The age-herald., 1900-11-02
SKETCHES FROM
 EVERYDAY LIFE

It is a happy augury of better days to come that the Womans Club has become impressed with the fact that Birmingham is dirtier than it ought to be, and that it is devising ways and means to bring the matter before the City Council. That prom inent women of the city have taken this matter up promises success. As street cleaners, men, that is, the class of men who usually have the matter under control, lave been weighed in the balance and found wanting. It is a sad fact that large percentage of humanity male and female, do not object to dirt It is also a sad fact that the dust in Birmingham is running many a throat and inaamng many beau tifuI eye.
 A man hates to be considered kicker. There is something odious about the name to the minds of most Americans Ameri- cans are so long suffering and so good na- tured, that it goes against the grain with them to kick about anything, no matter how fragrant the abuse wrong may be. kicker is usually considered as some irritable dyspeptic, and is looked on kindly but pityingly as some weaker brother who cannot stand the strain
 All this may be true, yet it is equally
 
 true that to the kicker is due all the prog ress in the world, moral and material Free dom of conscience is today largely due to Martin Luther's great kick and the very name of Protestant is a polite synonym of kicker Political freedom in America is due to George Washngton's great kick against England and perhaps in the days to come when the streets of Birmingham are as clean and neat as those of Paris or Chicago or dozen other clean cities, it w... be due to the great kick of the Wo- mans Club.
 A city goes through it's phases of growth like man. Tn it's infant days the popu- lace wade through the muddy streets in the rain, or kick up clouds of dust in a drought. Then the city gets too big to indulge longer in making mud pies, and owing to some kicker the streets are paved. This is such vast and mighty improve ment on the mud, that the generations who recall how they crossed the street on step ping stones are content to be able to cross al any point on paving stones. But by and by a new generation that knew not mud comes on, and they only suffer from the dust, and in course of time the word goes loItu lHdJ tHlS lntOleEdDle HulS0llCe must be stopped Watering carts are a snare and deiusion. As well try to lay the dust of Birmingham with a few watering carts as to calm the raging ocean with q quart of kerosene oil.
 Streets like a small boy, to be kept clean must be washed daily. You cannot keep d boy clean by sprinkling him with a flower
  street clean by sprinkling it with a wat ering cart.
 Suppose hotel man made no greater ef- forts to keep the lobby clean than to sprinkle it now and then, and when the trash got too thick to gather it up with rake. Would any body stay at the hotel who could get away? This process, how ever, is what goes on in the city daily The streets are sprinkled now and then and at night a coarse sweeping machine passes over them, which sweeps up the coarse dirt but leaves a layer of fine dust on the street for the winds to play with the next day.
 It behooves the city. like the innkeeper, not to run off it's guests. and to take care of those of it's citizens who cannot get away.
 Birmingham is on the eve of great de- velopment. The city Is full of life and hope as well as dust. The City Council is not to blame for it's present dusty condi- tion. No one is to blame but the people; if they want a clean city and insist on having it, the City Council will give it to them. A city council Is not an eleemosy nary institution. They are a cold-blooded business affair. They won't lay the dust solely out of charity and a enderhearted- ness toward the citizen, but they will if they perceive the citizen intends to have it laid through one council or another If hen won't lay an egg she is made into broth, and if a city council won't lay the dust they should be put in the soup.
 After all. why should the lungs of the American city man be dirty? Why should he breathe continually an atmosphere laden with dirt and disease germs? Why should a Paris Frenchman who talks with his hands, walks on his toes, rolls his eyes and con- spires against the government have a scrupulously clean pavement to walk on, while an American who does more of these things, craws through. the dust like worm and sees through his eye glasses darkly?
 There is no reason, and the signs of the times are that Birmingham has reached that point in it's development when clean streets will be demanded and obtained. Through its murky, dusty atmosphere the light of improvement is breaking, and it Is the duty as it should be the pride of every citizen to encourage and support this movement of the Woman's Club Chicago's clean streets are due to it's women, who began the movement by tucking up their skirts and arnling themselves with brooms entering The streets and waging war the dirt If it must come to this in Birm- ingham the sooner the better. Away with the watering pot! Turn on the hose and SCOUT the pavements of the streets, the sidewalks and the alleys. r. 1T. NJ.
 CONTRIBUTED ToPRosPERITY