Cranbrook Rotary

CRANBROOK ROTARY – BETTER CITIES – BETTER CITIZENS – Indian War-Cry of Generation Ago Gives Place to Cry for Better Cities in Which to Rear Children.

            (By James W. Searson, professor of English, University of Nebraska, and one of the judges of the “Better Cities” Contest held throughout the State of Oklahoma).

            When it was thought that human ingenuity had practically exhausted itself in staging every conceivable kind of drive, along came the resourceful state of Oklahoma with a drive for better cities.  No money was wanted, no bonds were for sale, and no mercy and help causes were pleaded for.  But here was a drive to get every citizen in the contesting cities to cooperate with every other citizen to help make his city the safest and best place in which to rear children.  No war drive created so much real working enthusiasm, according to leaders in the contesting cities.

            But where does Rotary come in, you ask.  Rotary started the whole crusade!  And the idea is spreading like wildfire.  Think of it!  In a state which less than a generation ago heard the Indian war-cry, Rotary started a “Better Cities” contest.  How it all came about makes an exceedingly interesting story.

            Over a year and a half ago, ninety-two members of the Rotary Club of Shawnee started the pot to sizzle.  They issued a challenge with teeth in it.  They offered a cash prize of $2,500 to any city in Oklahoma which, after a year’s contest, should be judged to be the best city in the state in which to rear children.  Then they challenged any other city to excel Shawnee’s progress and enterprise.  Thirty-five cities of from 3,000 to 20,000 in population took up the challenge – and the fight began.

            It was agreed that the contest should be directed by William A. McKeever, director of National Juvenile Welfare Service, Lawrence, Kansas.  Doctor McKeever personally visited all the competing cities, distributed score sheets, and gave each city a clear-cut statement of “One Hundred Ways to Win.”  Instantly committees were appointed in every city, and the merry contest was on in full blast.

            In order to win the prize it was necessary that the winning city make the best showing in progress and in permanent improvement on the following ten points agreed upon by the contesting cities:

            1.  PLAY – Facilities for adequate and safeguarded play at school in the community.  Conditions of parks, playgrounds; supply of proper playground apparatus and the like.

            2.  INDUSTRY – Industrial training at school; character building; employment during vacation; conditions of employment of juveniles under sixteen; and the systematic thrift instruction.

            3.  SCHOOLS – Management, equipment, methods of contact with community; modern methods of instruction; management of athletics; adequateness of number of teachers, salaries and the like.

            4.  HEALTH – Modern methods of nursing, health inspection; better baby and other clinics; hospital service, dental inspection, handling of contagious disease, and community sanitation.

            5.  SCOUTCRAFT – Management of the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, or Campfire Girls.  Facilities for camping, hiking, boating.  Service work of scouting organizations.  Lessons in Americanization and good citizenship.

            6.  MORAL SAFEGUARDS – Management of the motion picture, the vaudeville theatre, and the dance.  The cigarette problem; the general club life of the young; enforcement of laws safeguarding morals.

            7.  SOCIABILITY – Facilities for weekly social experience of all adolescent young people.  Social management in the high school, and in the homes and churches.

            8.  RELIGION – Youths in young people’s church societies, Sunday schools, Y.M.C.A., Y.W.C.A.  Enrollment, management, and how these bodies meet the play and recreational interests of the young.

            9.  SERVICE – Clubs and societies of men and women studying and dealing constructively with juvenile problems.  Projects accomplished and under way.

            10.  HOUSING – Adequateness of housing, health, sanitation, and other comforts of industrial classes and of the families of lower economic status, with remedial methods and measures.

            With thirty-six cities going at the drop of the hat, Oklahoma saw a year of city building and city improvement such as she had never dreamed were possible.  Here was a contest, not to build bigger stores, nor to sell more goods, nor to pave more streets – but to build community life.  Not even a Billy Sunday with his perfect machinery for revivals could awaken such genuine enthusiasm as did the “Better Cities” contest.  “We have all come alive and have done more for our city and its children this year than we have done in the whole past 20 years,” enthusiastically declared a prominent business leader in one of the cities.

            At the close of a year of keen competition, twelve of the cities came up for final scoring on the ten points, as follows: Enid, Blackwell, Ardmore, Lawton, Edmond, Sapulpa, Shawnee, Miami, Claremore, Durant, Bartlesville and Pryor.  The judges were appointed to spend one day in each city to score the cities according to the score sheet, and to decide which city deserved the prize.  They began their work at Enid the morning of November 14, and closed their work at Pryor on November 26^th.

            At Enid, a thousand business men organized in a city Father’s Club, left their places of business at the noon hour, and paraded the streets with child-boosting banners.  The schools are well housed and modern in every respect.  The city has 190 acres of parks, fine streets and boulevards, and it is erecting a community building at a cost of $465,000.  Of the homes in Enid, 82 per cent are owned by their occupants.  Fifty per cent of the population of the city are church members.  Organized churches and Sunday schools minister to the religious needs of the children.  A “City Chest” budget takes care of the city’s charities and social welfare work.  Women are admitted to the chamber of commerce the same as men, and every family in town takes the local newspapers!

            The Rotary Club of Blackwell has originated “The Blackwell Plan” of school co-operation.  Rotary sees to it that all of Blackwell’s children are kept in school.  If a child is too poor, he is given help.  If he lacks ambition, Rotary sets him on fire for more learning.  The school buildings are overcrowded, and the “Better Cities” campaign has promised the very best of new modern buildings.  Representatives of thirty-one civic and social organizations formed a community council and cooperated during the contest for the upbuilding of the schools, the churches and the community.  The Methodist church has just completed an addition containing a 50x80 gymnasium room which is placed at the disposal of the high school and of business men’s and women’s clubs.  The whole community is a-quiver with the desire to improve its streets, homes, churches, factories, schools, stores and moral safeguards.

            The Ardmore schools, business men declare, are easily the best asset of that city.  The high-school boys during the past summer, earned $57,000 in properly safeguarded work, and saved $21,000.  During the year school children cared for 2,300 home gardens.  Sheet metal work, auto mechanics and practically every other kind of industrial work needed in the community, are taught in connection with the school laboratories.  A well-organized system of parent-Teachers’ associations cooperates with the schools.  The schools give credit for properly directed Bible study carried on in the churches.  Sunday school attendance was doubled during the year, a 22-piecwe Scout band organized, a Scout camp opened, a day nursery established, and the community voted the maximum levy for supporting an excellent million-dollar school building program.

            At Edmond, C.W. Wantland, former “Sooner” football star, managed the “Better Cities” campaign with the same zeal as that with which he used to put the ball behind the goals of Kansas, Nebraska and Missouri.  During the campaign there was an in crease of 75 per cent in Sunday school attendance, of 50 per cent in church attendance, 100 per cent in young people’s societies and 100 per cent I c church attendance, and 100 per cent in money given for church support.  At noon the entire city paraded with clever floats and banners in honor of the better children crusade.  The city of Edmond has been paved, cleaned and beautified until it scarcely knows itself.

            Lawton, a city of mushroom growth, adopted the slogan, “We Win if We Lose,” and the other contesting cities generally followed the suggestion.  The Lawton schools showed a record of 97 per cent in attendance, with a total enrollment of 2,550.  The school treasury receives over $3,000 annually in tuitions paid by non-resident students.  Operetta troupes, bands, orchestras, girls’ councils, and a fine Boy Scout camp have all been developed during the contest.  Health charts and Sunday school attendance charts are seen in every classroom.  A junior civic league has been organized with a full quota of police and other city officers responsible for school government.  The only Boy Scout nursery in the world is maintained in connection with the government forest reserve.  The women’s clubs have a membership of 350; the Boy Scouts 125; and the Chamber of Commerce 750.

            At Sapulpa, Jim Barton, president of the Rotary Club and superintendent of the city schools, was chairman of the “Better Cities” campaign committee.  An historical pageant was staged outside the city, with over 20,000 persons witnessing it from the beautiful woodland slopes.  Sapulpa easily excels in scoutcraft.  Fred E. Woodson, scout master, has 155 Scouts in eleven troops and Mary Case Stewart, associate secretary of the Y.W.C.A., has 250 Girl Scouts, all Scouts being organized in connection with the public schools.  The Rotary Club has provided, cleared and equipped one of the finest Boy Scout camps in Oklahoma.

            Shawnee, home of the Rotary Club that offered the prize, was as modest as a child in setting forth its claims.  Well-organized public schools, the Oklahoma Baptist University, the Oklahoma Catholic University, and a system of modern churches cooperating finely in community work, were striking assets of the city.  The report of progress of the “Better Cities” campaign was printed in the high-school print shop.  Emphasis was placed upon thrift, music, poster-making, and the manual and fine arts in connection with the regular work of the schools.  The Rotary Club conducted a “back-to-school” campaign and saw to it that 203 out of 205 eighth-grade graduates went on to the high school.  Of the high-school graduates, 65 per cent entered college.  The Rotary Club helped get them jobs to keep them in college.  The church edifices are models of artistic construction, and church attendance has more than doubled during the campaign.  Sunday school attendance is more than 100 per cent of the resident enrollment due to the fact that the Rotary Club has organized extension work and has regularly brought to the Sunday schools of the city 150 children from the surrounding country who would otherwise be without Sunday school privileges.  Starting with a small group of three or four children, the Rotarians developed the system of Sunday school extension work until it is now widely known as “The Shawnee Plan.”  Rotarians say that it is more fun to bring in a car-load of kiddies than to play golf or sit by the fireside.

            Under the active direction of a live Central Community Committee, Shawnee started in to work out a definite program of community building based on the ten points of the score card.  The city erected and equipped a modern junior high school and built a commodious new high-school building as a part of the beautiful central park-building plan for city beautification.  This central beauty spot is known as Woodland park, and its beautiful native trees and shrubs, its well-equipped public playground, the public library, and the picturesque sunken gardens are other attractive features making this park a favorite community center for all classes of citizens.

            A Boy Scout park cleared by the Scouts, an 80-acre school playground, a 28-piece Scout band, a 63-piece bugle corps, a paid scout executive, and well-organized Girl Scouts are Scoutcraft features which draw their inspiration from the “Better Cities” contest.  Systematic health work, well-organized charities, parent-teachers’ clubs, improved baby clinics and hospital service, thrift practice, and proper social safeguards for the young, were stimulated during the year.  But best of all, like a miracle of old, stands the Curtice Industrial School.  This school is mothered by Mrs. W.H. Curtice, who for nineteen years has performed a quiet ministry for the young of Shawnee.  More than 5,000 girls point to Mother Curtice as their inspiration, and the whole city worships this wonderful soul and co-operates wither in miracles of achievement with underprivileged children.

            Then there is Everett Hill, former district governor of the Seventeenth District, whose fine spirit of cooperation and sagacious leadership were drawn upon at every stage of the contest.  He inspired his co-workers, and today he is seriously proud of his home city’s wonderful progress.

            The city of Claremore organized the “Christian Builders” to make permanent the effect of the “Better Cities” campaign.  The Christian Builders comprise 100 men representative of all the churches in town.  Health day, thrift day, and good city day are some of the special days observed.  One of the most active organizations in the city is the Lion’s Club with a definite program to encourage Boy Scouts, to support athletics, to conduct better-yards contests, better window-display contests, better Sunday school attendance drives, to provide a lecture course, to plant shade trees throughout the city, and to increase athletic and playground apparatus.  Six federated women’s clubs, the commercial club, the business women’s club, and the American Legion cooperate with the schools and churches for community building.

            At Miami, the judges found a thoroughly organized school system under the supervision of Rotarian John Lofty.  A complete system of visual instruction, the careful use of intelligence tests, the best modern school equipment and the close organization of the teaching corps to accomplish results, are characteristic of the system.  Complete reports of the community committee showed marked progress made in the matter of health, moral safeguards, parks, camps, playgrounds, recreation equipment, enforcing of the cigarette law, the censorship of the movies, the administration of the united charities, and the safeguarding of children’s employment.  Twenty-two miles of paving, a modern hospital, and a sewage disposal plant were constructed during the past year.  A city raised from the dust and made over into a city beautiful is Miami’s significant achievement for the contest year.

            After collecting reports from each city and supplementing them with facts gleaned personally, the judges scored the cities and gave to Shawnee the first prize of $2,500.  Individual prizes of $100 each were offered by private parties to the city that would excel on any one of the ten points.  It was understood that the first-prize city could not compete for these prizes.  The judges awarded seven $100 prizes to the cities as follows:  Ardmore, for industry; Edmond, for housing; Bartlesville, for sociability; Blackwell, for religion; Durant, for moral safeguards; Miami, for schools; and Sapulpa, for Scoutcraft and service.

            Even the wildest dreams of city betterment are surpassed in the apparent effects of the “Better Cities” contest upon all cities in the contest, as shown by this brief summary of results:

            NEWSPAPERS – Although the Armistice Conference was in session, the “Better Cities” contest was given big head lines and feature stories in every city visited.  Special editions of from four to twelve pages were published.  The local publicity given by the newspapers to the contest ranged in amount from 100 columns at Edmond to 517 at Durant during the year.  In every town where the newspapers were giving this publicity, practically every citizen was a subscriber to the local newspaper.  Business houses increased their local newspaper advertising and even the churches paid regularly for liberal space.

            CHURCHES and Sunday Schools. – Church and Sunday school attendance in all cities was increased from 50 to 100 per cent.  Membership in young peoples’ societies doubled.  Large numbers of separate Sunday school classrooms were provided, and many new modern churches were built or planned.  The churches generally showed an excellent spirit of cooperation, and an evident desire to serve the community in practical ways.

            PUBLIC CHARITIES. – The contest revealed a general condition of poorly organized and inefficient public charities with definite plans to remedy the condition.

            PUBLIC SCHOOLS .—Nowhere was a diner awakening shown or better results exhibited than in the public schools.  The public in every case was quick to vote the maximum school levy, to provide adequate equipment, and to vote bonds for new buildings,  Parent-teachers’ associations were everywhere organized or in process of organization.  The public generally was more interested than ever before in the outside school activities of children and in the definite work of the school.

            PUBLIC HEALTH. – In every city some definite, intelligent, forward movement was under way for safeguarding the health of children.  School ,city, and county nurses were being employed.  Sick-baby clinics and well-baby clinics were being established in many places.  Hospitals were being improved and new hospitals built.  Everywhere there was a concerted movement to improve preventive health measures.

            WOMEN’S CLUBS. – A gleam of cooperation was revealed in the “Better Cities” contest.  As yet most of the clubs are discussing art or literature, passing resolution, or spending their energies in manipulating loan funds for students.  Here and there clubs are beginning to awaken to their finer opportunities for community building.

            COOPERATING BUSINESS CLUBS. – Chambers of commerce, Rotary, Kiwanis, Lions, and business women’s clubs everywhere definitely cooperated to get back of the Boy Scout movement, the Girl Scout movement, the back-to-school movement, and the movement for sane recreations.  One of the most distinctive features of the “Better Cities” contest was their carefully directed and sanely organized cooperation of business men’s and women’s clubs.

            RECREATIONS. – In all cities the need to provide larger play centers, better playground equipment, and finer indoor and outdoor recreations was clearly recognized.  Safeguarding public dances, controlling motion-picture theatres, and organizing true merry-maker’s clubs, were activities generally espoused by the “Better Cities” movement.  Business men’s clubs openly condemned the use of cigarettes and the members at their meetings and luncheons refused to set bad examples for children.

            HOME-MAKING and Child Control. – The back-to-the-home movement was clearly evident everywhere.  Homes were made modern, more pleasant for children, and parents began to show a willingness to assume complete responsibility for the control of their children.  Home tasks and home recreations were more definitely provided.

            THE CITY BEAUTIFUL. – Every city in the contest improved materially in appearance.  Houses were painted, lawns neatly trimmed, parkings cared for, streets paved or curbed, and back yards and alleys cleaned.  Trees were planted, parks were improved, new city buildings were erected with due regard to architectural beauty, and a beginning of city planning was everywhere in evidence.

            COMMUNITY CO-OPERATION. – Through the establishment of community councils, representatives of all the city organizations, a finer type of community betterment was made possible.  Luncheon conferences made business men and women acquainted with each other and set all to work for the common good.  These councils stimulated efforts to build new school buildings, to encourage newspapers, to clean jails, to care for juvenile delinquents, to provide better public libraries, to open restrooms and day nurseries, to make church going fashionable and Sunday school attendance reputable, and in a thousand other ways to stimulate every effort that had for its aim true community building.

            BETTER BUSINESS. – Although business willingly subordinated itself to child betterment, the business enterprises in all the cities were by far the gainers.  In every city, customers began to know the merchants and their stocks better.  There was greatly increased home buying, and less of a tendency to patronize mail-order concerns.  “Build the home city” and “buy at home” became synonymous slogans.  The merchants are even better pleased than the preachers or the teachers with the “Better Cities” movement.

            The whole State of Oklahoma has been benefitted by the contest.  Its revival for “Better Cities” is little short of a true crusade pointing the way to a definite means whereby our cities can be made safe places in which to rear children.  When it is remembered that up to 1893, Oklahoma was an Indian territory, and that most of these cities are less than 25 years old, the progress of Oklahoma cities is little short of miraculous.  When it is recalled, too, that ninety-two live Rotarians at Shawnee started all this hustle and bustle for sane city betterment, the benefits which have accrued to the state are all the more remarkable.  The contest has created wide comment and Rotary Clubs and Rotarians and members of other organizations have displayed a deep interest.  Surely, Rotary has a rare opportunity to work out her high civic ideals in practice, and Shawnee has shown just how it can be done.  The Rotary slogan of service has nowhere borne finer fruit thanin the spirited city contest it inspired in Oklahoma. – The Rotarian.