Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 August 1877 — The Rush to the Cities. [ARTICLE]

The Rush to the Cities.

A mob of half-starved men is a pitiful sight; a mob of idle, vicious men is a sad commentary on our civilization, and in all our large cities we are frequently called upon to contemplate both pictures. That such a condition of affairs exists is not the fault of the cities or of the public at large. There are more people yitnhe cities than can find employment, and these people are in Chicago and other cities by their own choice. The facts which came to the surface last week as to the number of people out of employment were appalling, but will they prevent one young man from the country from carrying out nis pet scheme of comiog to the city ? Will one farmer’s boy, with a good home and plenty to do, read of the great masses who have bad homes; little to eat and nothing to do, and be deterred from coming to the city? Not #ne. The rush will continue, and our cities will continue to be burdened with more people than can find employment in their borders Boys and girls born and raised in the country have an insane desire to live in towns. They dwell on the bright side of city life so much that their own life in the country seems always dull and prosy, and city life always charming and bright. They magnify the drawbacks on one side and exaggerate the pleasures on the other. They drone over the dullness of countiy life and decline to see the dark side'of city life at all. In. this way they encourage a dislike for what is in their possession, and cultivate an insatiate longing for what their fancy makes existence in the city. A boy hesitates to round out his life on the form. It :s in some way beneath him, and he goes to the city to realize his ambitious schemes and becomes a clerk in a dry-goods store, or a laborer in some manufactory, or a driver of a street-car, or a brakeman on a railroad. He comes from a home where he was, in a certain sense, master of his own movements, ard enters a business where he works harder, where he lives less comfortably, and where he is always in a subordinate position. He comes from the farm, where his living is assured, and enters a field where a position, ever so humble, is difficult to secure and hard to retain; where he takes great chances of being thrown out of employment under most embarrassing and distressing circumstances. He comes from a locality where there are no beggars, no poverty-stricken people, no men presuming to dictate as to when he shall labor, and where and how, and enters callings in whieh he ceases to be master of his own action.

The boy that does this sort of thing Is indefinitely multiplied, and he keeps doing it all the time. In nine cases oat of ten he is disappointed; bat he never acknowledges this, and other boys, knowing nothing of the disappointments, and trusting only the boy’s exaggerated statements, manufactured to hide his real feeling,.follow in his footsteps. Let die boys and girls, the young men and young women remain in the country, patiently and thankfully. Let them disabuse their minds of the false notions they have formed of city life and look at facts. A young man employed on a farm has to work hard. He, would have to work harder in nearly any occupation in the city. He has to work in the hot sun and in the rain and snow, it may be. In ihe city he would work in the dirty, smoky atmosphere of some manufactory, or would be exposed to Just as inclement weather as on the farm. A farm-hand, getting eighteen dollars per month and his board, is making more money than he would iu the city at forty dollars per month. And yet, while farm-hands are scarce, laborers in the city are ever abundant, and clamoring for work in every department ot business. In addition to this influx from rural districts, cities receive the larger share of immigrants from other countries. The poorer classes cluster together in squalid localities, where there is Tittle comfort and little to do, when outside of the cities are broad farms, where there is much comfort and much to do, or new lands inviting them to possibilities of ownership. While every department of labor in the cities is overstocked, thousands of acres of public lands await owners and occupants. People have perversely looked in one direction for employment. They must adopt a different rule, and look in all directions. They have expected to find employment where laborers are most abundant; they should look for it where laborers are scarcest. —Chicago Inter-Ocean. When a small boy with a prejudice against yellow dogs observes an old oystercan in a condition of inactivity, he at once begins debating the question whether it was created to point a moral or adorn a tail. The dog gets the first news of the decision.—Worcester Press,