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PAGES 33 TO 40 j
PSRT FOUR
VOL. XXII.
PORTLAND. OREGON, SUNDAY MORNING, JUNE 21, 1903.
lNACIGU'RATION OF F"REE eON6E"RTS I7N THE eiTC) P7VRK
How Part of Portland's Population Appreciated the Generosity of Public-Spirited Citizens
.
'
OR tho first time In her - history
Portland Is providing her people
with high-grade music ns an agency
which makes for the betterment of
civic conditions, without money and
without price, I you will take
a "Washington-street car and go out
to City Park any Sunday afternoon,
between 2 and 5 o'clock, .yov, may
steep your soul In the "sounde of tho band
In the Park" under circumstances so fav
orable that you will come away feeling
that Portland, County of Multnomah,
State of Oregon, Is a good place to live In.
Thanks largely to J. D. Meyer, in charge
of tho music in the Parks a season of
Sunday afternoon band concerts was in
augurated last Sunday and that the ex
periment will be a success was proven by
the presence of 6030 good citizens and their
families who lounged in the shade of the
sheltering trees while Charles I Brown's
crack band discoursed Its sweetest and
liveliest strains.
Some came early In the afternoon,
brought lunches and stayed until the final
6electlon, while others who had but a
few minutes to epare strolled through the
Park that they might pick up stray bits
of melody to take homo with them. Every
where there was satisfaction and gratitude
for the local generosity which made the
concerts possible. In a clump of firs and
cedars within a few stops of the base of
gray granite whereon the Iewis and Clark
monument is rising stands the bandstand,
and around it are grouped benches where
elderly men and matrons may sit in close
proximity to tho nattily uniformed musi
cians, the tuba and big bass drum, amid
a flood of memories carrying them back
to when the old familiar tunes were new
when Sherman was marching through
Georgia and Johnnie came home from the
front to his waiting Dolly Gray. There
are shady by-paths where two may stroll
together, all the world apart, while
dreamy waits tunes thread their way
through the trees, making fond hearts say
foolish, pensive things, "and there are
broad reaches of green sward where the
joungstera may tumble and "waller" in
the grass or do cakewalk steps when the
fancy of the big blue band lightly turns
to ragtime. The programme is varied to
suit all tastes, so that the learned and the
unskilled may both find pleasure in It.
A breathing place on a magnificent
height, a choice bit of God's country Im
proved my man and with it music! "What
better could be done on a Sunday after
noon than to hear the band at the City
Park? The crowd which was there last
Sunday wad cosmopolitan. It came from
all quarters of the city and all walks of
life. Here was the laborer with his little
family, resting from the six days of grind
ing toil. He found, peace and quiet and a
respite from care, here was the clerk
pale-faced and stooped from the close con
finement of his employment, here the man
of business- and here were visitors from
the country. It waa a good-natured, dem
ocratic assemblage, which had cast off
restraint for a few hours of the joy of
living. Sunday music at the Park dur
ing the coming Summer will make the
Ieople of Portland better and happier. It
wiU lessen crime, promote temperance and
improve business conditions. It is a good
Investment and will pay tangible divi
dends The Park Board has done well
and those ho have supplied the funds
may be Justlyjroud of their part In mak
ing the project successful. Today twice
as many people as last week should hear
the music. It is there for the public's
benefit, and It Is the publics fault If it
misses an afternoon of rare recreation.
NO. 25.