The Western news., 1910-02-16
WAR ON B|LLBOARDS
Many Sections Waging Crusade
Against Obnoxious Posters.
TOWN ADOPTS THE TAX PLAN
Lynchburg, Va, Finds That a Good
Means of Meeting Question of Dis
fieurement by Advertisements-Fu
ture of the Billboard.

feurement by Advertisements-Fu
ture of the Billboard.
The billboard as a means of adver-
Using will soon be but a memory-a
nightmare-if public sentiment against
1t continues to increase in volume and
effectiveness as it has during the past
few months. Never since the Ameri-
can Civic association opened its CAM
paign for the abatement of the bill
board nuisance has there been such an
awakening to the fact that the bill
board is an eyesore, nuisance and a
disgrace and should be abolished alto
gether," as the Washington Herald
aptly puts 1t.
From the east to the west organized
effort to eliminate or regulate the bill
board has been taking definite and ef-
fective form. Carefully prepared ordi-
nances have been passed, and others
are being dra avn for passage. Cincin-
natl recently scored against the bill
board by the adoption of a building
code containing elaborate provisions
regulating outdoor advertising. Under
that code large number of sign
spreads have been ordered down.
Moreover, many advertising mer-
chants are voluntarily abandoning the
billboards In the far west Portland.
Ore, and Seattle, Wash, are graphing
with the problem in an intelligent
manner. In Cambridge. Mass. wo-
mans club secured the removal of
many stands by appealing to the ad-
verti1ers direct. Lynchburg. Va, has
placed a most effective ban on the bill
board by means of taxation.
This is an ingenious way of meeting
the difficult question of the distgure-
ment of towns and cities by advertise
ments So long as public opinion is
dormant so long will haring ADVERTISE
ments continue to make the street and
the landscape ugly.
1t is of course idle to blame the ad-
vertisers. They are simply looking
after their interests. They have gone
so far as to placard the islands above
Niagara and the august face of the
sphinx. Fences. barns, sides of houses.
publish the virtues of this nostrum or
that in flaming posters
If the aesthete says they are often
siye the farmer replies that they pay,
and so long as he prefers money to
beauty it is hard to see where the
remedy is to be found.
But in Lynchburg the city fathers
have decreed that for every billboard
the advertising firms shall pay a min
fmum tax of $3.50. For larger boards
the tax is more. If people will make
the locality hideous they must pay for
the privilege. That is fair enough,
and it would be good thing if the
idea could be introduced generally.
The American people believe in ad-
vertising. they read advertising, they
patronize advertisers, but they are
They don't want the
kind of advertising that mars scenery,
that shuts out light. that depreciates
adjoining property. that offers rem
devious for neighborhood juvenile
of dangerous tendencies.
If the billboard must exist the day
Is not far distant when it will be n
subject of municipal. state and fed
eral regulation. 1t will be regarded
as revenue producing structure, as
sessed and taxed accordingly. 1t will
not be permitted to exist as menace
to health. The property rights of the
man who does not believe in bill
boards and refuses to grant space on
his own lands for their erection will
be regarded.
No amount of seductive offers of the
billboard owners, such as free space
for laudable work like the exploita-
ton of preventive measures against
as recently made to the
National Association For the Study
and Prevention Of Tuberculosis. will
stem the tide of popular disapproval
of the billboard. The opposition is
strong, and it is growing 1t is a most
laudable undertaking for the making
Of "better and more beautiful Amer
ica."