148 FLIGHT FROM THE CITY 



What difference does it make to the man who is un- 

 employed why the demand for coal, or for automo- 

 biles, or for cotton goods has fallen off? All he knows 

 is that for some reason beyond his control he has been 

 laid off. If being laid off merely resulted in his having 

 to curtail his enjoyment of the luxuries of life, the 

 situation would be bad enough, but at least it would 

 not be tragic. But when being laid off means that he 

 and his wife and children may be deprived of food, 

 when it means that they may find themselves without 

 a roof over their heads, when it means that they may 

 be ragged and cold and sick, except in so far as charity 

 helps them then you have stark, staring tragedy. 



Compare the position of the millions of men who 

 are today unemployed to the position of our pioneer 

 forefathers of a hundred years ago. At the beginning 

 of the last century, Brillat-Savarin, the famous 

 Frenchman who wrote The Physiology of Taste, made 

 a long visit to the United States. In the fourth chapter 

 of his book he tells the story of a visit of several weeks 

 which he made to a farm which is now within the 

 densely populated region of Hartford, Connecticut. 

 As he was leaving, his host took him aside and said: 



"You behold in me, my dear sir, a happy man, if there 

 is one on earth; everything you see around you, and what 

 you have seen at my house, is produced on my farm. 

 These stockings have been knitted by my daughters; my 

 shoes and clothes came from my herds; they, with my 

 garden and my farmyard, supply me with plain and sub- 



