San Francisco Call, 21 November 1918 <\/p>\n
TWO CITIES
\nChester Rowell, Editor of the Fresno Republican,
\nPraises Handling of Flu Problem Here;
\nShows Folly of Los Angeles Attitude<\/p>\n
The following editorial by Chester Rowell, editor of the Fresno Republican, appeared in the on November 18 edition of the Call, under the heading \u201cTwo Cities.” <\/p>\n
There is a fine contrast between the self-controlled and co-operative way in which San Francisco has faced the influenza situation and the cat fight they are having over it in Los Angeles.
\nIn San Francisco the state and local board of health co-operated, and also welcomed the assistance of Dr. Woods Hutchison, who happened to have just come from Boston where he had been through the epidemic there. Measures were agreed on, including universal masking, closing of schools, theaters and churches, and the mobilization of hospital and medical aid.
\nThe city government, under Mayor Rolph, accepted the policies outlined by the authorities, and efficiently enforced them. Even the newspapers cooperated fairly decently. The Chronicle was of course snarling, sneering and ignorant\u2014it would not be the Chronicle otherwise \u2014and the Bulletin got off wrong in the beginning, owing to the personal attitude of its editor to health measures, but neither of them made an aggressive fight, and both were soon co-operating reasonably well. The Examiner and Call of course were intelligent. The result has been remarkable harmony and efficiency, and an early mastery of the epidemic. Great credit is due to Dr. Hassler, health officer of San Francisco, but equal credit is due the people and their responsible leaders, for co-operation.
\nNot so in Los Angeles. There the health officers and the city fathers have been in constant wrangle. The newspapers have been the reverse of co-operative. The Times, of course, did not try to be decent and could not be intelligent. The Express, in Los Angeles, was less able to suppress its anti-medical prejudice than the Bulletin in San Francisco. Masks were not ordered. The epidemic declined and again \u2018flared up.\u2019 There are still hundreds of cases daily, but the theaters are demanding either that they be opened or that the stores be closed. If there were a masking ordinance, the theaters might, for that matter, be opened, but the city government is too afraid of the numerous cults which flourish in Los Angeles to dare order them. So the unseemly wrangle goes on \u2014 and the people die.
\nIt is pleasant to add that in this respect Fresno has been in San Francisco\u2019s class, or better, and has had nothing resembling the Los Angeles experience. Also, we have the epidemic nearly mastered. Business is already returning to the \u2018as usual\u2019 status, and the other features of life will be soon restored. It has been an expensive thing to meet the emergency right. But it would have been far more expensive to meet it wrong\u2014as Los Angeles is discovering.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
San Francisco Call, 21 November 1918 TWO CITIES Chester Rowell, Editor of the Fresno Republican, Praises Handling of Flu Problem Here; Shows Folly of Los Angeles Attitude The following editorial by Chester Rowell, editor of the Fresno Republican, appeared in the on November 18 edition of the Call, under the heading \u201cTwo Cities.” There is … [Read more…]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3,7,2520,13],"tags":[2832,2697,3707,3706,716,3705,2658,1004,3709,3708,1488,3710,3712,3711,2662],"class_list":["entry","post","publish","author-sergneri","post-4704","format-standard","category-california-history","category-california-newspaper-archive","category-faits-divers","category-pandemic","category-politics","post_tag-1918-spanish-influeza","post_tag-board-of-health","post_tag-dr-william-c-hassler","post_tag-dr-woods-hutchison","post_tag-fresno","post_tag-fresno-republican","post_tag-influenza","post_tag-los-angeles","post_tag-los-angeles-express","post_tag-los-angeles-times","post_tag-san-francisco","post_tag-san-francisco-call","post_tag-san-francisco-chronicle","post_tag-san-francisco-examiner","post_tag-spanish-influenza"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sergneri.net\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sergneri.net\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sergneri.net\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sergneri.net\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sergneri.net\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4704"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.sergneri.net\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4711,"href":"https:\/\/www.sergneri.net\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4704\/revisions\/4711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sergneri.net\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sergneri.net\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sergneri.net\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}