VI
Doubtless all small towns, in all countries, in all ages,
Carol admitted, have a tendency to be not only dull but
mean, bitter, infested with curiosity. In France or Tibet quite
as much as in Wyoming or Indiana these timidities are
inherent in isolation.
But a village in a country which is taking pains to become
altogether standardized and pure, which aspires to succeed
Victorian England as the chief mediocrity of the world, is no
longer merely provincial, no longer downy and restful in its
leaf-shadowed ignorance. It is a force seeking to dominate
the earth, to drain the hills and sea of color, to set Dante at
boosting Gopher Prairie, and to dress the high gods in
Klassy Kollege Klothes. Sure of itself, it bullies other civilizations,
as a traveling salesman in a brown derby conquers the
wisdom of China and tacks advertisements of cigarettes over
arches for centuries dedicate to the sayings of Confucius.
Such a society functions admirably in the large production
of cheap automobiles, dollar watches, and safety razors. But
it is not satisfied until the entire world also admits that the
end and joyous purpose of living is to ride in flivvers, to make
advertising-pictures of dollar watches, and in the twilight to
sit talking not of love and courage but of the convenience
of safety razors.
And such a society, such a nation, is determined by the
Gopher Prairies. The greatest manufacturer is but a busier
Sam Clark, and all the rotund senators and presidents are
village lawyers and bankers grown nine feet tall.
Though a Gopher Prairie regards itself as a part of the Great
World, compares itself to Rome and Vienna, it will not acquire
the scientific spirit, the international mind, which would make
it great. It picks at information which will visibly procure
money or social distinction. Its conception of a community
ideal is not the grand manner, the noble aspiration, the fine
aristocratic pride, but cheap labor for the kitchen and rapid
increase in the price of land. It plays at cards on greasy
oil-cloth in a shanty, and does not know that prophets are walking
and talking on the terrace.
If all the provincials were as kindly as Champ Perry and
Sam Clark there would be no reason for desiring the town
to seek great traditions. It is the Harry Haydocks, the Dave
Dyers, the Jackson Elders, small busy men crushingly powerful
in their common purpose, viewing themselves as men of the
world but keeping themselves men of the cash-register and
the comic film, who make the town a sterile oligarchy.
