The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1921-08-01
BLACKFOOT WAS AS
BAD AS ANY

| s4.st assls'
At the beginning Of the presen
century It was no disgrace to a cit.
or town to have massive billboard
confronting people everywhere al
daubed up with past and out-0f-dat,
announcements In gaudy lettering
1t was no disgrace to q farmer tx
have his barn and other building
daubed up with great signs tina,
could be read for a mile. proclaim
ing Dukes Mixture or castoria 81
Halls catarrh cure. It was no dis
grace to a city or town to have piles
of rubbish in its streets and alleys
that would upset vehicles running
over them or. unsightly old fire trap,
on lots, where disease and verrnir
Matched to spread over the com.
I1unity. II the front windows were
clean and decorated, the front wall
open and passable and the lawn and
curbing kept moved or clean, It mat
tered but little what the rest Of The
place was like or even II the street
bordering the clean sidewalk wal
weedy or Uttered with trash. With q
large percentage Of the people 1t was
an established custom to dump trash
and litter and all unsightly stun ii
the back yard and leave 1t there
Some who kept the back yard clean
for the most part considered It all
right to pile the rubbish against the
back fence. In Blackfot 1t was Gus.
tomary to do this or to throw every
thing over the fence and forget IL,
Tin cans, bottles, broken glass
barbed wire, sticks, stones, crates
with nails in them sticking out, all
this stuff was fired over the fence Oh
thrown toward the street. In some
places manure was piled out about
the stable or COW pen until ona had
to wade thru filth to get to it, and in
warm weather |. was reeking with
maggots and swarming with flies. All
these things were customary and re-
spectacle twenty years ago.
Twenty years ago Edward Nok,
a Holland Dutchman, was the editor
OF the Ladies Home Journal OF
Philadelphia and it had a circulation
Of million copies in the United
States and Canada. He did not
write much for The Journal, but he
selected the subjects that needed to
be written about and hired editors
to do the work he outlined for them.
His editorial staff consisted of about
thirty-five men and women, mostly
Americans, but all of them high class
and accomplished in their respective
lines.
At Harrisburg, Penn. lived j..
Horace Mcfarland, one of the best
landscape photographers in the
world, and he and Box decided to
wage war on the unsightly and un-
healthy things of cities and towns
and influence people to clean up.
Mcfarland and his men hunted up
the worst cases of unsightliness in
the cities of the United States and
took photos of the worst things they
could find. Box prepared the plates
and articles to spread these views be-
fore the readers of his magazine and
the first city brought into the lime
light was the rich old city of Lynn,
Mass. and it was Tabled dirty
CITY,"
The people of Lynn rose up en-
masse and condemned the Ladies
Home Journal and its editor. The
of Lynn added their con-
demnation and Box received an
avalanche of letter abusing him.
They demanded an apology in The
Journal and said the city had been
libeled and damaged and he had to.
make reparation. Like the proverbial
ostrich covering its head, they stop
ped their subscriptions to The
Journal as If that would clean the
city. Box replied that the camera
never lies nor exaggerates, and that
since the identity of the city was cor
rect there was no occasion to retract
and in the next issue he gave similar
to Trenton, N. j., Tabled it
a dirty CITY," and published pic
lures to prove it. Trenton repeated
the antics ofLynn and Box answered
them in the same way. In the next
issue he puts Wilkes Barre, Penn.
in the limelight, branded it dirty
CITY," proved it with pictures and inn
received storm of abuse
and The Journal was ousted from
The news stands in that city. They
did not deny the facts, but objected
to Box making them known. They
took the view that the conditions
did not matter, it was in being found
out that constituted the wrong and
they roared at Box and his journal
accordingly. They said he had dis
graced their city and held it up to
The censure Of the entire country,
and Box admitted that he had and
that 1t was premeditated.
Next issue Box published pictures
Of Memphis, Tenn. and especially
the conditions of the
buildings and grounds and
the way they took care or failed to
lake care Of various kinds of city
property. Memphis rose up like
good sports and admitted that 1t was
true, and while some people stormed
at Box and his journal, the main
part of the population began to
clean up and agitated for new NUM-
cipal buildings with parks and clean
liness. In few years they had ex-
pended several million dollars for
those things and were proud of