240 
PARK AND 
CEMETERY. 
Give love, and love to your life will flow, 
A strength in your utmost need ; 
Have faith, and a score of hearts will 
show 
Their faith in your word and deed. 
Give truth, and your gift will be paid in 
kind, 
And honor will honor meet, 
And a smile that is sweet will surely find 
A smile that is just as sweet. 
When we think of Gary we think of men 
with dinner buckets, men with grime and 
soot on their faces, wearing overalls 
smeared with grease, ever hurrying to or 
from their work. We think of blast fur- 
naces, coke ovens, soot, gas and dirt. Met- 
allic things, big industries, and sand — all 
these pass through our mind when some- 
one says Gary. 
Ten years ago Gary was not even thought 
of, and now, if it were inhabited by the 
people who own Gary lots, it would be a 
city of 300,000. Street after street has 
been improved from the big steel mills, 
stretching for miles to the south and west. 
Tons of sand have been moved, dunes have 
been leveled, houses, churches, schools, 
stores, offices and clubs, cars, newspapers 
and jitney buses — all have come to stay. 
Every nationality is represented, both in 
language and in costume. Today Gary is 
a city — and what is more, Gary will con- 
tinue to grow. Since May, 1906, Gary has 
accumulated an aggregate population of 
35,000 inhabitants. 
It was not until 1908 that trees were 
planted as permanent street trees, and then 
only a few streets were so honored. The 
real estate men of this city have done 
much to add to the beauty and comfort of 
the city, but today more trees are needed. 
When Fort Wayne, the pioneer of the 
Indiana park movement, petitioned the 
legislature, an act was passed giving an 
appointed park board of cities of the sec- 
ond class power to acquire, lay out and 
improve land for public highways, parks 
and boulevards. Gary, having been made 
a city of the second class in May, 1915, 
selected its park commissioners, who in 
turn appointed a park engineer and a city 
forester. 
I have assumed, that when the subject of this 
paper was assigned to me, it was intended that I 
should discuss it primarily from the standopint 
of the vender, i. e., from a cemetery’s viewpoint, 
as to the advantages or disadvantages of selling 
cemetery lots on deferred payments. 
A close analysis shows that the advantages to be 
gained, or the disadvantages to be encountered 
in the application of this method of selling ceme- 
tery lots — or anything else for that matter — are in 
one form or another of a financial character, 
either directly or indirectly. 
Give pity and sorrow to those who mourn. 
You will gather in flowers again, 
The scattered seeds from your thoughts 
outborne, 
Though the sowing seemed but in vain. 
For life is the mirror of king and slave, 
’Tis just what we are and do; 
Then give to the world the best you have 
And the best will come back to you. 
A boulevard system of twenty-five miles 
has been planned, and trees, both of rapid 
and slow growth, are to be selected and 
planted this fall. 
On the 3rd of September, 1915, the Gary 
Land Co., which is the land-holding con- 
cern for the United States Steel Corpora- 
tion, presented to the city of Gary three 
parks, which until this month have been 
improved and maintained at the aggregate 
cost of $300,000 and contain over forty 
acres of land. 
For several years it has been the wish 
of the people of Gary to have a park on 
the lake front, but as no lands were ac- 
cessible within the limits of the city, an 
act was passed by the last legislature per- 
mitting Gary to co-operate with Miller, a 
town lying north and east of Gary, and to 
appoint a joint park board. Miller having 
access to Lake Michigan, improvements 
have been started and trees will be planted 
this fall. 
But who is to pay for these improve- 
ments? The system is this: For all im- 
provements by the Park Board over a cer- 
tain amount there are competitive bids, 
plans and specifications being furnished by 
the park commissioners. A tax is levied 
and collected at the rate of nine cents on 
each one hundred dollars of taxable prop- 
erty, special assessments being made in 
such a manner that the sections benefited 
pay for the improvement. 
Gary is proud of its name, “The Steel 
City,’’ and its men that make up the popu- 
lation of this city. There is a wonderful 
spirit here and people are helping vegeta- 
tion to grow, in spite of adverse conditions. 
They appreciate trees and want more trees. 
What have you to offer? 
J. H. Barnett, Jr. 
In the cemetery business as well as in any other, 
business and its presumable attendant profits are 
necessary and desirable, whether they are to be 
retained wholly for endowment purposes or to be 
used in part as a return upon invested capital; 
and it is rather an unusual condition when in 
either event they are thought to exceed the re- 
quirements. Therefore if the plan of selling on 
deferred payments is adopted in any business, it is 
usually because there is reason to believe, that by 
so doing the amount of profitable business can be 
increased; and a refusal to employ some form of 
extending credit, is invariably because the profit- 
ableness of the plan is doubted, or rather because 
it has not occurred to, been suggested, or demon- 
strated in the individual case how it may be done 
profitably, and if so what safeguards are necessary 
and advisable. It is a distinct acknowledgment 
of the fact that credit must possess on the whole 
some predominating business virtue or expediency 
closely allied to profits, w r hen we accept as an 
economic truth the fact, that the preponderance 
of the world’s business is transacted through the 
medium of some form of credit. If this be so we 
become, or should become, vitally interested, pro- 
vided we are not indifferent to our own interests, 
in the study of its adaptability or proper applica- 
tion to our particular business. 
Fundamental principles underlying the success- 
ful employment of the extension of credit are 
primarily two: First, financial strength on the part 
of the creditor to carry or arrange for carrying 
such without undue embarrassment; Second, abili- 
ty to protect oneself against or to minimize the 
chance of loss from such. 
Assuming the ability on the part of cemeteries 
to successfully meet the first brings us to a con- 
sideration of the second condition; i. e., to the 
ability to protect themselves from financial loss 
when selling lots under such a plan. We know that 
if a lot were sold under a properly drawn con- 
tract providing forfeiture in the event that the 
terms of said contract were not complied with, that 
in the event of receiving the lot back in an unim- 
paired condition of usefulness, i. e., without in- 
terment thereon, any resultant loss would be of 
but a temporary nature or loss of anticipated 
profit unless due to lax business methods entirely. 
In the event of there being interments thereon 
and the former and future usefulness of the lot 
being impaired, unless it w r ere possible to lawfully 
clear the lot of same, we find an amazing state of 
uncertainty, usually due to a lack of investigation, 
which many are reluctant to undertake because of 
a financial expense involved. Simply falling back 
and saying: “It can’t be done” that Jones or 
Smith says: “It can’t be done;” that the law per- 
mits the exercising of the right of burial but 
once, and there stopping, is not a proper investiga- 
tion. They seem to forget that the bodies of de- 
ceased persons are constantly being moved, and 
without hesitation on their part, when the proper 
consent and orders are presented. The fact, that 
it is altogether probable, that a cemetery can 
protect itself in the event of such necessity, by 
employing similar methods embodied in their sales 
contract, seems to have been accepted or rejected 
without due investigation on their part. Simply 
because the method that may have been tried w T as 
or is found to be defective is no reason to assume 
that there can be none that are not. I am cog- 
nizant of the fact that laws differ too widely in 
the many states to expect me to attempt to offer 
a specific general sesame to this question for all 
those here represented. Our knowledge does not, 
however, extend to any instance where trouble 
has resulted to a cemetery from having acted up- 
on the express terms and conditions of a definite 
and specific written contract entered into at the 
time of sale and authorizing the cemetery to take 
such action in the event of default, nor of any 
refusal, on the part of a court of last resort, 
to permit a cemetery to safeguard and protect its 
interest. 
If therefore the ability to protect oneself can be 
established to their satisfaction there still is a 
further necessity to minimize the chance of loss 
or rather the loss of profit, w r hich might result, 
if any considerable percentage of such sales should 
necessitate protecting the primary interest in the 
land itself. The sale of a lot through the medium 
of a contract is but half a sale; collecting is the 
other half, and a very important half indeed, for 
unless given proper attention it may prove the 
reef on which the ship of profits will be wrecked. 
The source of trouble or worry in collecting, which 
some look upon as a disadvantage, is in the ma- 
jority of instances due either to a lack of proper 
appreciation of the importance that should always 
be attached to it and a corresponding lack of at- 
tention, or else to the need of readjusting the 
system employed. An expectation that accounts 
will or should, because of a contract, collect them- 
selves, and allowing ourselves to imagine, that 
collecting is a mere detail to be left to the office 
boy to be taken care of and undeserving of the same 
thought and application as selling or any other 
part of the business, is a vital mistake, for suc- 
cessful collecting is an art; and even granting, 
that we are fully protected in being able to re- 
TREE PLANTING IN GARY, IND. 
ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF DEFERRED 
PAYMENTS ON LOTS. 
By T. H. Little, Secretary-General Manager, 
Mt. Hope Cemetery, Chicago. 
