Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1943-03-08
Wartime Conditions
Alter Former Gayeiy
|0f San Francisco
City Thot Knows How
Tokes Inconvenience
In Full Stride
BY the Associated Press.

By the Associated Press.
SAN FRANCISCO, March B.
President Taft called San Francisco
The city that knows how. -
His unfinished tribute-the rest OF
the sentence was blotted out by APP
plause-was for a city whose Bar
barry Coast. Chinatown, Fisherman
Wharf. Telegraph Hill and Mob Hill,
expressed many moods, but mostly
gay.
Today, looking out to sea into the
teeth Of war gales sweeping the
ironically-named Pacific. this lusty
patron of the full life has under
gone SOLDERING changes.
Now, indeed, 1t is "the city that
knows how"
How to regiment It's abundant
pleasures, how to revise its epicurean
eating habits, how to absorb new
thousands into its cosmopolitan
population, and move them by
groaning transports to shipyards
and war plants :.
First Blackouts Bungled.
Despite the rumors of impending
Japanese air raids which went the
rounds Immediately after Pearl Har-
Dor. the first blackouts of this once
brilliantly lighted city by the bay
were bungled by a somewhat indif-
ferent populace.
Infatuated. Gen. John L. Dewitt,
Of the Western Defense Command,
told the city bluntly that, If the Japs
had come over, hundreds Of San
Franciscans would have been killed
and much property laid waste.
Fathers razor strop in the woodshed
never went more directly to the
point.
All that has changed. Now San
Francisco knows how. Dimmed are
| its thousands of seward and sky
ward lights. Once dazzling Market
street is plunged at night into semi
gloom. No longer is it necessary,
when the blackout sirens wall, for
| passersby to smash windows and
break bulbs slow in being extin-
| guished. Air raid shelters have
been selected and posted. One, a
mammoth underground garage only
recently completed, can accommo-
date 10000 persons.
Night Life Restricted.
Night life has been cut to the
military pattern. Clubs have BACKED
out exteriors. Inside things are
bright-bright and early. One has
a Five O'Clock Club" Many clubs
place emphasis on their 7 o'clock
floor show. They close at midnight.
Bottled liquor sales end at 8 pm.
Bar drinks must not only be pur-
chased but consumed by midnight.
If a swallow or SO remains when
the clock hands, point straight up,
it must go down the drain-not
down the hatch. Night clubs make
it a point to remind dancers it is
10 minutes until IL.
More than 100 butcher shops have
closed. Many do not plan to reopen
Others keep going by shutting down
one or two days week, opening
late and closing early on the Other
days.
San Francisco today is thea city
that knows how to get to the jot
and back by cable car, streetcar
ferry, train and bus. 3sa3s
+ Streetcars Packed.
The bay, ferries, whose rollickine
days were believed ended by compile.
ton of the Golden Gate and the
San Francisco Oakland Bay bridges
have come back.
| The streetcars are jam packed
Riders crowd the aisles, hang on to
the entrance rails, bulge out the
exits.
The Southern Pacific Railroads
long standing advice to the COM
muter to try the train and relax
now has red line drawn through
it on tile billboards. Below is q
new one: Now the armed forces
come first"
The buses, faced with fewer
drivers and more customers. have
tried Just about everything-sepa
rate stations for north and south
traffic, revamped schedules, admis-
sion Of standees and elimination OF
round-trip ticket sales by the driv-
ers. Still the problem grows.
Silent on War Secrets.
Perhaps most important of all
San Francisco is becoming the city
that knows how to keep its mouth
shut. San Francisco knows ships
like Louisville knows horses. San
Franciscaps have been hurrying
down to the docks since that far
day when semaphore pole on
Telegraph Hill signaled the arrival
OF veteran seafarers. The citizens
betrayed their inheritance when the
battle-scarred cruiser San Francisco
sailed into the Golden Gate under
wartime secrecy rules. Cheers start
ed rising from the Threats Of thou
sands, fast gathering on nearby
heights and as close to the docks
as the military would allow, before
the cruiser scarcely had stuck her
nose into the bay. No one had to
be told what ship was in.
It's not the city that visitors saw
during the Golden Gate Interna-
tional Exposition. 1t has learned
how to submerge its personality
until such time as the lights may
go on again in great diadem
around the bay.
/ LITTLE Want Ad" In The Star
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