Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1922-04-26
ARE THE PARK COMMISSIONERS
TOUCHED WITH PRUSSlANlSM?
Two Sides Of the Case Between Mr..
Price and His Colleagues and
the General Public

A CASUAL discussion of the Fairmount
"A Park motor traffic rules, printed In
these columns day or two ago after Judge
Ferguson had decided that the Park Com
missioners have no power of regulation not
explicitly defined in the State Motor Vehicle
Act. had an astonishing reaction.
Thousands of persons seemed actively in
terested in the present aspect and policy of
the Park administrative system. And what
was most surprising was the intensity Of the
antagonism which seems to have developed
in the minds of most of them for the Park
Commission. it's police, its codes and, espe-
cially. its motor regulations. "Prussian"
was the word oftenest flung in letters or
over the telephone wire at Eli Kirk Price
and his colleagues.
Correspondents alleged heatedly that the
Commissioners have forgotten that Fair
mount Park is a place of recreation and a
resting and breathing place for the multi
tude. ''The Park" said one very angry
gentleman. sis ruled like a private estate,
without regard for common sense or the
public's needs. know a lady who only yes.
terday was insulted by one of the guards.
She sat on bench and peeled an orange for
her children. and this man approached her
and told her the scraps of peel would have
to be removed from the Park
Now. it is fact that the thinking of the
Park Commission tends more and more
toward fresh rulings and rather irritating
and sometimes unnecessary restrictions on
the drives and elsewhere. Any motor driver
who stops after nishtfall to look at what is
supposed to be beautiful in the Fairmount
landscapes will be grufiy told to keep NOV
ing. The keep moving regulation is. of
course, absurd and unpleasantly suggestive
of the sort of hypersensitiveness which
passes for moral concern in places where all
good people are supposed to stay at home
after dark
The Park Commissioners always have had
an air of merely tolerating motorcars. There
is no justification for the arrest OF driver
for first offense or an unconscious one
against minor traffic rule. But it is seri-
ously to be doubted whether over. jealous
ness in small particulars can be made
ground for a general indictment of the
Parks police system. What is needed to
eliminate the friction that seems to be grow.
ing daily between the Park Commission and
the public Is common sense and a second
thought or two on each side.
In making the rule that offended the we'll
meaning lady with the orange Mr.. Price and
his associates doubtless were guided by un.
pleasant experience and the record of tribu-
lation recently written by the Commissioners
of Parks in New York.
Bronx Park and sections of Central Park
were laid partly waste through the lack Of
precisely such rules as are called Prussian
by some of the critics of the Philadelphia
Commissioners. Tons of offensive litter.
trampled flower beds and ruined shrubbery
were left in the wake of Sunday picnic par.
ties. Its our ground said the crowds
to the Park police 1T is everybody's
ground. We do as We like with our own
property
Farmount Park. as a matter of fact, is
everybody's ground. But only about one
out of every thousand of its owners will per-
sistently spread CRIME ana old paper and
broken glass over its lawns or wish to leave
it on Sunday with something Of the appear
ance of public dump. The rule now is that
picnic litter must be gathered up and put in
receptacles provided for it. 1t is rule
that may seem unnecessary in some in
stances. Yet, after all, why shouldn't people
be willing to gather up the waste they leave
on the lawns? Why should such simple and
necessary tasks be left to others?
Most of the owners of Fairmount Park
drive with their lights burning and very
few Of them permit their motorcars to smoke,
largely because smoke from n motor exhaust
means oil waste or an engine in need Of
adjustment or repair. And most of them are
content to observe the speed limit. So, in
a final analysis, the Park Commissioners
seem disposed to serve the interests of the
greatest number.
Of late they have been leaning too far in
one direction. The Park police have estab.
lished an over-rigid system of regulation.
There are too many arrests for small first
offenses against the motor rules, and the
commission deserved all the criticism flung
in its direction when IL permitted the fool
ish mo parking rule to be actually ex-
tended from the Farmount drives to boule-
wards recently brought into the Park system
of control. The correspondent who wrote
most bitterly of what he called the tyranny
of the commission was man who said he
had to stop visiting friends who live on the
Roosevelt Boulevard because he wasn't per-
mitted to leave his automobile at the curb
even on Sunday.
The Park Commission has developed a set
of good general principles. But 1t is enforce
ing them too sternly. particularly In relation
to motors. Motor drivers themselves ought
to recognize the benefits of rational regula-
tions consistently applied on the Park
drives. But they aren't always ready to do
so. One man wrote to MS to say that he had
to go to Fairmount Park to find that the
United States was no longer n free country
lie was not permitted to run his car on
Upper Wissahickon Drive,
A WAR TO BE WELCOMED