BEAUTY

America has another resource that differs from all the others, and yet is no less valuable to us as a nation, for it is upon natural beauty that we must depend to attract visitors and settlers from other countries, and also to develop love of country in our own people, and to arouse in them all the higher sentiments and ideals.

The love of romance and poetry is awakened only by the sight of beautiful objects, and that nation will produce the highest class of citizens which has most within it to kindle these lofty ideas. The savage cares only for the comfort of his body, but as civilization advances, man devotes more and more thought to those pleasures that come only through his mind and the cultivation of his tastes.

The United States is particularly fortunate in this respect, for here is everything to inspire a love of beauty. There is the beauty of changing seasons, of our wonderful autumn forest coloring, of rivers, mountains, lakes, sea, and shore.

In addition to the beauty of our landscapes, which is everywhere to be found, there are many special beauties which are among the world’s wonder-places, and which are visited yearly by thousands of sight-seers, and each year they attract a greater number of visitors from other lands. Some of the most remarkable of these are Niagara Falls, the Yosemite Valley, with its crowning glory, the Yosemite Falls, the Hetch-Hetchy Falls, Mammoth Cave, the Garden of the Gods, the Grand Canon of the Colorado, the Agatized Forests of Arizona, Yellowstone Park, The Natural Bridge of Virginia, Great Salt Lake, and dozens of others, less wonderful, but scarcely less beautiful, and equal to the most talked-of beauties of Europe, such as the Palisades of the Hudson, Lake Champlain, the Shenandoah Valley, the Dalles of Oregon, Pike’s Peak, Mount Rainier, Lookout Mountain, the Adirondacks, and the entire Rocky Mountain region.

To these must be added the relics of ancient civilization, the homes of the Cliff Dwellers, the work of the Mound Builders, and such fragments as still remain of the occupation in various times and places of certain Indian tribes, and of the Norsemen and the Spaniards.

All these are to be valued for their beauty or historic interest, and are also valuable as a source of wealth to the community.

The money spent on tourist-travel in Europe is said to be more than half a billion dollars a year. This vast amount is spent because in Europe there is so much to delight the eye, because the cities are made beautiful with artistic buildings filled with art treasures, because historic places are carefully preserved, because the villages are neat and well-kept, and the intensive farming which is practised almost everywhere leaves no waste places to grow up with weeds, and lie neglected.

There are parts of Europe, of course, where this is not true, but they are not included in the line of tourist-travel, and in general it may be said that Europe is visited almost solely because of its beauty: the natural beauty that man has preserved, the beauty that he has created, or the relics of past greatness.

Modern Greece would attract few visitors for its own sake. It is the ruins of a mighty past, the Acropolis at Athens and the places made famous in mythology and literature draw thousands to its shores every year, and add greatly to the wealth and prosperity of the country.

The same thing is true of America wherever we have preserved and made beautiful our natural scenery. During three months in the summer, the New York Central Railroad derives about $200,000 in fares from its Niagara business alone. Since it became a state reservation in 1885, more than seventeen million persons have visited Niagara, and the amount of money that has been spent there at hotels, for carriages, automobiles, side-trips, souvenirs, etc., is almost beyond calculation.

In the Adirondack Park there is between $10,000,000 and $15,000,000 invested in hotels and cottages. The 15,000 clerks and helpers receive about $1,000,000 in wages, the railroads receive another $1,000,000 in fares, and hotel guests spend between $5,000,000 and $6,000,000. All of these advantages to the region are entirely apart from the practical uses of the forest.

These are examples which show the great amount of wealth which can come from preserving our natural beauties, and the same conditions exist everywhere, not only in the state and national parks, but wherever some beautiful spot has been set aside by a city, a railroad company, or some private enterprise. People flock to these resorts in large numbers for rest or recreation, and to satisfy their love for the beautiful, and the result is a gain in health and morals, more desire on the part of those who visit them to make their own surroundings beautiful, and at the same time a great gain in money value to the city or company that promotes such an enterprise.

Most of the larger cities of the United States have given particular attention to the subject of public parks during recent years. They are the breathing places for the dwellers in the city, often the only place where children can have fresh air and plenty of exercise, and the parks constitute one of the greatest attractions to draw summer visitors to the city.

Nearly all steam and electric railway companies own some park or pleasure resort from which they derive a large income in fares, and many steamboat companies find their largest profit from their excursion boats.

All these facts show clearly that if we consider only the gain in money, it is altogether a wise policy to include natural beauty among our national resources, and to conserve it carefully, while if we look at it from the larger standpoint of preserving for future generations the same beauties that we enjoy, the need of such conservation is still more urgent.

In our future development the United States will largely be made over. We shall no longer have the same natural conditions that we have had in the early years of our history, and the physical appearance of the country will grow better or worse each generation.

It is possible for us to make America the most beautiful land the world has ever seen, for we have the natural beauty, and greater knowledge in setting about the work of building than has ever been possessed by any other nation during its time of greatest growth.

We shall go far toward realizing our ideal of a beautiful America if we understand that the conservation of our resources means beauty, and that waste means ugliness. Proper conservation of our mineral resources will include the removal of the ugly, unsightly piles of culm, slag, and other refuse that lie about the mouth of the mines, and disfigure some of our most beautiful mountain scenery, for, as we have shown elsewhere, this should be used and not wasted. The proper use of coal would solve the smoke problem of cities, one of the worst foes of cleanliness and beauty, and the use of water-power would serve the same purpose. The complete utilization of our water resources that has been suggested would make all our waterways contribute greatly to the beauty and attractiveness of the landscape.

In conserving our forests we not only increase our timber supply, but add one of the greatest of all beauties, the trees which give variety and tone to every picture that our eyes rest upon. We shall have the shady roads, the long green hill-slopes, the quiet woodlands, the glory of autumn coloring, the delight of blossoming orchards.

Conservation of the soil, and utilization of every part of the land mean even more. Picture the contrast between a country where the hillsides are worn into gullies, where rocks are everywhere to be seen cropping above the barren soil, where the crops are scanty, the vegetation stunted; and one where every field yields a rich harvest, where the grain hangs heavy and golden, where every wayside nook holds a flower, where there are no neglected fence-corners, no piles of rubbish, what we truly call “a smiling landscape.” Lastly, in conserving health, we do more toward promoting personal beauty and advancing the standard of the race than in any other way.

We should not be content, however, with the beauty that comes only from the conservation of our other resources, but should have a definite plan for the conservation of beauty as a valuable resource in itself.

The city of Washington should be made the center of this movement toward national beauty. There is now an organized effort on the part of those in charge of the erection of public buildings, to make Washington the most beautiful capital in the world, and a model for other cities.

The federal government should set aside as national parks all of our greatest natural wonders, as Yellowstone Park is now held.

The states should follow the same line and set apart in the same way those objects of lesser interest, either natural or historic, which are to be found in every state those that are not of sufficient importance to merit national recognition, but that will add interest to the state as a place for tourists to visit.

Few states are visited in this way more than is Massachusetts, and it is largely because not only the state, but the various communities have preserved historical places, buildings and objects so carefully, have erected monuments to commemorate them; and have thrown these various objects of interest open to the public free of charge. These communities in turn have gained the original expenditure many times over from the money spent by the steady stream of visitors.

There has been a great movement toward the beautifying of cities and villages in the past few years. Besides the good work done by park boards in cities there has been a great improvement in the matter of cleaner streets, better sidewalks, the planting of more shade trees, and a far greater attention to the beautifying of private grounds. The adorning of front yards and porches with vines and flowers is increasing enormously every year.

Many causes have been at work to produce this result: the broadening influence of travel, which brings people in touch with what is being done in other places to promote public beauty, the work of schools, newspaper and magazine articles, and more time and money to spend on luxuries, even the post-card, which makes a souvenir view of every spot of local beauty or interest; but probably no other one agency has produced such good results in public beauty as has the woman’s club which has taken up this line of work.

The “cleaning-up” movement, with a public house-cleaning day twice a year when all refuse is carted away, and streets, alleys and back-yards cleaned, had its origin in this way. The care and beautifying of cemeteries is another branch of the work.

In many places, flower and vegetable seeds are distributed free or at a nominal cost among the school children, prizes are offered for the best garden, the largest vegetables, the most attractive back-yard, the best arranged flower-bed, and other good results; the work is examined by a committee, and the prizes awarded at the end of the season either by the club or by merchants who have become interested in the contest.

This provides the children wholesome outdoor work and exercise throughout the summer, and promotes a pleasant rivalry among them, besides increasing their knowledge of plants, and the results have been found to be far-reaching, for not only the pupils, but their parents as well, are interested in neater, more orderly methods of living, and in beautifying their homes.

In the movement for public beauty, as in all other progress, it is the work of individuals that counts most. Every house that is built with a thought for its beauty, every home, farm-building and fence kept in good repair, every neat back-yard and flower-surrounded home has its part in making America more beautiful, and this influence in countless homes is certain to count in the making of better citizens.

A country where beauty meets the eye at every turn will invite the tourist and the home-seeker, will be deeply loved by its own people, and will be an inspiration to poetry and art. It rests largely with the people of to-day to decide whether we shall make of our own land such an ideal place.