Confidential.

I do not suppose that you, or any one else in Chicago, yet begin to realize the importance and the difficulty of setting the leading element of the Exposition in really {accurate} maps. I have had experience of similar business, and from the moment we began to think of the Jackson Park plan, have seen that its success would turn largely upon what could be done and what could be prevented in the use of the lagoons. I began at once to seek sound information and to study the subject. When I was last in Chicago, I verbally advised you and advised the Committee on Buildings and Grounds that I was engaged with it and begged that I might be allowed to go on for the present privately, and with assurance that no proposition would be entertained for any use of the lagoons until after I could have a conference with the proper authority in the matter. Nevertheless, afterwards, knowing what a pressure would be brought to get some advantage for securing privileges, I thought it best to write you as fully as [312]I could at the time upon the subject and engage your interest in it. The effect of the publication of my letter can hardly fail to wake up a host of speculators and hobby riders to the opportunity and to set them to putting obstacles in the way of what is desirable for the public.

Looking over my letter, I see that I was at fault in not stating my objects and wishes more explicitly and in not marking the letter “confidential.” I am very sorry for it, but the mischief is done, and the only question now is how it can be { … }.

Would it be practicable for you to get me authority to proceed now in the matter officially? {Limited}, of course, only with reference to maturing a proper scheme to be submitted. Am I authorized to consult Burgess professionally?

Do take my word for it that this is a matter of extreme importance to the success of the Exposition and a matter requiring most cautious and deliberate study. It may easily take a shape that will make the whole lagoon plan a bad one; one of which I should be ashamed.

Yours faithfully.

I have returned today from the South and find your note of 24th {ultimate} which would have been sent on to me, but for the expectation that I should return sooner. I was prevented from doing so by successive storms of [313]sleet, rain and snow and the freezing of the ground, which stopped or embarrassed the work I was upon nearly every day.

If I had received your note sooner, I should have tried to spend a day in New York and examined the plan of sand courts, etc. and the topographical conditions to which it is to be fitted. Not having done so, and having no new light upon the subject, I do not see that I can say more than I did when writing you last.

Whatever may be thought of Vaux’s talent as a designer of elevations, and some other duties of an architect, he is absolutely the most ingenious, industrious and indefatigable man in his profession of all that I have known for the study of plans to meet complicated requirements of convenience; and the most fertile in expedient for accomplishing difficult ends in this respect. He is most unfortunate in attempting to present his ideas verbally, although if you have patience and faith, you will find that under appearance of incoherence and even of a wandering mind, he generally has a singular command of the problem he is dealing with.

The propositions to take a part of the North Meadow for a basin for model water craft, and a part of the lower South Meadow for a desert space for babies, are wonderful examples of the curious talent some men have in destructiveness of good things. Either object could be just as well provided for in thousands of vacant lots all about the city as on the ground for which the city has spent so much to prepare for another and wholly inconsistent purpose. To tear down the City Hall for either of these purposes would be a much saner proposition. The loss would be much more reparable and not a particle of advantage would be lost for the alleged ends.

I am not sure what Vaux referred to in what you quote from him as to Boston Franklin Park. We have completed and in operation there “THE PLAISTED” with a large lavatory, etc. for the use chiefly as a ball ground by boys under the grammar school age (16); the “LITTLE FOLKS’ FAIR district of Franklin Park has not yet been begun. In this, there are to be such arrangements as you have in “THE KINDERBERG,” with the neighboring merry-go-round, dairy, etc. Also, there will be sand-courts, swings, goat carriages, etc. We are now preparing a special enclosure on “THE CHARLESBANK” for women, girls and very small boys under the care of their mothers or nurses. This is to have sand-courts, a large space of turf for babies to tumble on, a running track and a gymnasium for women, corresponding to that for men now in operation, and of which you will find an illustration in the Department Report for 1890 which I send you.

The best thing of the kind in the country is to be found I think, in Golden Gate Park. I discussed the plan of this affair with the San Francisco Park Commissioners before it was adopted and reviewed it with them when it was nearly ready for opening when I was last there. It has since been in very [314]

Women’s Gymnasium and turf playground, Charlesbank

“Giant stride” in the corner, Charlesbank

[315]

Men’s Gymnastic Apparatus, Charlesbank

Yours Very Truly,