47 



J. II. Jones next spoke appreciatively of the obstacles over- 

 come by the Commission and recited Rudyard Kipling's poem 

 "If." There were no boy scouts in evidence, but some very 

 attractive school children sang with a will as Miss Edith 

 Higgins, daughter of the Commissioner, drew aside the flag. 



Out over Bronx & Pelham Parkway the autos dashed, 

 reaching the athletic field precisely at 4.30, the time set for the 

 Pelham Bay Park ceremony, where Boy Scouts, Troop No. 

 117, under Scout Master A. G. Clarke, was lined up. 



Here Chancellor MacCracken said : 



" Pelham Bay Park has seemed to me always like a great 

 park reserve upon which our City may make indefinite drafts 

 in the years to come, just as a great business corporation keeps 

 a great reserve fund to draw on for coming needs. It is a 

 magnificent asset for the future of both The Bronx and Man- 

 hattan Boroughs. I am told that it is more than twice as 

 large as Central Park, and three times larger than any park in 

 the Borough of Brooklyn. It is the nearest great park to 

 salt water. It is better suited to boating exercise than if it 

 were a park on the ocean. It has better roads than Central 

 Park in Manhattan. The use of these roads which I have 

 personally made during twenty years in The Bronx has not 

 been upon a large scale : indeed, it has only been a " one- 

 horse affair." But as the guest of others I know these roads 

 from the view point of the motorist, and am told that they 

 are the best roads in our great City. Besides are the fine 

 golf links, the splendid athletic grounds, with ball fields, 

 running tracks, swings, and varied apparatus for muscular 

 development and health. The larger Twin Island, a section 

 of the Park, is now lent for a home for poor children from 

 the congested parts of Manhattan. 



"As the story says respecting the mountain and Mo- 

 hammed, Pelham Bay Park is never going to travel the eight 

 or ten miles to Manhattan Borough, but Manhattan Borough 

 is already coming to Pelham Bay Park. Nor will another 

 generation pass before The Bronx will have a million inhab- 



