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One hundred years ago a little more than three per cent. of the entire population lived in cities, the others being content to remain on farms in spite of the fact that none had rural telephones or rural mail delivery. During the hundred years the cities have been fighting for population, each one trying to be the biggest in its territory. They have acquired paved streets, libraries, museums, street cars, schools a hundred new luxuries and conveniences until life in an apartment house in the modern American city offers the greatest possible amount of comfort at the least expense of money or care. In the meantime the farmers have secured, very recently, rural free delivery and a few rural telephones. To be sure the invention of farm machinery has lightened his labor. At the same time it has made the road to wealth easier and has sent the farmers scurrying to town in greater numbers. Every big crop year marks a corresponding increase in the city or small town population, a decrease in the number living on the farms. Indeed the only way to keep the farmer in the country has been to keep him poor. As soon as he can afford it he promptly

sells his farm and as promptly moves to town.

In view of these facts it has seemed to be rather humorous that city dwellers should be preachers of the "back to the farm" idea. We go on making our cities more attractive so that they will compete for population with the country and then urge farmers to remain where they are or the city dwellers to go back to the farm.

Only recently have serious attempts been made by the states to attract farm population. Colorado now has a state immigration bureau, with an annual appropriation of $30,000 to be used in inducing farmers from other states or immigrants from Europe to settle on Colorado land. Missouri has a similar bureau and Kansas business men facing competition of this kind on the east and the west will ask the next session of the legislature for an immigration bureau.

Before this work was taken up by a few western states the only attempts to attract farmer population were made by real estate and colonization agents with land to sell homeseekers.

Their methods are the same as those

of Hernando Cortez, who after conquering Mexico, sought to attract population from Europe by the enthusiasm of his reports about the richness of the country. The rapidity with which people crossed the ocean to the new land proved that Cortez was equally successful as a promoter and a conqueror. Stephen F. Austin, for whom the capitol of the State of Texas is named, was one of many colonization agents whose names famous in American history. Austin took the first colony of Anglo-Saxons into Texas, while it was still a part of Mexico, and the literature he sent out descriptive of the country and its wonderful opportunities for farmers, would serve as a model for colonization agents today.

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Competition for population moves in an ever widening circle, reaching from town to town, county to county, state to state and finally from east to west. Ever since the first colony was formed on the shore of the Atlantic the west and east have been competing, with the west winning all the time. In 1790, the center of population was twenty-three miles east of Baltimore. At the end of the century it was west of that city and it moved westward for a hundred years at the rate

of five miles a year. Between 1850 and 1860 the movement was the most rapid, when it jumped from Parkersburg to Chillicothe, Ohio, a distance of eightyone miles. Between 1890 and 1900 the westward movement dropped to fourteen miles but it is still moving. It has been a fight between the factories of the east and the cheap lands of the west, with the cheap lands winning all the time.

American population has spread over the map according to the opportunities for business, whether the business be farming or factories but long before towns began looking forward to census returns and boasting of the size the figures indicated, kings and armies decided the fights of rival cities or countries for population. Babylon was a struggling village five thousand years ago. Then King Hammurabi, who was a town builder with original ideas, started on his campaign of city building. He removed. many rival cities from the landscape and made others pay big taxes for the privilege of existence. Babylon real estate advanced rapidly in value and many suburban additions were put on to take care of the increased population. The boom he started continued for 1,500 years until Cyrus, the Persian, captured it and

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They know that well paved and parked resident streets bring an influx of desirable citizens.

slaughtering going on at that time the roads leading to these cities were kept clear and signs marked the way to them. As an easy means of building up depopulated cities, this plan has been used with success in modern times. Louis XI made Paris a sanctuary in 1467, and some have been unkind enough to say that the growth of the city in population dates from that year.

The rules of the game have changed considerably since that time, but the results are accomplished in much the same way. Cities which control manufacturing interests collect taxes from their rivals with much more certainty than was ever accomplished by royal warrant. When a city secures concessions in railway rates it already has its rivals crying for mercy. A city which possesses mill

twenty years ago, with almost autocratic authority over rates. It immediately adopted a adopted a policy of building up many centers of city population instead of allowing one or two cities to take all the business in sight. With the co-operation of the railroads a system of "scaling rates" was worked out. Surrounding each town is a zone in which the rates increase in proportion to the distance. This means that wherever two railroads cross, a jobbing center has sprung up, able to compete with its rivals no matter how large they may be.

In one sense the most serious rivals of any town are those located far away. Key West, with its large production of cigars, is the rival of every town which could support a local cigar factory. Battle Creek, Michigan, is the rival of

every town to the extent that its breakfast foods have replaced home grown pork sausage or home grown ham and eggs. Every time a town buys from another anything it could make at home, it is encouraging and supporting a rival, even though the place be a thousand miles distant. Any town which starts in tomorrow to make its own flour, cigars, brooms, wagons, and do all of its own printing will immediately begin winning in the fight for population. This is not always possible but some cities have profited over their rivals by consistently patronizing home industry.

A few years ago a Home Industry League was formed in a Southern town by a few business men, mostly retail merchants. The city had a population of barely a hundred thousand, but members of the league found more than two hundred manufacturing establishments located there. Many of them consisted only of cigar factories employing one or two men. Other establishments ployed several hundred. Members of the League called these manufacturers together and outlined a campaign to in

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crease the home production of homemanufactured articles, thereby adding names to the local payrolls. Thousands of cards were printed bearing a pledge whereby the signer promised to give the preference to articles made at home, and, so far as possible, to buy them to the exclusion of others. The newspapers printed a good deal about the organization and nearly everyone in town signed the cards. As a climax to the cumulative campaign, a big street parade was given in which everyone of the home factories was represented by a float. The campaign attracted a good deal of attention. and helped to increase the sales from local factories and encourage the establishment of others. Now the city observes a home industry week each fall. The merchants loan their show windows to the local factories and goods made at home are displayed in them. The town is decorated, carnival attractions are brought in and the week made a combination of pleasure and business united. It is a kind of annual revival for city pride backsliders.

Creed

T is not the wide phylactery,

Nor stubborn fast, not stated prayers, That makes us saints; we judge the tree By what it bears.

And when a man can live apart
From works on theologic trust,

I know the blood above his heart
Is dry as dust.

-ALICE CARY.

UNCLE SAM'S PROTECTED PIRATE

By

EDWARD B. CLARK

HALL it not astonish the gentle minded people of the United States to know that the protecting arm of the Federal government has been thrown about a robber and a despoiler, a freebooter and a pirate to whom theft is pleasant and murder joyous?

Shall it not astonish the keepers of the commandments unto the last letter of the tenth of them to know that the winter home of the brigand and cut-throat is the Capital City of the United States; that man is forbidden by statute to molest him, and that his quarters are watched with jealous official eye lest his goings and comings be hindered, his peace of mind disturbed, and mayhap his life threatened?

COURTESY U. 6. BKLUBICAL SURVEY, BULLETINS, A. K. FISHER, HAWKS AND OWLS.

"THE PIRATE."

"The subject of this sketch," as the biographer wearied with repetition puts it, has been called within the space of two short paragraphs robber, despoiler, freebooter, pirate, cut-throat and brigand. The names are all taken from the dictionary of invection drawn on by Washington men for free and expressive use when they have found the forces of the government between them and him whom they would kill. The list could be made longer and perhaps more dignified by the inclusion of Rob Roy and Captain Kidd, for by use of the names of the Highlander and Sea Rover the milder tempered enemies of the villian have sought to epitomize the evil of his life.

The robber, despoiler, freebooter and the rest is a bird, and when any one of several names are given him the ornithologist will know him thereby -Duck Hawk, Peregrine Falcon, Wandering Falcon - the Falco peregrinus anatum of the scientist. Wandering falcon is the name which suits the bird best, for it is a wanderer on the face of the earth. It knows Africa and Asia and Europe and America and the Isles of the Sea. Its flight is typical of the freedom of the fields and in its eye there is the wildness of remote woods.

It was eleven years ago that the falcon chose the gray tower of Uncle Sam's Post Office Department building for his winter aerie. His life has been demanded many times and denial has always come.

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