Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-05-17
CAMDEN BRIDGE WILL LINK
SHORES OF 'All-PHIlADElPHIA
Merger Of Interests in Huge Population
Center, Subordinatine State Lines,
Must Be Served by Span

| A Ii Philadelphia was so deeply inter
eSted in Thursdays stirring spectacle
that more than 100000 persons crossed
| over from New Jersey. No apparent, yet
fallaCious, paradox halted them. Despite
what the maps and the Legislatures and
the state constitutions and the census
may say, they journeyed by an all-Phila-
delphia route. They came because they
wanted very intensely to share in the big
times in their home community.
Animated by similar feelings were the
crowds from Trenton, Bristol, Whining
ton and Chester. Emphatic denials would
have been the reward of any one ventur-
ing to tell them that the pageant was
not their concern. County lines, munich
pal boundaries, didn't check them for a
moment. They were participants in the
big show and eager to make that fact
perfectly clear.
That it j. not equally evident on days
undedcated to carnival is due to a habit
of thinking, entailing excess of respect
for imaginary lines. The attribute of
realism is claimed for political maps,
but, in truth, they are often deeply delu
sive. New York has long known this,
and that explains how it is that so many
self-confessed New Workers sit down to
their home dinner tables in Jersey City,
Communipaw, Hackensack, Plainfeld,
MetuChen, Railway and the Oranges.
They are the sort of New Workers who
voted for or against Walter +. Edge as
governor of New Jersey. And it is not
mendacity but vision with which logi-
cally they may be charged Their indus
trial, economic and social reckoning is
made in truly metropolitan terms. the
terms which distinguish between admin
strative and commercial frontiers.
The real New York is huge popula-
tion center sweeping across state Loun-
dairy lines, under and over rivers, and
describing a wide circle around the city
hall on Manhattan Island.
Philadelphians should learn how to
draw their own impressive radius. Cam
denites, Bristolites, Chesterites have no
more warrant to fear it than they did
last Thursday. Local pride, state sover-
eighty and such matters are altogether
untouched by it. Progress, however, is
affected most potently. The spur to ma
terial development which may come of
considering Philadelphia as a great homo
geneous community of some five million
souls is incalculable.
Conservatives, with which this region
is still thickly peoped, may dismiss
alarms. There is not the slightest obli-
cation upon them to stretch population
figures after the much-derided western
fashion. The facts eXhibitive of this
magnificent dynamo of industry, COM
merCe and wealth are incontestable. 1t
is genuine gntion-quite another
thing from shallow boasting-which lags.
But appreciation of what this Phila-
delphia community means will, in part,
be ineffective unless it prompts also an
assessment of our drawbacks and the
energy to efface them. Among these
unquestionably one of the foremost is
the Delaware river, that boon to sea-
borne trade and, at the same time, that
barrier to the due fusion of interests be-
tween "Philadelphians" of the states of
eastern Pennsylvania and western New
Jersey.
1t was ferryboats that brought resi-
dents of Camden to the city of the Cen
tennal in 1876. 1t was ferryboats which
carried the rapturous 100000 persons
here to see the Iron Division which re-
fected such abiding glory upon this com
munty fOrty-three years later.
The revelation of this allegiance to
antiquated methods is not comforting.
The Delaware at Philadelphia is neither
the widest of rivers nor the most diff
l..
our tardiness is that rectifcation is in
sight. Speed the day!
Relative to the upper river, commend
| able action was taken by Governor Sproul
this week when he signed the bill freeing
passage across all bridges between Penn
| sylvania and New Jersey of toll charges.
| The acquisition by the two states and
| the maintenance of the spans will be
! joint.
This coincidence of political and COM
mercial interests is fitting. Such re-
gionaI development as is now in progress
north of Trenton on both sides of the
river will be inevitably stimulated by this
removal of archaic restrictions.
But bridge with toll can be readily
modernized. A toll without a bridge is
an obstruction of another hue. II is from
sucI. handicap that this bustling metro
politan community is suffering.
Our neighbor state lost little time in
realizing this when once the Camden
bridge proposal took definite shape. The
Legislature in Trenton has already
passed upon the preliminary program,
and half-million dollars for the com
mencement of plans on the east bank of
the Delaware has been appropriated.
Meeting = significantly enough - in
Philadelphia the other night the Camden
real estate board reproved tEis city for
its apathy and urged the prompt passage
of legislation on behalf of the span. 1t is
high time Harrisburg were stirring and