Los Angeles herald., 1910-06-23
TWO CRITICS

III HE editor of a Redlands newspa-
per suspended his customary oc-
= cupation of writing about john
Smiths new barn and Sally Jones'
sixth birthday party the other day to
polish his boots and run over to Los
Angeles for a few hours. After laying
in new supply of alfalfa seed and
visiting a cafeteria he turned his at
tention to the city. He stood on the
corner of Fifth and Brc ldway, rolled
a straw judieially from one side of
his mouth to the other, then was. seen
to wag his head with emphasis as if
he had come to a conclusion.
He had. He returned to Redlands
and wrote up Los Angeles. I'VE
doubt" he said, "if the city will show
325,000 1t doesn't look as big as that,
Los Angelans realize it and have been
making valiant efforts to pad the CEN
sus figures, even counting in the
transients at the hotels" Then he
marked a copy of his paper and sent
it to friend back east, the editor of
the Republican in Waterbury, Conn ca
small town chiefly noted as the home
of the long-wind waterbury watch),
whereupon the editor solemnly warns
us that murder will out and that wee
better stop this population lying" be-
fore the census department catches
us at it.
This admQnition is accepted in the
friendly spirit in which it was given,
and the lying shall be stopped. But.
as we understand the Redlands editor
is willing to concede that the growth
of Los Angeles has been without a
parallel in the country, we venture to
add some facts to the store of knowl-
edge he gathered on the street corner
the other day just to convince him
that the growth is not stopping to any
noticeable extent.
Fact number one: There are 3S3,7SS
names in the 1910 city directory, a gain
over last year of 26, 466.
Fact number two: Bank clearings
and realty transfers each show gain
of 25 per cent over last year.
Fact number three: Customs house
receipts show an increase of &c per
cent.
Fact number four: New buildings,
first five months of 1910, cost $1o,1S2,-
35S, gain of $5,771,494 over the same
period last year.
Fact number five: Bank clearings
for May, 1910, 500, ,2S2 395; for May, 1909,
$50, ,o45; for May, 1908, $42,2SS,S24.
Fact number six: Los Angeles was
in advance of all Pacific coast cities
for May in total valuation of improve
ments. Here are the comparisons: Los
Angeles, $1,S11, 16O; Portland, $1,S03, ,645;
Seattle, $1,327, ,75O Spokane, 1924, ,425, and
San Francisco $140, 247.
Fact number seven: Postal receipts,
crease for Los Angeles of $166, 1872 69
for Seattle, $158, ,6o252; for Portland,
SIP, 1852; for Denver, SOL 12o.42.
Fact number eight. The Electric
Traction Weekly of Chicago has been
gathering trolley railroad statistics and
Los Angeles is greater than that of
Chicago, Fort Wayne, Ind; Indianap-
oils, Springfield, ILL.,; Detroit, Cleve-
land, Toledo, Columbus and Dayton
combined. These cities together have
1928 trains daily; Los Angeles has 141S.
They have together sixty-two routes;
Los Angeles has twenty-six.
These figures don't fix our popula-
ton to the accuracy of the census bu-
reau, but even the Redlands editor
really must admit that there must be
a whole lot of people here and that we
don't have to pad the figures much to
make a showing.
The trouble with our buco1ic critics
is that you can't stand on a corner in
the center of this town and survey the
whole community as you can in Red
lands and Waterbury; therefore the
Redlands Journalists vision was i'm
posed on the other day, and it in turn
imposed on the credulity of the Yam
kee editor which IS natural because
you have to live an entire generation
in a New England town to see the
progress made here in a year. They
can't grasp it.