PLEASURE AND PERIL

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jun 15, 1904

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 24.

PLEASURE AND PERIL

We quote the following excerpt from the San Francisco Chronicle's editorial columns, as indicative of a growing spirit of animosity in the poor toward the rich, and a spirit of arrogant carelessness on the part of some of the rich toward the necessities and rights of the poor. It is the latter that is in a great measure responsible for the former; and we may certainly expect an increase in both, forboding a clash between the classes as the fruits of industry are gathered in and heaped up by the few.

The inhabitants of the tenement districts of New York are resenting the invasion of their quarters by automobilists by acts of violence. Several automobilists have been assaulted by roughs, while driving their vehicles through the streets of the east side of the city, and a strong determination is evinced by the residents to keep the horseless vehicle out.

In some respects the opposition of the tenement dwellers to the use of their streets by automobilists is justifiable. Those thoroughfares are narrow and congested. The open street is the only playground the children of the tenements possess. The speeding of automobiles through these congested streets puts the lives of the children in jeopardy. In defense of their offspring, therefore, the occupants of the district resent the intrusion of these machines. The police commissioners confess their inability to prevent it. They evidently recognize the conditions as they actually exist, and probably sympathize with the aggressors. Doubtless nothing but idle curiosity leads automobilists to drive their machines through these crowded streets. Even that might have been tolerated if prudence had been exercised in speeding the machines while passing through them. But the insane disposition of the automobilists to drive along at a rapid pace can not apparently be restrained in a crowded thoroughfare any more than it can when a clear right of way is in sight. Examples of that are in evidence daily in San Francisco, as well as in New York and other cities.

Sooner or later popular demonstrations like those occurring in New York will surely be made against automobilists intruding upon the more congested thoroughfares of other cities, if they persist in the indiscretion of rushing headlong at unreasonable rates of speed, regardless of the safety of the lives and limbs of others who are occupying them. Local regulations affecting speed are not respected. The temptation seems to be ever present in the mind of the chauffeur to move faster than prudence suggests, or the law allows. The spirit of self-restraint must be cultivated, however, or else a machine which, when properly operated, is useful and unobjectionable, will be brought into popular disrepute in all the larger cities of the country. Then experiences quite as unpleasant as those which New York automobilists are having will become common in all of them.