Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 129, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 June 1915 — HOME TOWN HELPS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

HOME TOWN HELPS

WAR ON PUBLIC NUISANCES American Civic Association Condemns Smoke, Poles and Wires, and Bill- - boards as Among Them. From its very institution, the American Civic association has devoted itself to the protection of the public against three great nuisances —smoke, poles and wires and billboards. At the annual convention of the association in Washington one of the important subjects discussed was billboards, with a principal address, entitled "The Passing of the Signboard,’’ by Jesse Lee Bennett of Baltimore, in which he recounted the steps that had been taken for the legal control of the billboard in all parts of the United States. Concerning the sentiment against the billboard, Mr. Bennett said “The feeling against the signboard has become nation-wide, and in the last few years the agitation of civic organization has been so successful as to awaken resentment against it -so widespread that from coast to coast, and in almost every state and city, there are now, or have been, vigorous movements seeking the abolition or regulation of these unnecessary and disfiguring objects. “There has been much agitation, and from it there has been distilled one thing—the recognition of the fact that what is called the signboard problem is a question more complex than the mere removal of the signs. The signboard has been found to be inextricably intertwined with two questions of even greater importance —the awakening of civic sentiment and the recognition by legislators and judges of the validity of arguments based upon esthetic considerations.” Commenting on what ought to be the attitude of the law and the courts toward the billboard he added: “It would take our psychologist but a few minutes to show that it is not a question of ear or nose or eye, but a question of the brain and of the very consciousness that is life itself. No law should permit any man to intrude or force himself or his business into another man’s consciousness to the extent that outdoor advertising has come to permit, an intrusion itnmediately increased by the fact that it is Impossible to avoid seeing signboards.”