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R a vi n gS By Ernie PyleHie Roving ReporterSEATTLE — Having traveled slowly and deviously all the way from San Francisco to Seattle, I am now ready to file my report onthe pulse of the Upper Pacific Coast. (Good old southern California will have to come later and in a separate category, as usual.) •From what I hear in letters, the rest of the country seems to think people on the Coast are in a dither over the war. But to me the Coast does not seem in a dither.The small towns have not changed in appearance from peacetime. I haven't seen any service stars in windows yet. People on the streets act as they always used to. Occasionally in restaurants you see fat-stomached, middle-aged men in major’s uniforms—obviously not Regular Army—which is one thing you didn't see before the war.Hotels all have blackout instruction cards In every room. But many hotels have made no arrangements for permanent blackout. Room and meal prices have gone up in some places, but not all. In most cities I’m paying the same price for the same room as in 1936.Newspapers have instituted daily columns covering their war factories and shipyards. War news takes up most of the space. Police reporters and leg-men say it is almost impossible to get an ordinarily good story in the paper any more.Despite denials, it is true that many people have left the Coast. I suppose there’s noway of knowing how many. The only onesI personally know' of are retised people whohad been living in hotels and who have nowgone back to their Midwest homes for the duration.But the regular dwellers aren’t scared. I don’t believe people of the Coast are half as excited about themselves as their friends and relatives in the East are about them.War is talked at parties and wherever two people get together, of course, but the man with a zeal in his eye is a rare one. War fever is not at the 1918 pitch. In spite of the drubbing the Japs have been giving us,I believe most people still look on them with contempt, instead of burning with the hatred we had for Germany the last time.And in spite of the impossible having happened at Pearl Harbor, I believe 95 per cent of the people on the Coast feel there is little likelihood of the Japs botnbing the coastal cities—except maybe a few isolated suicide and token raids later in the war.True, they are in earnest about their civil defense, but there isn’t the old spark that drives you when you know—as the British knew—that the raiders are coming tonight and every night and you’re gonna die if you don’t watch out.Life, even on the “front line” here, haa been disarranged very little by the war so far. There is plenty to eat, wear, drink and buy. I know an awful lot of people on the I Coast, but I don’t know of a soul who is yet pinched in any way.If the public has begun laying up its automobiles, it isn’t noticeable yet. Traffic in the big war-production centers is becoming a ghastly problem. It is like going through a major battle to get to work and back home again.Seattle’s transportation bottleneck is grave. Workers by the thousand have signed petitions calling on the city to do something about it—widen streets and augment bus and ferry services. One shipyard workers’ petition says it takes two hours to get from the yard downtown, and that 1,500 men are late for work every day.There are many boom towns. There is lots of money. They say in Seattle that probably never in history have so many bosses been told to go to hell. If a fellow doesn’tlike his job, he just quits and goes to the shipyards.In Seattle people are offering a $10 reward for vacant houses or apartments, and in the third-string hotels workmen are sleeping in the halls.On the whole, I would say the Coast is far from all-out in its war effort. And I don't mean any criticism by that. A country can’t get all-out until a war has been going on for a long time. England wasn’t all-out evenafter a year and a half of war. wqA country isn’t all-out until everybody in it is being denied something, and is contributing something extra. Today the bulk of the population of the West Coast—including me— la living just about as it always did. “All-out” will undeniably come, but it hasn't comeyet. ■ '■%;;r
Newspaper Details
The Montana Standard
Butte, Montana, US
Fri, Jan 30, 1942
Page 4
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
USA 12 Nov 2018
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