Confidential File

Smog Blinds His Objectivity

Traveling newspaper correspondents — for want of something better to report — get their kicks by diagnosing the ills of each city on their itinerary.

And
usually, because of deadlines and harassment by their editors, they
have to do it fast. Like, say, 20 minutes after they check into their
downtown hotel, they've got to unlock their typewriter and begin
recording their impressions.

This gives them time to glance at
the headlines of the local press, talk to two bellboys, a cab driver
and one waitress and overhear an argument between a middle-aged matron
and a room clerk.

The results generally are similar to the following, a recent summation of the city of Los Angeles by a correspondent of London's Daily Express:

"This
is America's smog city. The filthy, swirling muck is as much a menace
here to health and happiness as it is in London and Manchester…

"Whereas New York goes to ridiculous lengths upwards, Los Angeles goes to ridiculous lengths sideways.

"It
is in area the world's largest city — as all its taxi drivers never
fail to point out proudly during their 20-mile, $5 drives.

"The result is appalling for city living.

"Two million, five hundred thousand people are smeared thinly over a 450-square mile area of perpetual suburb.

"Your neighbor is a half-hour drive away, your supermarket a healthy trek, your local pub a plane trip.

"A novelty shop on Hollywood Blvd. claims to sell 'real stardust — gathered electromagnetically from outer space, with the aid of the latest scientific techniques.'

"Yet all the star-dusted creatures are supposed to live within a few blocks."

Taking
this man's comments as a whole, I've got to admit that he encountered
some pretty observant bellboys, waitresses, and cab drivers.

But there's one point where I take exception — that crack about it being a plane trip to your local pub.

That's not true. And it's just this kind of propaganda that gives us a bad name all over the world.