The Breckenridge news. (Cloverport, Ky.) 1876-1955, 1920-02-18
THE COUNTRY TOWN

clad cliff, or the needlessness of the
mud-spattered shoes.
what the place needs is new settlers
and new enterprises.
And yet the city will buy a site
by the river and give IL to some cor
4 poration, il the corporation can only
be induced to build its new mill there
instead of elsewhere. There will be
big meetings, too, to start that new
street car line which is not needed
and cannot pay. And if Littleville
has struggling newspaper, that pa
per will print long accounts of the
sers in their schools; more ugly little
three-room houses to mar the beauty
of the pastures? Can't they see that
what the Cross Roads needs is a
hitching shed for the farmers horses,
a coat Of paint on the "storehouse,"
and some vines and hedges to screen
some Of the unkept-looking out
| hoases?
| Suggest these things to the people
of these towns-tell them to make a
park of the river bank, to get rid of
| the mudholes, to put down the new
walks, to build the hitching shetland
they will tell you in all seriousness
that they have not the money, that
the taxes are too high now, and that
they will grow up into weeds, most
likely, and yield no return.
And our Cross Roads friends, why
do they want more children of un-
The question with the towns is not,
How good" but How big?"
Surely il is not so everywhere.
IL. l. 10
that does not wish to be a big city
next year; one country town that does
/ not aspire to be city at all; one
little hamlet that has no desire to
push the wheat fields back from its
doors, Such places must be, and into
their keeping, | am persuaded, has
been given the key to the future
Their citizens it will be who shall
dream the dream of the city that is
possible, the town that ought to be,
and bring this dream to pass. For as
surely as it is more important that the
town be beautiful and clean and we'll
governed than that it be big, so
surely will the present cult of num-
bers pass away and the more rational
appreciation of homelikeness and
wholesome surroundings take its
place in the minds of the people who
dwell in our American towns.
Taken in its entirety, the town of
today, big or little is an unlovely
thing. Exceptions there may be, but
the rule holds good. In almost every
town, too, may be found beauty spots
fine residence sections where trees
border the curving avenues and the
lawns are kept green; public build
ings, not fautless perhaps, but digni-
fed and purposeful enough to give the
citizens feeling of pride smooth,
well-lighted streets, and noble bust
ness houses towering above the hurry
ing throngs. There are few even of the
smaller towns which have not some
feature either of natural beauty or
civic achievement which they are
proud to possess and glad to see each
day Even the tall smokestacks OF
the mills, waving the dark plumes of
industry above roof and spire, and
the grim-fronted furnaces which
brighten now and then with the un-
expected and thrilling splendor of
leaping fame and billowing vapor,
crimson and purple and rose and
turquoise and tender gray even
these most utilitarian structures have
their charm. The town is not devoid
of beauty; but how seldom can it
be said to be beautiful!
Against the noble avenues, clean,
fair-fronted on either side, may be
placed the unpaved streets of the
slum districts or the negro quarters
with their dismal lengths of poverty
and squalor. Against the stately build
ings may be placed the ramshackle |
old structures which are allowed to
stand, often menacing as well as un-
slightly Against the Towering parks |
may be placed the tenements with |
the street for playground Against
the strength and majesty of mill and !
furnace, the wretched cheapness and !!
slatternly monotony of the long rows
of houses, all alike. in which the men
who work in mill and furnace are
expected to live, as if laborer had
no sense of beauty or no aspiration
for the finer things of life
But why continue the list? We all
know these defects of our cities-the
hopeless squalor and the reeking filth |
that hide behind the skyscraper; the
ragged, unkempt district that both
joins and separates towns and coun- !
try. We have seen them, and thous-
and other unloyely sights, SO often
that we have come complacently to
accept them as part of the natural
order of things; or else have imagin- !
ed that the way to get rid of them is
IN "hnnct the tnuub and have ~ urOu