Civic improvement; Urban women; Women in public life
While many of Chicago’s first women voters left the booths with the
idea that they had done all that was necessary until the next
election came around, the more far-seeing among them are
popularizing the idea that women’s participation must be a perpetual
and not a merely periodical performance.
The particular plot of the local political field which many of these
women mean to cultivate is the administration of the city’s parks.
The parks of Chicago are preëminently the concern of the homemakers
of the city, as they take up, widen and socialize the best
activities of the home—the activities of the child and social
intercourse.
Dancing, music and such festivals as those recently celebrated in
the parks in honor of Arbor Day; the meeting of the young and old
for pleasure and the exchange of ideas—these things the park
managements have fostered, broadened and put on a democratic basis
which sweeps away racial and other barriers that do more than walls
and doors to isolate the families that dwell in the crowded parts of
the city.
Women who would otherwise lack opportunity to hear and discuss civic
matters find an opportunity to do so in non-partisan organizations
that avail themselves of fieldhouse facilities for getting together;
people who would otherwise not hear good music hear it in the
open-air of the parks in summer or in the assembly halls in winter;
while those same halls afford opportunity for lectures to the
dwellers in their neighborhoods or for debates, dances or other
activities by those residents.
All that is in addition to the provision made for the enjoyment and
physical welfare of the children through swimming, supervised games
and physical culture.
The women who have been interested in these activities find,
however, that political action will be necessary before the parks
can be used to the greatest advantage. As things are now, there are
thirteen different park governments in Chicago, and the bill passed
at the last session of the legislature to consolidate them was
vetoed. Attorney General Lucey advised the governor that it was
unconstitutional because the park districts were really separate
municipalities and could not be eliminated without consent given
through the ballot of their inhabitants.
That the park governments should be unified is admitted on all
hands. Now there are districts in Chicago which are not in any park
district and so escape taxation while enjoying the privileges of the
parks, while the crowded districts, not being able to pay for park
facilities, do not get any to speak of, although there is a crying
need for them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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