MUNICIPAL SUFFRAGE No. 3. What the women might, could,
would, or should do, to make Knoxville a
better place in which to live, if they had
the ballot and one of the commissioners
was a woman to look after our municipal
housekeeping.
'Women are specially fitted to superintend the cleaning and beautifying of
cities. Their delicate physical organization, greatly increased by an indoor life,
and the length of their garments make
them observant of the conditions of
streets and public buildings.
Knoxville is now paying good salaries
to five commissioners to devote their
whole time to the management of the
city affairs.
In two previous numbers of this series
of articles on municipal housekeeping,
the failure of officials to enforce the
smoke ordinance and the selling of intoxicants and to remove obscene pictures
was commented upon. Let us look now
at the condition of our streets.
In the last few years our citizens have
gone to much expense to improve our
streets and sidewalks. This has made
our city most attractive in appearance,
to the general observer, but when one
looks closely and critically into conditions one finds because of neglect of
little things, much discomfort is expe-
ienced by those who have paid large
[sums] for making our streets what they should be.
Let us take one small section and see what its condition is on a rainy day.
We will start from the university and come down Cumberland avenue. We find no sidewalk on one side of the street and on the other while there is an inferior sidewalk part of the way, there is a crossing which is utterly impossible for ladies to use in bad weather. The street is full of mud holes, which might be filled at a small cost if it were anybody's business to attend to such things. Coming on up Cumberland we find a soft drink stand for negroes. Nothing
need be said as to its character as every
one knows the character of all the so-
called "soft drink stands." ..... scattered all over the sidewalks vnder
the L. & N. bridges. Why should this
rich road be required to clean up these
unsightly places?
We now come to the paved street,
which though it has a very steep grade
is paved with asphalt. The humane
society should certainly put in a protest against streets with steep grades being paved with asphalt. It is with the
greatest difficulty that horses with heavy
loads can pull up this street and in rainy
weather and when ice is on the street
it is almost impassable for vehicles.
Some one should see that no more steep
grades in Knoxville are paved with such
materials.
Continuing up Cumberland we come
to two driveways where during a rain
the water runs down them and over the
pavement, causing passers-by to have to
walk in water or take to the road. Or
if we turn up Henly (sic.) street we find an
alley with a very steep grade, where the
water flows, during a rain, in a constant stream over the sidewalk, as those
whose business it was to look after the
matter allowed ine drain to be put on
the outside of the sidewalk instead of
the inside. Many of the downspouts in
this neighborhood are allowed to dis-
charge their water on the surface instead of its being conducted underground
to the gutters,
where the water would
keep the gutters clean. Because
of running on surface the water pours
over pavements during a hard rain and
is most uncomfortable for pedestrians.
All these are comparatively small matters, but how much discomfort they oc-
casion our citizens and then they are totally
unnecessary. They show
the need of more judicious municipal housekeeping.
Give a woman the job to look after these small affairs and see if there will not be some improvement. L. CROZIER FRENCH
Women's Suffrage
