Los Angeles herald., 1910-07-22
SERVING THE SOUTHERN
PACIFIC COMPANY

w of highways in Los Angeles
- county was placed before the
people by the highway commission
and they were asked to vote bonds
for its constructing, it is safe to say
that the highway proposed in that plan
from Los Angeles to the harbor front
was regarded by the large majority of
people voting upon it as by all odds
the most important highway which
it provided for. For two years the
highway commission has had abun-
dant funds to pay for the construc-
ton of the highways proposed by the
plan. When these bonds were voted
the business interests of the city were
vitany concerned in the construction
at the earliest possible moment of
the highway planned to extend be-
tween Los Angeles and our harDor.
On all the lumber which has been and
is now being used in Los Angeles
in carrying on its marvellous building
activity an excessive rate is paid the
railroads. On all other merchandise
coming or going through the harbor
an excessive freight rate is also paid.
The construction of the proposed mac
adamized highway between Los An
geles and the harbor would give the
people of Los Angeles relief from the
excessive freight rates which they
have been paying the Southern Pacific
railroad for years. SO great are these
rates that with a properly constructed
highway freight can be transported
between Los Angeles and the harbor
by auto vehicles much cheaper than
it is now transported by rail.
The merchants and shippers of Los
Angeles, as we'll as the consumers
of the vast quantities of lumber and
other material that come through San
Pedro harbor, have looked to the
building of the proposed highway be-
tween Los Angeles and its harbor for
relief from the constituencies exac-
tion to which they have for years
been subjected by the Southern Pacific
in the harbor rates. More than two
years have elapsed since the highway
commission has had at its disposal
abundant funds to construct this road.
The road is still incomplete, and very
little work is done upon it.
We published in our news columns
yesterday morning communications
the highway commission from indig
nant citizens, calling attention to the
delay in constructing this most needed
of all the highways of the county,
and the reply of tie commission, which
says in substance that sometime with
in the next year and a half this high
way will possibly be constructed.
When the commission takes the at
titude that with abundance of funds
in its possession it proposes to ex-
tend the construction of this most i'm
portant of all our highways over
period of three and a half years, it
simply announces itself as a subser-
Went servant of the railroad interests.
BY the attitude which it has assumed
upon this matter, the commission has
given at least two years of unneces-
sary life to the robbing freight rate
Of cents per ton mile. which the
Southern Pacific has inflicted upon
the business interests of the city of
Los Angeles on freight to and from
the harbor for so many years.
Inasmuch as the city of Los An
geles will pay about two-thirds of
the bonds issued for building the good
reads system of the county, it is Ger
tainly not unreasonable that the one
part of the system in which. above all
others, the people of the city of Los
Angeles are most vitality interested
earliest possible moment Instead of
this, however, the matter has been
delayed from the very start Now the
highway commission claims that some
cuts which it is making on one por-
tion of the highway, must pass
through the rains of next winter be
fore the macadam caI be placed upon
it. This should have been done in
time to have been subjected to the
rains of the winter just passed It is
absurdly unreasonable that three and
hal years should be required to
pull twenty NH or nlgnWay, ana
the highway in question is hardly
that long Had the highway COM
mission been inclined to do its duty
fully in the matter it would have sur
veyed this road first before all others,
and at once proceeded to do all the
cutting and filing which it required.
ad this been DONE the road could
have been completed during this sea
son, and eighteen months of the high
freight rates which the business men
Of Los Angeles are paying the South
ern Pacific would have been saved.
But to have done this would have
been to have failed to serve the South
ern Pacific company, and we know
by ex- erience that it is inconceivable
that any body owing its existence to
the solid tree Of our present board of
supervisors should do anything that
will in any way displease their master,
the Southern Pacific company.
MOST IMPORTANT