240 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
the cash which passes through his hands 
for his very valuable services. He will 
justify himself in the eyes of the public by 
saying; “See what I have done. I have 
made you a beautiful cemetery.” If you 
will carefully investigate this class of pro- 
moter you will notice that he has been 
very careful to pay himself mostly in cash 
and not in the class of securities he has 
been selling. 
Some of you may say this is an exag- 
gerated picture, because it cannot be done. 
I can assure you that it can and is being 
done every year and conditions are getting 
•worse. I heard a man say, quite recently, 
that you can sell anything if you pay well 
enough for selling it. This is particularly 
true of cemeteries for the following rea- 
sons : The promoter will take two meth- 
ods to convince his customer that the in- 
vestment he is selling is a veritable gold 
mine. First he will draw your attention 
to a very successful old established ceme- 
tery that has been started under extremely 
favorable conditions and dwell on the fact 
that its dividends have been wonderful, 
but he says, Mr. Customer, you could not 
buy those securities for any amount that 
you could afford to pay, but here is the 
chance of your life : here is another ceme- 
tery that will even outclass the old place 
after a few years. If this does not do 
the trick, he resorts to number two, which 
is about as follows : 
Mr. Customer, we have about 100 acres 
of land for which we will get on an aver- 
age of about 75 cents a square foot, or he 
may even say $1.00. In fact, I know one 
man in Chicago assured his customers 
that they would average $1.50 a foot for 
this. After taking out a liberal allow- 
ance for losses, we will get $3,000,000 for 
this ( mind, I am still quoting the pro- 
moter), and if we use one-third of this 
for expenses we will have two million dol- 
lars to divide among the stockholders. 
Just think of it. Of course, he forgets to 
tell them it will take fifty years or more 
to sell the ground, and expenses are enor- 
mous. One of my friends, who is familiar 
with the fact that I was going to give you 
something of this kind, said, “What is the 
difference? If the suckers will bite, it is 
their own fault.” If that is all, it would 
not be so bad, but this creates another con- 
dition which I will proceed to explain. 
The stock having been sold, the land 
purchased, and wholly or partly paid for, 
as the case may be, someone is placed in 
charge of the cemetery management and 
soon he will find the conditions, and also 
that his stockholders are expecting large 
returns. In some cases, the cemetery will 
jog along, paying little or small returns 
to the stockholders and probably changing 
their officials often because the stockhold- 
ers blame them for lack of returns instead 
of over capitalization. 
If the stockholders are aggressive and 
not over conscientious, they will force the 
sale of lots which is far from beneficial 
to the purchaser or lot holder. This is 
likely to place the cemetery company in 
touch with the promoter mentioned here- 
tofore, as I know has been done in one 
of our leading cities. 
This very slick individual will proceed 
to make a very advantageous contract with 
the cemetery company on the basis, no 
work, no pay, but if we sell, we get very 
well paid. 
This man will organize a sales force 
and send them out into the “highways and 
by-ways with instructions to sell, and in 
order to sell, promise anything, but do not 
put' it in writing.” The consequence is, 
more suckers. 
Here are some of the deceptions prac- 
ticed : 
Selling a lot for twelve graves when 
eight adults is the most it will hold. 
Promising all kinds of things done in per- 
petuity, when in many cases no mention 
of this care is made in the deeds, and last. 
but not least, making the purchaser be- 
lieve that the land will increase in value 
so fast that if the purchaser does not need 
it, it will double in value in a short time 
and can be sold easily. This condition 
has caused the established cemeteries to 
go out after business in self-preservation; 
otherwise the unscrupulous ones will so 
honey-comb the territory that there will 
be little left to draw from. 
It might not be out of place at this time 
to explain a method of advertising adopted 
by a cemetery corporation to draw the at- 
tention of the public, which, to say the 
least, is very poor taste in cemetery ad- 
vertising. 
This cemetery advertised that they were 
going to sell a four-grave lot for what ap- 
peared to be $6.75, or, in other words, to 
give away this lot if the prospective pur- 
chaser paid $6.75 for the cost of preparing 
the papers and other incidental expenses. 
The $6.75 was printed in large type, but 
underneath in very small type, there was 
printed plus a small annual upkeep. On 
investigation it was found that the plus 
cost was $50.00 for permanent care, and 
moreover, the lot in question was in an 
annex to the cemetery and not in the de- 
veloped part at all. This cemetery corpo- 
ration wanted to find persons who were 
possible purchasers and sell them some- 
thing more desirable. 
This method of selling is worse than 
practiced by some so-called summer resort 
land companies. 
I do not say that under modern con- 
ditions a cemetery should not go out after 
business, but something should be done 
to see that it is done in a more legitimate 
manner. How it is to be done I am not 
prepared to state at this time, because it 
is a comparatively new thing. 
It may die a natural death like the com- 
munity mausoleum or it may get worse. 
Time will tell. 
EFFICIENCY AND ACCOUNTING IN PARK WORK 
Address before the Convention of the American Association of Park Superintendents, at New Orleans, 
La.. October //, igi6, by j 
'I'hat far-sighted policy on the part of a 
park board which combines beauty in land- 
scape with recreation features attractive 
enough to produce revenue to pay the ma- 
jor portion of operating expenses, is effi- 
ciency in park administration. 
“Twenty thousand people attended the 
municipal band concert at Lake Harriet 
last night.” A news item such as that 
which appeared in the Minneapolis Tribune 
last summer is a sure index of a success- 
ful park. You who know Lake Harriet 
know that that means that every seat on 
the roof garden was taken, that the lake 
was covered with canoes and rowboats, 
that the plaza was packed with automo- 
biles, and that hundreds of people strolled 
back and forth on the walks or sat on the 
ink S. Staley, Director Minneapolis Civic 
grass along the lake shore. What brought 
the people out and how could the Board 
of Park Commissioners afford to provide 
free music so fine in quality as to draw 
the critical music lovers and so popular 
in its appeal that it attracts the large 
crowds who are merely seeking diversion? 
Lake Harriet is a fine example of the type 
of park which provides entertainment for 
all classes and at the same time affords a 
revenue that more than covers the cost of 
the special recreation features. The pur- 
pose of municipal parks is to create play- 
grounds and furnish entertainment for the 
whole citizenship. No matter how beauti- 
ful parks may be from the standpoint of 
landscape architecture and no matter how 
economically they may be maintained, they 
and Commerce Associatio'n. 
are a failure unless the people can be in- 
duced to make use of them. 
An analysis of Lake Harriet as a suc- 
cessful park shows that the Board has ac- 
quired and improved a naturally beautiful 
lake shore. The improvements include 
boulevards and walks encircling the lakes, 
picnic and play grounds attractive to fam- 
ily groups, a pavilion with refectory and 
cafeteria on the first floor and above a 
spacious roof garden where the municipal 
band plays nightly. An extensive plaza 
adjoins the pavilion from which the occu- 
pants of hundreds of automobiles can hear 
the concerts. From the boat docks on the 
shore a fleet of canoes and rowboats is 
sent out to surround the pavilion during 
the musical numbers and to explore the 
