52 On the Campus 



For the ordinary man, value is a thing easily defined. 

 He knows what value is, for, as he says, he knows the 

 value of everything about him. True, the dictionaries 

 take columns to define the various meanings of that one 

 word, value; but that is because the dictionaries are not 

 practical: any boy on the street will tell you that the 

 value of anything is "what you can get for it." All 

 value is referable to exchange, to commerce, and we are 

 face to face with the so-called "commercial spirit" of 

 the time. 



Small wonder that this is so. We have as a people be- 

 come suddenly rich, and the penalties of wealth are upon 

 us. Within twenty years the wealth of these valley 

 states has increased two or three hundred per cent. In 

 Iowa every fourth family owns an automobile, the pro- 

 portion greatest in the country, where almost every 

 farmer has such a machine. As a result the whole social 

 fabric has been thrown out of joint. Almost constantly, 

 day and night, one-fourth of our population, in fine 

 weather, is speeding along our level prairie highways, 

 while the other three-fourths are excitedly looking on, 

 waiting to attain the same blissful state of mobility or 

 automobility. All other interests are lost to view. Home 

 life, neighborhood life, rural church and school, every- 

 thing is forgotten. The only thing worth seeking in this 

 world is money enough to keep an auto. Fortunately, 

 Mr. Ford has come to the relief of his fellow-countrymen 

 in the matter of price, and the world is on satisfactory 

 wheels. 



Now the only way to counteract the present craze, 

 the only way to save the republic, as it seems to me, from 



