PARK AND CEMETERY. 
173 
place for the meeting while Wisconsin is preparing a 
“Niagara” campaign of its own to induce the legisla- 
ture to make a state reservation of the region about 
the Dells and Devil’s Lake, and the national associa- 
tion lent hearty support to the work. 
Wednesday, October 24th. 
Mayor Sherburn M. Becker, of Milwaukee, in a brief and 
spirited speech of welcome, expressed a hearty interest in 
the movement and congratulated the association on its work 
for the preservation of Niagara. “To be really great.” he 
said, “a city must be beautiful, and Milwaukee is making 
rapid strides in that direction.” One of the chief efforts 
at present in that city is to create a sentiment for the estab- 
lishment of small parks with which he is thoroughly in sym- 
pathy. 
President McFarland responded, characterizing Mayor 
Becker as one of the new race of mayors, and saying that it 
was encouraging to see a city official with the high ideals 
which he had expressed. 
Treasurer Wm. B. Howland, of New York, was called upon 
to report. The receipts for the year were $3,000 more than 
for the year previous, amounting to a total of $8,758.30. 
Owing to the extraordinary expenditures in connection with 
the Niagara campaign the association has a debt of $4,137.56. 
Mr. Howland reported that encouraging progress had been 
made in reducing this debt, one-fourth of it having been 
paid in twenty-two days, and that it was to be regarded as 
insignificant in comparison with the enormously increased 
achievement of the association. 
At the afternoon session Secretary Clinton Rogers Wood- 
ruff presented his annual address, which was an inspiring 
record of the growth of the national impulse for civic im- 
provement. Mr. Woodruff spoke in part as_ follows: 
The National Impulse for Civic Improvement. 
When President Roosevelt, on June 29, 1906, attached his 
signature to “An Act for the Control and Regulation of the 
Waters of Niagara River, for the Preservation of Niagara Falls 
and for Other Purposes,” he signed the Magna Charta of the 
civic improvement movement. It was the first distinct national 
recognition of the rights of the American people to the free 
and unobstructed enjoyment of the natural beauties bestowed 
upon us by a beneficent God. The significance of the Act lies 
in its express recognition of the demand of the American peo- 
ple. Throughout the bill, the evident intention of Congress to 
preserve “the scenic grandeur of the Niagara Falls” is mani- 
fest. Indeed, this phrase recurs again and again, showing what 
was in the mind of the Congressmen who passed it and of the 
President who signed it. 
One of the most striking characteristics of the Niagara cam- 
paign was the country-wide interest in the subject. No part 
of our great land but was represented in the movement. From 
far off Los Angeles in California, and Tacoma in Washington, 
on the Pacific Coast, to Jacksonville, Florida, and Portland, 
Maine, on the Atlantic Coast, and from every intervening village 
and hamlet, town and city, came the demand that commer- 
cialism should be checked and this common heritage of our 
people rescued from the hands of those who would pervert it 
to private and commercial ends. Business bodies and improve- 
ment bodies, religious and political organizations, joined in the 
hue and cry that was raised to prevent the desecration. So 
great, so overwhelming was the demand, that the President 
listened and Congress listened and in an incredibly and unpre- 
cedentedly short time the bill as it now stands was passed. 
We cannot expect, however, to have a Niagara campaign 
every year, altho the present one has yet several important 
phases to pass through. Only once in a lifetime comes the 
opportunity to do some great, some striking thing such as that 
accomplished during the past year; but around about us on 
every side lie other opportunities equally significant and equally 
useful, if we will but grasp them. We find the scenery on 
every hand despoiled by advertisements of various kinds. 
. What has scenery done to Americans that we should de- 
face it upon every hand; that we should despoil it in every 
direction? The route from Philadelphia to New York has often 
been described as a thin alleyway of bill-boards. Round about 
every great city we find the approaches “cluttered up” in the 
worst possible way with objectionable signs. Our parks are 
likewise surrounded; so that a beautiful vista often ends in 
an advertising device. Not even Niagara itself, in all its un- 
paralleled grandeur, is free from this source of despoliation. 
The next great war which the American people must wage 
is that against the desecration of our landscape and of our 
surroundings by bill-boards and unsightly posters. This cam- 
paign must be waged, on the one hand to abate the nuisance; 
and on the other to create a public sentiment sufficiently strong 
to force a solution of the question. 
An improvement club in Tacoma, Washington, has adopted 
this resolution: “Resolved, That this Club place itself on rec- 
ord as being in favor of its members pledging themselves not 
to purchase from firms advertising on bill-boards; and that the 
Secretary write the American Civic Association asking it to 
agitate the question throughout the country, sending it a copy 
of this resolution.” 
In defense of this resolution, the club declares “that the 
beauty of a large number of our American cities is marred by 
unsightly bill-boards. There doesn’t seem to be any method 
of getting at the matter except by arousing public sentiment 
against it. There is a bill-board trust throughout the country, 
and there is need of a general movement against bill-boards.” 
A suggestion has been made that they should be taxed out 
of existence. This is good. Another suggestion is that the 
consumers of this country refrain from purchasing from firms 
utilizing bill-boards. This is by all odds the most effective 
method yet proposed. 
If the American people once resolve that offensive bill- 
boards must go, they haye a most direct and effective method 
for their suppression in their own hands. They have only to 
abstain from purchasing goods advertised on bill-boards. This 
is an effective weapon always at hand; and if utilized will un- 
questionably bring a complete relief; for no manufacturer of 
goods, no purveyor to the public taste, will fly in the face of 
a public opinion thus expressed. 
Next in importance to freeing our landscapes of objection- 
able bill-boards, is the movement for cleanliness in our Ameri- 
can communities. Too many communities are permitted to be- 
come eyesores. Too many of our cities are “built in black air, 
which by its accumulated foulness first renders all ornament 
invisible in distance and then chokes its interstices with soot.” 
Verily cleanliness is next to godliness; and if our American 
cities are to stand before the world as purified and redeemed, 
they must be clean. The national impulse for civic improve- 
ment is manifesting itself not only in the movement for the 
preservation of Niagara, not only in the movement for the 
suppression of objectionable bill-boards, but in a very real de- 
sire to clean up the various localities. Practically no city of 
importance but has its “cleaning-up” days or weeks or periods 
of some kind. 
For nearly seven years a committee of the Business Men’s 
Club of Cincinnati has been working for cleaner and better 
streets in that city. During most of that time the chief en- 
deavor has been to arouse public sentiment and to inaugurate 
modern methods. Early in the present year it was decided to 
hold a “clean-street convention,” which was held a few months 
ago. It was opened with a mechanical parade, which was a 
complete success. At the formal meeting, men representative 
of the city government were present, as also of all the busi- 
ness and improvement associations, and the several political 
parties. There was a meeting of women along the same line; 
and this was equally successful. There was a meeting of school 
children in the separate schools, each principal setting aside 
one hour during the day for the singing of appropriate songs 
and the discussion of the subject. Speakers, mostly business 
men, were sent to the different schools to make short addresses. 
There was a large and enthusiastic meeting of newsboys, 
the convention songs being rendered by the newsboys’ band 
of forty pieces. The Mayor and other city officials made short 
addresses. There was a parade of the street cleaning depart- 
ment on the last afternoon of the convention, which lasted 
some four or five days, the men all appearing in their new 
uniforms. The banners carried at the head of each division 
told of the number of members and the equipment used in that 
division, and of the additional members and equipment needed. 
Manufacturers of various devices gave demonstrations during 
the week. Thus in these various ways the people were given 
fresh ideas as to modern methods. 
This is a most commendable method of educating the pub- 
lic and the officials. It is easy; it is practical; it is effective. 
