OCR Text |
Show SHRUBBERY AND THE CHAUFFEUR. (Christian Science Monitor.) IN ORDER that ornamental shrubbery shrub-bery interfere with a clear view of street intersections for drivers of trolley cars, automobiles and other rapidly moving vehicles, it is proposed that ornamental shrubbery generally be removed from street corners and other points where It may prove a hindrance. hin-drance. It Is contended that while ornamental shrubs contributed to the city or suburb beautiful in other days the advent of the automobile has now made it necessary that such ornamentation ornamen-tation as may obstruct a clear perspective per-spective be done away with. This strikes us as being every whit as unreasonable un-reasonable as some of the restrictions proposed by those who are unfriendly unfriend-ly to the automobile. A now condition condi-tion has arisen and the thing to do, as we regard it, is to bring about a readjustment of other conditions so that they will harmonize with it on lines of common sense. The average automobile owner and the average automobile operator will agree with us in holding, we are sure, that it Is palpably the duty of the operator of a machine to slow down on approaching approach-ing an obstructive clump of shrubbery, whether he believes it Is concealing an approaching vehicle or not, and that it is the automobile operator who, regardless of such view obstructions, rushes his car ahead, rather than ornamental or-namental shrubs, that ought to be abolished. The things that are making for a more esthetic America, the -trees and shrubs that lovers of the beautiful have been struggling for years to popularize in a material age and a material country, the efforts that have been put forth to restore and conserve tho glories of nature, too long sacrificed sacri-ficed to commercialism and industrialism, industrial-ism, should not now be abandoned or destroyed or neglected so that the heedless chauffeur shall have a Dare and barren earth before him. What is needed Is that the person who drives an automobile shall be a per-son per-son possessed of ordinary judgment. Such a person will not go flying past a clump of shrubbery that hides his view, or recklessly around a corner, or wildly over a street Intersection or along a crowded boulevard. The per-son per-son who does not exercise good judgment judg-ment should not be permitted to drive a machine. |