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TO BOYCOTT THE BILLBOARD: THE RIGHT
OF THE CITIZEN TO AN UNPOSTED LAND-
SCAPE: BY CLINTON ROGERS WOODRUFF
1-, YOU'RE from Pittsburgh. I stopped in Pitts-
burgh once for a few hours when I had to wait
for a train. It's such a funny ugly city, all covered
with the aueerest wooden fenee with orreat hitr
                 advertisements printed on them.    That's all I
   LVýA remember about Pittsburgh-its billboards and its
                 hills." This, Carolyn Prescott tells us, is a sample
of conversation, handed out to Pittsburghers, who live in the home of
the celebrated Carnegie Art Institute. This same authority declares
that there are billboards, billboards everywhere. Billboards on top
of tall buildings. Billboards creeping over the high hills, winding
their sinuous length like so many bizarre serpents. Billboards stuck
up in front of houses and gardens. Billboards at the entrances of the
parks. Billboards even defacing the cemeteries. We are so nause-
ated with the billboards that by the time we have reached our des-
tination we have become so disgusted with what we have seen and
read (for we can't help reading them) that we wouldn't patronize
those firms who advertise on billboards if we had to do without the
articles.
   I wonder how many Carnegie Art Institutes it will take to offset
such a condition of affairs! The one Pittsburgh possesses, with all
its millions of endowment and beautiful collections, is not able to
prevent the erection of a billboard, one hundred and forty feet long
and twenty feet high, directly opposite to the Institute itself. Nor
has its presence prevented the desecration of its own beautiful pictures.
La Fouche's canvas entitled "The Bath," which received first prize
from the International Art Exhibition at the Institute last spring, has
been utilized as a subject "to inspire enthusiasm in modern plumb-
ing!" This particular instance seems to be too much even for long-
suffering, or shall I say indifferent, Pittsburgh, and ways and means
are now being discussed for the curtailment of the evil. It may or
may not be an art center.  I am not going to discuss that question,
but if it is, then it is the art of the few, not that of the people.
   How can we make our cities in themselves works of art, if we
permit the profanation of the sky-line and the elimination of dignity
through the unrestrained and unregulated use of the billboard?
Cities spend tens and hundreds of thousands for beautiful public
buildings, for parks and parkways and playgrounds, and then allow
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