Mrs. Eugene Ashcraft Takes Critical Look at Monroe, 1916

 “Union County” by Mrs. Eugene Ashcraft, from the editorial page of The Monroe Journal, June 16, 1916 issue, which had many stories written by members of the Woman’s Club of Monroe.

Topography

Union county lies in the southern part of North Carolina, about midway between the coast and the mountains. The general features of the county consists of broad gently rolling interstream areas, which become more rolling, broken and hilly as the larger streams are approached. The area is 630 square miles, and there is less untillable soil in Union than any other county in the State. The highest elevation is 725 and there are no swamps.

Union county was founded in 1843 from parts of Anson and Mecklenburg. The western part of the country was first settled by Scotch-Irish and Germans, the eastern part by Virginians and North Carolinians, mostly of English descent.

Union county has now a population of nearly 38,000 about 9,500 being negroes. Less than one per cent of the entire population are of foreign birth.

Cotton is the staple product of the county. About 30,000 bales are marketed each year.

Church Statistics

The county is well supplied with good church and school buildings. The following statistics of the different denominations are very near accurate:

Baptists, 9,378; value church property, $63,950.

Methodists, 5,715; value church property, $130,500.

Presbyterians, 1,501; value church property, $55,680.

Episcopalians, 110; value church property, $10,750.

Lutherans, 60; value church property, $10,300.

These figures leave more than 21,000 people out of the church.

The amount of taxable property in the county is $10,425,338, the white people owning $8,118,048., the remainder $2,307,287 belonging to the negroes.

The tax rate of Monroe township is $1.03 2/3, and in other parts of the county it is .88 2/3.

Health of the County

Number of deaths a year are about 400. Two-thirds of these are among the white people, one-third are negroes. The death rate is then about 10 ½ per 1,000. Making allowance for failure to report and record deaths, we will say the death rate is 14 per 1,000. The deaths in Union county each year are due to about, tuberculosis, 60; typhoid fever, 12; pellagra, 10; bright’s disease, 20; senility, 30; cancer, 10; infants under two years of age from various diseases, 130; pneumonia, 22; paralysis, 15; heart disease, 15; syphilis, 25.

Various other diseases and accidents cause quite a number of deaths annually. And quite a number are preventable. Union county has 1,300 births each year, or a net gain in population by births in excess of deaths of 900 annually.

Union county has 300 marriages yearly.

Monroe

In thinking of the word Monroe there is a feeling of love and pride that comes into the heart of every person in Union county, and why? Because it is the county seat of Union. It is situated at the junction of the two main lines of the Seaboard Air Line Railway, near the center of the county.

The discussion of Monroe may be taken up from the following view points, hotels, schools, cemetery, churches, streets, and general improvement.

First comes the question of the hotel. If a traveling man was asked what he thought of Monroe, no doubt he would say, “Monroe seems to e a hustling town as far as business goes, but oh, it’s ‘Best Hotel!’ Why, it’s a disgrace. How the manager can make it as good as it is, is more than I can see. I leave as soon as possible after my work is over to avoid spending much time in the stuffy little hole.” A speech of this king and there have been many, should make these same business men think. They have the money and why won’t they make a paying investment of building a hotel that would cause the traveling man to linger as long as possible and also to hurry back from his other trips.

Many other advantages may be gained by such a hotel. Great religious, educational and other meetings could be held here if we had any place for the people to go.

Monroe is behind the times, some say. Someday she will wake up and have such a hotel, and why not now? This is a question for every man in town to answer for himself.

Next we come to our schools. What about them? If any person would go out and see one of our grades perched on the stage of the school auditorium, with a teacher, at this disadvantage, trying to put knowledge into the heads of the boys and girls, they would leave with this thought uppermost in their minds, the school needs more room and better equipment. This is just one of instance out of many. Some say, beautify the grounds, buy more land while it can be gotten cheap, but the first and most important step to take is to buy more room and better equipment. No sewerage in our school buildings. Let’s hurry on so the stranger will not notice the fact.

In passing, a word about our cemetery. Look at it and profit by the view. Grass is pretty in its place, but is grass knee high in place here?

The churches are such that any town of this size should be proud, and yet more room is needed in most of them.

The streets are another point that should receive our careful attention. Why should our level headed aldermen use such little judgment in this matter? This seems a rather strong statement but we have proof to back it. Money is spent in making macadamized roads, right behind comes men to lay the sewerage pipes, or larger water mains. Is there any reason in that? The only answer is just a way of spending money without much gain. The town’s money is spent by one set of aldermen to lay a cement walk from the street to the high school building without ever planning for future improvements. Along comes another set and wants it laid another way, which all will admit would be a great improvement, but why not pay a little bit more, and get some one who knows his business, to come and plan such things in the beginning. Over the town streets appear little stakes and what are they for? Confidentially, an alderman would say, to fool the people and get me my job back for another term.

Many dollars are spent for just such things when they could be used more profitably. Another remark is so often made, “Oh! I see you haven’t an alderman living on your street,” because they need to be cleaned off.

If the men we have cannot or will not use better judgment in spending the town’s money, it is up  to the town to find men that can and will.

Monroe has $1,830,284 of taxable property.

The health of the town is remarkably good considering the sanitary conditions that exist in some parts of the city. We have a population of 6,400 with suburbs having 1,500 more people. Monroe has 1,500 negroes. Out of the 6,400 inhabitants there are about 60 deaths annually. The death rate being 9 1/3 per 1,000. The cause of a large majority of the deaths in Monroe each year are, bad sanitation, bad drainage and carelessness on the part of the people and the doctors.

                                --Mrs. Eugene Ashcraft

Movies Corrupting Young People, Should Be Used to Teach Bible, 1916

“The Moving Picture Situation,” from the June 16, 1916 issue of The Monroe Journal.

A study of the moving picture shows, from the standpoint of their influence upon our young people, and of what the harvest will be in five or 10 years from now, is not only an intensely human and interesting study, but one of very vital importance upon the immediate future of this city and country, because the people’s ideas and tastes and standards of life are affected, or even sometimes formed by them. Fifty per cent of all films now deal with marital infidelity or illicit love.

The president of the Universal Film Manufacturing Company, the largest in the universe, has recently announced in the Motion Picture Weekly of Nov. 2, 1915, that he published a talk entitled, “What Do You Want,” asking the exhibitors to state whether they preferred clean, wholesome pictures or smutty ones. He says more than half of the motion picture exhibitors of the country want smutty films.

Shall we allow this to be so? Shall we allow the moving pictures to be prostituted to such use when their possibilities for good are so great, and their entertainment so refreshing, and their instructive power so wonderful?

In her report at the recent biennial in New York, Mrs. Pennybaker, president of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs of America, said “We realize this institution has come to stay; that it can be made a great educational force; that no one is wholly to blame for the state of affairs that now confronts us; but we realize also that the average motion picture tends to degrade rather than to uplift the moral status of the spectator.” If any moving picture proprietor in Monroe would undertake to run an absolutely clean and wholesome show and only that, I believe that he would have the hearty support and patronage, not only of parents, but also of the vast majority of all the decent citizens of our city.

Bishop James Atkins says: “The time has come for the organization of a great church syndicate—interdenominational and national—for making effective this form of Bible teaching.

Housewife Laments Constant Dust in Monroe, 1916

The Housewife’s Lament

“Bebe”

Oh what’s the use of working and slaving,

I might as well be resting, and saving

My strength and energy for something better,

Letting time hang on my hands like a fetter!

I sweep and dust and dust again,

And I dust some more, and I wish for rain.

Here go the wagons and automobiles,

Bicycles and everything else on wheels;

Each seems trying out run the other—

What care THEY for dust—let the women bother!

And here it comes in lovely (?) clouds,

Everything in the house it enshrouds.

You can write your name just anywhere,

On piano and sofa, on table and chair.

The men talk about us playing rook,

I’d much rather stay home and read a book,

Out on the porch where the cool winds blow—

But the dust is so fearful, I daren’t do so.

Some day perhaps in the mind of man,

Will e conceived a most wonderful plan

Of how to get rid of the dust in Monroe,

Then it’s “goodby dust,” for you’ll have to go.

We hope the time will not be long,

When the housewife’s lament will change to a song,

When Monroe will be full to overflowing

Of nice new people who come here knowing,

That on the pure air no dust will rise,

But Monroe, at last is a Paradise.

The Ladies List Wrongs in Monroe, 1916

“Eggs,” from the June 16, 1916 issue of The Monroe Journal. The paper had two columns entitled “Eggs” and I have combined them below. The title seems to refer to an old custom of throwing a rotten egg at someone or something as a form of protest.

Man (supposed to be), “Does your wife belong to that Woman’s Club? No indeed! I’d rather see her dead than have her join.”

“These women had better be at home sewing buttons on their husband’s clothes.”

Some non-members riddle the Woman’s Club for all it’s worth because they think it is responsible for the enactment of some of the city ordinances. Say these non-members: “They better be at home ‘tending to their children.”

A traveling salesman came to Monroe not long since, got off the train and looked about. Said he, “I don’t like the looks of this place. The conditions around the station are not very inviting. I don’t believe I can sell this town anything in my line.”

His goods were of the highest class, so he boarded the train and passed on to a more attractive place. First impressions are most lasting and the conditions around the station are certainly not attractive to traveling salesmen, home seekers or manufacturers. If we are asleep on the job there are other towns that are wide awake.

There are a great many towns in North Carolina no larger than ours that are more attractive, more progressive, and new people are going there. There’s no reason why Monroe couldn’t get in line. A little effort, a little time and some money spent in the right way would put us right up with this class. Right here is where the Chamber of Commerce is going to step in and do things. All hail to the Chamber of Commerce! Long may it live; to be the greatest blessing in a material way that Monroe has ever had. Every business man in town should be an active member and do all in his power to lift Monroe out of the rut.

“The man who will not lend his brains, his energy and some of his money to the efforts of his fellow citizens in directing the constructive efforts of his fellow citizens in directing the constructive forces of his community along the course that is best for the city as a whole, is not a useful citizen. No man has the right to refuse his support to a community movement any more than the community has the right to refuse its protection to any man.”

A committee from the Woman’s Club, with the major and an alderman, made a sanitary survey of the city about two months ago and found the following very unsanitary places in town.

A really dangerous drain ditch about two feet deep near Mrs. Hargett’s residence in east Monroe. Drains from bath tubs and sinks stagnating on Windsor street, Church street and Hudson street. The surface closets and comfort conditions at the graded school is a disgrace to any decent town. The burnt block on Main street, now being used for a dumping ground and other various conditions calculated to cuase malaria and other diseases.

Monroe is the only city that bears the unusual distinction of having a guano warehouse right near the square from which the most disgusting odors go out according to the course of the wind.

It is said that vagrant negro prostitutes walk our streets and congregate around the depot at train time. Why is it our police force is inadequate or incompetent to cope with this situation? These women ought to be locke dup or put to work; they will injure the good name of our city.

The sanitary conditions in some parts of our city are fearful. The stench that comes up from the direction of Bryan street and around Central Methodist church is something fearful.

We want to know very emphatically why the aldermen don’t enforce the ordinance requiring sewerage to e installed in the sewage zone. Numerous individuals had to spend hundreds of dollars installing sewerage and certain favorites were allowed to openly violate this ordinance. They were quietly granted immunity. This is an injustice to those who have complied with the ordinance. Not only should the others be forced to comply at once, but the sewerage zone should be still farther extended so as to take in certain very unsanitary places in the city.

There are certain streets that ought to be extended. Sanford street ought to be extended from Lancaster avenue to the G.C. & N. railroad. Washington street ought to be extended from from the cemetery to Crowell street. Crawford street ought to be extended from New Lawn to the intersection of Windsore, Franklin and McCauley. Burke extended to East Franklin and Houston to M.K. Lee’s.

We would suggest that the city fathers cut expenses, quit wasting so much money and save some for permanent streets and park work on a more economical and efficient scale.

We are going to stick out for the conservation of our shade trees.

The main thoroughfare, Hayne street, just back of the Sikes’ stable is blocked nearly all the time. It is used as a blacksmith yard, a warehouse and storeroom. The same street just across from the Methodist church is occupied by old wagons all the year and Sunday too. There is a city ordinance against this.

It is a shame the way the auctioneers, negro bands, emancipation crowds, voters and healers are allowed to trample the lawn of our courthouse square. We insist on stopping it and protecting our lawn.

The carnival, consisting of an aggregation of gamblers, women of doubtful character and other crooks, is very degrading. The Chautauqua, consisting of numerous valuable lectures, very excellent musical entertainments and scientific teachings, is very elevating. Hereafter the Women’s Club will vigorously oppose any effort to bring the corrupting carnival to our town.

We have it on good authority that some merchants are selling cigarettes to minors. We are going to insist on some detective work and some prosecution in this matter. In fact, we think the next Legislature ought to be petitioned to stop the sale of cigarettes in Monroe and in Union county.

The ladies of the woman’s Club suggest that all meetings of the city officials be made public and be held in the court house so that all our citizens may have the opportunity to attend in the interest of public questions.

Monroe Is In Need of Much Improvement, Says Woman's Club, 1916

Editorial from the June 16, 1916 issue of The Monroe Journal.

Woman’s Club Staff

Editor, Mrs. J. Frank Lancy

Associate Editor, Mrs. Roscoe Phifer

Contributing Editors, Mrs. W.J. Boger, Mrs. E.M. Griffin, Mrs. W.A. Lane, Mrs. F.B. Ashcraft, Mrs. C.D. Meacham, Mrs. H.L. Laney, Mrs. Eugene Ashcraft, Mrs. R.W. Allen, Miss Lottie May Blair, Miss Jean Ashcraft.

We wish to extend our thanks to the Editor and Manager of this paper for their courtesy and kindness in extending these columns to us and their interest in the work the Woman’s Club is trying to accomplish.

Editorial

“O Woman, in our hours of ease,

Uncertain, coy and hard to please;

But let disaster crown the brow,

A ministering angel, thou.”

Fearing the disaster which must befall our city through carelessness, indifference and poor sanitation, the good women have organized themselves into a working band known as the “Woman’s Club of Monroe.” The object of our club is the social, moral and spiritual uplift of the people, and our slogan, “A cleaner, more sanitary, more beautiful Monroe, a city of roses.”

No doubt, at one time, in the dim, distant past, Monroe was a lovely spot, for as Pope says, “All nature is art, unseen by us.”

God created all things beautiful, clean and good, but man desecrates His forest temples, begins his settlements, others are attracted either by family or business interests and in a few months or year we have a town of several hundred or perhaps thousands of human beings and the question of health and sanitation must be considered.

No man can or does live unto himself. We are all interdependent one upon the other. It is an erroneous selfish notion to imagine that an unsanitary drain pipe, barn, stable or ditch in one part of the tow does not effect the whole town, and no loyal, Christian citizen will allow any condition to exist around his premises that could prove a menace to his neighbors or town.

So few of us realize the value of neatness. Neatness and cleanliness of person and surroundings are aesthetically attractive. All progressive business men appreciate this and make it a rule that everything shall have a place and be in that place.

We have a very fine set of rules or ordinances for governing our city of Monroe, but every one of these ordinances is violated every day. Why is loafing allowed in and round our station? Why are our alleys and sidewalks blocked with wagons, boxes, chicken coops and barrels reeking with filth and maggots?

Why is the sewerage law not enforced within the sewerage zone and the surface closets put out of commission by being knocked down and burned for kindling wood?

Why are cigarettes sold to minors? And on and on ad infintum

Why haven’t we more sewerage and permanent paving and sanitary closets in our graded schools, and a decent auditorium and a hotel building commensurate with the ability of the fine lady and gentleman who manage it? You ask the city fathers WHY and they tell you they haven’t the money.

I have been quoted as saying I am not in favor of Foreign Missions. Let me correct this right here by saying I am most emphatically in favor of both Home and Foreign Missions, and if I had $50 million I’d send a teacher and build a sanitary school, hospital, kindergarten and home in every heathen city and at home if I could. But in the name of common sense, why do we send thousands of dollars out of Monroe every year to China, Japan and South America for these purposes when we haven’t money to build a decent toilet for our own little children at our own little Graded School? What would the Japs and Chinks think of us if they could take a walk not only through our back alleys where the kitchen drain pipes empty and the flies hold high carnival, but down our main street, littered with papers, stifling with dust and unmentionable odors permeating the atmosphere? How could we explain that part of our blessed gospel which says, “He who provides not for his own household has denied the faith and is worse than an infidel?”

Wake up, fellow citizens, bestir yourselves with us and clean up this town and help your health officer keep it clean. If we want to have a genuine, old-time revival of religion at our big tent meeting in July we must procure some means to keep down the dust and get rid of the flies. We need a material “disinfecting” bath in order to receive a spiritual bath. Let us get out from under our moral umbrellas, catch the spirit of civic righteousness and boost our Chamber of Commerce. This is the greatest agency for commercial development ever organized in Monroe.

We have just as fine people in Monroe as the Divine Creator ever made and I love my city not because of what it is, but rather because of what it may become through our concentrated efforts. Let us yield unto our city that same measure of affection which the Hebrews of old yielded unto their Holy City, Jerusalem: “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.” It is because of this love and veneration for our homes and city and the uplift of our children and community, that the good women work, strive and pray for an awakening among our citizens.

My city, ‘tis of thee,

Poor land of slavery

To filth and flies.

I hate thy microbe rills,

And they mosquito stills.

My heart with longing thrills

                To clean thee up.

(Tune, “America.” Everybody sing.)

Do Not Allow Females to Teach Math or Latin; Keep Religion Out of Selection of School Superintendent, 1916

“Our Local Schools,” from the June 16, 1916 issue of The Monroe Journal.

Read before Wednesday Study Club April 26^th, and published by request.

The mothers and fathers of Monroe should take more interest in our schools. If the parents were more interested, the children would be also. Surely they should visit the schools often and show their interest. Where our children spend 6 hours every day, 30 hours every week, 184 hours every month and 1,620 hours ever school year, there we should be interested—in the buildings, the grounds, the teachers, the superintendent and the school board—and none should be satisfied until the very best results possible have been attained.

Those who visited the school building during the county commencement were obliged to have been impressed with the many good points about our schools, and realized that there are good, conscientious teachers and a wide-awake superintendent in our schools from the appearance of the neatly kept rooms and the splendid exhibits. Especially was the grammar school building clean and well lighted, but entirely too crowded and seemingly ill arranged. The high School building is abominable for school purposes. An up-to-date building would appeal to our young boys and girls.

One very noticeable thing about our schools this year is that all—teachers, pupils, parents and superintendent—are striving to work in harmony, which is a wise move. It was too bad that there should have been so much confusion and so much talk—“telling tales out of school”—for a year or so and we should be happy that there has been a change.

Now the needs are legion. The board should be the back-bone of the school. It should be composed of our best informed, best educated, the deepest thinkers, and most progressive man the town affords, regardless of denomination. One of your own men, who lives in another town, in asking about our schools in Monroe—the church trying to run them.” Now it isn’t exactly the church, but the three leading denominations as the Presbyterians, Baptists and Methodists call themselves here, and, there MUST be SO MANYT of the board of the three denominations, and so many of the teachers—and if the superintendent is Presbyterian one term the next one must be a Methodist or a Baptist. For example, the two superintendents preceding the present one were Presbyterians. They were both good Christian men and thoroughly acquainted with their work, the last one being very progressive. He meant well, but as Monroe isn’t, or wasn’t progressive, and he wasn’t a Baptist or a Methodist he was a misfit and a mistreated man. None stood by him except the Presbyterians, when he should have had the sympathy and co-operation of all.

Our present superintendent is wise and has brought About one great redeeming feature and that is keeping the troubles and trials to himself and the school this year is very successful, but when the time comes for a change the next superintendent must be a Baptist—unless all the members of the different denominations, in the meantime, wake up and realize that they are CHRISTIAN PEOPLE and that the one great thing in the sight of God is that all followers of Christ are Christians (the essential thing), and that all denominations must lay aside pride, prejudice, envy, jealousy and all those things, and all work together as becometh Christians, and that we must look to God, who is the AUTHOR and FINISHER of every GOOD THING, for guidance and direction if we wish success. Not only is this the trouble with our schools, but with Monroe. It is all right for the Christian people of Monroe to work for the betterment of the town and the proper way is for Christians to work together and have mass meetings in the court house during the week and have the ministers make lectures and addresses. It is because we are Christians that we want to have a clean town and work for the uplift of this generation and generations to come. Monroe will never get together any other way.

But back to our schools.

After electing the best board possible it is its duty to look about and take pattern from the best school boards the state affords and follow their rules and regulations and take an interest in the superintendent, the teachers and all the school children, and then after the superintendent is elected, he should have a voice in electing or recommending the teachers, for surely he knows who are competent much more than the board.

There should be weekly teachers meetings and the superintendent should know just what each teacher’s work for each week has been.

All teachers in city schools should be experienced teachers and they should get their experience in training schools or in country schools. In the country, children are not usually so hard to control and there are not so many attractions and distractions for either teachers or pupils.

The teachers should not only know the subjects which they are to teach, but should know how to study the nature and disposition of children. They must teach children how to study. When a child once knows how the hardest work has been done for both teacher and pupil. The teacher must not do all the talking—in fact, she should do only the very least, but make the pupils do the explaining and reciting, and she must not try to each all she knows the first year. The teachers must learn the gospel of the second mile, that is, if need be, do extra work after school hours.

In the schools today more attention should be given to the “three Rs”, Reading Riting and Rithmetic. Have you noticed how many poor readers there are today among the children? It is distressing.

As to writing—from appearances one wouldn’t think it taught at all. The board should decide upon what kind of penmanship is to be taught, and then see to it, that it and none other is ever taught in the school.

Arithmetic. When a child reaches fractions, then he should have a male teacher. Very very few women can teach arithmetic. Why? To be sure they can solve problems and understand mathematics as well, perhaps, as the men, but they cannot teach it—because a woman never reasons very much—her mind is soon made up without much reasoning, and in teaching mathematics to a child it must be taught to reason form the beginning. Therefore a man should be employed to teach mathematics from the fourth grade to the eleventh. All the Latin should be taught also by a male teacher.

Then, two very important teachers should be added to our schools—music and art. Our country has never produced musicians and artists as other countries, as we have been studying. All the schools all over our land should begin at once the training of the children in there two important things. Music taught correctly from the first grade and all the children taught how to sing correctly and all good music taught would soon bring a great change in our nation. The two channels by which our minds are trained are the eye and the ear, and it stands to reason that both of these should be trained—and so they could—the ear by music and the eye by drawing. In drawing the child is taught to be a close observer, the straight and curved lines, the lights and shadows, and later, coloring, all train the child’s eye as nothing else can. It teaches children to be close observers in all things, especially in nature, and can anything be found to rival nature?

If drawing teaches our children to see correctly the straight lines, the curves, the lights and shades, and to be close observers, wouldn’t they soon know the best in everything? And the ear trained by pure musical tones their understanding would be more perfect and they would soon only like to listen to the beautiful and good and then their minds would be filled with grander and nobler thoughts, and not many years hence America would be producing great musicians and great artists.

Jean Ashcraft Proposes Improvements in Education, Enforcement of Health Laws, Establishment of Public Park, 1916

“Civics and Health” by Jean Ashcraft, from the Friday, June 16, 1916 issue of The Monroe Journal—“The Union County Paper—Everybody Read It”

Education along the lines of hygiene is the basis for the crusade against the unsanitary conditions of the community today. Dr. Emerson, the department of health of New York City, says: “Education is more powerful than the police force.” And education, like charity, begins at home.

Today the teaching of hygiene is compulsory and it is the only study in the grammar school curriculum for the neglect of which a teacher may be removed from office and fined. It is the subject most vital to the child, the home, to industry, to social welfare, and to education itself.

Because the problems of health have to do principally with environment—home, street, school, business—we see the importance of relating hygiene instruction to industry and government, and to preach health from the standpoint of national efficiency.

We find, however, there’s many a slip ‘twixt the making of laws, or setting of standards, and their enforcement. “Failure to enforce health laws is a more serious menace to health than drunkenness or tobacco cancer.”

Instinct was the first health officer and made the first health laws—by warning man, through the senses, against offensive odors and sights. Today we have organized board of health and the law makers of our land pass laws regarding health, food, the standards of living and the control of menaces.

A menace in this sense is anything interfering with health. The number of things listed as nuisances by the day reach into the hundreds. Among the most common are: (1) garbage and sewerage disposal; (2) drainage; (3) polluted water supply; (4) flies, mosquitoes, etc.

In general then, “use your own property so that you will not injure another in the use of his property.”

In the discussion of “preparedness” now raging throughout the country, only one side of the problem is being considered, and that, battleships, submarines, aeorplanes, guns, munitions, etc. No attention is being paid to the human machines. The war in Europe has shown that the men who use the implements of war are as important as the implements themselves. To get the great amount of strength and endurance needed, their bodies and their environment must be looked after. This human preparedness is as important in time of peace as in war.

The greatest step in health is raising the standards of living. Hygenic living and surroundings are the greatest enemies of disease and do more toward raising the vitality of a person than anything.

The new civic spirit is still in its youth, having originated in the last decade of the last century. Formerly all improvements came through individuals and the churches. So this new conception of public responsibility is comparatively new. Under this administration marvelous developments have taken place—the establishing of free libraries, health regulations, factory legislation, interstate commerce provisions, and the extension of municipal functions. Such as street paving, cleaning, lighting, water supply, sewerage disposal, parks, playgrounds and drives, and the uplift and beautifying of the town in all possible lines.

Another phase of city making is the establishment of parks, playgrounds and boulevards. They are organic parts of the city, and Charles Zueblin of Chicago refers to the m as “the respiratory system” of the city.

The lack in our cities of architecture having unity of purpose and harmony of design is said to be “due to the desire for immediate percuniary results. The dominance of commercial motives and the assertiveness of powerful individuals lacking artistic, education, and they have succeeded in making of the typical American city a miscellany of dingy warehouses, shops, tenements, and tasteless mansions. There is not only no unity, but a pronounced restlessness.”

The use of color is another important phase. The possibilities of nature are well illustrated in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, where sand dunes that seemed helpless have been transformed into one of the most beautiful parks in America.

John Burroughs says, “nature in all things to all men. If we will enslave her, she will be our servant, though if we abuse her she may desert and starve us.”

                                --Jean Ashcraft