The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1930, Page 153

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THE LUTHERAN PIONEER. 153
from forty-five million in 1900 to forty-nine million York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Detroit. New

in 1910 and to fifty-one million in 1920. Surely
no standstill there. But in the mean time the city
population grew from thirty million in 1900 to
_ forty-two million in 1910 and to fifty-four million
in 1920. This shows that the population of the
cities has grown far more rapidly than that of the
country. During the last decade the trend has been
practically the same as ‘it was in the first two of
this century. In fact, while this year’s figures of
our rural population are not yet complete, it is
probable that this last census will show a decline

at Springfield, Ill, July 31 to August 4.

in the rural population for the first time in the
history of our country. While only forty per cent.
of our country’s population was urban in 1900, the
last enumeration will likely show that to-day sixty
per cent. of our people live in cities.

All this has created new conditions, which the
Church must seriously take into consideration.

Much as we may hate to see this growth of the city-

at the expense of the country, economic conditions
and personal predilections over which we have no
control have decided that it be so, and so it is.
Fifty years ago not thirty per cent. of the popu-
lation was urban. To-day almost one-eighth of all
the people in our country live in four cities, New

York City with its 7,000,000 people has a greater
population than any State, excepting New York,
Pennsylvania, and Illinois. ‘There are as many
people living in New York City, Chicago, and Phila-
delphia in 1930 as there were in the whole United
States in 1830.

The very bigness of the great city and its result-
ing stupendous influence make it most important
from the viewpoint of the Church. The big indus-
trial city draws from the country the new blood
which gives it energy and power, but it then sends

out into the life of the whole country influences
that will affect every part of the population.

The grandchildren of those pioneers who left
the eastern settlements to clear the forests of Ohio
and Indiana are now returning to those settlements
from which their forebears went out, but which in
the mean time have grown to be large cities. And
this growing of our cities presents many problems
to the Church. Not only the immigrants living in
their congested Ghettos and Little Italies stand in
dire need of spiritual help and friendly counsel in
their difficult moral, social, and physical problems;
but no less do our own sons and daughters stand in
great need of the Church’s ministrations, for so