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the same. They did not, however, say anything of the inconvenience of appointing park commissioners, as there was no immediate need of their doing, the appointment being controlled by statute. The leading newspaper, however, of the day, alluded to the question, saying, "We do not like the manner in which the commissioners of the South Park are appointed and it is about time there should be some uniformity in this matter. They are appointed by the Circuit Court, while all the others are appointed by the Governor. The judges, above all public functionaries, should never have the power to appoint park commissioners. The Governor should have the power of appointing all the commissioners, or they should be elected by the people."

This question was in agitation at varying intervals for a number of years by the public, or until 1881, when an act was passed by the General Assembly and approved May 30, prohibiting the appointment of park commissioners by Circuit Court judges. Section one of this act provided "That hereafter it shall not be lawful for any judge or judges of any Circuit Court in this state to appoint any park commissioners, or fill any vacancy in such office of park commissioner. Section two provided "That the Governor of the State of Illinois shall appoint all park commissioners hereafter to be appointed under and by virtue of any act or acts providing for the location and maintenance of any public park or parks (not under the control of any city, village, or other municipal corporation), and shall fill all vacancies which may hereafter occur in any such office of park commissioner or Board of Park Commissioners by appointment, anything in such act or acts to the contrary notwithstanding. Section three provided that "Whenever any vacancy or vacancies shall occur in any such Board of Park Commissioners, it shall be the duty of the remaining member or members of such board to certify the fact of the vacancy or vacancies to the Governor of the State of Illinois.''

This act did not affect the Lincoln Park Commission nor the West Park Commission, the members of both of which were appointed by the Governor; nor, in the event, did it affect the South Park Commission, the Supreme Court being appealed to on a question of constitutionality and that court declaring the act to be unconstitutional.

VII.
CONCLUSION.

Now the assertion is ventured that about all that is to be known of the origin and establishment of public parks and their government in Chicago is given in the foregoing survey. In spite of the care exercised to avoid mistakes here and there, it is scarcely to be hoped in so long a narrative that no errors have crept in; but the books, documents, newspapers, and personal recollections that have been consulted should not mislead as to very many particulars. Space originally allotted to this work already has been exceeded, but surely something may be added relative to the first work on the South Park and the early progress made there toward ultimate magnificent achievement. And yet this must be cursorily done; only a touch here and there on the wide field can be attempted.

After overcoming in the courts the many difficulties they were met with at the start, the South Park Commissioners still were hampered by a shortage of funds. There was first brought into the treasury of the commission in taxes $800,000, but this amount was largely used for current expenses and to pay interest on the bonded debt. There was nothing left with which to purchase new lands. A large proportion of the money received the two following years was appropriated to the payment of outstanding indebtedness. But soon they were in position to retire $200,000 of bonds, certain economies having been practiced. The floating debt had been extinguished. In 1883 the commission found themselves with funds available for purposes of improvement. Title had been acquired to all the land required for park purposes. More of the unimproved parts were brought under cultivation, and substantial buildings for necessary uses were erected and ornamental structures sprang into being on every hand. West Park (west portion of the park) became Washington Park. Garfield boulevard was laid out and an extensive breakwater was constructed. A pavement beach was laid in Jackson Park along the lake shore for three blocks, and the breakwater was extended nearly an equal distance. The Drexel monument, a fountain in bronze which is much admired to this day, was placed at the head of Drexel

boulevard the gift of Drexel Brothers, bankers, of Philadelphia, in memory of their father, out of whose large fortune the South Park scheme was financed. The control of Michigan avenue was acquired after the Supreme Court had decided the legal question in favor of the commission. Then they estimated the cost of improving it, and levied the necessary assessment. A portion of the property abutting on the line of Michigan avenue was that commonly known as the lake front and owned by the City of Chicago, against which a park assessment of $45,953.20 was levied and confirmed by the Circuit Court. The City Council failed to appropriate the funds to meet the assessment, but this failure affected only that portion of Michigan avenue between Jackson street and Park Row, and work was pushed forward on the remainder of the proposed boulevard.

It will be well to insert here section 13 of the act creating the South Park Board, the section which gives them most of the powers they have and exercise. It is thus: "The said board shall have the full and exclusive power to govern, manage, and direct said park; to lay out and regulate the same; to pass ordinances for the regulation and government thereof; to appoint such engineers, surveyors, clerks, and other officers, including a police force, as may be necessary; to prescribe and define their respective duties and authority; fix the amount of their compensation, and generally, in regard to said park, they shall possess all the power and authority now by law conferred upon, or possessed by, the Common Council of the City of Chicago, in respect of the public squares and places in said city."

So clothed upon with all municipal authority and power, the commissioners could ad libitum assess and collect money in their territory and to go ahead with improvements and enlargements. This they did with sufficient energy, but still somewhat was lacking. To supply this lack they asked for and obtained of the Legislature the control and improvement of streets connecting with the parks and squares on them. By an act passed and approved June 21, 1902, which was a general act, but applied only to the parks in Chicago, the commission was given power to connect any public park, boulevard, and driveway under its control with any part of the incorporated city, by selecting and taking any connecting street or streets or parts thereof, leading to such park, boulevard or driveway, and shall also have power to accept and add to any park or parks under their control and street or parts thereof which adjoins or runs parallel with any boundary line thereof. The only condition being that the streets so selected and taken shall lie within the district or territory, the property of which shall be taxable for the maintenance of such parks, boulevards, and driveways. This enabled the commissioners, and still enables them, to extend their connections almost indefinitely. The co-operation of the City Council is required, but that is seldom refused. Liberally and with seeming unconcern, the Council by ordinance often joins with the commissioners in enlarging their jurisdictions. In this way, among other processes, the South Park Commission has gradually extended their territory from the lower boundary of Jackson Park to the north line of Grant Park, formerly known as the lake front, at Randolph street. The City of Chicago, by action of the City Council, formally transferred the "possession, care, and improvement and management of said lake front to what is known as the Board of South Park Commissioners for the purpose of establishing a public park and pleasure ground," but the city withheld the title to this land. But another step now was taken. The General Assembly was applied to. They saw a way out of the difficulty, to the aggrandizement of the Park Commission. In the preamble to an act passed and approved April 24, 1899, it was declared that the title to the land in Chicago commonly known and designated as the lake front, lying along the shore, and extending south to Randolph street, north to Park Row, and east of Michigan avenue, and a part of which is yet submerged under the waters of Lake Michigan, but the reclamation of which is contemplated and being now undertaken by the filling in from the present shore line, is still, we believe, in the State of Illinois'-such was the declaration; and then followed the act which gave the Park Commission the said land, "to be held, managed and controlled by said Commissioners as other parks now are under their control. It is understood that the Commissioners now are at work on plans for the improvement of Grant Park, and it cannot be doubted that they will make of it one of the finest parks in the world.

Mention of the large part the South Park Commission had in preparing for the Columbian Exposition held in Jackson Park has been omitted, but that is matter of common knowledge.

To draw hurriedly to a close, not stopping at any place to indulge in scenic description, as unnecessary while our people have eyes to see and taste to appreciate the varied beauty of the different parks, the more important facts of their establishment and improvement have, it is hoped, been fairly presented here. One very important fact, however, has inadvertently been omitted in its right place. In 1904 the South Park Commission entered upon the work of creating small parks and playgrounds with much success. Small parks, however, were not their invention. Four years earlier, in 1900, Mayor Harrison conceived the idea of having such parks scattered over the city and he appointed a commission on small parks, which at the time was known as the "Mayor's Commission," and still is so called. To be the head of it he appointed Alderman William S. Jackson of the old Fourth Ward, who soon was succeeded as the Mayor's choice by the lamented Alderman Albert W. Beilfuss, who without exaggeration may be said to have given his life to the work entrusted to him for fourteen years.

Now it will be pertinent to inquire what is the relative value in population and in property that is taxable for park purposes in the three divisions of this city? In 1913 Mayor Harrison appointed a special committee to ascertain and report to the Council the number of employes at each of the several parks and the amount of salaries paid separately by the South, West and Lincoln Park Commissions and to estimate the probable saving that would be effected by a consolidation of all the park systems. Alderman Si Mayer was Chairman of that committee and when the inquiries had been made he submitted a convincing report. He credited the Bureau of Statistics with most of his data, from which it appeared that in the taxable territory embraced by the West Park sustem there were 902,769 persons, or 41.3 of the entire population of the city; in the Lincoln Park system's territory there were 358,429 persons, or 16.4 of the population of the city, while in the district taxed for the benefit of the South Park system there were 778,574 persons, or 35.6 of the population of the city. The assessed valuation for the support of the park managements respectively was, for Lincoln Park, $137,106; for that of the West Parks, $204,030, and for the South Parks $540,129, with a fraction over for each of the three, thus giving to the South Parks management the lion's share.

Their quite princely seat magnificently located in beautiful Washington Park, the South Park Commission's dominion extends south, north and west almost without fixed bounds. A dominion that overlaps city ward after city ward until it covers practically one entire division of Chicago, and that one the most opulent and splendid. A dominion within which the Commissioners' rule is unquestioned and not less than imperial.

Food From the Cotton Field.

According to a recent monograph by Edwin W. Thompson, Commercial Agent of the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, European nations are finding out very rapidly how to make food of our cottonseed oil. France, Italy, and other southern nations have always considered oil an essential article of diet. Olive oil is their native supply, but they have now learned the economy of exporting their olive oil at high prices and importing in its place American cottonseed oil, which is lower in price but not lower in nutritive value.

Germany, the Netherlands, and other northern countries, like ourselves, are not fond of eating pure oil, but need more butter than the cattle can produce, so they resort to artificial butter, and have developed it to a high degree of palatability. The surprising statement is made that the principal countries of northern Europe are now making artificial butter ("margarin' they call it) to the extent of 580,000 tons per year, and the significant part of the story is that in 1913 they used as an ingredient over 300,000 barrels of cottonseed oil from America, and are planning for an increase in 1914.

By the recently discovered process of solidifying liquid oils, cottonseed oil is now beginning to compete with hard cocoanut oil, which sells at even higher prices than olive oil, and is becoming very popular as an ingredient of artificial

butter.

Cottonseed oil has exactly 10 times the nutritive value of beefsteak and costs only half as much. As the United States makes each year over 3,000,000 barrels of refined cottonseed oil, it is worth while to study the various methods of making it acceptable as food.

Interesting Local Miscellany

THE GROWTH OF CHICAGO.

The population of Chicago in 1910 was 2,185,283, as returned by the U. S. census takers in that year. The population of this city, according to an estimate made by the Bureau of Census for 1914 was 2,393,525. Our own calculation, as that of the city directory makers, reaches a somewhat higher figure, corresponding more nearly to the ascertainment by the school census. But it is the estimate of the Census Bureau that is accepted throughout the country, and it may not be disputed here.

The population of Greater New York in 1910, according to the federal census of that year, was 4,766,883. From the estimate put out by the Washington authorities of New York's population in 1914 it had increased to 5,333,537. To make up this total, the borough of Bronx is given 329,198; the borough of Brooklyn, 1,833,696; the borough of Manhattan, 2,536,716; the borough of Queens, 339,886; the borough of Richmond, 94,043. Hence it is seen that New York without its annexed parts-old New York-Manhattan-with its tale of 2,536,716, almost exactly equals the population of the City of Chicago, the slight difference between them being only 143,390.

New York City was first incorporated in 1689, or 148 years before Chicago received its first charter, in 1837. So that whatever New York proper-Manhattan-has been growing to by progressive increase brought by varieties of people of American birth and of immigration from every foreign country in a period extending over two and a quarter centuries, Chicago has attained to in a single human life.

The patriotic citizen of Chicago likes to, and he does, proudly boast of this his city's wonderful attainment. Bigness greatly counts in the realm of vast cities. Size and what the word implies are the factors in municipal existences that unceasingly draw other thousands and millions of people to dwell and achieve in them. That Chicago numbers as many inhabitants as the New York that the world's visitors see and know, is, indeed, something to boast of, all things duly considered. To be a citizen of a city as large as the largest on the American continent and second only to the largest in the world calls out and justifies a huge flood of civic enthusiasm. This is the business and not the esthetic view. The person of trade and affairs must have his solid place in the community before the artist and cultivator of taste can surely make worthy progress. There is, however, another side to the case.

Some very good citizens will fail to be impressed altogether favorably with the extent of area and abounding populousness of their home town. A great writer of the day, who lives in London, has written of his own amazing city: "The size and numbers of London have alarming consequences of their own. Great cities have to grow organically with some kind of self-adaptation to their development. But the increase of London defies adaptation and adjustment. The 70,000 new souls a year come before London has time to consider what she can do with them. The bricks pour down in irregular heaps, almost as if in some cataclysm or tornado it were raining bricks out of heaven on the earth below. The huge pall of smoke gets denser and more sulphurous, stretching out, they say, some thirty miles into the country till Berkshire, Bucks, Herts, and Kent are beginning to be polluted by its cloud. From Charing Cross or the Royal Exchange a man has to walk some five or six miles before he can see the blessed meadows or breathe the country air. Few of us ever see more than half the city we live in and some of us never saw nine-tenths of it. We all live more 01 less in soot and fog, in smoky, dusty, contaminated air in which trees will no longer grow to full size and the sulphurous vapor of which eats away the surface of stone. An immense proportion of our working population are insufficiently housed in cheerless, comfortless and even unhealthy lodgings. In some (32)

four-fifths of London the conditions of London life are sadly depressing aud sordid, with none of the advantages which city life affords, "" etc., etc. Next he asks, "Is this monster city again to double and treble itself? Its dreariness to grow vaster and its smoke even thicker?''

Once in the current of the stream of this author's eloquence it is not easy to get out of it. So with it we must needs proceed, using with scarcely any curtailment his warm language. "The monstrous, oppressive bulk of modern London is becoming one of the great diseases of English civilization. It is a national calamity that one-sixth of the entire population of England are, as Londoners, cut off at once both from country and from city life; for those who dwell in the vast suburbs of London are cut off from city life in any true sense. A country covered with houses is not a city. Four or five millions of people herded together do not make a body of fellow citizens. A mass of streets so endless that it is hardly possible on foot to get out of them into the open in a long day's tramp-streets so monotonous that but for the names on the street corners they cannot be distinguished one from the other-with suburbs so unorganized and mechanical that there is nothing to recall the dignity and power of a great city-with a population so movable and unsociable that they are unknown to each other by sight or name, have no interest in each other's lives, cannot be induced to act in common, have no common sympathies, enjoyments, or pride, who are perpetually hurrying each his own way to catch his own train, omnibus, or tram-car, eager to do a good day's business on the cheapest terms and then get to some distant home to a meal or to rest. That is not life, nor is it society. These huge barracks are not cities. Nor can an organic body of citizens be made out of four million of human creatures individually grinding out a monotonous existence."'

Again-but it is high time that the author of these caustic remarks was announced by name; he is not unacquainted with Chicago, nor is he a stranger in person to all our people. He, a few years ago, was called by the Union League Club out from London to deliver an address on Washington on Washington's birthday. Frederick Harrison is the distinguished name of the maker of these brilliant reflections. To proceed: "The first great fact," he says, "about the modern city is that it is almost entirely bereft of any religious, patriotic, or artistic character as a whole. There is in modern cities a great deal of active religious life, much public spirit, in certain parts a love of beauty, taste and cultivation of a special kind. But it is not embodied in the city; it is not associated with the city; it does not radiate from the city. The modern city is ever changing, loose in its organization, casual in its form. It grows up or extends suddenly, no man knows how, in a single generation-in America in a single decade. Its denizens come and go, pass on, changing every few years and even months. Few families have lived in the same city for three successive generations. An Athenian, Syracusan, or Roman family had dwelt in their city for twenty generations.

"A typical industrial city of modern times has no founders, no traditional heroes, no patron saints, no emblem, no history, no definite circuit. In a century it changes its population over and over again and takes on two or three different forms. In ten or twenty years it evolves a vast new suburb, a mere wen of bricks and stone, with no god or demi-god for its founder, but a speculative builder, a syndicate or railway. The speculative builder or company want a quick return for their money. The new suburb is occupied by people who are busy and in such a hurry to get to work that in taking a house their sole inquiry is-how near is it to the station, or where the street car puts you down.'

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Next this fervid critic of modern cities stops and makes comparisons. "How enormous is the range over which city life extends, from the first cave-men and dug-out wigwams in prehistoric ages to the complex arrangements and appliances of modern Paris (which we take as the type of the highly organized modern city of Europe.) How vast is the interval between one kind of town-life and another kind-say comparing Bagdad and Chicago, or Naples with Staley bridge. How immeasurable the interval between the habits and conditions of Londoners who built the Lake-village of Llyn-din, or the Parisie who staked out the island of Louktieth, with the modern Londoner and the modern Parisian!''

But, and after all, Mr. Harrison concludes that "There is no occasion for pessimism. There are sides of modern city-life far greater than anything in the ancient or the medieval world, though they are not directly the outcome of the organized city. Our civilization is a national rather than a civic growth. By

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