184 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
POLITICS AND THE CEMETERY 
Changes in the statutes of Ohio relating to cemeter- 
ies, especially the law placing all municipal cemeteries 
under the Board of Public Service, thus taking such 
burial grounds out of the hands of trustees, are already 
showing themselves ill-advised legislation so far 
as the cemetery is concerned. This board consists of 
from three to five members in each municipality cov- 
ered by the law, who are elected for a term of two 
years, and are qualified to make their own rules and 
regulations for the management and supervision of all 
public works and institutions under their charge, which 
covers pretty well everything in the nature of public 
works and institutions. The board is also empowered 
to employ its help and fix the compensation. These 
few points will readily inform the municipal cemetery 
superintendent that the question of politics must neces- 
sarily have much to do with either his employment or 
tenure of office. The far-reaching effects of such a 
system on the welfare of either municipal parks or 
cemeteries, effects which have been matters of public 
knowledge for many years, lead one to wonder why an 
enlightened citizenship should have permitted such per- 
nicious legislation, or have elected men to their legis- 
lature who could possibly be guilty of voting for so 
backward a step. A glaring example of the work of 
such a board has recently been shown in Newark, O., 
where the superintendent of Cedar Hill Cemetery, Mr. 
George Van Atta, who has had charge of that cemetery 
for the past eighteen years, and during that time giv- 
ing entire satisfaction, was summarily dismissed on a 
flimsy pretext and his foreman, a man of different po- 
litical faith, given the position. The handwriting of 
the local politician is plainly seen in this outrage, and 
it should be the duty of the citizens at large, if they 
value their citizenship, to demand the elimination of 
politics, or anything savoring of political methods, 
from the control and maintenance of their parks and 
cemeteries. The experience and study necessary to the 
improvement and development of such places, are so 
far removed from the caliber of the average man of 
political aspirations, that no policy looking to the wel- 
fare of the park or cemetery is safe in his hands. No 
self-respecting community can permit retrogression 
and decay to destroy their public grounds ; but this re- 
sult is inevitable under such a system and law as is 
now in force in Ohio, unless the citizens take pains to 
elect men who will make fitness the test of office. 
KANSAS CEMETERIES 
The tide of public condemnation of all kinds of 
graft, and, in fact, of undue profits in commercial 
undertakings generally, has touched the cemetery bus- 
iness, if one may use such a term in that connection. 
The secretary of the State Horticultural society of 
Kansas, under an act authorized at the last session of 
the legislature, has recently made a report on Kansas 
cemeteries, and in the report says that, “the larger 
cemeteries are mostly grafts.” An analysis is made 
of the cost of lands and the prices charged for lots 
and burials and the attention of the people is called 
to the excessive profits secured by the cemetery cor- 
porations organized for profit. It is contended that, 
ordinarily, cemetery lots seven by fourteen feet 
should be sold for one dollar each. All cemetery 
officials, knowing what the modern cemetery demands, 
will recognize that this price is totally inadequate, but 
at the same time the extravagant charges of the profit 
making cernetery association will concentrate the 
consideration of reasonable profits, besides encourag- 
ing the establishment of more burial grounds to sat- 
isfy the public demand for freedom from extortion. 
The report urges the enactment of a new cemetery 
law, to embody all that is good in the several laws 
now in force, with such additions as the requirements 
of modern practice suggest. Under existing laws it 
is asserted that much confusion and dearth of burial 
information is constantly in evidence which will only 
increase as the years pass along. This recommenda- 
tion should suggest similar action in other states. 
