Woman's work in municipalities

by Mary Ritter Beard

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.

For instance, the South Park area is three times that of either the North or West Sides, but there are three times as many children on the North and West Sides as there are on the South Side. Meanwhile the South Park commission has a surplus in the bank which has frequently been over a million dollars, while the other park commissions often find it impossible to carry on the projects which would mean so much to their constituents.

With consolidation, too, would come a reform which it is not now possible to obtain—the standardization of the services which the parks render the public. At the present time, for instance, the South Park system employs only three social-play leaders—who perform a very valuable social function in bringing the various users of the parks together in games and conferences—although it has eleven recreation centers, while on the West Side the social-play leader is considered as necessary an adjunct to the park staff as are the gymnasium directors.

Women have a further interest in the parks, however, than in their consolidation, for they see in their administration the need as well as the opportunity for woman’s service.