The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1930-05-17
Our Disgraced Scenery

If YOU want to see the ugliest country in the world,
travel America over its automobile routes.
Shantytown can't beat it. It is a stretch of ranlshackle
hot dog shacks. Where there are none OF these you will
oe sure to find other forms of ugliness. Advertising bill
boards, for instance. Roadsides gashed in making cuts.
Gas stations.
Nothing like it abroad. There the lovely scenery is
scrupulously preserved. Outside of the Alps they haven't
SO much OF it across seas, but in America such loneliness
is cast into the discard. In this country scenery is jazzed
mp with soup signs. liver pill advertisements and porous
plaster ads.
Tourists by car, in fact. are driven to travelling fast,
Tor, should they linger in the least, the roadside horrors
would drive them into hysteria, If not into insanity. The
spirit Of America as it is reflected from the side of its
roads is inexpressibly hideous.
For the next three months or more this all will be
impressed on the touring motorists-a million of them
possibly, for the game of tire-tracks is the great American
sport these days. The nations great vacation tourist
army will be on the road, and the motor car will be vindi-
eating its important position in our national life once
more.
A vacation trip by automobile, whether it last three
days or three weeks, is about as fine a way to get recrea-
ton as q man can ask for except for the flies in the ONT
ment, and all Of us who hit the open road this summer
will find them in full measure.
We have a lot Of beautiful countryside to look at
America, when you stop to think about 1t, is an mex
pressibly lovely land-but we have, as said. permitted
commercial interests to spoil a lot Of it for us.
The American Nature association has been surveying
country highways recently, and it has turned in a pretty
discouraging report.
Pointing out that our highways arc built quite as much
for pleasure driving as to speed up traffic, the associa-
TONS report says:
THE people of the state and of the nation pay for
these roads. Consequently they arc justified in getting
the full recreational value for which the roads were
created. But are they?
What happens when an expensive new highway that
We have paved with our dollars is opened up? Hot dog
stands, filling stations and ~bilboards spring up like magic
with no regard for the appearance of the roadside or its
immediate vicinity. Raw cuts have been left in the con-
struction of the road. Trees have been sacrificed by road
builders and public utilities. The new highway, designed
to open up the beauty Of the state. has become in itself
a thing Of ugliness."
All of this is putting it very mildly. The worst of 1t is
that all Of this ugliness is quite unnecessary. Hot doc
stands and filling stations are necessities, but is there any
reason why they have to be ugly? A little landscapins
along q new highway is not so terribly expensive. And
the billboards-s there any reason on earth why they
should be stuck up right at the most beautiful spots along
the highway?
Laws can't deal with these eyesores. Aroused public
sentiment is the only hope. Each individual motorist car
help by vowing not to patronize any re~freshment stand
or filling station that is not at least passably presentable
In its outward appearance, and by slapping a one-man
boycott on any business outfit that insults his sense OF
beauty with an ugly billboard in a spot where he wants
10 look at the open country.