o dERIES II, NO. 7 MARCH, 1913 CIVIC IMPROVEMENT m THE LITTLE MISS ZONA GALE AMERICAN CIVIC ASSOCIATION GENERAL OFFICES Hmetttan Ctbtt Msiiotmtion DEPARTMENT OF CITY MAKING SERIES II, NO. 7 MARCH, X913 CIVIC IMPROVEMENT IN THE LITTLE TOWNS BY MISS ZONA GALE Member Executive Board, American Civic Association Chairman, Civics Department, General Federation of Women's Clubs Author, "Friendship Village," and Other Stories General Offices Union Trust Building, Washington, D. C. American Civic Association President J. HORACE McFARLAND, Harrisburg, Pa. First Vice-President JOHN NOLEN, Cambridge, Mass. Treasurer WILLIAM B. ROWLAND, New York. Secretary RICHARD B. WATROUS, Washington, D. C. Vice-Presidents CLINTON ROGERS WOODRUFF, Philadelphia. GEORGE B. DEALEY, Dallas, Texas. MRS. EDWARD W. BIDDLE, Carlisle, Pa. GEORGE W. MARSTON, San Diego, Cal. J. LOCKIE WILSON, Toronto, Canada. CHARLES H. WACKER. Chicago. lU. Executive Board WiLLiAii P. BANCRorT, Wilmington, Miss Zona Gai.e, Portage, Wis. Del. Edward Hatch, Jr., New York. Henry A. Barker, Providence, R. I. Harold J. Howland, Montclair, N. J. Miss Mabel T. Boardman, Washing- Dr. Woods Hutchinson, New York. ton, D. C. j^^g ^ g McCrea, Chicago, III. ^""^ Minn. ^°''°='''=^' Minneapolis. ^^^^ louise Klein Miller, Cleve- Frank Chapin Bray, New York. land, Ohio. ^, „ , J. C. Nichols, Kansas City, Mo. Arnold W. Brunner, New York. Frederick Law Olmsted, Brookline. H. K. Bush-Brown, Washington, D. C. Mass. Mrs. Caroline Bartlett Crane, John H. Patterson, Dayton, Ohio. Kalamazoo, Mich. ^^y a. H. Scott, Perth, Ontario, Charles M. Dow, Jamestown, N. Y. Canada. Mrs. James S. Frick, Baltimore, Md. George Stephens. Charlotte, N, C Address all g&neral communications to the Main Offices of the Association UNION TRUST BUILDING WASHINGTON, D. C. CIVIC IMPROVEMENT IN THE LITTLE TOWNS HOW, in these first days, shall the new spirit be caught and expressed in the little towns and in the villages? These first days are the days when a vague and disjointed and commercialized social life is being shaped to serve hiunan needs and human growth before property rights. The new spirit is the spirit of community realization, and the resulting impulse to give this some expression is definite municipal housekeeping. Little towns and villages are social units, just as precious in quality as the great cities, but without the cities' resources for community self-expression. In the total population of the United States, there are more people living in towns under 25,000 than in towns whose population is greater. Therefore, one of the tasks of the times is to develop the native ability of towns of a few thousands and of a few hun- dreds, so that they may do their best for their present and their future; so that they may find themselves, each as a definite social unit in charge of a few square miles of planet, and of an endless procession of folk. This is not "town improvement" in the old sense; the sense in which a few got together to do good to the town, to give it things, to induce the most prominent citizen to con- tribute a fountain. They did that way when only a few in the town had an inkling of what the town might be. Now the need is to develop the whole town to have, not merely an inkling, but a face-to-face look at what the town not only can be, but must be if it keeps up with what the world is learning about living. The new spirit of community realization is to the old idea of "improving" what the new principle of con- structive philanthropy is to the proceedings of the Lord and Lady Boimtiful of mere charity. The new way of civic work is the way, not of paternalism, but of hmnanhood. (3) 4 AMERICAN CIVIC ASSOCIATION A THREEFOLD PROBLEM The Civic problem of the small town is threefold: I. To get into the current of the new understanding that the conservation of physical and moral life is largely economic, and that its enemy is not so much individual human weakness as bad economic and social and other physical conditions. II. To find practical ways of applying this understand- ing to the present and future of the town, and so of the democracy. III. To do both with exceedingly little money. The first need is not to change town conditions. The first need is to create the desire to change town conditions. That is, the first step is, as usual, educational. People must begin to think about civic work before they will begin to do civic work. Therefore, town organizations that will take up civic problems and discuss them in open meetings make among the best possible initial tools. In some small towns there is an organization of men which meets monthly or quarterly for suppers, with a speaker from within or without the town. In many small towns there is a lecture-course. In most small towns there are women's clubs. But in all small towns there may be devel- oped one center which shall include not merely one group or one club, but the community itself. This is the social center, that rooting of the idea of community self-consciousness which will grow into a thing of inniunerable branches vari- ously expressing the graying community interests. Such a center, of which more will be said later, must, however, be recognized by a community as a need, and not imposed upon it as a programme. Social centers must be developed, not established; and sometimes, before the knowledge of this need arises, the small organizations may unconsciously work toward it by a wise use of their power as distributive agencies for the civic discussion that must precede intelligent activity. Thus, for example, the various Supper Clubs, Twilight Clubs, Sundown Clubs, may have a speaker from the nearest city to discuss some matter of live local importance, such as: Sewerage: Its possibility in small towns. Its need. Its cost. The small towns in the state that have sewerage; especially those that have put in the system after an epi- demic of typhoid. CIVIC IMPROVEMENT 5 Garbage collection and disposal, as carried on in small towns, with accounts of how small towns secure it. Pure food, discussed by the state inspector or some other expert, and including something of the state laws regarding exposure of food in stores and on sidewalks, conditions of slaughter-houses, etc. If it occurs to anybody that the first two topics are hardly after-dinner topics, one answer is that one of the most efficient clubs in Los Angeles, California, — the City Club — followed one of its luncheons by a lecture on garbage-reduc- tion plants, the lecturer exhibiting glass tubes of the fertilizer extracted, and the members listening about the table after the cloth had been drawn; and the time had a dignity that nobody questioned; for, when this can happen, live interests in live issues are stirring toward results. For such discussions, local officials will contribute. The town engineer and surveyor to point out local conditions and difficulties suggested in possible sewerage; the health officer to tell of local need for garbage-disposal and of methods in operation in the town — burying, dimaping in hollows and streams, exposing in alleys; and also to discuss exposed food and house-ffies. Matters of parks, drives, waterways, good roads — what- ever point of contact may be most easily established between things as they are and things as they might be — should be selected for these meetings. Lecture-courses may have several lecture munbers selected with reference to stimulating civic interest. In New York there is one bureau most of whose speakers give addresses on civic and social subjects. A lecture on "The Redemption of a Typical American City," or "The City, the Hope of Democracy," or "Parks and Playgrounds of the Twentieth Century" will, though these lectures apply to cities, bear almost certain fruit in the small town. For the motif of all strong civic lectures is to quicken humanity to "live its splendid best" in surroundings coordinate to that best; and this can be done as well in the little town as in the city. WOMEN'S CLUBS— THEIR SERVICE At this moment, however, one of the surest means at hand for rousing civic consciousness is the women's clubs. It chances that this phase of the new desire of women for expression is peculiarly fitted to develop from the previous 6 AMERICAN CIVIC ASSOCIATION training of women. Women's business has been the conserv- ing of life, always. Now she sees her business transcending her four walls and waiting for her everywhere. From house- keeping to mimicipal housekeeping is but a step. From the conserving of a few lives to joining hands with others for the conserving of all lives is sequential. One of the natural sources of civic life is a group of women who have tradition- ally and individually always been applying its inmost prin- ciple to the narrower area of the home. Civic work is any citizen's work to develop the world of the home into the home of the world. HOW TO BEGIN TO ORGANIZE Because a thing done, however slight the thing or slightly expressed, has a value distinct from even the most perfect theory, it may be well to tell how first the women, and then the men and women of one town, inaugurated civic work. For the difficult part seems to be the beginning. Without question, the spirit is alive in every town, somewhere. The need is for some point of contact to be estabUshed between that town and that spirit. Thereafter you have a living thing, and it grows, like any living thing. This town is one of six thousand inhabitants, and the initial step was taken by a woman's club, which gave over studying foreign countries and decided to study America. "Are you going to study America next year, instead of a coimtry?" an inquirer put it. At first, one hour of each weekly meeting was given to a paper, and readings, by a club member, on some phase of present-day America; and twenty minutes to a discussion of the present working out of some civic or social problem looking to the future of America. The latter included news about Conservation and Reclamation, the National Fight for Health, Pure Food, Play, Peace, Eugenics, Equal Suffrage, Workmen's Compensation Laws, Children's Gardens, Tuber- culosis Prevention, Modem Prison Methods, a Study of Public Fountains, — the program committee simply reached out blindly into the field and took what first presented it- self. Perhaps this, approximating as it did to a rough sur- vey of the field from very far off, was as good a way as any way. At all events, the result was that the next year the Club's whole time was given to a study of civic and social topics, presented by the members. CIVIC IMPROVEMENT 7 Then something became evident, which was a kind of revelation about civilization. It was found that, as these matters of national importance came up for consideration, most of them had a distinctly local application. "The Playground as a Part of the Graded School Course of Instruction" called for a discussion of the need and expense of a local playground. "Conservation and Reclamation'* brought on questions about curb tree-planting and parking and the local ordinances about cutting down and replacing. "Jails and Lock-ups" resulted in an investigation of the local jail and calaboose bedding, and the local mode of procedure when boy offenders are brought before a justice. "The Drama: Modem Dramatic Aims and Methods" was made to include "The Winter's Offerings in Small Towns and How to Get Better Plays," and "Local Nickel Theaters." To "Women in Industry" was added "Women in Local Industry: Hours, Rules, Wages." "Parks" suggested the possible development of two local vacant triangles, and their appropriation to the common use. Thus two facts became evident: I. Most of the matters of the general national welfare were applicable to matters of the general local welfare. II. These matters of the general local welfare were being investigated by a club whose membership was Hmited to eighteen members. THE CALL FOR TEAM-WORK It was the incongruity of a small club, with a limited membership, considering alone problems which directly interested six thousand folk, which led to the next step. The club called a general meeting of all the women inter- ested in town development. Every woman's club was invited, and a general invitation was extended through the papers. It is interesting to note that the impulse to go about this work came spontaneously from within the town, which knew so little about the great outside wave of civic enthusiasm that it had never before heard of the American Civic Association, and learned of its existence only just in time to telegraph to it for help and material before that first general meeting. The meeting was held at the City Hall, and these were asked to be present and to speak as follows: The city health officer, to explain the vital need of sewerage 8 AMERICAN CIVIC ASSOCIATION and the desirabiKty of a garbage-disposal system, and what practical means could be used to get both. The school superintendent, to tell of the advantages of manual training and domestic science in the local schools. The art teacher in the schools, to tell how the local school grounds could be inexpensively improved and made beautiful. A woman who loves gardens, to tell of the joy in gardens and in planted spaces. A club member, to tell of the work of the American Civic Association and of the work of children's gardens and the penny seed packages. A woman interested in pure milk, to tell of the dangers of tuberculosis existing in iminspected herds, and how a town can go about securing the tuberculin test of its cows, in order to know of the purity of its milk supply. Eighty women were present at this meeting, and the fol- lowing week a meeting was held to effect a permanent organi- zation. The constitution of the Wichita (Kansas) Improve- ment Association was adopted, with modifications suiting it to the smaller society, and the work was mapped out for five standing committees, whose chairmen, with the officers and five appointive members, made up the executive board. The committees were: Sanitary, Educational, Art, Children's Auxiliary, Streets and Alleys. A Membership Committee was also appointed to solicit new members, the society's revenue consisting only of the annual dues of 50 cts. The committees were instructed as follows: The Sanitary Committee, (i) to secure a tuberculin test, and, if possible, an ordinance requiring the testing of all local herds; (2) to investigate systems of garbage disposal in the small towns of the state, and to devise some means of collec- tion in the town. The Educational Committee, to circulate a petition to be presented to the school board, asking it to adopt and in- troduce manual training and domestic science courses in the local high school. The Art Conmiittee, to arrange for special rates on quan- tities of shrubs, roses, etc., and to offer to order for anyone who wished to order. The Children's Auxiliary, to see how many children wished the penny packages of seeds for home-gardens. The Streets and Alleys Committee, to ask the mayor to appoint a clean-up day; and to report unsavory alleys. CIVIC IMPROVEMENT 9 Organization was effected in March, and in three months the following had been accomplished: The Sanitary Conmiittee had interviewed the milkmen at a meeting called by the committee, and had ascertained how to secure the tuberculin test. The milkmen were willing to have the test made and to pay for it themselves, and the matter was precipitated by the owner of a large herd engag- ing a veterinarian to come to make the test, and found in the herd three badly infected cows. All the large local herds were inspected; but the effort to secure an ordinance requir- ing the test semi-annually, as it should be administered, was postponed in the hope that this will soon be required by statute. Also, the chairman of the Sanitary Committee, having previously presented to the club initiating the movement a paper on Garbage Disposal, and having at that time written to twenty towns in the state, asking for their methods, had inaugurated a trial system of garbage collection, whose development makes a story by itself, and will be treated later in the present paper. The Education Conmiittee had circulated its petition, and secured three hundred signers; but before the petition was presented the school board passed the resolution to introduce manual training and domestic science into the school. The Association then voted to equip the school dining-room with tables, chairs and linen. The Art Committee had taken orders for more than sixty dollars worth of shrubs, vines and roses for private grounds. At the invitation of the committee, Mrs. McCrea, a member of the Executive Board of the American Civic Association, visited the town; and later Mr. John Nolen, the first vice-president of the Association, did the same. The Streets and Alleys Conmiittee had secured a clean-up day, named by the mayor, previous to which a sub-committee was named to report the sidewalks not cleaned of snow. The Children's Auxiliary Committee had distributed one thousand and three hundred penny packages of flower and vegetable seeds, and had offered twenty-five dollars* worth of prizes to the children for flowers entered in a flower and vegetable show announced for September. These were mere beginnings, but in them the work was launched and given an impetus that made permanence a certainty. lo AMERICAN CIVIC ASSOCIATION MISTAKES AND HOW CORRECTED In the judgment of the organization itself, and measured by the wider experience of others, two mistakes had thus far been made, which may as well be noted here: The first was in limiting the membership to women. Obviously, the concerns of any town-development organi- zation are the concerns of everybody in that town, and the membership should consist of the members of that com- munity. The second mistake was in having no fixed habitation for the organization. Quarterly meetings were held in the after- noon, in the City Hall. The meetings should be more fre- quent, and they should have a place to come together in regular and special sessions. These should be visited by as many outside speakers as the society can afford; these speak- ers, in these days of university extension, being ready to come whenever the interest is manifest which it is their vocation to stimulate. Both these reasons suggest again the Social Center as the logical basis for conmiunity study and civic activity, because a social center's membership consists of the members of its community. It was two years after the original organization had been formed that the first of these mistakes was repaired. A re-organization was effected on a basis of membership of both men and women, and a new constitution was adopted, which is here given in full: A MODEL CONSTITUTION Article I. Name. Article II. Object. — The object of this Society shall be the improvement of in sanitation, education-, beauty, and other conditions which shall conduce to the health, morality, happiness, and general good citizenship of its people. Article III. Members. — Any person may become a member of this Society by signing the Constitution and paying fifty cents [suggested] annually to the Treasurer. Article IV. Section i. The officers of this Society shall be Presi- dent, Vice-President, Secretary, Treasurer, and an Executive Com- mittee. Section 2. The officers may be named by a nominating committee, and shall be elected by ballot at the annual meeting. Section 3. The Executive Board shall consist of the officers, seven members of the Society elected by ballot, and the Chairmen of the Standing Committees. Article V. Section i. The Society shall meet annually on the first Saturday in March, at , and at such other times as may CIVIC IMPROVEMENT ii be ordered by the Society, or called by the Executive Board. Section 2. One-fourth of the enrollment shall constitute a quorum, provided that at any time fifteen shall constitute a quorum. Article VI. The Standing Committees of the Society shall be as follows: Sanitation, Education, Outdoor Art, Children's Auxili- ary, Streets and Alleys, Public Buildings and Recreation, Rest- Room, Tree Culture, Charity Coordination, Membership, and Press. Article VII. Amendments. Article VII was later used to amend Article V, so that it should provide for three quarterly meetings in addition to the March annual meeting of the Society, these to take place in January, June and September. Meetings of the Executive Board were to be held on the second Tuesday in every month. The keynote of the new society thus became the key- note of all society: "The responsibility of adults for condi- tions which shall conduce to the health, morality, happiness and general good citizenship of the young people." For, if the adult society is working for this, then its own health, morality and happiness are finding promotion. COMMITTEE WORK DEFINED The work of the eleven standing committees of the organi- zation involves all the problems with which it has been con- fronted; and some consideration of what has been attempted or accompUshed by these committees may be of practical use, either as direction or warning. EDUCATION COMMITTEE Following out the work done toward manual training and domestic science in the public schools, and the equip- ment of the school dining-room with linen, tables and chairs, the committee offered prizes to the domestic science classes in various departments of their work. The committee asked the public to report to it any children of school age found at work, or any cases of truancy. A campaign against the house-fly was conducted, material about the fly being printed in the daily papers and posted on the bulletin board in the library, and prizes for essays on the subject were offered to school-children. It was also a part of the committee's work to keep informed regarding the moving pictures presented at the local nickel theaters, and to ascertain and report whether censored films were in use. 12 AMERICAN CIVIC ASSOCIATION It was also the duty of the Education Committee to bring to the town whatever lecturers could be secured to speak on subjects along general civic educational lines. This was also within the province of the other committees, and among the lectures secured by the Educational Committee and others were the following: The secretary of the Charity Organization Society of the nearest city on: "What Shall We Do for Our Children?" An editor from the same town to discuss "Commission Form of Government for Cities," his lecture following a a dinner by a men's organization, at which one himdred were present, the dinner being served by a church society. A member of the extension department of the state imiversity to speak on "The Public School as an Art Center;" and at another time to meet the Executive Board and talk on "The School House as a Social Center." A professor from the state university to talk on "The Moral Instruction in the High Schools," an informal recep- tion for everyone following the address. Another extension lecturer, with an open-air motion- picture health exhibit, who appeared on the Market Square of the town, following an outdoor band concert there. A distinguished sociologist, who spoke at a dinner given by the whole Association, and prepared and served by its members. These lectures were aside from the regular lecture-course, which was in the hands of another committee. OUTDOOR ART COMMITTEE One of the most attractive bits of ground in the town was a little tract, 300 x 100 feet, lying at the end of a bridge at the turn of the river, and looking southwest to water and hills. The place was a sand-bank, however, and had nothing of its own save a huge boulder, and a wooden seat placed there by the one man in the town who, it developed, had for years held an individual membership in the American Civic Association and, an exile in the West for health, used to dream what might be done in the little town. At the request of the committee, Mr. John Nolen, a landscape architect, came to see the little triangle, and he made a plan for it, with a stretch of grass, an irregular, planting of native and other hardy shrubs, and two flights of rough steps leading down to the water. The committee CIVIC IMPROVEMENT 13 kept the plan for a year and more, without the means to develop it. Then, through the generosity of the author of a successfxil play then running in New York, and of its mana- gers, Messrs. Liebler, this play was given one production in the town, by a local caste of amateurs, without royalty. The effect of this gift was immediate. Not only did the actors give their services, but the manager of the theater gave its rental, the coal dealers gave the heating, the electric light company the lighting, the printers gave the tickets, the news- papers the advertising and programs, and the local shops the properties. The play was given absolutely without expense, and netted enough to pay for the park's plant- ing, the town agreeing to do the grading and put on the top-soil. After the first year, the ordering of flowers and shrubs for private gardens was found too burdensome for the local florists and for the chairman of the committee, and this was discontinued. An attempt to give prizes for improvements in door-yards was also abandoned, thoxigh this work was always encouraged, THE CHILDREN'S AUXILIARY COMMITTEE This committee was not an attempt to organize the children on the plan of junior civic leagues, but rather to invite them to the keeping of home-gardens. When the work was first started, the chairman visited the schools each spring and explained the plan to the chil- dren. Now that it is more perfectly systematized, the work is carried on through the teachers. The large envelopes, fur- nished free by the Home Gardening Association of Cleveland, Ohio, are sent in bimdles to each room, with a copy of the rules and a list of prizes. Each child makes out his order for seeds on his envelope, and the teacher returns these^with the money, at the rate of one cent per packet, to the com- mittee, which then sends the entire order to Cleveland, pur- chasing the seeds at nine dollars and twenty-five cents per thousand packets, express free. These packets, when received, are placed by the conmiittee in the large envelope and returned to the schools, where the teachers give them out to the children. It has been found much better, and a little cheaper, how- ever, for the committee to secure the seed of some varieties, particularly asters, from reliable seedsmen, in bulk at pound 14 AMERICAN CIVIC ASSOCIATION rates; a half-pound of aster seed, for example, filling about five hundred packets and costing three or four dollars. The committee then places this in small envelopes, about one hundred seeds to an envelope, first writing the variety of seed on each envelope. This enables the committee to furnish for one cent packets of seed such as are retailed by the best seedsman at ten cents, and of the very best quality on the market; and the added satisfaction of the children, the added beauty of the Flower Show and the saving in money, well repay the extra work involved. The number of packets distributed among the school children is now nearly five thousand, with about one hundred and ninety entries from one hundred and fifty children at the Flower and Vegetable Show, which is held in September. About thirty dollars' worth of prizes are offered, these con- sisting — not of money, save for two or three silver dollars and fifty-cent pieces — ^but of pictures, bird-books, gardeners' tools, baseballs, gloves and bats and masks, silver spoons; and every child who makes an entry and does not receive a prize is given — not a card or a button — ^but a bulb. The prizes are offered to grades instead of to schools, so that children of the same age shall be competing, and a prize of a large, framed picture is given to the room making the most entries in proportion to its enrollment, children of parochial schools being included. The flowers foimd to be most satis- factory are phlox, nasturtiums and asters, and prizes are offered for the best displays, on a basis of both the flowers and their arrangement. There is always a large vegetable table, and prizes are also given for vegetables. The show is held in the City Hall, and there the children come in the afternoon to receive their prizes and to see them given. In the evening the Flower Show is open to the pubHc, and ice- cream and cake and home-made candy are on sale. With the proceeds of this, and of a coffee or musical, the committee pays its own expenses. Every Friday night, throughout the siunmer, after the flowers begin to bloom, members of the committee are at the City Hall to receive flowers which the children bring there from their own and others' gardens, and these are shipped free by the express company — through an arrange- ment with the National Plant, Fruit and Flower Guild of New York City — to a social settlement in the nearest city, there to be distributed to the sick, and others who have no flowers. Following the Flower Show, all the flowers are so CIVIC IMPROVEMENT 15 shipped; and also the week of the County Fair the committee takes charge of and ships all the fair flower entries. Another activity of the committee was the planting of one of the ward-school grounds with shrubs and vines. A strip of grass running across the front of the high lot was given a border at the back, a border of irregularly planted shrub- bery lined the side and back fences, A very satisfying result of this was the action of the School Board the follow- ing year in similarly planting all the school groxmds through- out the city. STREETS AND ALLEYS COMMITTEE The general clean-up day ordered by the Mayor, at the request of this committee, was effective; but not so much so as steady effort to improve the conditions of alleys. Alleys, in any town, it is clear to the committee, are superfluous, and mere collectors of imsightly debris. Its look forward visions the time when all alleys in small towns shall be declared the property of the owners of abutting property, on condition of the removal of broken-down fences, ash-barrels and refuse, and the planting of grass seed. There is no reason, in a small town, why, even if the property owners' gardens demand back fences, the alleys may not be made the smiUng avenues that the name originally connoted, instead of places synonymous with filth. Cleanliness, grass seed and hardy borders would make them beautiful walks, if they were not thrown into the lots adjoining. The chief work of the committee, the inauguration of a system of garbage collection, wiU be considered separately. REST-ROOM COMMITTEE The need for a rest-room in a small town is always evi- dent. Farmers' wives in town find themselves with no place save the back of a store in which to eat their lunches and care for their children, and there are often dreary hours of waiting which, in addition to being dreary, are wasteful, when a means of rest and comfort and education can be sup- plied by the town to these patrons of its shops. A small committee-room in the City Hall was voted by the Council for the use of the Association, and the foUowing is taken from the printed account of the purposes of the room: i6 AMERICAN CIVIC ASSOCIATION "The room will be fitted up with simple furniture, curtains, plants, pictures and rugs, and small lunch-tables. Here sandwiches will be served, and tea and coffee, at five cents. Those wishing to bring their own lunches to the room at any time may do so, and may have the use of the tables and the dishes. In the little adjoining room there will be a refriger- ator and a gas-plate, and children's food may be brought and cooled to 55°, or heated, as desired. "Children, including babies, may be left for an hour or so in the room at any time, "Fresh, home-made bakery goods will be on sale all the time; bread, pies and cakes being always on hand, with special pastry, baked beans, etc., on Saturdays. "An employment bureau will be in connection, where applications for emplo)anent will be received from both men and women, and applications for servants, house-cleaners, and men to work outdoors will be, so far as possible, filled. "A table will be supplied with reading matter and writing material. "Committee meetings, especially of those in any way interested in work for developing the town, may be arranged in the room. "Information on any subject of disease-prevention, or other sanitation, may be obtained by application at the room. Information on any social work will be secured upon request, and material from the American Civic Association will be in the room for distribution, or on the bulletin-board. "The room will be open all day, every day save Simday. Those waiting between trains are invited to wait there. Everyone who comes is asked to register." In the first month in which the room was opened, sixty- two visitors were registered; and in the second month more than one hundred; in both cases exclusive of townsfolk. By one of the curious contretemps, such as are always occurring in these days when these forms of activity are still new and strange, the Town Council came to believe that the home-made bakery goods offered for sale were baked on the one-burner gas-plate, by the city's gas; and permission to use the room was revoked before explanations could be made. No other room was available and the furniture was tempo- rarily stored; but the need for such a place had been abund- antly demonstrated. The demand for its continuance by those who enjoyed its privileges makes sure the development of some plan by which the rest-room will be restored. CIVIC IMPROVEMENT 17 CHARITY CO-ORDINATION COMMITTEE This committee grew out of the condition common to small towns of the overlapping of the random, individual charities. The attempt to make a Charity Co-ordination Committee a part of a civic organization was new to the Association; but it was done, when it had been found that one needy family in the town had received five Christmas chickens, with accompaniments, from five independent sources. The committee organized with the object, first, of con- structive charity work, especially of securing employment for any whom it could aid in this way; second, to work with the Coimty Hospital and the Poor Commissioner in placing any who needed entire custodial care; and, third, the relief of temporary suffering. A committee was appointed from each ward to look after the dependent or partly dependent in that ward. In this town there are no dependents, and less than forty families partially dependent. Christmas and Thanksgiving baskets are distributed every year, with gifts of toys and food, and of mittens and hosiery from a local factory. These are delivered free by the local drayman. Delegates from the committee are sent each year from the committee to the State Conference on Charities and Corrections. PUBLIC BUILDINGS AND RECREATIONS COMMITTEE The town lecture-course was the chief charge of this committee; and it made successful a venture which is not always successful in towns of this size, but which is most important to the town. Three lectures and two concerts were arranged for each winter, engaged from a Chicago bureau; and the hope was to have the lectures so far as possible stimulate the kind of activity for which the Association stood. Judge Lindsay, Maude Ballington Booth, Bishop Willett, and Governor Folk were among those whom the committee brought, tak- ing entire charge of the sale of the tickets, the money for which passed through the Association treasury and any profits from which were returned to it. The committee also devised a system of seating which was designed to give every ticket-holder his turn at the most desirable and the i8 AMERICAN CIVIC ASSOCIATION least desirable seats in the house in the course of the five entertainments. Public bath-houses were another achievement of the committee, erected of pine, with cement foundation, on the banks of a little lake where there is a sandy beach and where bathing goes on all summer. Two houses were constructed, with several partitions; but the inability of the town to give proper police protection to the buildings somewhat nulMed their usefulness, although they filled a distinct need as dressing-rooms. In this connection, a most interesting sentence may be quoted from the minutes of the meeting at which this need of policing the new bath-houses had been brought up: It was moved that the chairman of the Recreation Committee make an effort to discover the ring-leader of the boys who are com- mitting depredations at the bath-houses erected by the Association and interest him in the protection of the building. A petition was prepared by the committee asking the Council to adopt the "Sane Fourth" ordinance presented to it by the state fire-warden (and obtainable from any state fire-warden). The petition was signed by the local merchants who handle fireworks; the Council passed the ordinance, and a sane Fourth followed. It had been the intention of the committee to take charge of a Fourth observance, to take the place of the old celebration; this, it was hoped, would have the form of a pageant, touching back to the early French and Indian history of the town; but this has not yet been brought about. Nor has justification for the "pubUc build- ings" part of the committee's name been yet made. This discussion has been toward a mimicipal auditorium, to be used also as a high-school gymnasium. SANITATION COMMITTEE Following the work of securing the tuberculin test of milk, — a test which, the next year, the herdsmen arranged for themselves, — the committee agitated the matter of indi- vidual drinking-cups, which, however, were about that time taken care of in the state by statute. The sweeping of the streets at night before they were deserted was brought up by the committee, and the Council was asked and agreed to have this sweeping, with its result- ing clouds of street dust, done after the streets were emptied; CIVIC IMPROVEMENT 19 this being sufficiently early in the evening to inconvenience nobody. Ako it was asked that the streets be flushed, and not swept dry. An effort was made to secure the state tuberculosis exhibit, which had already been shown once in the City Hall; but, it not being obtainable, the committee cooperated in bringing the open-air motion-picture health exhibit already mentioned. Then, with the assistance of the com- mittee, a local branch of the State Anti-Tuberculosis Associ- ation was formed, by a field-worker from the Association head- quarters in the nearest city. This Association assisted in the sale of the Red Cross stamps, already inaugurated by a local druggist; and, at the close of the stamp campaign, this branch of the Anti-Tuberculosis Association was absorbed by the Sanitary Committee, which then became the Sanitary and Anti-Tuberculosis Committee. MEDICAL AND DENTAL INSPECTION Medical and dental inspection of the school children was one of the most valuable contributions of the committee. A most notable fact about this work is its absurdly small cost, as may be noted imder 'The Cost of It." The opera- tion of getting the inspection consisted in obtaining the per- mission of the School Board and superintendent and principal to begin the work; and in securing a number of physicians and dentists and ocuKsts who would cooperate in the inspec- tion, and also cooperate in case any child was unable to afford medical attention; and in the purchase of the necessary record cards. As a result, every child in the schools passes before authorities competent to diagnose his physical con- dition. Whether the child gets the necessary attention must of necessity be left largely to the parents; but parental cooperation, after the first strangeness wore off from this new branch of school extension, is now general. The in- spection covers both pubHc and parochial schools. Dealers who exposed food on the sidewalks were visited by the committee, and later the State Inspector was asked to come and inspect all local food-supply places. Glass-cov- ered boxes were purchased for one sidewalk display, and though it is true that the covers are usually left up, a start at least has been made toward the shutting away of exposed food from flies and dust. The other work of the Sanitation Committee was the first steps toward garbage collection. 20 AMERICAN CIVIC ASSOCIATION GARBAGE COLLECTION The trial system of garbage collection already referred to was begun by the committee, with no idea that it would serve any need excepting to get the need of such a collection talked about, in connection with the inadequacy of the present means. The twenty replies sent from the towns in the state which had been questioned about their systems contained absolutely no suggestion, for there was no middle ground between "no system at all" and a municipal system of collection in the towns of twenty and thirty thousand. Here, as everywhere, the task was to get the need recognized; and the campaign had to begin afar down, in hardly more than suggestion. A man and a wagon were found, and the man agreed to go about the town once a week and collect, in his open wooden wagon, the garbage from those householders whose names were furnished to him by the committee. For each collection he received ten cents from the householder, and he would collect oftener if it was desired. In the town of six thousand, thirty were found who wished to be so served. The next year, it was proposed that a proper receptacle for garbage collection be provided, and a team hired to cover one ward — the business and hotel ward — twice a week. This was done, and there was purchased a galvanized iron tank, holding fifteen barrels, and having no bottom opening, but merely one at the end, and two, with covers, in the top. The street commissioner supplied the team and the man, at the town's prices for a day's teaming. It was found that the man could cover more than the one ward, so two wards were covered by him, in two collections each week. This was done for the two months of greatest heat — July and August. The following year, the committee had the service con- tinued in the same way, in the business district, which belonged to everybody, and in as much else as the man had time to cover in the two days weekly. Only, this time an advance was made, and the collection was maintained from June i to October i, doubling the period of service. Meanwhile, the care of the collection had passed from the Sanitary to the Streets and Alleys Committee, which had become responsible for raising the entire amount required. The following year, a special committee was appointed, CIVIC IMPROVEMENT 21 whose sole duty was to be to take charge of the garbage collection. This year, on the initiative of the city health officer, it was proposed that the collection be maintained for four months, with two collections a week, covering the entire town, the Association to bear one-half of the expense and the town the other half. To this the Association and the special committee gladly agreed, and the work went forward on this basis. An ordinance was prepared by the health officer and passed by the commission, the town, in the meantime, having secured commission form of government, requiring every house to be provided with a suitable receptacle, made of metal and having a cover, to be placed at a distance of not more than sixty feet from the street, and to receive the gar- bage collection service, or be fined. All burying and dump- ing of garbage were forbidden. The town then purchased a large number of galvanized iron garbage-cans of var3dng sizes, and these were placed on sale, at cost price, at the Engine House. This is the stage which the system has reached at present. The purchase of another tank, the hiring of another team, and the service for at least five months a year are yet to be attained. Disposal of the garbage is made by carting it to the slaughter-house on the outskirts of the town. There is no reason why a small garbage-reduction plant should not be possible to a small town, save that small towns have not yet dreamed that far. The time will come when the present methods of disposing of garbage will be unthinkable; and the clean, wholesome, economical way will be taken for granted. Meanwhile, it is something that "the little dog can stand on its hind-legs at all." THE COST OF IT And how much does this work of the Standing Committees actually cost, in money? The equipment of the school dining-room with two table- cloths, a dozen napkins, a mission-oak table, and twelve mission-oak chairs cost about seventy dollars, the dealers having let the committee have the articles almost at cost. The other work of the committee — the house-fly cam- paign, the petition for manual training and domestic science 22 AMERICAN CIVIC ASSOCIATION in the public schools, and the censorship of the nickel theaters cost nothing but the effort. The small sums for prizes for essays were voted from the general treasury, and so were the traveling expenses of the lecturers, every one of whom came for his expenses and for love of the cause. These speakers were entertained by mem- bers of the Association in their homes; all of which reminds one of the days of the early Christians. The planting of the little open space by the river done by the Outdoor Art Committee cost $176.20. Of this the most was netted by the play, and some of the rest was raised by coffees given by the committee in the afternoons at the homes of the members. The fact that the town had Mr. John Nolen's plan was due to the fact that, being in the state, he gave the town what it could not otherwise have had — and at the town's nominal acknowledgment; and, incidentally, to his visiting the little park at six o'clock in the morning; because that was the only hour that the Council's streets chairman, a storekeeper, could accompany him. Moreover the committee's ordering of shrubs and vines for private grounds cost nothing but the work itself. Five thousand penny packages of seeds cost fifty dollars, and, at a penny apiece, are paid for by the children; so these cost nothing. Flowers to be sent by the Children's Auxiliary Committee to the city settlements are brought by the children from their gardens, and shipped free by the express company; so this costs nothing. The Flower Show is held in the City Hall; and the rental of that is free, save for a janitor's fee. The planting of school-grounds with shrubs, the offering of prizes for the best entries, and the purchase of bulbs for each little competitor, cost something. Last year the expenses of the committee were these: Receipts Cash left from preceding year $9 90 Net proceeds of cofiFees 18 51 Cash from children's seed orders 53 85 Gross proceeds of Flower Show 16 82 Total $99 08 CIVIC IMPROVEMENT 23 Total receipts $99 08 Expenses Seeds: Home Gardening Association, 4,628 packets @ $9.25 per M $42 80 12 ounces aster seed 6 68 750 small envelopes for same 40 $49 88 Prizes, (46 in all) : 8 Pictures 5 80 S Books 3 07 7 Baseballs, bats, gloves, etc 3 65 2 Spoons, 3 pins 3 75 I Pen, 2 pennants 2 35 Cash prizes 8 75 104 Bulbs I 35 Room prize of picture 3 50 $32 22 Flower Show: Materials for candy i 25 Entry cards 75 Janitor's fee i 25 ce-cream 2 55 $5 80 Grand Total $87 90 Balance remaining for next year's work $11 18 Cost of planting one ward-school ground with shrubs, paid from the Association treasury: 146 shrubs, 19 varieties $17 89 Express 9 30 Labor of planting 5 75 Black dirt and fertilizer 4 50 Total $37 44 Having shrubs sent by freight instead of by express, or from a nearby nursery, and school-grounds containing good soil instead of pure sand, would materially lessen the cost of this work. Clean-up days cost absolutely nothing. The abatement of alleys would cost nothing. Reporting the walks which are covered with snow or ice costs nothing. The Streets and Alleys Committee had no expense save that connected with the garbage collection. 24 AMERICAN CIVIC ASSOCIATION The rest-room was equipped at a total cost of $ioo, plus its gifts, and it was rent free. The services of a matron were engaged at one dollar a day. This work might be done by vohmteers from the committee or from the rest of the Asso- ciation, but volunteer work, where it must be done all day long, every day, is somewhat intense; and the engaging of a matron is regarded as the way of best efficiency. The only other expense was for ice, gas, and stationery. The Rest Room Committee conducted a rummage sale, which netted $123.50, and realized $5 from the sale of bakery articles. The rummage sale, which is not, however, to be recommended unless the garments can be thoroughly disinfected, was to have been followed by coffees and affairs having a community social value, as well as one financial. Bakery goods and magazines were donated. The Charity Co-ordination Committee is of necessity chiefly a distributive agency. Securing employment costs it nothing, and the most of its gifts, which the aim is to mini- mize, simply pass through its hands or are reported to it. Occasionally small bills for the purchases of necessaries are presented to the society, but these are, in the year, very small, and are paid from the general treasury. The Lecture-Course has cost from $600 to $800 — and both years that the committee has handled the course there has been no deficit, and a Uttle money has been made. One or two of the lecturers each year have cost $200, the others approximating $100 and $125; but these and the hall rental and the printing have still left a profit from the sale of seats. The two bath-houses were erected at a cost of $110, with the lumber obtained at cost and the work furnished at the lowest figure that the contractor could make for it. A petition for a sane Fourth can never involve anybody in expense. The tuberculin test costs nothing but the correspondence necessary in getting a veterinary, for the milkmen pay for the test themselves. The flushing of the streets when they are swept, and their sweeping after they are deserted, cost nothing. It costs nothing to have a state inspector come to the town, and order dealers not to expose food on the street or in the shops. CIVIC IMPROVEMENT 25 It costs nothing but the express one way to get a state tuberculosis exhibit. It costs nothing to form a branch of the Anti-Tuberculosis Association, or to conduct a Red Cross stamp campaign. Providing volimteer work will be done by the physicians and dentists, which almost always will be done in a little town, the medical inspection of school children costs just the fifteen dollars for the record cards. The first step in garbage collection costs nothing but the discovery of the man and the team and the wooden wagon, for his patrons paid him themselves. The galvanized-iron garbage-tank, holding fifteen barrels, cost $30, at cost. A city team at $5.50 a day, and making two collections a week, cost $11 a week, for July and August. The next year a contract was made at $5 a day, the man to give his whole time for the two days of his weekly col- lections. This averaged $125 a month and, shared with the city, made the monthly expense $67.50. The Association's share was assumed by the committee, all save $75, which was voted from the general treasury; and it was easily raised by the committee by the circulation of a paper to all those who were interested in seeing a system of garbage collection permanently established in the town. Amounts were received from twenty-five cents to ten dollars. The Tree Culture Committee can do a great part of its work without expense. Taking out, transplanting, and proper trimming may be done just as cheaply as not doing the first two and as doing the trimming badly — ^providing the property owners them- selves can be interested, as they can be. Instructing the town tree-trimmer to trim trees in the middle and not more than can be avoided on the outside, and to cut out dead limbs, and not so often to cut living ones — these cost nothing. Nor does it cost to have consultations with the makers of cement walks; to whom it can be pointed out that walks must turn out for trees, and never, never must trees come down for walks. And the Press Committee need give only time. In fact, its value consists in the amoimt of time that is it willing to give. For in its hands lies the disseminating of that which 26 AMERICAN CIVIC ASSOCIATION is of value chiefly only when it is disseminated. Full accounts of the work of the Association are printed in the local dailies and county weeklies, with its reasons and some discussion of the principles involved. Ordinances, such as those for food- and tree-protection, care of alleys, and garbage collection were repeatedly printed in full. And the address of every speaker whom the association secured was given a resume of a column or two on the following day. In this the news- papers gladly cooperated, usually asking the Association to supply the copy, and sending for it to the chairman of the committee. Thus the material was made to reach several thousand homes in the county; and, on occasions such as that of an interview with Mr. Nolen on the town's possibil- ities and those of some of the addresses, copies were struck off, at a nominal cost, before the type was distributed, and these were specially mailed. The educational value of the Association may be many times multiplied by the Press Committee. THE HEART OF IT The heart of it is the revelation of the real solidarity in any town, and in all the towns. Community consciousness can be developed, just as most other consciousness can be developed, but not without effort. Each community must realize its own essential social fimction as builder of the life of the state and of the race. This can come about only as commimity members recognize themselves as constituting that community — not as merely living in it and on it. The means to this end is service. And the end it seeks — and this is really the beginning — ^is not "town improvement," but fellowship and humanhood. THE SOCIAL CENTER "The Heart of It" is why the Social Center is the logical center of the civic and social movements in a town. When these matters are in the minds of the people, all of whom they affect, the people need a forum. Meetings on stated evenings, or meetings of separate clubs, to discuss the common wel- fare, do not give full expression to the people's impulse to thresh out details and get new information and exchange ideas. The place where this can be best accomplished CIVIC IMPROVEMENT 27 must be a common meeting-place for both education and recreation. The problem of community recreation is closely allied to the need of a community center for discussion of common affairs. The perfectly sane and wholesome instinct for being together is admittedly a source of appalling evil, because that being together is an undirected and undeveloped expres- sion. Already there are little towns which are engaging directors of recreation, who take charge of the community recreation and use it as an end in itself, and as an ejffective means of awakening commimity consciousness. It is the business of this director to awaken and develop this con- sciousness along Unes of civic and social interest such as those worked out by the Association already described; but instead of membership in an Association, more or less artificially nourished, the membership is consciously in the natural unit, the community. The double solu- tion of an educational and recreational center means the development of a splendid machine for social and civic uses. The use of the school-houses as these centers is becoming firmly established, and this will be especially true of the new type of school-house certainly to supersede the old: School- houses with either a gymnasium to be used as an auditorium, with a stage; or an assembly-room with movable seats where there may be dancing, basket-ball, excellent use of the drama, motion-pictures, band-practice, debating, and pub- lic speaking. The school-house is the natural social center, because it belongs to the people, is supported by the people's taxes, and is now in use only about six hours a day — an insufficient use of the investment of any money. In Wisconsin a law has been passed giving the use of| the school-houses of the state to the people, witiout charge for either heat or light, for recreational and educational uses under proper direction. Wisconsin University has a depart- ment of civic and social development in its extension division, employing an expert whose sole duty it is to develop social centers in the state. The National Demo- cratic and both branches of the National Republican parties have made public endorsement of the value of this community development. And it was of this that Justice Hughes said: *'You are buttressing the foundations of democracy." 28 AMERICAN CIVIC ASSOCIATION It is the little towns and the villages that feed the great cities. What kind of citizens go to the cities depends in large measure on the kind of towns and villages that they have left behind. The words "civics" and "politics" come from the same root: One the Latin and one the Greek for the same word: Citizen. 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