Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1916-03-08
COSTLY STATIONS.

The beautiful and very expensive
railway stations which have been
built Of late years, more OF which are
in construction and still more plan
ned for the near future, are being
severely criticized on the score of eX-
travagance.
The chief commissioner Of the state
railways of Queensland, Australia,
says our railroads go in too much for
gilded stairs and marble halls
The Railway Age Gazette sustains
this view and states that we have
gone mad on the subject Of provid-
ing enormous marble passenger sta
tons, with immense amounts of waste
space in them, observation cars, buff
fets, Wallets, maids, unnecessarily du-
plicated passenger train service, and
scores of other luXuries, which cost
money and which are unknown on
the railways of any other country"
Mr.. Reginald Gordon, in the En-
cheering Magazine, agrees with the
! foregoing indictments, but blames
the communities which demand these
structures. Mr. Gordon admits that
most Of the way stations needed re-
placing or improving, and many of
them still do. But he deplores the
lavish expenditures on mammoth ter
minals.
Among the offenders against Mr..
Gordon's economic sense are the
Northwestern at Chicago, the Union
station at Washington, the new ter
minals at Kansas City, Spokane, Dali
las, Minneapolis and st. Paul, and
Rochester, n. Y. One of those now
building is the new Union station in
Chicago, and one of those planned
will be in Cleveland. The Grand Cen
trail in New York, while just as costly.
is given credit for so arranging it's
tracks that buildings may be erected
over them, thus obtaining revenue for
the upkeep.
1t is true that much more money
has been spent in these terminals
than the efficiency of getting to trains
requires. But when Mr.. Gordon
warns us that we ought to be salts
fed with structures built purely for
efficiency, sacrificing architectural
beauty to revenue-producing it is not
plain that he is taking the right
stand
In the middle ages communities
built magnificent cathedrals-and paid
for .them-and who questions the EN-.
nobling effect of these rich and spa.
cious structures on all beholders?
They satisfied and glorified the lives
not only of those who built them
| but also of their descendants The
genius of the American people runs
| to transportation and to business.
Why not express through those me.
| diums the artistic soul of the ma
ton? Who that ever stood before
the massive pillars of the Northwest.
ern in Chicago, who that ever walked
the floor of that "wasteful' concourse
in the Pennsylvania station in New
York, with its noble space and sim.
plicity, its astonishing and grateful
silence, can ever think of them with
out thrill?
THE people, in buying transporta-
tion," writes Mr.. Gordon. will not
knowingly pay for architectural mon.
uments, nor artistic ceilings, nor vast
areas in which they may congregate
to look at beautiful frescoes and well
chosen inscriptions. 1t is not the
function of railway to provide these
embellishments of station either
for esthetic effect or for the educa-
ton of the people at large
Emil F. Grueneberk and Miss Mar
tina Eartz were united in marriage at
the ST PauTs Evangelical church in
Minot Row William Hartman off