Good Neighbors Keep People From Moving Away, Jan. 8, 1920

From the editorial page of the Mount Airy News, January 8, 1920

Thoughts for Winter Nights

These long winter nights are the best time in the world for one to think. Many do too little thinking. The right kind of thinking is the most profitable business one can be engaged in.

The truth is that every deed, be it good or bad, is the fruit of thought that in many cases may have been in the mind long before that thought was acted out in a deed. The man who allows himself to entertain thought of envy, malice or hate is likely to find himself envying, and hating somebody before a great while. Good deeds are invariably the results of kindly and helpful thoughts.

In this connection we are made to think of the many citizens who have, during the past few months, left the county and have gone to other sections of the state to make their permanent homes. Now no doubt these citizens had various reasons for going away. But the finest reason that any man can have for changing his place of residence is that he has for a neighbor some man who is not kindly disposed and not a pleasant man to live with. One of the best ways in the world to keep the people here in the county is to treat them in such a way as to make this a desirable place for them to live. If a man has kindly neighbors who are neighbors in fact to him, he is slow to move on even if he is not so very prosperous in worldly ways.

That neighbor who is not on good terms with you may be largely in the wrong but he no doubt would be just as glad to get along with you as you would be glad to get along with him. The man who gets the most out of his life usually has learned that one must give and take and not expect the neighbor to be perfect.

In the olden day according to the Bible, the man who owned the land was not supposed to reap the fields clean of the grain, but he left some and allowed the poor of his section to come and gather for their needs. Neither did the landowner gather all the grapes from the vines, but left some for the unfortunate ones who had no vines. Now how many well-to-do landowners of this time of ours allow the poor of his neighborhood any such privileges as reaping the corners of the fields and gathering the waste grain or the last of the grapes and fruit.

It is a fact that many poor people are here with us and will continue to be poor but they are human and they are just as responsive to kindness as the man who is able to own his property and claim position among men. These poor people are not willing to live along the side of these who are not kindly disposed, and we suspect that many a family has been induced to go away to the factory town all because the nearest neighbor left no gleanings in the field and gathered all the grapes from his vines. A little kindness on the part of many would no doubt have had much to do with keeping this class of people here rather than see them go away to the towns. The country is undeveloped and needs every man, woman and child here in the county that can be induced to remain here. Kindness on the part of the land owners and those who have interests here that hold them will go a long way towards keeping here all the  people who might be induced to leave for other sections.

These winter nights are fine for such thoughts as the above.