The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1903-02-06
FOR A CITYS GOOD
Civic League Is To Be Organic
ed in Mankat0.
committee Appointed BY Social
Science Club After Listening to
Paper by DR.. ]. W. Andrews,
From Wednesdays Daily.


j. W. Andrews last night read the fol
lowing excellent paper before the Socia
Science club. This paper should be reac
with interest and people should profit
by it:
Mr.. President, Ladies and Gentlemen:
My subject is generic one, but wish te
make it specific by combining my remarks
to civic Improvement, or in other words
to that which pertains to making our
American cities more beautiful.
Possibly all of you do not know that
there exists at present national league,
known as the American League for Civic
improvement. l think the earliest re-
cord of organized effort of which we
know is that of Stockbridge, Mass.
Stockgridge is an old village and while I
have never seen it l have been told by
those who have that it is a little gem of
beauty. When the society was first or
gained (lS53) it had all the evils COM
mon to villages to combat viz: muddy
streets, uneven sidewalks, torn down
fences, weeds, etc.
Later followed the organization of
similar societies at Lennox, Mass, Tux
edo Park, Long Island, and Berkeley
neighborhood California 1t is beyond
the limit of this paper to follow up the
history and results accomplished by
these organizations. Their splendid work
however led up to the formation of the
American League for Civic Improvement.
Since the organizat ton of the national So
ciety many other auxiliary societies have
been formed so that almost every state
in the Union has one or more
[ am pleased to know that our neigh
boring town, Worthington, has an active
and efficient leagne. In Massachusetts,
and New Hampshire, state laws have
been passed for the election of tree war
dens. The duties of these tree wardens
compass thesplanting and care of all pub
lie trees, and their advice is practically
law. l wish every state in the Union
had such a law. The national movement
for civic beauty is a child of the close
of the nineteenth century Yssitors 70
the towns where these societies existed,
and where their work spoke volumes
carried the good news back to their own
home towns; and in this way the gospel
of beauty and cult of the God of Santa
ton spread.
The Worlds Fair at Chicago did much
to create in the minds of the American
people taste for the beautiful. Foreign
visitors to Chicago in 1898 ceased not to
speak and write of their amazement
that people capable of conceiving such
scenes of dreamlike splendor should be
content with dirty cities, with absence of
architectural fitness, their few parks and
public recreation grounds, and worse still
the almost impossible, public country
roads.
Every great undertaking, however, re-
quires time for development. There must
be a period of incubation, and so it was
with this magnificent conception and I'M
dertaking 1t was not until 1898 that
the desire for national movement for
the formation of civic beauty societies
began to find public expression.
From 1898 to 1900, newspapers, jour
mails, floral magazines and especially
''Home and Flowers" published at
Springfield, Ohio, by their numerous
published articles on village improvement
associations created a widespread. de-
sire, and indeed a feeling of necessity,
for a parent society, and requests for
this were so numerous from leading men
and women, especially leading women,
of the nation for a national organization
that call was issued to all the then
existing local organizations throughout
the country to meet in national conven-
ton in Springfield, Ohio, Oct. 10, 1900.
The result in the number of delegates
was surprising, and their enthusiasm was
equally gratifying; therefore, on Oct.
10th, 1900, was born in the city of
Springfield, and the state of Ohio, a So
ciety which was then named the Nation
al League of Improvement association,
and constitution and bylaws adopted.
In October, 1901, the national society
held its next meeting in Buffalo, New
York, at which time and place the name
was changed to the American League for
Civic Improvement. The constitution
was amended to read as follows: Its
object shall be to bring into communica-
ton for organization and mutual help
fullness all organizations, firms and indi-
viduals interested in the promotion of
outdoor art, and public beauty OF town.
village, and neighborhood improvement.
Amongst other resolutions adopted at the
Buffalo convention was one introduced by
Mrs. Condo Hamlin of st. Paul, and read
as follows:
Resolved, That the American League
for Civic Improvement cooperate with
state forestry associations, and other or
CARNATIONS in their efforts to establich
and maintain forest reservations. This
resolution was unanimously adopted.
The work of the American League for
Civic Improvement, and its associated
town and village leagues, is to make