CHAPTER IX 



THE MAKING OF RURAL COMMUNITIES 

 THE COMMUNITY IDEA 



" We propose meeting together, talking together, buying to- 

 gether, selling together, and, in general, acting together for our 

 mutual protection and advancement." 



Declaration of Purposes of the Grange. 



THE spirit of this quotation, extended to all the people 

 of a farming locality, is the communi.ty spirit. To- 

 getherness rather than aloneness is the community idea. 

 A true community includes the interests of every one 

 living in the community old and young, native and 

 foreign, wise and foolish. The community idea as- 

 sumes that every soul belongs to the democracy. It is 

 based on the recognition of the rights of each individ- 

 ual, even the humblest, combined with the duty to neigh- 

 bors that is the obligation of each, even of the strong- 

 est. But the community idea assumes more than that. 

 It holds that the unit of interest is the common interest 

 of all, not merely the combined individual interests of 

 many. There is a vast difference between endeavoring 

 to compromise the desires of a hundred individuals each 

 seeking chiefly his personal welfare, and trying to bring 

 the separate items of personal welfare into one pro- 

 gram of common advancement much the same differ- 

 ence that exists between bringing separate rings of iron 

 into a pile and welding separate links into a chain. 

 One is accommodation ; the other is brotherhood. The 



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