334 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



November, 1905 



The Observer's Note-Book 



Litter in the Parks and Streets 



I HE OBSERVER often wonders if an era of 

 untidiness is not sweeping over the American 

 people. It would, perhaps, be truer to say, 

 over the American landscape, tor he does 

 not believe that the native American is be- 

 coming untidy, nor that he would willingly 

 submit to a greater amount ot litter in the streets and public 

 play places than he has hitherto been accustomed to. Do 

 not our American communities spend large sums annually in 

 meeting the expenses of street cleaning departments, and do 

 not these annual expenditures increase each year in an alarm- 

 ing ratio? 1 he accounts of municipal housekeeping which 

 come to light from time to time would seem to answer these 

 queries in the affirmative. 



Yet our streets are dirtier and dirtier, our parks and play- 

 grounds the more littered with waste papers and other debris 

 of quiet days spent under the trees. Some complaint on this 

 subject originated in the summer in that most peaceful of 

 communities, the Borough of Brooklyn. Brooklyn, as those 

 who remember it will recall, was at one time a municipality 

 of itself, a proud, great city, whose enviable distinction was 

 its immediate proximity to New York. In due time it lost 

 its independent existence, and became merged into that great 

 conglomeration of farm land and tenement houses known as 

 the City of New York, and to which the very awkward title 

 of " Greater New York " hangs with singular persistency. 

 Of the many problems of municipal life which this change 

 made, none have been more curious than those which center 

 around the query, Did Manhattan annex Brooklyn, or did 

 Brooklyn annex Manhattan? 



The politicians of both great boroughs have not yet been 

 able to agree as to what actually happened, but meanwhile 

 the denizens of Manhattan's great East Side — so the Brook- 

 lynites aver — have spread themselves out over Brooklyn's 

 beloved Prospect Park, carried their lunch baskets and 

 papers within its precincts, disported themselves upon its 

 beautiful lawns, and left them littered with rubbish and 

 messes of the most untidy sort. Whereupon the borough 

 Park Commissioner came to the rescue and ordered all per- 

 sons with lunch baskets kept out of the park ! 



Then there was a mighty howl. The downtrodden lunch 

 eaters rose as one man, one woman, one child. Their rights 

 were invaded, their privileges usurped, and they found a 

 defender in no less an aristocratic organ of public opinion 

 than the New York Tribune, which apparently employs an 

 editor who lives in Brooklyn, and whose knowledge of things 

 Brooklynite seems very complete — as complete, perhaps, as 

 any Manhattaner thinks it should be. The immediate 

 result of the Tsarlike action (if such it was) of the Park 

 Commissioner was, that the next time the invaders from 

 Manhattan — for of course no Brooklynite would consume 

 food in the sacred precincts of Prospect Park — came to 

 Brooklyn, the adjoining curbstones were lined with thrifty 

 lunch eaters, all busily engaged in eating their lunches, which, 

 once consumed, were then carefully trotted into the park, 

 although not in the way either they or the Park Commis- 

 sioner intended. 



With the further details of this sad matter The Observer 

 has nothing to do; but he would like to submit that there is 

 much arrant nonsense in the " rights " which people are 

 supposed to enjoy in the parks. The parks are supported 

 by the municipality for the people as a whole, and any rights 

 which the people have in them rest on this elemental condi- 



tion. It would seem, however, as though the question of 

 public rights should be carefully considered. 



For example, the taxpayer is clearly entitled to greater 

 consideration than the non-taxpayer, and it is equally clear 

 that the American citizen is entitled to greater consideration 

 than the foreigner who may be but temporarily sojourning 

 within our gates, it might, indeed, be safe to go further, 

 and maintain that the taxpayer is clearly entitled to greater 

 privileges than the non-taxpayer. If the municipality has 

 parks it is only able to maintain them from the funds col- 

 lected from the taxpayer, and while our land does not en- 

 courage classes, we are prone to believe that the man who 

 pays for the goods is entitled to them. Such, at least, ap- 

 pears to be sound business sense. 



Shall we, then, open our parks and public places promis- 

 cuously to any one who happens along and who goes into 

 them solely because he is on the ground, convenient and 

 accessible? Shall we open our parks to untidy folk who 

 will not gather the waste they bring in with them and leave 

 the ground as clean and in as good condition as they found 

 it ? Shall we permit them to do as they please, and then take 

 public money, not one cent of which they have contributed, 

 to redeem the evil they have wrought, and make the spots 

 where they have been disporting themselves clean and sweet? 



The Observer knows a place — not a park — where, but a 

 few years ago, no foreigner had made his home. There was 

 one street in particular, wide and splendid in dimensions, in 

 which the grass grew as luxuriously as in any Philadelphia 

 highway. It was peaceful and serene, albeit somewhat 

 sunny and dull. In time progress came. That is to say, 

 houses were built on this street, houses which, notwithstand- 

 ing its width, were small in size and in cost. They attracted, 

 as they were intended to attract, people of small means, and, 

 apparently, people of small ideas. The grass disappeared 

 from the street, the quiet went with it, and in their stead 

 appeared all sorts of things : old iron pots, piles of waste 

 paper, discarded clothing, bits of oilcloth, used-up flypaper, 

 rags, a rejected mattress, pieces of pottery and glass. The 

 list is not exaggerated in the least, nor is the imagination 

 drawn upon. The cleanliness of that street has, apparently, 

 departed forever. And most of these people are of foreign 

 origin, hardly speaking a word of English. 



The Observer knows another place, a plain country road, 

 lined with trees. On one side are three or four houses, fill- 

 ing as much space as a couple of city blocks. On the other 

 side is farming land, still farmed though well within munici- 

 pal limits. The natives do not sit out under these street 

 trees, for they all have porches of their own on which to pass 

 a hot summer afternoon. Strangers come there from more 

 crowded regions. They bring their babies, their baby car- 

 riages and their baby milk bottles; they bring newspapers to 

 look at and they bring food tied up in untidy bundles. And 

 there they pass a pleasant afternoon, filling the air with talk 

 in strange harsh languages, and when they retire they leave 

 behind them exactly everything which they do not wish 

 to carry away. The natives, then, must leave this debris 

 where it was left, or pay some one to go out and gather it up. 

 Is it fair? 



The Observer thinks not. This untidiness may not be 

 American in its origin, but it is becoming more and more 

 typical of American cities and towns. We are letting in all 

 sorts of people to settle with us and be with us, and they en- 

 joy here privileges they never thought of having at home. 



