(We want our city to be greater than it is, more than it has been to its own citizens and to those who visit or will visit it. But the town has to WANT to be greater than it is and that means its citizens must want it to be more than it is, not for their own benefit, but for the benefit of generations to come. It’s not a job to be left to the city council or the chamber of commerce. This observation, written by Dr. Frank Crane shortly after the end of the First World War and published in The Delineator magazine, remains valid today as he suggests we put—)
YOUR HOMETOWN FIRST
Work for your own town.
Beautify it. Improve it. Make it attractive.
The World War and the Treaty of Peace and the Protective Tariff and all such things are important subjects but what’s the good of cleaning up the world unless you sweep your own doorstep?
The city whose main street is dirty, sordid-looking, cluttered, uninviting, suffers much. Such a city wants to be cleaned, recreated, made a thing of beauty so that people will come from miles to see it.
The best advertisement of your business if the town you live in.
Towns get reputations as well as men. Make your town talked of all through the state. It will thus draw people. And where the people come, there is prosperity. It does not take money. It takes cooperation.
Get together. Organize for civic improvement. Develop the civic nerve.
Rid your town of one eyesore after another. Clean up the vacant lots and plant them in gardens. Make a cluttered yard a disgrace. Make public opinion too hot for those who will help.
It pays. It will promote law and order. It will help in the education of your children. It will draw factories and other business enterprises to your locality.
Shiftlessness, untidiness, dirt and selfishness as shown in your streets and buildings react upon your people.
Such things make your boys and girls grow up hating their home town.
Make your home town a children’s paradise, something their memory will lovingly turn back to.
Look after your amusements, your parks, your playgrounds, your theatres and all other forms of communal enjoyment.
Make your home town happy.
It pays.