CIVIC PROBLEMS IN THE SMALL CITY AND VILLAGE
Gale, Zona
CIVIC PROBLEMS IN THE SMALL CITY AND VILLAGE How Women are Getting Together to Work out a Solution for Some of Them By ZONA GALE Author of "Friendship Village," etc. THE following article was...
...Others have co-operated: The late Fred P. Schuman who, for years before the association was started, had been placing benches here and there overlooking the river, planting flower beds in little open triangles and taking photographs of ugly spots in the town, set long decorative window boxes before his factory office...
...The Children's Auxiliary to see how many children wished the penny packages of seeds for home-gardens...
...Working Out Local Problems BUT out of the search for material for this program grew the wish to get down to local civic problems...
...To be a good citizen," John Spargo says," without seek- ing to remove bad social conditions, is impossible...
...This program, as followed out by the Club last year, will shortly be in the hands of Professor Lighty of the University Extension Department of the University of Wisconsin for distribution on application...
...Meanwhile, on Friday evenings through the summer, a sub-committee is at the City Hall to receive flowers brought by the children and others and to send these flowers to the sick in Milwaukee...
...It augurs an increase of interest in civic improvement all over the country.—Editor's Note...
...The Educational Committee circulated its petition, secured three hundred signers, and the school board passed the resolution to introduce manual training and domestic science just before the petition was presented...
...A woman interested in pure milk, to tell of the dangers of tuberculosis from uninspected herds and how a town can go about securing the tuberculin test of its cows...
...Now there is almost no part of the social life in which women may not help and, save in the single exception of training her son, at no point in the social life more than in her power over civic conditions does the woman so nearly approach the franchise...
...We knew so little about the great outside wave of interest in this work that we had never heard of the American Civic Association and learned of it only just in time to telegraph to them for help and material before the first general meeting...
...No town in the state, no club, no single individual need be held back by lack of information...
...Charles A. Goodyear of Chicago for a fountain memorial to his father, the late D. A. Goodyear of Portage...
...More than 300 children competed for these prizes, which were bird books, silver spoons and small sums of money...
...One hour at each meeting was given to a paper on present day America— on irrigation, light houses, on the civil and consular services, the post office system and so on...
...Louis, Indianapolis, and Cleveland did it, is like giving a Paris fashion sheet to a plain sewing woman and telling her blithely to go ahead...
...The cloistral citizen like the cloistral Christian is out of date...
...The committees were: Sanitary, Educational, Art, The Children's Auxiliary, and 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 cents...
...The Sanitary Committee had interviewed the milkmen at a meeting called by the Committee, and had ascertained how to secure the tuberculin test...
...We say, "No town can be at its best which is not having something done to better its conditions...
...and the following were asked to be present to speak: The city health officer, to explain the vital need of sewerage and the desirability of a garbage disposal system, and what practical means could be used to get both...
...and to report unsavcry alleys...
...THE following article was recently given by Miss Gale as an address before a District Convention of the Wisconsin Woman's Club in Madison...
...And John Spargo adds: "To be a good Christian and a bad citizen at the same time is impossible...
...Towns, clubs, or individuals wishing information on any of the subjects pertaining to better living conditions may apply to this bureau and will receive replies drawn from the most recent sources, whether in pamphlet or magazine or newspaper presentation, or material too new even to have been printed...
...A trial system has now been inaugurated by the committee, of private collection for those who wish the service, made weekly, at ten cents a week, or oftener for those who wish it...
...The Streets and Alleys Committee, after the clean-up day appointed by the mayor, is considering adopting a plan of block work, in which each block is organized to care for its own alleys and the appearance of its streets...
...First, women kept,—or did not keep—the cave tidy...
...At the invitation of the committee, Mrs...
...E. A. Gowran has encouraged the association...
...But the satisfactory working out of the problem can probably not come save by a municipal system of collection and disposal...
...Eighty women were present at this meeting and the following week a meeting was held to effect a permanent organization...
...An outside help to societies and individuals wishing to study civic conditions and problems and general ways of social service is to be given this autumn by the University Extension department...
...If one does learn it, the moment amounts to a revelation, and a revelation that does not become an action is nothing but a dead dream...
...We know better...
...To kindle to life every situation...
...In the town in point, one of the local clubs gave over studying foreign countries and decided to study America...
...It has been felt in little ways outside the Association—a church society of children planting vines over its church building, a prominent druggist helping on by advertising ice-cream made from tuberculin tested milk, a cement manufacturer advertising his walks for a beautiful town, the hardware dealers and a grocer ordering closed garbage cans...
...Everything has proved how much more willing people are to stand for these progressive movements than it is sometimes supposed...
...In nothing, save the family alone, are there greater potentialities for a woman to cast a good spell over life than that she help to keep the house of her town, to bring down the ideal village hanging above her own village, and make her own village fit that sweet ideal...
...The Art Committee has taken orders for more than $60 worth of shrubs, vines and roses, for private grounds...
...And the second hour was devoted to civic and social problems—child labor in America, labor legislation in America, employer's liability, women in industry, modern prison and reformatory methods, children's gardens, a study of public fountains, social settlements, tuberculosis, playgrounds,—in a word, living, breathing, human America...
...To take what seems merely the accidental opportunity for casual good, for the sake of the absolute magic of far reaching possibilities...
...The American Civic Association in Philadelphia, and the Civics Committee of the State Federation are ready, too, with information and suggestion...
...These are sent to the University Settlement for distribution, the Wells, Fargo Company carrying them free, by arrangement of the Flower and Fruit Guild...
...The art teacher in the schools, to tell how the local school grounds could be inexpensively improved and made beautiful...
...Usually we approach the matter from the other side...
...An effort is to be made to plant with shrubbery a bridge approach, when a proper plan for planting can be afforded, the committee realizing that wise advice in such public planting can alone bring about satisfactory results...
...The streets and alleys committee to ask the mayor to appoint a clean-up day...
...This department has just established a Bureau of Municipalities, which will do for the towns in the state what the Legislative Commission does for the legislature...
...The town is to be congratulated on having under way a sewerage system, but in this the Association has had no hand, the movement coming by municipal initiative...
...Inquiries are coming to the Federation of Women's Clubs, to the University Extension Department, and to individual clubs asking for definite detailed information about just how to organize a town improvement association and just what to do when it is organized...
...A woman who loves gardens, to tell of the joy in gardens and in planted spaces...
...Then they kept—and still keep—the house ordered and legislated with scrupulous nicety...
...No- body could be born knowing this...
...But it seems dangerously easy to die without ever finding it out...
...The school superintendent, to tell of the advantages of manual training and domestic science in the local schools...
...All the large local herds were inspected but the effort to secure an ordinance requiring the test semi-annually, as it should be administered, was postponed in the hope that this will soon be required by statute...
...Civic Problems Part of Woman's Work IT is because this precious revelation of common responsibility for a common good is beginning to be shared as it never was shared before, because we women, here present, understand this that John Spargo says and because we want to act upon it that civic problems have become a part of our day's work...
...But this other statement—"To be a good citizen without seeking to remove bad social conditions is impossible"—puts the responsibility where it belongs: On you and me...
...The Educational Committee to circulate a petition to be presented to the school board asking it to adopt manual training and domestic science in the local high school...
...Paul road, visited the town, and later, partly through the generosity of a private citizen, Mr...
...The Sanitary Committee had written to twenty Wisconsin towns, asking about their garbage collection systems, if they had any...
...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...
...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 engaging to come to make the test a veterinarian who found in the herd three badly infected cows...
...The committees were instructed as follows: The Sanitary committee (1) to secure a tuberculin test, and if possible, an ordinance requiring the testing of all local herds...
...Because a thing done, however slight the thing or slightly expressed, has a value distinct from even the most perfect theory, I have thought simply to tell briefly something of how the women of one town organized to try to do a little toward bettering certain town conditions, and to tell a few sources of much wider information open to those who wish to do the same thing...
...When she helps to get paving or manual training in her town, she almost votes...
...and the street committee offers to grade and do the planting work wherever the art committee wishes to plant...
...The passive voice always shifts the responsibility...
...To kindle to life every situation in which one finds oneself— this is a practical generalization for active living...
...Hearing how St...
...Few were found that had satisfactory systems, but many of the replies asked for information if any were gained...
...Then they made —or did not make—the tent neat...
...What Was Accomplished ORGANIZATION' was effected in March and in three months the following had been accomplished...
...The constitution of the Wichita (Kansas) Improvement 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...
...This year more than 3,000 packages have been distributed, and in September another flower show will be held...
...For it will be found that most of the printed material tells how cities work...
...The Children's Auxiliary had distributed 1,300 penny packages of seeds to the chiildren and had offered $25 worth of prizes to the children for flowers entered at a September flower show...
...In the autumn, jelly and preserves are to be'sent for distribution in the same way...
...McCrea, chairman of the Outdoor Art Committee of the American Civic Association and landscape architect for the St...
...Never, up to the present time, has everything been so opportune for the man or woman who sees the need for helping to win better living conditions, higher standards, for health and comfort and beauty and growth—in a word, finer possibilities for citizenship...
...The Association then voted to equip the school dining room with tables, chairs and linen, and to give entertainments to raise the necessary money...
...The chief of police has issued orders protecting the birds by the enforcing of the ordinances concerning both birds and air guns...
...It is hoped to take advantage of a standing offer of $1,000 made by Mr...
...The council has offered every encouragement...
...The Art Committee to arrange for special rates on quantities of shrubs, roses, etc., and to offer to order for anyone who wished to order...
...A vacant lot beautifully planted by Mr...
...The street committee has offered to enforce the ordinance protecting trees on the parking, and telling how to cut out the new sidewalks to save the trees that grow within the sidewalk line...
...To investigate systems of garbage disposal in the small towns of the state and to devise some means of collection in the town...
...Leavening the Whole Lump It is true that interest in the Association has been more or less artificially nourished, but the amount accomplished has been satisfactory and encouraging...
...In the winter, a sub-committee was appointed to report walks not cleaned of snow...
...John Nolen, landscape architect of Boston, did the same...
...Garbage and sewage reduction plants, playground equipment running into the thousands of dollars, expensive and cumbersome apparatus of various sorts, fall lightly from the pens of the big municipal housekeepers, and the little town keepers are left wondering and wishing and asking...
...The significance of the fact that Miss Gale, a writer of wide reputation, is giving of her time for the improvement of conditions in her home town cannot be over-estimated...
...At once the common council, the advancement association, the business men become in our minds the ones who should be bettering conditions and we say "What a pity that the town is kept back...
...This general meeting of women interested in better conditions for the town was called at the City Hall...
...A small amount was laid out in putting two flower beds in public places, but shrubbery and vines were found the most satisfactory for such planting...
Vol. 1 • August 1909 • No. 31
