They go to the already overcrowded cities and seek employment and. under our present complex industrial system. are usually "hewers of wood and drawers of water" for some great corporation. simply a cog in a vast machine. living a life that retards physical and mental development except along one particular line. becoming human automatons. wholly unlike the sturdy. brawny yeoman of the country. and those same glittering attractions are drawing from the isolation of the lonely farmhouse the young women. and the labor problems of the city become more complex by reason of their employment by hundreds and thousands under a remorseless industrial system that knows no chivalry. and meanwhile the oldfashioned home. the unit of our civilization. is disappearing and giving place to the flat and the family hotela kind of a misnomer for homewhere children are not wanted and are interlopers if they come. and where the oldfashioned family circle is unknown. With improved highways will come the rural delivery of the mail. the telephone. improved central high schools. and an improved social and intellectual atmosphere that will make farm life more attractive. The loneliness. now so irksome to the young people. will be supplanted by social conditions and advantages which will not only satisfy our young people and make their lot more happy and contented. but will stimulate emigration from the congested centers of population. and will remove the chief causes of that spirit of unrest and dissatisfaction which is driving our young men and women from the rural homes to the already crowded cities. I can not forbear expressing the thought that in the expenditures of such vast sums in aid of expositions. in the construction and maintenance of public parks. and other works and enterprises for the education and enjoyment of our people. it would be wise to give some consideration to that great class of American farmers who pay the greater part of the taxes in time of peace and fight our battles in time of war and the great majority of whom never use our parks nor see our expositions. It may be all right to spend annually in time of peace $70.000.000 for an army and $100.000.000 for a navy and to exploit our military and naval prowess in the islands of the Orient. but so far as I am concerned I had rather see it expended in internal improvement among our own people to make their conditions better and their lives happier.
Keywords matched
emigration