Now, a city with the natural charm of Denver is, like a woman similarly endowed, in danger of becoming oversure. Either is likely to lie back and rest upon Nature's bounty. Yet, to Denver's eternal credit be it said, she has not fallen into the ways of indolent self-satisfaction. Indeed, I know of no American city which has done, and is doing, more for herself. Consider these few random items taken from the credit side of her balance: She is one of the best lighted cities in the land. She has the commission form of government. (Also, as you will remember, she has woman suffrage, Colorado having been the first State to accept it.) Her Children's Court, presided over by Judge Ben B. Lindsey, is famous. She has no bread line, and, as for crime, when I asked Police Inspector Leonard De Lue about it, he shook his head and said: "No; business is light. The fact is we ain't got no crime out here." Denver owns her own Auditorium, where free concerts are given by the city. Also, in one of her parks, she has a city race track, where sport is the only consideration, betting, even between horse owners, having been successfully eliminated. Furthermore, Denver has been one of the first American cities to begin work on a "civic center." Several blocks before the State Capitol have been cleared of buildings, and a plaza is being laid out there which will presently be a Tuileries Garden, in miniature, surrounded by fine public buildings, forming a suitable central feature for the admirable system of parks and boulevards which already exists. Curiously enough, however, by far the smallest part of Denver's parks are within the confines of the city. About five years ago Mr. John Brisben Walker proposed that mountain parks be created. Denver seized upon the idea with characteristic energy, with the result that she now has mountain parks covering forty square miles in neighboring counties. These parks have an area almost as great as that of the whole city, and are connected with the Denver boulevards by fine roads, so that some of the most spectacular motor trips in the country are within easy range of the "Queen City of the Plains." But though the mountains give Denver her individuality, and though she has made the most of them, they have not proved an unmixed blessing. The riches which she has extracted from them, and the splendid setting that they give her, is the silver lining to her commercial cloud. The mountains directly west of Denver form a barrier which has forced the main lines of trancontinental travel to the north and south, leaving Denver in a backwater.