Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-12-02
FOR PITTsBURG's FUTURE.

OI une 1all ana Cne pOllUlcal DOOmS Ol HeA'
year by discussing measures to create the
New Philadelphia. This is laudable ef.
fort for the press of any city, and ouI
Philadelphia cotemporarieS belle the pro-
verbal character of their city for somno.
lence by their energy in pointing out meas
ures for its improvement. The example
is good one and it has especial force fol
Pittsburg. For while much can be done
in improving the Eastern city, the value OF
growth and improvement that can be Sc
cured by intelligent and united effort to
| build up the Greater Pittsburg is so far
superior as to hold out by many times a
larger inducement to such work.
The Greater Pittsburg can be defined as
the entire community engaged in the in
dustries of which this city is the center,
developed to its utmost capacity for in
dustrial production and carried to the
highest degree of Improvement and orna-
mentation. The geographical limits of
this industrial and commercial entity
are i'll defined; but man which
located its lines to include the WASH
ington oil and gas fields, the
Beaver Valley manufacturing district, the
towns of Tarentum, Ford City, Wilmer
ding and Charleroi, would not take in any
interests but what are fully identified with
Pittsburg capital and enterprise. The
possibilities of this section are already
shown by vast scope of industrial enter
priSes. When we reflect what progress
has been made during the past decade by
the casual and transient realization of i'm
provements in transportation and fuel, we
can gain a conception of what might be
secured by constant and organized public
effort to utilize everything that can en-
hance the industrial growth or contribute
to the municipal improvement of the com
munity.
In this work there is room for the ex-
ertion of private invention and enterprise,
of municipal action and of governmental
work. Some of the most important OBJ
jects to be secured for the advancement Of
the community lie in the field of private
effort. The freedom of the city from
smoke during the six years from 1884 to
1890 was revelation to its citizens of what
a smokeless city might become Private
effort should secure the universal use of
appliances to use coal without wasting 40
per cent of it in disfguring and
defiling smoke. 1t should develop
the production of artificial fuels from
coal or oil to rival the purity and
convenience of natural gas. 1t should
also turn its utmost efforts to preserve and
maintain the advantage of natural gas for
the whole section as long and as economi-
lr-o ha of will
nit. Beyond that the example of Mr..
Carnegie, Mr.. Phipps and Mrs. Schenley,
together with the suggestions in the
Mayors message Of Monday, all show
how effectively private wealth can contrib
ute to the adornment and improvement
of the city.
Another important domain of work lies
in the line of municipal action. As the
community we are considering includes
three cities, about dozen boroughs and
more villages than need be numbered, it
is manifest that the objects requiring
municipal action, in order to extend their
benefits to the entire community, require
also some means of united action. For
example, when the time comes to draw
our water supply from the Loyalhanna,
Conemaugh or Mahoning creek, it will be
far more economical to supply the entire
section from Jeanette to Bellevue than
TO leave in existence half dozen sepa-
rate water systems all incomplete and in
sufficient The dream of single city need
not be urged as imperative; but some form
of union which will permit united action
for improved water supply, complete fire
protection and thorough police guardian
ship over the whole district, will accom-
plish the imperative needs, leaving each
so long as it insists on its
segregation, to raise its standing by the
creation of parks, boulevards and first
class pavements, or to injure it by their
absence. THE DISPATCH prefers to look
to the eventual consolidation into single
great city, which, besides the purpose al
ready named, will fulfill the standard of
scientific civilization by making the sewer
age of the whole community enrich the sur
rounding country instead of letting it de-
file our rivers.
Beyond all this is the question of trans
portation. In the past decade, improve
ments in transportation and fuel furnished |
the utmost stimulus to Pittsburg. In this
decade Pittsburg must stimulate the i'm
provements that are to exercise that bene- |
fetal reaction. The line in which our |
greatest gain in transportation is to be |
secured, that of internal water navigation, |
has been assumed by the Government; but !
should take the lead in the work |
Of directing the Government expenditure
on the broadest national lines. 1t is not |
merely that the improvement of the rivers
and their ship canal connection with
-he lakes would make Pittsburg the
great city of the Ohio Valley; but
t is that these enterprises, properly
unified and separated from the log-rollinc
features that have heretofore given river
ind harbor legislation its unsavory flavor,
will be for the highest interests of the ma
ion at large. On this project Pittsburg
,annot only join hands with the West and
south, but it can lead these sections in the
,ffort to create system of waterways
whose cheap transportation shall enhance
he wealth of all from the foot of the en-
ire Mississippi basin. The governmental
work of creating adequate and connected
Internal waterways offers to Pittsburg the
opportunity of assuming political leader
hip outside the lines of partisanship not
ess important than the industrial and