Los Angeles herald., 1908-04-26
COUNTY DIsGRAcED

TNHAT it might not impose a dis
agreeable subject upon the atten-
Il tion of our readers during the
jocund period of fleet week, The Herald
has refrained until now from adverting
to the humiliatingly disgraceful admin
istration of one department of our pub
lie affairs by the officials in charge
thereof which the visit of the fleet
called to the attention of thousands of
our citizens.
We refer to the unspeakably bad con-
dition of the county highways between
Los Angeles and San Pedro. OF course
1t has become automatic that Los
Angeles county, the richest county In
Southern California, has, apparently
through the inefficiency of the public
officials to whose care the highways
are intrusted, the poorest apologies for
public highways in Southern California.
1t is a notorious fact, recently veri-
fed by the writer, that a person trav-
cling on the highway leading through
Los Angeles county and into San Ber-
nardino county knows at once when he
crosses the line dividing the counties
by the infinitely superior character of
the highway of county financially
poor as compared with the second rich
est county in the state.
1t was, no doubt, hoped and expected
by our citizens that the board Of super
visors (having had months of warning
of the coming of the fleet to San Pedro,
and knowing that many citizens as well
as strangers would pass between Los
Angeles and San Pedro by private con-
veyance) would make some effort wor-
thy of the name to see that the highway
over which people so passing must
travel should be in such condition as
not TO be an absolute and abject dis
grace to the county.
How bitterly citizens having such
hopes were disappointed is known to
every one who had occasion to attempt
to use the road on Saturday There
were thousands of automobiles passing
over the highway leading from Central
avenue, as they had been advised to do
by a statement of a supervisor pub
lished in the papers of Saturday morn
ing, and 1t is doubtful If those people
ever saw a more miserably maintained
public highway in all their experience.
The writer was one of the unfortun-
ates who undertook to visit San Pedro
by private conveyance over the high
way in question. And the most dill
oapt obcarUa tion foi1ed 70 Sbouy q sin ula
square yard of that highway, outside
of the limits of incorporated towns,
that had been sprinkled or rolled in
preparation for the great use which the
coming of the fleet would impose
upon it.
The clouds of dust were so great in
many instances as to make it almost
impossible to see a vehicle twenty PAGES
in front of the one in which the trav-
eler was being conveyed. In fact the
apparent was that in some very dusty
portions of it a road machine had been
used to rake the dust into the center,
thereby making it deeper and more
annoying to travellers than it otherwise
would have been.
We assume that several thousands of
our citizens had an object lesson in
official inefficiency as applied to the
maintenance of highways in Los An
geles county which they will not soon
forget And still the question recurs
with insistent force: Why is it that the
second richest county in the state has
the worst highways in the state, high
ways unworthy of a civilized COM
grace to those charged with their care
and maintenance?
The Herald expects to have more to
say upon this matter as time goes on.