The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1908-06-16
A COUNTRY CLUB
WHICH MOVES ON
Growth of Los Angeles Pushes
the Organization Ahead
of II.
advertiser Correspondence, Copyright
by Frederic J. Haskin)

advertiser Correspondence, Copyright
by Frederic ]. Haskin)
LOS ANGELES. Cal, May 81.-The
Los Angeles Country Club is getting
ready to move. 1t is the only country
club in America which is migratory
will move again, because it has to
move to keep in the country. Years
ago when the club was first organized
it went away out into the rural dis
tricts and established itself. BY and
by the City of Los Angeles followed it,
streets and city homes grew up all
/ around it, and it was country club
in name only. So the club cut up its
/ grounds into city lots, sold them for a
| fortune and went miles away out into
| the country But the City of Los An
| geles pursued it. The country club is
surrounded by paved streets and
| houses regularly planted on hundred
foot lots 1t is no more in the country
than the Madison Square of Manhat-
tan. 1t is preparing to sell out again,
for a greater fortune this time, and 1t
will pitch its tent somewhere five or
six miles away from the city.
But the club is hopeless. It has
abandoned all idea of permanent
home. 1t knows it can find no rest
from it's wandering. Said the club,
speaking through one of its members:
1--WE will try to find place next time
where we can stay for eight or ten
years. We can't hope for more, be-
cause if we went beyond the city linn
its of Los Angeles of 1920 we would
have to get so far away that it would
take nearly all day to go and come
from the club
Country clubs live a precarious life
in this part of the world. There is no
objection to clubs, but the descriptive
adjective country is like a red rag to
a bull when waved in the face of a
city that doubles its population every
five or six years. Another country
club in Los Angeles whose members
actually want to play polo and golf
has undertaken the most elaborate
precautions to prevent the city from
swallowing it whole. 1t has establish
| ed itself in deep ravine which is pro-
| tected on the city side by high noun
tain. The trolley line will approach it
on the outside of the mountain wall.
But no city-building, country-destroy-
| ing trolley will be permitted to invade
| the sacred precincts. By no means.
| The members of the club will alight
| from trolley cars in the face of a blank
and forbidding cliff. They will glance
| furtiveIy about to see if Frank Wig
gins or any other agent of the city
extending Chamber of Commerce is
about. If the coast is clear the club
member will dart quickly into a half
concealed opening in the cliff. 1t is
the tunnel through the mountain which
vate tunnel to be used by members
only. Even so robust and all-devour
ing city as Los Angeles will have
to look alive if it ever succeeds in
capturing this well-fortified country
club.
Nuestra Sonora la Relna de Los An
geles. as this city was called when it |
was a Spanish pueblo, is not an enemy
of the good people who play golf and
tennis. But it is the implacable foe
of rural territory. 1t pounces upon |
farms and orchards and transforms /
them into city wards. In carrying on
this warfare against the rural terri |
tory surrounding it, Los Angeles has
grown more rapidly than any other |
American city of Importance. 1t has |
kept it's growth up steadily and it in |
tends to keep it going.
Los Angeles was a hundred years old |
in 1880. 1t then boosted a population |
of 1000 people. Five years later came |
the new railroad which gave it trans |
continental transportation facilities. |
Apparently the first thing the railroad
brought was regiment of real estate
agents and a boom. Like the other
town booms of the eighties, things
went too far and too high. There was
a great imitation and then the bubble
burst. But even after the boom had
collapsed. Los Angeles stin had $4,000
people. which means that its popula-
tion was multiplied by five in five
years. The real estate agents were
left here when the bottom fell out of
the boom. 1t was resolved that the
good work that had been done should
not perish.
So it came about that on the ruins
of the boom was born the Chamber of
Commerce. The men who went into
that organization proclaimed the doc
trine of Boost. They furthermore de-
clared that he, who does not boost is
an enemy to the city. That was
twenty years ago. The Chamber of
| Commerce has an influence greater
| than any other single organization of
Lii in,