Los Angeles herald., 1910-06-23
SAN DIEGO CONCEIVES AND FINANCES
IDEA Of PANAMA CANAL EXPOSITION
Southern Ciys Quarrel with San Francisco Purely Family Affair
and 1t Has Been Rightly Adjusted and the South Will Now Aid in
Making Bay City Fair aSuCCess When the Big Ditch Opens
BY EDWIN II. oLOUGH

cisco and New Orleans is confined
chiefly at this time to her own knit
ting. Long ago San Diego decided
definitely what she wanted and how
she would get it. she set the pace
for all the cities that have since de-
termined that an exposition commem-
orative of the completion of the Pan
anna canal is the proper, prohtable
and imperative thing. San Diego FUR
nished the idea, formulated the plan
and produced the money. San Diego
was the first city to relieve the fed
eral government of all financial re-
sponsibility for the enterprise in hand.
San Diego was the first city to make q
specific proposition for recognition by
the national government All other
cities aspiring to similar purpose have
followed closely in the footsteps Of
San Diego. These cities have even
utilized San Diego's original argument
that she was the logical place" for a
Panama eXposition-an argument that
has been worn threadbare by iteration
AS yet, however, none of these other
cities has seen fit to appropriate san
Dlego's idea of something different" ="
The larger cities now striving for the
exposition prize are too full of their
intention of holding a worlds fair"
to waste precious time and effort in
unique details.
PAGEANTRY AND GUNBO
San Diego's quarrel with San Fran
cisco was essentially a family affair.
1t is wholly immaterial to recite how
that matter was smoothed over or to
tell how right, for once, triumphed
over might. Suffice it to say that all
differences are now at an end and
that all rancor has been effectually
koA rt- I,pe.
ised to be good and San Diego has
implicit faith in the promise. 1t is
now our duty to assist her to the ut
most of our power against the COM
mon enemy, which happens in this in
stance to be New Orleans. Now it
cannot be denied that New Orleans is
about all she claims for herself COM
mercially, industrially, morally and
spectacularly, although to be plain in
discussion of her merits 1t must be
confessed that her prestige beyond the
pale of the parishes of Orleans,
Plaquemines, ST. Charles, st. Bernard,
st. James, st. Ammony and st. John
the Baptist rests largely on the splen-
dor of her Mardi Gras carnivals and
the quality of her gumbo-there was
time, indeed. when the beauty of her
Creole women was the theme of poets
and the despair of all men.
A BYGONE PERIOD
New Orleans insists. however in this
controversy with San Francisco over
the privilege of holding a world s
fair that she is the hub of the
hemisphere" Quoting his statistics
from the dark background and abyss
OF the census of 1900 the press agent
of the New Orleans exposition scheme
informs us that there are 17,000 900
people within 500 miles of New Or
leans, and only 100000 within that
distance of San Francisco, 65,000 900
within 1000 miles of New Orleans, and
only 100000 within that distance Of
San Francisco, and that within a ra-
dius of 1900 miles there are 90,000000
in the New Orleans territory and only
100000 in the San Francisco terri
tory" These figures may not lie, for
even the census is entitled to plead
extenuating circumstances; nor should
we be too eager to accuse the press
agent of using the figures to misrep-
resent a rival show or to prop the tot
tering structure of his own playhouse.
But it is certainly fair, on the other
hand, to deny the validity of his brief
on the grounds that what may have
been indisputable in 1900 is open to
grave doubt in 1910. Tradition is a
very unsafe hypothesis upon which to
base the theory of an existing condi-
ton. New Orleans may have been
1.-The hub of the hemisphere" ten years
ago, but 1.-The world do move" and
the "hub" may have shifted as far
west as Dallas, Texas, or even to
Muskogee. Okla. Boston once boasted
of being 1.-The hub of the universe"
but there seems to have been a re-
adjustment of the spokes, and the
''hub' is now somewhere out in the
wilderness of Indiana where culture
grows on the pawpaws and genius
meditates amid the primeval solitude
of Posey county.
CHEAP RAILROAD RATES
For the purpose of it's special plea,
the population within q given radius
of New Orleans may be the same as it
was a decade back, but this estimate
of San Franciscos tributary population
is far below the mark. The census
may be able to keep pace with the
population of the New Orleans terri
tory, but it is altogether too slow for
the virile west, and the new empire of
the Pacific coast ought to have CEN
sus annually 1t may be pertinent and
essential to the argument of New Or
leans that it's neighborhood population
Is fixed in its habitation; that this
population cannot increase, and that it
is so penurious that it would not pay
an average of $3.50 railroad fare to
San F'rancisc, if they could reach New
Orleans for $12.50 All of which is
true, but wholly unimportant in dis
cussion of the larger issue involved
in providing comfortable and safe
livelihood for not less than half of the
population now congested within the
New Orleans radius and sweating
blood because they fear the loss of
their next meal unless the price of 1t
is regulated by tariff revised to fit
the slender and diminishing purse of
a famine-threatened populace.
ANOTHER RICHMOND
The absurdity of the New Orleans
proposition is food for the laughter of
the Richmond (Va.) Times Dispatch,
which insists that the exposition should
be held in Richmond instead of at New
Orleans because Richmond is nearer
to all the great centers of population
in this country by a thousand miles
or more than the enterprising city on
the gulf. Besides, when the canal is
opened, the larger part of the trade
will be done by the Atlantic states and
their western connections. This. is
wholly natural, as most of the things
that the new countries which we are
going to capture for the American
markets will take from us are made
in the Atlantic and middle states New
England and the middle west would
never think of going around by New
Orleans when they could make so
much better time shipping through
Richmond, and our chief distributing
ports down at the mouth of the James
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