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Show I Released by Western Newspaper Union, ' DIFFERENCE IN I REACTION TO WAR j In my home town, a rural com munity, the people have taken th war seriously. They have worked a the job of winning; they have helped the farmers plant and harvest food' they have made many sacrifices they have taken seriously the job of collecting scrap and waste that have been called for by the govern-ment. govern-ment. To the rural people, winning the war is the one thing of first importance. It regulates their dally activities. For them it is a time ot work and sacrifice, not of play and spending. During the summer I returned to the old home town of Chicago. The time was just after the appearance in a London newspaper of a critical piece, written by a London reporter, report-er, depicting the Chicago war spirit, spir-it, or lack of it, as he saw condi. tions in that metropolis. The newspapers news-papers of Chicago were much "het up" over that piece. They denounced de-nounced the reporter as being unfair, un-fair, as not having investigated, as judging the people of the city by what he saw in a few night clubs, What I saw in Chicago was what that London reporter had seen in Chicago, and I did not see it in the night clubs. I saw it on the streets; the mad rush of a money maddened people in their wild effort to spend the surplus money the war had given them. The stores were jammed with people buying any and everything, regardless of price or quality, the merchants were offering. offer-ing. People of all classes were buying buy-ing things for which most could have no urgent need- It was simply a case of having money and wanting want-ing to spend it regardless of what they bought. It was prosperity run rampant. I saw the same thing in the better bet-ter class of Chicago hotels and res-taumnts. res-taumnts. Champagne American, to be sure flowed more freely than In prewar days; blues singers rendered sprightly and slightly off-color ditties dit-ties for enthusiastic audiences, many of whom were of the war's newly rich. There was no evidence that our men and boys were fighting 'or the nation's continued existence. Men and boys of the metropolitan metro-politan centers arc in the fighting fight-ing lines just as those of the , rural communities. Both figure j ' in the casualty lists, but there ; is a difference in the effect. In ; the city the family next door has lost a son, but that family re- I ceives no ovidence of sym- i pathy from families around them. There is, in the city, a lack of that neighborly human touch so characteristic of the people of rural communities. That is one of the differences between the people of the cities and the country. It is that neighborly neigh-borly sympathy of the country coun-try that brings home to ns more of the war's realities, while in the city it is only when war strikes directly at the home that war's terrors are realized. Metropolitan centers subscribe sub-scribe their quota to the wr loans; contribute their part to ' the Red Cross, USO and other war funds, but after that visit to Chicago I am convinced the people of the cities do not feel the same element of responsl- j bility for the war effort, that same desire for a speedy end, as do the people of the rural communities. TIME CHANGES RAILROAD TRAVEL TRAVELING FROM THE WEST COAST into Chicago, on a streamlined stream-lined train, fitted with all the conveniences con-veniences of these times, and making mak-ing an average speed of 60 mile an hour, including stops and mountain moun-tain grades, reminded me of train travel of an earlier day. As a boy, living in the little town of Ainsworth, Iowa, a dally pleasure was to lit on the depot platform and watch the Rock Island "Rocket" whizz by. That was one of the crack trains of the West of 1880. It did not stop at Ainsworth. it did not even hesitate, hesi-tate, but went through town at iu i full terrific speed of 20 miles an hour. It was the fast train between . Chicago and Kansas City, a run of ( some 500 miles, made in a0011' hours. Its half dozen, stove heated. , open end coaches: and that wonder of wonders, a Pullman sleeping car . on the end. represented the best , transportation money could then y buy. How the transportation world has moved since 1830. The advance is the difference between the "RocK-et" "RocK-et" of those days with the pcrfec- lion of today. It is an advance can credit to the American system of free enterprise. e THERE MAY BE A REASON, that we mortals cannot fathom, lor the employment, by the FederaJ government, of thousands of men w count -automobiles on the "atlon' , highways. This at a time when V farmers are crying for help. In harvesting of crops, to rep ac those who have been drafted U the full force of the army and navj may be maintained. PROCRASTINATION ACCOUNTS J for the failure of many an iw blessed individual. |