Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1908-09-19

form and tint: brick in all soft and
richest hues; only to see the proudest
splendors of our modern constructive
art disf1gured in a twelve-m month, to
the effacement of all color, the obliter
alton of beauty save only such as may
linger in memory or be prompted by
suggestion as of a ruins more than
| for moment can understand In our
ideal city there will be no smoke
nuisance, to be sure. Nor can l think
this reform remote. When we reflect
that in our present wasteful consump
ton of fuel 80 per cent of it is lost, it
is certainly not too much to hope that
another decade will develop methods
of combustion that will perfectly utilize
the SCOT and forever do away with It's
defilement-when it once pays to get
rid Of SCOT we shall do it beyond
doubt.
People Must be Clean.
But the cleanliness of city reaches
! farther. We may not speak Of moral
cleanliness here this evening for it Is
physical cleanliness only l discuss; but
no city is clean no matter what it's
| streets. if its people or any fraction of
| them live in dirt and squalor. The
| cleanness of our ideal city must in
volve the homes of its people, It's labor
Ing people. its poor people. True In
that which is to be, the number of
the last named class should be small;
but nevertheless we shall have the city
describe, long before men shall have
forever abandoned those habits that
+, lead to poverty, or acquired those ele-
ments Of character that make for uni
| versal competence. Unless we can de-
wise some plan by which the homes of
all our people are clean. the back
yard as clean as the front yard, our
labor in vain, our preaching in van;
our faith also in vain. The trolley wire
| is our great coadjutor here.
The congested district is no longer
an absolute necessity. The factories
and shops more and more betake them
selves to the country and once the
| people realize that life is possible not
to say preferable elsewhere than in
cellar and tenement house, conditions
will change. But in Iowa there are
hundreds Of towns that have no con-
gested district; the ugliness and dis
order that they show results from
mere negligence, from ignorance, from
carelessness, from lack of suitable adj
! ministration. 1t must be admitted, too,
that our climate is somewhat against
the cleanliness we seek. 1t is difficult
to clean streets In winter. Still with
good paving and good control who
doubts that matters may not one day
be vastly better than they are? Spring
cleaning ought to go on all the year
round. The gehenna of the ancient
city, not the metaphor but the furnace,
should be reviewed. as indeed 1t has
been, and the waste Of the city so con-
sumed.
Pleads for Grass and Flowers.
TT requires something more than
| planning to make beautiful city. OF
course badly planned city can never
attain highest beauty. The result must
be picture and the picture must have
all the colors of nature; in other words,
the modern city claims not commercial
supremacy only. but something of the
freedom and glory of the natural world.
| Now the energetic strenuous citizen is
wont to remark, What the town needs
, is more railroads and less blue grass.
This Is not exactly as I should put it.
Even the railroads are not averse to
blue grass. Notice the effort making
along all the railway lines to adorn
their holdings not with grass only but
even with flowers and ornamental
plants of every description True ii
is, that where the drudgery of the COM
mercial world goes on the natural OPP
portunity for blue grass, or any other
plant, is small; but that fact has nc
significance with regard to parts OF
the city where the people live; where
the toilers Of the community gather ir
! humble home about the great
factories; where the clerks and
stenogra pliers in hundreds find refuge
at the close of every weary day. The
true sentiment should be. with apollo
gies to the important Daniel Railroads
and blue grass, one and inseparab BILE
now and forever No. the true spirit
Of decorative art as here applied, the
true spirit Of landscape architecture
is common sense-a rare gift, l admit
and one by no means duly priced No
body wishes to plant a row of trees
down the middle Of fourth street nc
more than rows of telephone poles or
every other street, nor the less, car
common sense see why vegetation ir
all its forms may not be summoned tc
hide the naked deformity of rock an6
field especially when such deformity
is occasioned by the vandalism or the
carelessness of man. There is not 6
town in Iowa where blue grass might
rot to advantage take the place OF
weeds. Nor can there be any reason
why blue grass and flowers may MOI
fill the center Of wide street, unused Of
commerce save when the lonesome
grocer's boy and the snail faced milk
man stop to exchange greetings on
summer morning, or the flitterint
street car passes now and then alonE
it's lonely way. Some city streets like
the PLACE at Versailles or Dresden are
barren section Of Sahara"
Legislation Committee Reports.
i The business session yesterday aft
ernoon was given up almost wholly
to the reports of the various commit
tees appointed at the last annual con
vention. G. F. KIM all of Council
Bluffs, chairman of the committee or
legislation read an excellent paper
While his report dealt with numbe
Of various matters relative to the com
mittee's work it went more into de
tail on two important subJects-a Law
on taxation Of terminal properties o
railways within the cities and Law
relating to the condemnation Of pub
; lie utilities whose franchises have ex
!; pired.
In regard to the taxation of termin
ais Mr. Kimball said in part: "The in
justice of the present law on taxation
Of railroads to the cities and towns
has been felt for long and the ia.
{ payer Of the cities and has been yer,
little understood by the rural resident
1t will probably be conceded by al