Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1903-09-05
A DIFFICULT TASK.
What to Do With Mr.. Car
negie's Weekly Gift.
Scottish City Given Opportunity tf
Become Model Municipality.
EngiIshmen and Scotsmen Fully Alive
to Need of Civil Betterment.

when some little time ago j. Pielponl
Morgan made it the fashion to talk III
lhililons many new roles were sug-
gested for the millionaire, One prom
1sllg idea was that a little group OF
Allgio-Americans of the Carnegie type
Shouid form a fleet of WarshipS to Dc
USED TO coerce any and every Power
INTO the acceptance of the services OF
the Hague Arbitration Tribunal, and
so abolish international warfare. The
difficulties of carrying out this idea are
not greater than those which Mr..
Carnegie has himself set his native
city of Dunfermline to solve.
"A friend, who is spending his holiday
in Scotland, tells me, writes a cor
respondent of the New York Post, that
there is something almost laughable in
the perplexity of the good people of
Dunfermline. They have $500 a week
suddenly thrown into their laps; they
| must not pauperiZe the citizens by
doles to the poor or grants in aid of
local rates: they must give Dunferm-
line something it does not now pos
sess-sOme ennoblng influence which
| Will mark it out as a pattern city for
| all Scotland and the world to copy. 1t
is Il unique test of local initiative, for
within broad limits Mr.. Carnegie has
left the local trustees with an ab3o-
| lutely free hand. Gentlemen" he
| said. when explaining his plan to them
at Skibo Castle, ''it is a great expert
ment L want you to try. l know your
| difficulties. You will need suggestions,
but when your own ideas fail, just adj
vertise for more. Offer big prizes for
| workable schemes, and you'll get
them" Thus the brain power of the
| world is to be fixed upon Dunfermline,
and if this little Scottish city of mar
row, crooked streets, ungainIy houses,
and general unloveliness, is not trans
formed into heaven on earth-a model
for all reformers-it will not be for
want of money and a chance.
AS yet the local Wiseacres have not
got beyond suggestions in the way of
amusement and recreation. OF course,
the trustees have nothing to say to the
man on the street who proposed to
them that, While they We're thinking
out some better plan, 900 poor people
like ME be given pound a week and
the whole things settled" They turn
from him to Mr.. Carnagie's own hint
that Pittencrieff Glen, which the Pitts
burgh millionaire gave to the town, be
laid out and maintained as an ideal
public park and recreation ground.
But even then many of the $4,000 a
week will remain unspent.
There will soon be a naval base near
to Dunfermline, the new naval base on
the Forth, and a garden city for the
VIZ &c. 3,1rt If hot Sch
not" says one leading citizen of Dun
feminine, ''put"pick and spade and
dynamite to work, in Dunferrhline,
widen and straghten out our streets,
raZe our mean houses to the ground,
give our workingme each his garden,
and, in fact, make Dunfermline fit
ting neXt-dOOr neighbOr for the new
garden city by the Forth? Better this
than spend Mr.. Carnegie's money in
concerts and lectures and amuse-
ments." OF course, it is the business of
the Town Council to improve the
streets, but without encouragement in
| the way of Il gift or a loan at low in
terest the Town Council, with its eye
on the rates, dare not undertake whole
| sale reformation. "The influence of
| beautiful and orderly home surround
| ings will do more to bring sweetness
and light into the lives of the masses
than concerts and plays and even orna-
| mental parks"
OF course, proposals for encouraging
education and culture of various kinds
are also made, and scientific and in
dustria museums and art galleries
have their advocates; but these sound
| ,;c,ar 1,,,p 70 n "a
will disappoint it's generous patron
and the public if it does not evoke
| something less hackneyed and more
productive of civic betterment. Hap
PLY, the trustees are plain, clear
| headed Scotsmen: they are not afraid
of failure; they mean to test and prove,
though it cost money to do SO, and they
are in no hurry Only for the moment
are they in a haze. and illustrate afresh
how difficult it is to spend money wise
ly.
Happily Mr.. Carnegie's Gift to Dunferm-
line finds Englishmen and Scotsmen fully
alive to the need for civic betterment. A
large share of the crime and pauperism of
British cities is traced to the miserable
conditions in which the poorer classes
have been forced to live. The London
County Council is carrying out housing
expriments on the south side of the
Thames, which promise in time to remove
1.-THE greatest of Londons plague spots.
Liverpool, Birmingham and Glasgow
lare also graphing with the problem. Al
Liverpool certain Industrial districts had
in the course of years been covered with
badly built hoveis hudded one upon an
Iother i'm narrow closes, with little means
of ventilation or cleanliness. and Will;
every encoura cement to the dirty habits
Into which the Irish working popula ton
of the city were in any case prone enough
Ito fall. OF cellar dwellings, there Were
over 5000. inhabited by nearly 90 900 poo
lple Overcrowding brought crime ana
disease. Many of these sites are now
cleared, and upon them have been built
large tenements of a good modren type
| Three-roomed houses of the new class
lare rented at from rs. 3D. to IS, Cd. per
week, and two rooms from IS. Cd. tc
As Cd One-roomed houses Very from
Is Cd. to IS per week. and all these rents
include taxes and water rates.
| The Liverpool Corporation reports that
the moral effect of these better dwellings
is already marked. After leaving thciI
told rookeries the people have abandoned
many of their pernicious habits and be-
come morally and socially better Z
lclean healthy house has Salutary' effect
leven upon the vicious and depraved anC
| forms a powerful inceNive towards high
Ter modes of living" Mr.. Chamberlain be.