CHAPTER ONE 
INTRODUCTION 
Tunery years ago the great economic problem 
of the world was how to check the drift of popu- 
lation into congested city life. The English and 
German governments employed commissions to 
investigate the problem, while in this country the 
labor department of the government was working, 
both directly and indirectly, on the same prob- 
lem. It has happened that while experts investi- 
gated, Providence gave the solution. Electricity 
as a motive power began to displace steam early in 
the nineties. Rural telephone service, which had 
been refused to the country by the Bell companies, 
as an unprofitable investment, began to spread 
like spider webs all over the valleys and hillsides — 
absolutely abolishing farm isolation. Free rural 
mail delivery followed, extending to the outlanders 
privileges which had been exclusively urban. Trol- 
ley roads, a little later, began to creep around the 
