The Sauk Centre herald., 1923-11-01
(Leavitt Corning, st. Paul. in "Gor-
don" Magazine)

don" Magazine)
Surprising it is that no answer t.
"Main Street" (the book purportlns
to po- tray life as it is in the smaller
communities of the country has ap
peared. The book to me is a crue
MISREPRESENTATION of the hundred!
and thousands of villages and smaller
cities in which dwell the bulk of Am
erican population that is not actually
engaged in the tilling of the soil ane
harve ting the crops; the influence
of such a book as "Main Street" il
to send youth hurrying big cityware
there often to meet disilluSionment
disappointment and the loss of the
sshomey" feeling that exists in the
smaller cities and that emphatically
does not exist in most Of the larger
cities.
The author of "Main Street" was
born and brought up in one of the
villages which he so bitterly satirizes
and he knows better-but "Main
Street" has had FL printings and his
royalties are said to be over million
dollars!
The fact remains that the smaller
community has been misrepresented
and by inference the larger city's ad-
vantages unduly emphasized. 1t is
easily conceivable that Mr.. Sinclair
Lewis, living in the atmosphere Great
ed by a princely income, has not
caught the reaction of the average
man and his family to the realities of
she big -city-in fact, judging by his
writings, it is very certain that ne
has not done so.
The facts are that big cities, as
places of abode, are breaking down
they are so big they are unwieldly;
their governments are VIGOROUSLY
corrupt; their standards of morality
tend steadily downwards; away from
the vicinity of the wheatfields and
the sight of the dairy cows and stand
ing timber, the real producers of the
country and the real life of the coun-
try is something extremely nebulous
the average denizen of the cities
inot the wealthy and well-to-do class
es who compose less than 10 per
cent, but the struggling classes who
compose over 80 per cent of urban
populations) is in desperate battle
for existence from which he can
spare mighty little time to think or
read of the realities of life. Says a
recent editorial in the New York
Times regarding the average citizen
of the metropolis:
"Yet the average citizen remains
unworried. He still crosses the bridge
and rides in II e subway, and expects
the water to flow when he turns on
the tap. He goes away for vacation
to a rustic spot where water has to
be carried from the spring, and there
are no subways and suspenion bridg-
.es and power houses to break down
from which interlude, humorously
known as rest, he rushes back eag-
4erly to the mechanical town. We
don't know where we're going, but
were on our way"
The average New Yorker is typical
of the average big city citizen OF
every town that holds over hundred
thousand people and is hurrying as
fast as it can to get bigger and big.
ger.
For what? What will happen to the
AVERAGE citizen when his town gets
so big it will be real metropolis
Well, what has already happened II
New York? !.
On Manhattan Island, where dwell
more than 2,250,000 of Greater New
York's 100000 people, less than 81
per cent live in their own homes; In
one apartment house of the thousands
in the Greater City, seven families
averaging about five persons pei
family, pay from $120 to $3.50 pei
smonth for flats ranging from five tc
seven rooms; that is their bare rooms
cost them from $1,440 to 81, 800 pei
year and their average income is
100000 per year!
This leaves from $500 to $3.50 pei
year for food, clothes, washing, re-
creation and the savings for "rainy
day. sickness and old age. Verify
It almost seems as if Thoreau must
have had the large city of the twen-
fieth century in mind when he said
s'The masses of mankind live lives OF
quite desperation!
What is there ahead of such fam
lily save work, work, work until the
end, with none of the joys of garden
ing and out-of-doors enjoyed by the
citizen who 'lives"-and not merely
"exists"-in the small town set out in
the fresh air where life is worth liv-
ing.
In the small town those who do not
own homes rarely pay more than 25
per cent of their income for rent and
heat-in New York, as shown by the
figures quoted, the average "small-
income" family pays from 70 to 80
per cent of it's income just for place
in which to sleep-and this is meas
urably true in smaller '1arge towns
These are authentic instances:
One man came to the city from a
small place; at 40 years Of age his
income was $2,20O.00 per year as an
office man. He has wife and two
babies; he "gets by" because kind
friends sometimes give him their old
clothes; other times they take a
boarder and pray that none of them
will fall sick. They are eternally
s'quietly desperation the brink OF
the abyss.
Another man couldn't educate his
boys as he wished, because of his SAC
per week salary; 86.5 per cent went
for rent; the boys had to go to work
early in. life. They will grow up to
10 i,1ct what fho old man is-a ioh