PARK AND CEMETERY. 
389 
THE VILLAGE GRAVEYARD. THE SAME SCENE NEGLECTED. 
ORGANIZING and DEVELOPING A MODERN CEMETERY 
II. — Organization. 
It is the purpose to treat this phase of 
the cemetery problem very briefly. The 
subject would allow of such discussion, in- 
cluding many legal considerations, which 
in the end would not apply to the various 
cities and states. Therefore only the main 
points willl be considered. 
The village cemetery is usually the out- 
growth of necessity. Its ownership and ad- 
ministration are usually not well defined. 
If the church yard was not used, land ob- 
tained through donation or otherwise de- 
termined the location. There was no pro- 
vision for care, for cutting the grass, and 
keeping fences, monuments, paths and 
roads in repair. In traveling from city to 
city, or town to town, we too often see the 
unsatisfactory result, proving the old state- 
ment that “what is everybody’s business is 
nobody’s business.’’ 
What we choose to call the “modern 
By Sid J. Hare and S. Herbert Hare, 
Landscape Architects, Kansas City, Mo. 
cemetery” is a very different institution, a 
more permanent arrangement, with perpet- 
ual care. The organization for providing 
such a cemetery would depend upon the 
ownership. In the smaller cities and towns 
this is usually vested in the city. In the 
larger cities the most beautiful and suc- 
cessful burial grounds are owned and ad- 
ministered by corporations. There are, no 
doubt, two reasons for this. First, the 
cemeteries provided by the city, if any. 
were unsatisfactory, poorly managed, and 
with no provision for care in the future. 
Like much municipal business, they were 
monuments to inefficiency, and the citizens, 
in self-defense, were compelled to make 
better provisions. Second, a certain num- 
ber of cemeteries have been promoted al- 
most solely for the purpose of selling land 
at a profit. This may be excusable in some 
cases. A person who is rendering a serv- 
ice to the community is entitled to a fair 
compensation, but the purely commercial 
aspect assumed by many companies in the 
sale of land, especially in auction sales, 
seems to tend toward creating an artificial 
demand, rather than supplying a need. Un- 
der favorable circumstances, a cemetery 
may be a very good as well as a legitimate 
investment for private capital, the same as 
electric plants, street railways, and other 
necessary utilities. People are willing to 
pay more for a lot in a well managed, 
privately owned cemetery than in a poorly 
managed one under public control. How- 
ever, with the coming of commission gov- 
ernment or other forms of efficient and 
business-like municipal administration has 
come a decided tendency toward public 
ownership of all public utilities, and this 
feeling may in time be reflected in the 
cemeteries, probably by providing more sat- 
THE CHURCHYARD BURYING GROUND. 
THE OLD CITY GRAVEYARD. 
