BLOOMINGTON - "The man who votes against this tax thinks more of his money bags than he does of a human soul." So read one of many attention-grabbing signs carried by Bloomington school children during an April 1926 "Kiddies' Pet Parade," the purpose of which was to rally support behind a proposed tax hike for a playground and recreation program. | From Our Past page

The Pantagraph stood squarely behind the playground referendum, calling the tax "insignificant" by noting that homeowners would see their tax rate increase a modest 10 cents for every $100 in assessed valuation.

Residents were told that if the referendum passed, the new city-funded recreation arm would include trained playground supervisors, and additional offerings like storytelling, gardening, holiday parties, track and field meets, horseshoes, twilight baseball and much more.

The movement for publicly funded playground and recreation programs grew out of the Progressive Era and the belief that society's problems (such juvenile delinquency) could be addressed through the rigorous application of scientific principles and advances in various fields of social science such as psychology, sociology and economics.

Playground advocates called for not only green spaces and equipment, but also for "directed play" led by trained men and women. Playground supervisors were supposed to act as a combination of PE instructor, child psychologist, public health officer and social worker.

"Play controlled and directed by proper and capable instructors is that which develops the child physically and mentally and leads to the highest type of citizenship," noted The Pantagraph.

Although the nation's largest cities, including New York and Chicago, came to embrace the playground movement, Bloomington remained non-committal. A lack of supervised playgrounds was a source of frustration for some reformers.

"No progressive community any longer tolerates a defective water system, which might poison its citizens," read a plea from a December 1923 Pantagraph. "To permit an inadequate playground system is, just as surely, to allow the gradual poisoning of the minds and bodies of the city's little ones."

Local electoral history did not bode well for the April 6, 1926, referendum. Voters had already rejected an earlier playground measure, and the school board's plea for funding to pay for music programs and kindergarten.

In addition to the expected complaints about higher taxes, some residents questioned the very idea of supervised play. "All this talk about guiding the child and developing the character is mostly bunk," warned one Pantagraph letter-to-the editor.

Opponents also noted that there were already several public playgrounds, as well as school grounds and organizations like the YMCA. There also were concerns that supervised play did little more than pamper children, making them ill-prepared for the rigors of the workplace.

On the other side of the debate, playground advocates recruited children to sway undecided voters. The "Kiddies'" parade, staged the day before the election, included an estimated 750 school kids. The procession began near the McBarnes Memorial Building downtown, and slowly worked its way up Main Street.

Organizers divided the parade into pet, doll, poster, wheel and masquerade (costume) divisions. Two boys and their dog, with bandages covering imaginary wounds, walked with a sign reading "Us and our dawg. We play in the street." The wheel division included a "great variety of wagons, bicycles, scooters and other toy vehicles." Children in the poster division carried various placards, such as "Fight crime with supervised playgrounds" and "Old tight wad, let go for the children's sake. You can't take it with you."

Despite the playful pathos of the children's parade, voters handily rejected the playground tax. The measure fell 69 to 31 percent, garnering only 1,250 of 4,088 votes cast."

In 1936, Bloomington agreed to cooperate with the Depression-era relief agency WPA (Works Progress Administration) on a city recreation program. The following summer, a WPA-supported municipal recreation board operated full-time playgrounds at Miller and O'Neil parks, Fell Avenue and Buck Mann playgrounds, and Bent, Emerson and Washington schools. But in the fall of 1937, Bloomington voters again rejected a tax increase to support playground and recreation programs. Eventually, the WPA pulled out of Bloomington and left the community to its own devices. City parks and recreation programs limped through World War II and the Baby Boom years, with city officials often at a loss to pay for basic upkeep of aging park facilities.