Grants Pass, Ore., Mayor H.L. Gilkey called for some spring cleaning in 1904. The mayor said in a front-page column in the Rogue River Courier that people were ignoring city ordinances and allowing filth to accumulate on their premises, sidewalks and alleys. He declared it a “public inconvenience and health menace.”
Gilkey also noted that livestock were roaming freely through town, stables adjoining public streets were a nuisance, and Grants Pass citizens should start improving their city by cleaning up.
Gilkey said public servants like himself could accomplish little for the benefit or welfare of the community without the “moral and material support of its citizens.” Maintaining a community shouldn’t depend on the appearance of an officer to threaten compliance, he said, but on the self-respect of those who live there.
The mayor said threats were an unpleasant way of keeping order and appealed to citizens to comply without being hassled and fined by officials.
“If everyone helps,” he said, there would be little difficulty in bringing about a cleaner and better governed town, “one to which we can greet visitors with pride instead of an apology for its appearance.”
Source: "Clean Up Back Alleys." Rogue River Courier 31 Mar. 1904 [Grants Pass Ore.] : 1. Web. 11 July 2016.
