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Show Four Millions of Americans Lost to Civilization and to Progress By ALBERT V. EI.MIS, in McClure's Magazine. ' Today in the United States 4,000,000 native-born American citizens, ons and daughters of Amcricun-I)rn parents, are locked up and lost to progress and civilization on an "inlr.nd island" 100,000 square miles in areathi. Appalachian mountain region of the Smith. Many of th"m are today living as their forebears did two centuries ago in some cases not even as well. In the pa.-t year I have talked with persons in these mountains of Kentucky, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia and Tennessee who have never seen nn American (lag, who have never seen a railroad train, a j citv, a building more than two stories high, a movie, a radio,a telephone, an airplane. There nre thousands of families there whose cash income for a year docs not reach $."0. I know a schoolliouse, if you can dignify the shack by that name, that never had a bench or a chair in it, where the children sit on a rail around the walls nnd where they speak the language of ShakesK'are, s inctimes using words almost olmohtu in Shake pea re's day. |