IMPROVEMENT WORK OF CIVIC LEAGUE OF ST. PAUL. 295 



war. Invite any one who is strong and willing to work. The 

 ladies will serve refreshments.' " 



Some of the other things we have been able to do right along 

 this line is to secure petitions for small parks in various sections of 

 the city and undertake to get the property owners to pay their fair 

 share of the purchase price. One of these has been condemned and 

 assessed, and the others probably will go through. There has been 

 quite a sentiment worked up in connection with improving our 

 boulevards in outlying sections. We have had meetings arranged 

 where the plans have been discussed. 



The work in the wards is done in the summer, and in the winter 

 we have our program and do such general work as we can do. 



I will read another brief extract from my report to show what 

 we accomplished in connection with the health department in the 

 matter of sanitation, pure milk and the disposal of garbage : 



"The work of the league which has told most directly upon the 

 community as a whole during the past year is that which has been 

 done in co-operation with the city health department. The league 

 had been in existence barely a month when it responded to an appeal 

 made to it by the commissioner of health to aid in securing the pas- 

 sage of an ordinance providing that dairymen supplying 

 the city with milk be required to submit their herds to the tuberculin 

 test before they could receive a license. True to its colors from the 

 first, the league spared no effort to bring the matter to a successful 

 issue, even to invading the sacred precincts of the council chamber 

 in silent but awful array. The persuasive eloquence and daring gen- 

 eralship displayed by the health commissioner on that occasion, fight- 

 ing against odds as he was, inspired us with a confidence in his 

 prowess which subsequent encounters under his leadership have only 

 served to confirm. The league from the first regretted the necessity 

 of requiring a fee from the dairymen — since ruled to be unconstitu- 

 tional by the supreme court — but under the interpretation of the 

 charter made at the time no funds for the expense incident to the in- 

 spection were held to be otherwise available. 



"The health department reports that since the passage of the 

 ordinance, April 22, 1899, 2,084 cows have been tested for tubercu- 

 losis, of which number 154 were found to be diseased. 



"The present week is a notable one in the annals of the league 

 in that it is distinguished by the capitulation of the enemy in the 

 great garbage campaign. For two months the warfare has waged 

 from committee room to council chamber and from council chamber 

 to committee room. With the heroic figure of the Herr Doctor in 

 the van we have stormed one kop only to be repulsed with fearful 



