A MODEL TOWN.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 12, 27 December 1911, Page 5

A MODEL TOWN.

In the State of Ohio there is a little village called De Graff, which boasts of 1200- inhabitants and the fact that there has not been a single arrest within its borders in the last live years. De Graff, for this reason, is a noteworthy place. The fact that during the last five years there have been no arrests commands attention, hut the more one looks over the town the more it strikes one that this total lack of law violation is but one of the outward manifestations of a deep-rooted and abiding -,ense of decency. Law observance >s a habit of which the lack of arrests is but a symptom. Aside from being without law-break-ers, the village is without poverty. No one is in debt, and there has not been a poor family there within the mem-

ory of the present generation. Nor is there an inordinately wealthy one. There has has not been a saloon for 26 years, and the last boot-legging was 16 years ago. The last failure in business was more than 25 years ago—the Mayor didn’t remember. just when, for it was when he was a hoy—nnd the last assignment was in 1885. No one remembers a sheriff’s sale, and the last mortgage to be foreclosed was 12 years ago. De Graff has also the lojvest tax rate and lowest fire insurance rate of any village of its size in Southern Ohio. What the Town Is Like. ‘

De Graff is not an old town, nor has its growth been rapid. It sprang up somewhere about 1850 as the centre of a farming and dairying community. It is still the centre of such industry, and lies on a slight rise of ground. The streets are wide and well shaded. Its houses are not very old, and some are quite modern, but all appear comfortable. There is not a squalid, down-at-the-heel home in De Graff. Some of the houses are eld-fashioned and rambling, noth 18'iioh black walnut sills, and gardens with hollyhocks and long grass in the front yards, and some of the places have close-cropped, well-groom-ed lawns. One cannot walk far on any of the streets without arriving at the edge of the town and seeing long stretches of gravel road winding over many acres •of level farm land, meadow ground, and cornfield. Three tall grain elevators, a canning factory, a large shipping establishment that deals in eggs and poultry,. and a creamery constitutes the industries. That the grain elevators are always full, that the canning factory cannot fill its orders, that the creamery prospers and is the largest for miles around, that the shippers are much sought after because of the quality of the produce they handle follows naturally from the universally ruling probity of the community. That most of the farmers own automobiles and have big houses set far back from the road, with lawns in front of 'them, and lighted with electricity which they manufacture themselves, and fitted with hot and cold water which they pump with their own gasoline engines, seems only too natural, too. in such a community. The Secret Explained. “And what is the keynote—why is it that you have no law-breakers?” —“ln the first place, we have no saloons and no illicit traffic in liquor that involves law-breaking,” he explained. “The absence of the saloon is a great factor; hut people here drink. They have beer shipped in, kept in their cellars, and drink it in their homes. That is not demoralising to the community, for it does not entail disregard for law. You will stay here tor weeks and months and never seen anyone drunk. I do not know when I have.” Mayor Sullivan told of the civic pride displayed by the village in its schools and churches, and how all the young people of the town had grown up in its atmosphere, gone to college or not, and out into the world, and how all of them were making their way and were efficient men and women. “Loafers? Well, come to think about it, we haven’t any. It may be because there is no place for them to loaf. The pool rooms, two of them, are not open until evening, and they 1 close at 8 o’clock. No one seems to want to loaf. And we certainly don’t want them. Tramps? We have three ■ or four a week during the winter .months. We always let them sleep in 1 the lock-up, and in the morning they pass on. But all the tramps we get : are kicked off freight trains. Ido not remember when we had a case of house-breaking. You can see for yourself it has paid De Graff. We have • seen neighbouring towns, older than I curselves, rot away and grow squalid 1 and crumble, and we have passed them. This village has prospered and so have the people who live here. We I are happy; we do not live oppressed 1 by blue laws, and we are not purir j tanical. We never think of being law- ‘ Inbidintr. It is a habit here in Da t Graff.”