Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1918-07-29
Ehrnttg Gl1at

The Susquehanna river fairly bob
bed with the heads of bathers and
was crisscrossed by boats and canoes
for the five-mile water front of Har-
risburg on Saturday. This may not
mean very much to the average man
and woman who lives here. but to
those who had vision enough to see
that the wide branching river, as
the Indians used to call 1t, was the
real recreation place for Harrisburg
1t will bring sense of satisfaction
and possibly feeling that there is
still much to do before the people
of Pennsylvania capital get the full
value of what nature has given and
which causes visitors from less-fa-
Vored communities to go into costa
cies. 1t is not dozen and a half
! of years since the movement began r
to let this city enjoy what had bcen
bestowed upon 1t and because the
sewage which lined the shores did not
kill off the lads who padded in 1t
and learned to swim in it thirty, (
forty. fifty years ago, there were /
some who did not approve the plans
to improve the water front. There
were all sorts of fears manifested
from ice floods to immortality and !
the disturbance of the restful quiet !
| or contented burgs riverside !
seemed TO be of more Importance :
than the healthful enjoyment of citi-
zens unborn. Some of the reason
ing was about as clever as that of q
man who in opposing the bond issue
for the filter plant told John A Af-
| ffeck that the raw water had never
hurt him. There were people who
insisted to newspapermen that the
river would never be anything more
than a sewer and a coal mine and
that the park department would
need a police force the size of a
regular army regiment to maintain
the properties If the River Front |
was thrown open to general bathing. /
And yet on Saturday there were men
and women, boys and girls, whole |
families out in bathing suits; girls
in bathing suits padding about the |
islands in canoes; boys in bathing
suits having diving contests near the
bridge piers; children in bathing
suits being given lessons in swim
ming by their elders in bathing suits
right at the bottom of the steps
and lots of people having a good
time and blessing those who over
came prejudice with every plunge of
their arms and kick of their heels
as they swan.
Apropes of the pleasure that hun
| dreds of people get from the Sus-
quehanna river here every day be-
cause 1t is municipality controlled Il
may be interesting to note that a
writer in the Philadelphia Evening
Bulletin laments the fact that fifteen
| or twenty years ago the mayor of
that city vetoed the bill for the park
way. Then, he writes, the project
would have cost 100000 and now
the city has spent $4,000, 900 and is
not done yet The Philadelphia
parkway is a wonderful project and
millions are being set aside to carve
1t through bricks and mortar in reg
ular Baron Haussman style. Several
years after the Civil War several
citizens of Harrisburg took up the
subject of Hardscrabble and one of
| them told the writer that 1t could
have been made city property for
i $4,000.
!
Just what the condemnation of
the parcels of River Front property
along Front street from Herr to
Calder street will eventually cost the
city in this latter generation can not
be set down accurately, but it need
not be doubted that the multiplier
Of $4,000 will have to be of gener-
Gus size. AS far back as the days
of the old Duck tavern, a more or
less famous rendezvous for men in
rafting days which stood about
where Hardscrabble begins, it was
realized that some day" the River
Front would be municipality owned,
4 only when they figured out that it
would be wharves. Now the general
feeling among the people is that they
want 1t made into park and bathing
place right soon.
DR.. Joseph Kalbfus, secretary of
the State Game Commission, will
start out in a few weeks on his an
nual tour of about 500 miles of state
game preserves, which have been in
creased by four and three auxiliaries
since he made his last round. This
visit is enough to tire out men con-
siderably younger, but the veteran
game official makes the greater part
of it in automobiles and while within
| the many square miles enclosed by
| preserve wire he tramps it off tracks
and right through the forest. A year
ago DR.. Kalbfus was accompanied
| on visit to tracts of state forestry
reserve proposed for game preserves
by DR.. Charles B. Penrose, president
| of the State Game Commission. who
has been much interested in the ex-
tension of the work of the state in
| this direction. DIR. Kalbfus will
| spend two or three weeks on the
trail and will visit the new state re-
serves or game sanctuaries, the Ly-
kens valley, in Union, Carbon and
| Huntingdon counties and the first
| of the auxiliary reserves which are
being surrounded with notices and
wire in Bucks, Clarion and Luzerne
counties. There are a number of
tracts being offered in the western
section of the state for auxiliary re-
serves, some of them of large size
and If they are suitable they will
be added to the list and state aid
given to propagation plans.
Major w. G.. Murdoch, chief draft