REPORT OF THE 

 DIRECTOR OF THE ZOOLOGICAL PARK 



TO THE PyOARD OF MANAGERS 



TO the Zoological Park and its visitors the most important 

 event of the year was the successful crusade against the 

 throwing of waste paper and rubbish upon the walks and lawns. 



For six exasperating years the officers of the Zoological 

 Park had been carrying on an unequal warfare against park 

 vandals, with brief periods of success and long periods of failure. 

 The trouble lay in the fact that during all that period our 

 campaigns were not backed up by the Mayor, the police depart- 

 ment or the courts, and with but rare exceptions similar fights 

 for public decency were not made in other parks. The lessons 

 inculcated in the Zoological Park were steadily lost through the 

 vicious immunity that the lawless element enjoyed elsewhere. 



The laws covering the situation were ample. The root of 

 all the trouble lay in the two facts that the lawless ten per cent, 

 is impervious to all education and appeals to decency, and the 

 average judge on the bench then felt that the throwing of a 

 piece of waste paper was too trivial a matter to engage the 

 attention of a court. Often it happened that policemen who 

 arrested rubbish-throwers heard the verdict "discharged," and 

 a judicial reprimand addressed to themselves. Naturally, such 

 treatment had the effect of paralyzing the efforts of park police- 

 men. 



For at least four years it had been perfectly evident that 

 the Zoological Park alone and unaided could not hold its own 

 against the park vandals, and maintain a state of satisfactory 

 cleanliness. Mayor Gaynor was appealed to with an urgent 

 request to start the movement which alone would afford a 

 remedy ; but those appeals achieved no results. 



The incoming of Mayor Mitchel was regarded as an oppor- 

 tunity to carry into effect a sweeping reform. When the situa- 

 tion had been fully put before him he decided to take the 

 initiative, and set in motion the machinery that would yield 

 clean parks for Greater New York. It was decided that the 

 reform movement should be started on May 1, 1915. 



