ROANOKE RAPIDS, NORTH CAROLINA
THE LARGEST NEWSPAPER IN HALIFAX COUNTY
Member North Carolina Press Association
CARROLL WILSON. Owner and Editor
Entered as Second Class matter April 3rd, 1914, at the post offu
at Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, under Act of March 3rd, 1879.
OFFICE EQUIPMENT & SUPPLIES
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LIVING IN A SMALL CITY
• • Many people ask us why we prefer living in
a small city rather than in a large city. Our
answer is that it is too lonesome living in a large
city where folks live like sardines packed in a can
and yet hardly know the names of the people living
in the same big apartment house with them.
Those living in big cities have more certain
comforts and access to more varied entertainment
than those in small towns, but they have far less
opportunity to make and keep friends and neigh
bors.
So give us an American country town, where
no one is alone.
Where all are friends, where neigh oornness
and kindliness prevail, where each is his brother’s
keeper, where no one is alone.
Where life is simple, where there is kindness
and warmth and friendliness for all and from all.
Where homes are the abiding places of happy
families and into which all are welcomed without
distinction.
Where unselfishness prevails, and affection
and thoughtfulness is evidenced each day and hour.
Where Banker Brown is the friend and asso-|
ciate of Drayman Stine, and lends a helping hand
when Mrs. Stine or little Jimmy Stine is ill.
Where Merchant Smith pats crippled Jerry
Murphy’s tousled head and hands him a bit of
candy or a cookie, which Jerry’s widowed mother
could not buy.
Where neighbors drop in hour by hour on
feeble Grandma Goodman, carrying nourishing
foods to tempt her failing appetite, so she may not
feel alone.
Where every home is open to Sam Plover, the
town barber, and his small son, Willie, while Mrs.
Hover languishes in the hospital, that they may
not feel alone.
Where there are no class distinctions, no so
cial outcasts, no one without friends. Where no
one is alone.
_ . . . « A
mat is tne American country nown. near
a paradise as this earth can provide.
AND LIVING ON A FARM
• • Then there are those Americans who would
be happy no place else but on the farm, and we have
no better argument in favor of life on a farm than
that of O. E. Baker of the U. S. Department of Ag
riculture, who says:
You may wonder why in these hard times for
agriculture we should wish our children to become
farmers or farmers’ wives. May I tell you?
1. The farmer and his family have more and
better to eat than have most city people, and in
times of depression they are more certain of a live
lihood—if they have not mortgaged the farm.
*
About six million people went from the cities back
to farms during the years 1930-34 seeking shelter
and sustenance, and two million of these were still
on farms when the census was taken January 1,
1935.
2. The farmer has better health than the city
man and lives longer—four to five years longer—
according to a recent study made by the Metro
politan Life Insurance Company. If the farming
people had equal medical facilities, the difference
in duration of life would be still greater.
3. The farmer becomes a wealthier man than
the majority of city men, judging from the per
capita wealth of rural and urban states. This may
not be true in the South. It is true in the North
because of the millions of city people who have al
most no property at all—except an automobile and
some second-hand furniture.
4. The farmer is more likely to enjoy his work
than are most city people. Most city work is
monotonous—tending a machine in a factory, oper
ating a typewriter, standing behind a counter in a
retail store hour after hour. The farm boy or girl
may dream of a professional career in the city, or
of being a successful business man or woman, but
it is certain that relatively few young people from
the farms will realize this ambition. Most of the
young men and women who go to the cities will
continue to do the simple tasks of city life—if they
find work at all.
5. The farmer is more likely to rear a family
and promote the welfare of the Nation and the
race. The family is becoming smaller and weaker
in the cities. Only two-thirds to three-fourths e
nough children are now being born in our large
cities to maintain their population permanently
; t
without accessions from outside,
The conditions of living and the
philosophy of life in the cities tend
toward the extinction of urban
families. The rural philosophy of ^
life, with its recognition of the
family as the fundamental eco*
nomic as well as social institution,
tends toward survival. If there la
one word that science teaches to ^
be more important than any other
it is the word “survive.”
I cannot minimize the difficulties
facing the farmers of the United ^
States. The approach of a sta«
tionary and probably later declin*
ing population suggests a long pe«
riod of low prices for farm prod*
ucts. The message I hope you can
give to the boys and girls whom Q
you talk with on your return home
is that the prospect for becoming
ncn inrougn iarming is not ongnt,
but the opportunity to serve their
Nation and civilization is, in my
opinion, greater than it has ever A
been. I would that they could see
the rural people as the conservera
of the traditions, the literature, the
art, and, it may prove, of the sci*
ence that has accumulated during
the centuries. I would that they 9>
could see above them a cloud of
witnesses, the farmers and farm
women of the past, their ancestors
for a thousand years, heroes and
heroines many of them. If modern
civilization is to preserve ita it
strength, the young people must, Z
believe, see the beauty of the river
of life; they must realize that the
individual is only a link in our
endless chain which reaches hack
through geologic ages. I would that ^
they could see in front of them
the opportunity to build not a
transitory urban but a permanent
rural civilaztion; a civilization not
founded on selfishness as the mo*
tivating principle but on coopera*
tion, in which the economic ob*
jective is to produce sufficient for
everyone while conserving the na*
tural resources, and in which the
social objective is service and
preservation of the strength of the ^
people.
THE (F)UTILITY MAN
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I THOUGHT
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