We herewith present for the consideration of your Board a drawing of a plan for laying out that part of the public property in your charge which is called the Midway.

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The plan to be adopted for dealing with this part of your property will in some degree affect the plan to be advised for laying out that other part of it which, with the Midway, was occupied by the Exposition of 1893.

The public charge given you of a body of land, together with the command of funds to be used upon it, is one of many public trusts of a similar class, of which the oldest was formed less than forty years ago.

Varying views are taken as to the object of these trusts. A plan for dealing with the property concerned, if well adapted to one of these different views will not be well adapted to others of them. As a preface, therefore, not only to the particular proposition to be at this time submitted, but to all that we may have later to lay before you, we shall here state the view upon which we are accustomed to proceed.

Trusts of the class in question have become common only within the period of the modern tendency of civilized people to come together in large towns. Due consideration of this circumstance and of other circumstances to be associated with it, will lead to the conclusion that there is but one object which can have been had in view in forming these trusts consistently with principles which are regarded as sound by our leading statesmen and jurists.

That object is to make a provision through the use of which influences will be established counteractive to influences which, under ordinary conditions of life in a large town, act harmfully to the health and prosperity of its people:

The harmful influences to be counteracted are not reasonably to be attributed, as is often assumed, to the special subjection of the people of a large town to foulness of air. Those among townspeople who are least subject to foulness of air often suffer most from the influences in question. Moreover, were this the evil to be considered by a Park Commission, less costly and more effective means for alleviating it would be taken than such as the larger part of the outlay that has been made upon public parks has been adapted to provide. That people when in large parks are generally breathing purer air than when in the streets and within the walls of the town is an incidental advantage of parks, but it certainly is not the advantage, with a view to obtaining which the sums that public parks have cost have been mainly expended. It is not the advantage with regard to which their sites have been chosen or the plans for their improvement have been devised.

It is plain that the main object with a view to which land for a park has been commonly selected and for procuring and equipping which public money has been used, is that of gaining an advantage for the people interested, which advantage is to come to them through their eyes, not through their lungs.

Accepting this conclusion, the word park when used in the statutes governing a park commission is, in our view, to be understood to mean a place adapted to bring under the contemplation of townspeople such conditions of scenery as will tend to promote moods and dispositions of mind of a character inconsistent with and exclusive of such moods and dispositions as the ordinary [767]scenery of a large town tends to promote; for example, such moods and dispositions as are generally attributed to nervous depression.

That which constitutes the broad difference between the two classes of scenery thus to be considered may be further explained by saying that one mainly brings under contemplation manifestations in scenery of man’s work; the other manifestations in scenery of the work of Nature.

The distinctive leading object with which the statutes are meant to provide that a park shall be made, therefore, may be defined to be that of counteracting the effect of excessive confinement of vision to scenery largely artificial by providing opportunity for the occasional contemplation of results of natural processes in the making of scenery.

A public park is not a place in which any or all sorts of recreation are to be provided for. It is a place in which recreation is to be provided for through the enjoyment of scenery of a very different character from that to which those resorting to it are most accustomed.

Adopting the view thus explained, it will be readily obvious that the more unbroken, extended and cumulative the experience that visitors to a park shall obtain of conditions of scenery adapted to counteract those with which it is the primary duty of a park commission to contend, the better will the object be served for which the commission exists, and the larger will be the return made to those for whom the commissioners are acting as trustees.

It follows that the main duty prescribed by the trust of a park commission must be to provide those in whose behalf the commissioners are acting, with an opportunity as extended and unbroken as the means placed at the commissioners’ control allow for enjoying scenery of a distinctly rural character.

Having in view the advantage of continuity of effect of rural scenery and wishing that in the present discussion of the subject this advantage may be kept in mind, we shall consider the several connected parts of your property to which different names have been given as one, and we shall hereafter refer to this one as the South Park.

It will obviously follow, from the premises we have adopted that, other things being equal, the larger, within reasonable limits, the field to be operated upon for the prescribed purpose of a park commission, the better this purpose is to be accomplished.

As to the question what area of land has, in practice, been found desirable to be used for this purpose, it may be said that London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Munich, Brussels, Philadelphia and San Francisco have each at least one park which is a thousand acres or more in extent. Several of these towns have each two parks of a thousand acres or more. In neither of these towns is there now remaining a party or a faction, or, as far as we know, even a single citizen, who believes that smaller bodies of land would have equally well served the purpose of counteracting the effects of the confined spaces of the town, or who thinks that it was mistaken economy to make the parks in question as large as they are.

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In a further study of the present question, the facts and considerations that have thus been presented need to be kept in mind, because if they are forgotten, a tendency will come into play with those interested in the subject to regard the land to be considered as if there were three separate parcels of it, each to be laid out independently. Such a tendency has its origin in the circumstance that the middle part of this land has the form of a long and narrow isthmus. If, however, the breadth of this isthmus is considered, not, comparatively with that of the two outer parts of the property, but as that of an area within which city buildings are not to be elements of the local scenery, the space free from such buildings will be found to measure over seven hundred feet across. Of this space of seven hundred feet which is not to be built upon, a small part on each side is occupied by wheelways and sidewalks giving access to the buildings which are hereafter to stand beyond its boundaries, leaving a middle space of about six hundred feet which, as the laws now stand, your Commission has the right to lay out without consulting others. The best arrangement for dealing with the whole space, seven hundred and twenty-five feet in breadth, cannot be used except through a process requiring the voluntary co-operation with your Board of other departments of the City government unless new legislation shall be obtained for the purpose. Assuming either that such voluntary co-operation or such legislation will be obtained if good reason can be shown for considering that public interest demands that it shall be, the question is next to be considered in what way the broader ground in question can be so laid out that the property as a whole, of which this Midway space is a part, will be best adapted to accomplish the essential object of your trust as this trust has been above defined.

Twenty-three years ago this question was considered as an element of the general problem of a plan for turning the whole of the thousand acres of land then held by the South Park Commission to the best account for the purpose stated; the object being to secure to those visiting the park the largest practicable continuity of rural experience. The chief means to this end then proposed was the introduction of a feature that would be continuous through all the three parts of the property, and by which these three parts would thus be, as it were, dove-tailed into one. By this means an element of unity was hoped to be secured such as would be practicable by no other.

The interlocking feature was to be that of a body of water taking the character of a natural pond in one part; of a formal canal in the straight and narrow isthmus where no other form of it could be successfully attempted, and of a series of lagoons finally connecting with Lake Michigan in the third part.

It was regarded as an incidental yet highly important advantage of this plan that the entire park of a thousand acres could by means of it be traversed not only by carriages, in the saddle, and on foot, but in a degree that, with a single exception, no other considerable public park in the world can be, by boats.

Of the value of the opportunity which would have been thus provided, [769]a limited, partial and imperfect illustration was last year presented in the various forms of the boat service hastily extemporized within the extemporized shores of the incompletely formed lagoons of that part of the park which was occupied by the main Exposition. It is the general testimony of those whose experience is to be regarded as weightily instructive on the point in question, that in no other way was as restful, refreshing and restorative recreation to be obtained by weary visitors as by a judicious use of the boats provided on these waterways; nor was there any one constituent member of the entire fabric of the Exposition that, on the whole, more fully justified the expectations with which it was introduced.

With the equipment and with the regulations and arrangements that might now be provided with due regard to such use of boats as would wisely be had in view in a public park planned as the South Park was intended to be, the soundest grounds of assurance have thus been established of the value of the scheme of waterways which was originally designed.

Taking also into account the value of the boats as a scenic element operating, directly and by association, upon the minds of visitors when looking across the waters from the shores, the opinion with which the original plan for the South Park was devised will be found to have been fully vindicated by the experience gained in the Exposition. Upon a careful review of this experience the conviction appears to us to be justified that the South Park would have gained in value by an outlay of a million dollars, had it been necessary to use so large a sum in order to carry out the element now in question of the original plan, more than by an outlay of two million dollars in any other way that sum could have been applied.

Holding this conviction, we necessarily believe further that in no way can the South Park be now made nearly as valuable for its proper purpose, as by a return, providing it yet remains practicable, to the original plan of a waterway between the part of it which is now called Jackson Park and that part of it which is now called Washington Park.

As to the question whether it is yet practicable to carry out this part of the original plan, we have been led to suppose that the opinion prevails with your Commission that it is not practicable. If so, we respectfully urge that before adopting a final decision against the canal proposition, the Commission should be fully assured that the difficulties which it may see standing in the way of this proposition can by no ingenuity be removed. The question really is as to what will be seen to have been the best course when Chicago shall have many times its present population and many times its present financial resources. If the difficulty to be overcome is mainly one of expediency for the time being, we cannot think that it should be allowed to be decisive against the arrangement that would prove to have been best when the sapling trees now to be planted will have acquired mature forms and the character of scenery will have been attained with a view to which the disposition of these trees on the ground is now to be determined. An arrangement that will be fairly satisfactory [770]for ten or twenty years to come can be adopted, leaving it practicable later to carry out the plan which promises the best ultimate results.

Under existing circumstances, however, we are obliged to consider that practically the following question has been asked of us: It having become impracticable to carry out that part of the original design of the South Park which applied to the Midway section of it, what disposition of this section can now be made that will be least harmful to the desired influence of the park as a whole?

Taking up this question, we observe, first that if a broad road and broad walks were to be carried through the middle of the long and relatively narrow parallelogram to be considered, there would remain between this road and these walks and the streets on each side of the parallelogram a space too narrow to be used as a means of visually uniting the two broad areas at each end of it. The broader the verdant space that can be allowed for connecting them undivided to the eye by unverdant roads and walks, the less violent will be the break of rural scenery to be experienced in passing between the two larger parts of the Park. Of the two evils, first, that of having buildings brought prominently into view on both sides of the ways of passage, and, second, that of having buildings brought yet more prominently into view on one side, while on the other a range of vision is to be had over a space of natural green of considerable breadth, beyond which there will be buildings more obscurely in view, the latter, in our judgment, is to be preferred because it will be most expressive of rural conditions and most favorable to the maintenance of tranquil moods of mind.

Hence, as a regrettable alternative to the original plan, we advise that there shall be a central green space extending from the west end of the Midway to the point where the Illinois Central Railroad crosses it; that this space shall be no more broken or disturbed than the requirement of convenient crossings of it by public ways makes necessary, and that all direct passage through the length of the Midway shall be by a system of roads and walks so arranged on each side of this space as to interfere in the least degree practicable with the quiet rural aspect which it will be aimed to give this central space.

What is proposed in this respect will be readily seen after a glance at the drawing which we send under separate cover.

It will be observed that provisions are made at intervals for the crossing of the Green both on foot and by carriage roads, and that by these crossings the Green is to be divided into twelve plots, each about five hundred feet square. Care being taken by occasional shifting of hurdles and otherwise to guard against local wear of the turf, these twelve plots will be available for various games requiring flat spaces of turf, such as lawn-tennis and croquet. They will not be available for games in which a ball might be knocked beyond their limits with danger to people upon the bordering roads and private properties.

As we strongly hope that this plan will be rejected in favor of that originally proposed, with such modifications of the latter in detail as subsequent [771]constructions may have made necessary, we do not think that further explanation of it is now required.