Truth. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1901-1908, 1906-01-13
VALUE OF BEAUTY.
Continued from page 81

ening to the fact that art is a stock
asset for business from a CONNER
cial point of view. Walk along the
streets of New York and you will see
building after building, either erected
or in course of erection, a credit to
the life of the city, to the business
which it houses, and to the architect
who conceived it. Some of the most
notable structures of recent years
have been those put up for life in
surance companies, for the theatres,
for the railroads. The improvements
which the Pennsylvania Railroad is
erecting in Washington will not only
be commodious for the patrons of the
road, but will constitute part of the
great civic plan of Burnham, Olmsted
and their confreres.
One of the most important and val
liable lots of ground in Philadelphia,
in the very heart of the city, has been
purchased by the Girard Trust Com
pany, upon which it will erect a beau
tiful building when completed will be
a distinct addition to the architecture
al civic beauty of the city. Do you
imagine for a minute that the bust
ness men of a company acting as trus-
ISCS III ldl &c WOuiu ihohO
so great an investment il it were not
expected to be paying one? Bust
ness concerns in these days of keen
competition could not afford to make
investments so great and expensive If
they did not yield important results
and benefits. The Girard Trust Com
pany in Philadelphia, the Prudential
Life Insurance Company, and the Met
ropoltan Life Insurance Company in
New York, and other great trust and
insurance companies, the Pennsylva-
mia Railroad in Washington, the cor
porations all over that have been put
ting UP new structures within the past
five or ten years have borne tribute
to the fact, to quote Mr. Bowles again,
that art is making its way in this
country of ours, and the best of it is
that it is coming naturally, unobtru-
sively, as an expression Of a new spirit
in modern business"
pray. Sir Mercury, why ridest thou
in so fine a chariot when thy winged
sandals will save both thy time and
birds too?" ut is to show" quoth
the god, IAN example to mortals, who
in their daily affairs ought not to
forget that their business may some
times best be served by beauty" This
is a very old, indeed it is almost clas-
sic illustration, but one the
truth of which we ought to
bear constantly in mind, and
it is a cause for congratulation that
the business men of the present era
are approaching it to an extent little
dreamed of few years ago.
The average man will concede that
a beautiful city is an attractive one
and brings people to it with their con-
tribution of labor and money and help,
but to have a beautiful city we must
have beautiful units. You cannot put
together a few eyesores and get a
beauty spot. What is it that attracts
the people in the business part OF San
Francisco? 1t is the harmony and
beauty of it's business streets so that
the sum total of the impression made
upon strangers passing through them
for the first time is altogether
pleasant and satisfac-
tory one. 1t is due to the fact that
the component buildings are carefully
designed and well constructed, and
it lies within the power of organiza-
tions like builders exchanges, to add
nightly to the substantial assets OF a
community by constantly impressing
Ill with WI thew