The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1931-07-16

entertainment, and wholesome en-
vironment." Now that may sound
trivial, but it is a vital social and
economic change, due to many
media but chiefly to amazing ad-
'vances in, transportation, which
have banished almost wholly the is
olation of the small town. Better
railways and waterways have been
potent factors, but probably the
greatest of all forces has been the
building OF surfaced roads, in
creasing in the country as a whole
from $4,000 miles to nearly 100000
in the last rs years-and those
roads are traversed by our more
than rs million automobiles and
buses.
Do you realize that buses carry
more than 2A billion passengers
every year, which, if you will con-
slider your bump of statistics (par-
don the physiological reference)
you will discover means about 6
million bus passengers every day.
That is the whole of Chicago, plus
st. Louis. plus half dozen other
good-sized cities, and then some
all moved in BUSES every day. One
considerable caravan!
What has been the effect of the
good roads upon the business life
of the small town? Let me give
you first an example that bears up
on the domestic life as well. In
1910, about 80 per cent of the
bread consumed in this country was
baked by housewives in the homes,
today the proportion is exactly re-
versed, four-f1fths of the bread be-
ing now produced in bakeries. Good
streets and roads and motor trans
port by commercial bakeries, espec-
tally to suburban regions or outly-
ing small towns, have been major
factor in bringing about this dras-
tic change in our household econ
omy.
Nobody can deny that the good
roads have operated, in a measure,
to diminish small-town business.
They have made it easy to ego else
where" to do shopping, as I tried to
show in my little talk to you a
week ago. But the roads have also
helped the small-town storekeeper
that is, the alert, aggressive one.
They facilitate his prompt deliver.
les. He can keep a fresher and
smaller stock-can enjoy the saw
ings of quicker turnovers-and can
therefore cope with the swift "style
cycle" much more readily than in
the past. Moreover, because of bet
ter roads more city people have
come riding out to buy country
specialties, all the way from maple
syrup to fresh sausage, to say moth.
ing of inexhaustible fresh "anti-
ques." Transient automobile tour
list trade has become very import
ant for the alert small-town store.
Here is another helpful factor.
The new move toward decentraliza-
ton of industry means much to the
business future of the small town.
Factories in America have tended.
in the past to concentrate in the
cities. Why? Because the power
was there, chiefly-the cheapest,
most convenient power-and it
could not be moved. But now the
new technique of long distance
transmission of electric power is
changing that condition.
Power can be brought to the
smaller village-easily, cheaply, if
the local advantages warrant.
That fact is beginning to re-
verse the industrial movement. In
dustry is "decentralizing." Factor
les are coming to the smaller
places. Land is vastly cheaper
there. Rents are lower. Building
costs are less. The labor is usually
satisfactory. Tax rates are much
more moderate. It does not cost
so much to live. Congestion, with
its train of ill-effects is practically
absent.
Now just to show you that I am
not romancing about small-town
prospects, here are few illustra-
tions of how it can be and has
been done:
There is Salians, California, which
shot up from less than 1000, ten
years ago, to more than 10000. The
brisk, clever development of
specialized agriculture in the sur
rounding territory has been the big
factor there. Lettuce, carrots, peas,
have helped to bring more people
to Salinas and more profits to its
business houses. The guayule
shrub is being exploited there as
source of rubber; a company using
it has spent a million and a quarter
dollars in the neighborhood of Sa-
linas in the past four years. So we
see science and new pioneering re-
search aiding in the upbuilding of
small-town business here.
Farther up the Pacific Coast
there is klamath Falls, Oregon.
It's population has increased 235
per cent in ten years, and, with
more than 1900 people now, it
has definitely emerged from the
small-town class. Now what hap
pened here? Well, klamath Falls
acquired better railroad and high
way facilities. AS result, new