The Breckenridge news. (Cloverport, Ky.) 1876-1955, 1920-02-18
THE TOWN THAT WOULD NOT
BE A CITY.

But for me-" wrote Pultarch, IL
live in a little town where | am will
ing to continue, lest it should grow
less"
Pultarch was a good citizen, and
il is safe to say that he had the friend
ship as we'll as the respect of his
neighbors. The man who loves his
town is likely to be loved of his
townsmen; and one who would have
his shortcomings charged to himself
and not to an obscure birthplace or
! provincial residence could not but
have been a man of influence in local
affairs-the sort of man to whom the
neighbors would go for advice and
assistance, equally confident of his
sanity and his good will
| am afraid, though, that If Plu-
tarch lived today. much as most of us
might value him as a neighbor, we
should secretly look upon him as
rather old fogeyish and out of date.
Remain in small town for fear
that it should become smaller? Not
we II it is not going to get bigger,
let us go to some town that will.
The current American idea of a
town is-a place that is going to be
city.
The obsession OF bigness is upon us.
The census reports are the final word
about our cities. Chicago in twenty
years catches and then hopelessly out
distances Philadelphia. Chicago is a
live" city, one of the marvels of our
time Philadelphia has the adjectives
SLOW" and Sleepy" fastened upon
her garments and wears them as a
permanent badge of unworthiness.
Down in our South country, Atlanta
and Birmingham and Memphis waited
for the census reports to see which
was the biggest" the most pro-
gressive," the best" town. There was
JOY in Atlanta and disappointment in
Memphis when the reports of the last
census came out.
So it is elsewhere Urbetta wants
new mills and machine shops that it
may rival Greattown in population
and bank clearings. Bigburg wants
new opera house and street car
line down the two main streets, so
that it may get in the Urbetta class.
Littleville lays off new streets and
sells good farm lands at unreasonable
prices, hoping this way to start
boom" and catch up with Bigburg.
And out there at the Cross Roads
where half a dozen little houses have
been put up near the church and the
store and the blacksmith shop, to
catch and hold for few months at a
time a few families OF the more tran
sient and shiftless laboring class-out
there in the sun-quickened and wind
refreshed fields, the building of an
other inconvenient unsightly house to
rent to some unknown straggler is
regarded hopefully as another step
toward the blissfh goal of real town
hood
Yet what real concern to Philadel-
phia can it be whether that city
making wholesome and steady
growth-is second or third in-the list
of great cities? What can few
thousand names more or less in the
takers books amount to with
either Atlanta or Memphis when it
comes to determining their real mer-
its as cities-their desireability as
places for men to live and work, and
for children to be born and grow up
in?
Does Urbetta really need new man
plants, new rows of squalid
"mill-hand" houses, new supplies of
smoke and dust and CRIME, when it
thrives on its trade with the sur
rounding country and has unimproved
and unsupported beauty, spots all
along the banks of the little river
where the big mills ought to be-"
Has it ever occurred to Bigburg
that it would add more to that places
charm and fragrance to move the
pig-pens out of town, to fill up the
mudholes where the streets" dwindle
down into country roads, and to pull
down the ramshackle old firetraps
across from the depot, than to build
an opera house or street car line with
the prospect of seeing the builder
get per cent on his money?
And Littleville, where each family
has, from either front or back yard,
a fine view OF wooded cliff, and where
all wade through mud in wet weather
and kick up the dust in dry weather
as they go to church or postoffice-l
cannot Littleville realize that what it
needs is to put down a few rods of
concrete walk and to make sure that
the trees on the cliff will not be cut?
The fields can grow grass and grain
and help pay for the walks, if they
are left as fields; cut up into lots,
big sale OF lots and the phenomenal
growth of our young city," with never
a word about the beauty OF the green