Western news and the Libby times. [volume] (Libby, Mont.) 1920-1933, 1931-07-23
The Business Future of The
Small Town

Following is the second Of two ad-
dresses delivered by DR.. Julius Klein,
Assistant Secretary of Commerce, OF
the Business Future of the Small
Town" The first address was pub
Ished in last weeks issue of this news
paper. In the following address DIR.
Klein discusses Factors Favoring
Small Town Business"
: The Minnesota commissioner of high
ways, Mr.. Babcock, said recently that
IF you 60 to-day to any large gather
ing, you cannot separate the city vii
lage, and farm folks by appearance.
They all dress and act alike, and they
have the same advantages of of educa-
ton, entertainment, and wholesome
environment Now that may sound
trivial but it is vital social and eco
nomic change, due to many media but
chiefly to amazing advances in trans
portation, which have banished almost
wholly the isolation 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, increasing
in the country as whole from 1885, 900
miles to nearly 100000 in the last IS
years-and those roads are traversed
by our more than rs million automo-
biles and buses.
Do you realize that BUSES carry
more than ga billion passengers every
year, which, if you will consider your
bump of statistics pardon the physio-
logical reference) you will discover
means about 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 con-
siderable 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 upon the domestic
life as we'll In 1910, about 50 per cent of
the bread consumed in this country
was baked by housewives in the homes,
to-day the proportion is exactly re-
versed, four-fifths Of the bread being
now produced in bakeries. Good
streets and roads and motor transport
by commercial bakeries especially to
suburban regions or outlying small
towns, have been major factor in
bringing about this dramatic change in
our household economy.
Nobody can deny that the good roads
have operated, in measure, to di-
minish smaIl-town business. They have
made it easy to go elsewhere" to do
shopping-as | tried to show in my
little talk to you week ago. But the
roads have also helped the small-town
storekeeper-that is, the alert, agrees
sive one. They facilitate his prompt
deliveries. He can keep fresher and
smaller stock-can enjoy the savings
of quicker turnovers-and can there
fore cope with the swift style cycle
much more readily than in the past
Moreover, because of better roads
more city people have come riding
out to buy country specialties, all the
way from maple syrup to fresh sau-
sage, to say nothing of inexhaustible
fresh antiques Transient automo-
bile tourist trade has become very i'm
portant for the alert small-town store
Here is another helpful factor. The
new move toward decentralization Of
industry means much to the bushes.
| future of the small town. Factories ir
A. lea have tended, in the past te
concentrate in the cities. Why? Be-
cause the power was there, chiefly
the cheapest, most convenient power
and it could not be moved. But nov
the new technique of 1ong-distanc'
transmission Of electric power is 1ras.
tically changing that condition. Power
can be brought to the smallest village
easily, cheaply, If the local advant
ages warrant y
| That fact is beginning to reverse tn
industrial movement. Industry is de
centralizing.' Factories are coming 4