T
his is Americaa town of a few thousand, in a
region of wheat and corn and dairies and little
groves.
The town is, in our tale, called "Gopher Prairie,
Minnesota." But its Main Street is the continuation
of Main Streets everywhere. The story would be the
same in Ohio or Montana, in Kansas or Kentucky or
Illinois, and not very differently would it be told Up
York State or in the Carolina hills.
Main Street is the climax of civilization. That
this Ford car might stand in front of the Bon Ton
Store, Hannibal invaded Rome and Erasmus wrote
in Oxford cloisters. What Ole Jenson the grocer
says to Ezra Stowbody the banker is the new law for
London, Prague, and the unprofitable isles of the sea;
whatsoever Ezra does not know and sanction, that
thing is heresy, worthless for knowing and wicked to
consider.
Our railway station is the final aspiration of
architecture. Sam Clark''s annual hardware turnover is
the envy of the four counties which constitute God''s
Country. In the sensitive art of the Rosebud Movie
Palace there is a Message, and humor strictly moral.
Such is our comfortable tradition and sure faith.
Would he not betray himself an alien cynic who
should otherwise portray Main Street, or distress the
citizens by speculating whether there may not be other
faiths?