angeles every city of size in the
country houses great numbers of humanity under
the most unpromising conditions. Filth, dis
ease, smoke dirt, noise, all contribute to make
life 'stae, flat and Improbable"
And yet the cities continue to grow and the
rural sections continue to lose population.
What is there in this present hurried, high
strung, neurotic rush and whirl that attracts
men and women to the bright lights and the un-
promising conditions, physical mental and
moral which abound in every large city, save for
the very small portion of the population which
lives amid the surroundings of wealth and the
comforts wich large expenditures bring?
Why will man remain in New York City
and live in poverty and frequently amid the
temptations of evil associations and large peril
and subject his family to all these dangers when
he might get out and go to the country where the
air is pure, the sunshine bright and cheerful
the housing conditions clean and wholesome and
the company honest and sane?
Why are boys who grow up the farms in
such mad haste to rush to the cities? Most
of them never get anywhere and amount to very
little. The great number are lost in the mass and
forgotten. Their individuality amounts to prac-
ticay nothing and they toll by day and sleep by
night in air that is laden with carbon and rank
. odors incident to urban conditions.
The subject of farm life and its advantages
are being again discussed incident to the arrival
home of the 1000, 900 men who have been drafted
into the army and who are soon to return and
begin life anew.
There are all sorts of propositions to provide
government and state lands for these men in
the hope that they may be induced to take up
agriculture their life work
But will they be tempted?
There is little in the history of the past 30
years to indicate that the time has yet arrived
when men will again turn their attention to the
soil.
When the United States had population of
100000 there was but per cent of it in the
cities. Now that we have population of 10O-
100000 over 67 per cent of it is in the cities and
villages.
We have been expanding in wonderful man.
ner great manufacturing nation but we have
done so at the expense of our rural advance
ment and at the expense possibly of soundest
growth We have attracted millions of men and
women from Europe who came here to better
themselves and they have been held by the high
wages paid in the cities and have looked no
further They have been doing far better than
they did on the other side and in a measure are
contented with their lot The children born to
these parents are unfamiliar with any save city
existence and it is not to be expected that they
will leave the cities for the country.
There of executions and IhQrp ara