The morning journal-courier., 1908-01-22

American cities, large and small, share alike. It is not only Chicago and San Francisco and Boston an1 New York which are trying to regulate and ar range beforehand progress, the real ity of which it has become almost and Croton. N T., are following in their footsteps with the same confident assurance We have all taken Elmer sons advice, and in this matter of Municipal Improvement have hitched our wagon to a star. It is only with difficulty that we refrain from burst ing into verse on the subject; and it is quite in order to speak habitually of the City Beautiful with a vague idea that we are quoting from the Pill grim's Progress or the Apocalypse.
 It Is not my purpose to-day to ex- patiate at any great length on the ad- mirable side of this genuine enthusi- asm or to enlarge on the en- Tightening and ennobling influences of beautiful surround ngs on those that dwell among them; for assume that you are all convinced on these points. l shall rather ask you to consider certain par ticuiar features of the problems which confront us, and to see how they may pehaps be made more attractive, more practicable and less cut and dried.
 It is evident that all plans for the betterment of a city may be in gen eral divided into two categories.
 In the first place we much attempt to decide how that part of the city which is as yet undeveloped-which in many cases hardly exists-shall be laid out to the best advantage, shall be as convenient and as beautiful as we can ccntrive
 And secondly we have to consider what can be done-and I mean really done. and not only shown in drawings, towards so modifying the actual city as 1t has already been laid out and built, as to redeem 1t In some meas ure from what Is too often an almost unmitigated ugliness.
 These two problems, although they overlap each other to some extent, and are always very closely connected, are nevertheless quite distinct They have this however in common. that they de- pend for their fulfillment either now CT in the future on the activities of the most enlightened class of the commun- ity. Our people at large are not yet very susceptible to aesthetic influences, and must be educated and led towards the light. They are capable of gen uine enthusiasm for the big and the vast, but hardly for the beautiful; and vastness is a quite different thing from beauty
 When we are deciding about our new extended city of the future, in al- most all the plans that have been made in this country, we find the great feature to be the park system. A cer-. tain number of parks are laid out ac- cording to the natural conditions which exist, and these are connected by what it is agreed to call parkways very wide streets with several rows of trees, and often the inevitable troll ley line which has done and still is do- ing so much to ruin our most beautiful country roads. and which in any plan should be kept away and relegated to Its own streets wherever it is at all possible to do so Evidently when ever such system of parks and park ways Is contemplated, we must form some conception of what our future city Is to be--what are to be the build ings which will probably border these great avenues
 If they are to be monumental build ings or marble palaces we shall con slider this in our scheme, as was done when the Mall was laid out in Wash ington. If we are to have great com mercial structures. we shall go to work differently, and if the dwellings of the citizens, still another way of proceed ing will be best
 Now except in the case of the great est cities of the land, or of those where natural conditions limit the available space. what the American city of the future will be, seems pret- ty we'll established. It is to be really two cities. the one compact business quarter where all the shops and of- Aces are situated; and outside of this a great suburban settlement or settle-l ments, composed almost entirely of dwelling houses, with these houses for the most part built independently one of the other, each with Its spot of green about It.
 This has been the development in nearly all of our western cities, and in many of those in the east. It gives to them distinctive national aspect, quite different from the European towns; and we must think conceive of our parkways as bordered in the main by such houses Of course in different localities there will be diff ferences in size and importance and costo: but In spite of these differences the general aspect will be very simi- la.
 If this be correct supposition, 1t seems to me that we should take great care that the so-called parkways are either genuinely parks-long and mar row, but yet parks; or else that they be simply broad shady streets.
 When I was in Boston recently I drove through that newer part of