aced at the
railroad station; litter-cans were distributed over the entire
community; a new railroad station and post-office were secured; the
station grounds were laid out as a garden by a landscape architect; new
roads of permanent construction, from curb to curb, were laid down;
uniform tree-planting along the roads was introduced; bird-houses were
made and sold, so as to attract bird-life to the community; toll-gates
were abolished along the two main arteries of travel; the removal of all
telegraph and telephone poles was begun; an efficient Boy Scout troop
was organized, and an American Legion post; the automobile speed limit
was reduced from twenty-four to fifteen miles as a protection to
children; roads were regularly swept, cleaned, and oiled, and uniform
sidewalks advocated and secured.

Within seven years so efficiently had the Association functioned that
its work attracted attention far beyond its own confines and that of
Philadelphia, and caused Theodore Roosevelt voluntarily to select it as
a subject for a special magazine article in which he declared it to
"stand as a model in civic matters." To-day it may be conservatively
said of The Merion Civic Association that it is pointed out as one of
the most successful suburban civic efforts in the country; as Doctor
Lyman Abbott said in The Outlook, it has made "Merion a model suburb,
which may standardize ideal suburban life, certainly for Philadelphia,
possibly for the United States."

When the armistice was signed in November, 1918, the Association
immediately canvassed the neighborhood to erect a suitable Tribute
House, as a memorial to the eighty-three Merion boys who had gone into
the Great War: a public building which would comprise a community
centre, with an American Legion Post room, a Boy Scout house, an
auditorium, and a meeting-place for the civic activities of Merion. A
subscription was raised, and plans were already drawn for the Tribute
House, when Mr. Eldridge R. Johnson, president of the Victor Talking
Machine Company, one of the strong supporters of The Merion Civic
Association, presented his entire estate of twelve acres, the finest in
Merion, to the community, and agreed to build a Tribute House at his own
expense. The grounds represented a gift of two hundred thousand dollars,
and the building a gift of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. This
building, now about to be erected, will be one of the most beautiful and
complete community