by Paul R. Spitzzeri
Continuing on with a look at the sixty-four page May 1929 issue of The Intake, a magazine for employees of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, there are humor pages such as are often found in such publications with the “Fun From Our Exchanges” section including a report from the Anaheim Plain Dealer in which the Orange County newspaper offered, a few years after the famous Scopes Monkey Trial concerning the question of the teaching of evolution in a Tennessee high school, that animals and humans did not have common origins and that “evolution is false for the simple reason that animals don’t keep on grabbing for more when they plainly have enough.”
In a separate section called “Our Old Curiosity Shop” there was a reference to “Flaming Youth!” a term generally used to Charleston-dancing, bathtub-gin drinking young adults, but in this case, concerning a trio of Berkeley, California children, including a 10-year-old girl and boys aged five and six years, who broke into a company’s mailbox and made off with $3,500 in checks.
The girl attempted to cash a $600 check and this drew the attention of the police, who found the three youngsters with $1,200 of the documents in their possession, but the rest tossed away because “they didn’t need them.” The piece ended with the remark, “such moderation, especially in persons of such tender years, is as commendable as it is rare.”
Harking back to part one’s discussion of the Los Angeles Public Library, a feature concerned the Municipal Reference Library at the City Hall, this edifice completed a little over a year prior and largely located on what had long been the Temple Block. This department of the library, located in Room 300, offered a pair of talks on city government during May, including “How Los Angeles Protects Life and Property” and “Helping Los Angeles Citizens to Learn and Play.”
Moreover, there was a list of recent additions on such topics as aeronautics, accounting, the forthcoming Boulder Dam project, furnaces and heaters, hydraulics, utility regulation, water supply and the 1928 Industrial Summary of Los Angeles issued by the Security Trust and Savings Bank. A featured publication just received was the newly published Handbook-Encyclopedia of Engineering which included “the most essential facts about 4150 subjects in mechanics, engineering and manufacturing practice.”
The “Detour Number Twenty” in the series titled “Dollars and Sense or Danger Ahead” featured the Better Business Bureaus (BBB), of which there were some 45 around the nation and “have for their object the prevention of fraudulent or unfair business practices.” An example of the work these entities conducted concerned a stock purchase scam in which a target was told they could make a quick and large profit, but a call to a local banker friend led to the recommendation to speak to a BBB, which determined that “that particular promotion was a complete washout.” The article appeared just four months before the stock market crash in New York City that ushered in The Great Depression.
A very interesting feature, especially given today’s prices and issues of affordability, concerned “How to Own Your Home: A Handbook for Prospective Owners” from the federal Department of Commerce. An appendix comprising a financing table noted what the annual household income was expected for a house and lot of a given value (between $3,000 and $10,000) and looking at the 20% down payment; loan amount, interest and amortization (these last an eighth of the loan); taxes and insurance; and more. Income was pegged at between 40-60% of the price with the total annual expenses ranging from $420 to $1,400.
A few dozen DWP employees were recognized with pins for service in categories of 1, 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25 years, with two of these being women and three with Spanish-language surnames. The “Board of Control News Notes” reminded readers that “there is no finer place to spend your vacation if you like the outdoor life” than the Employees’ Vacation Camp, which was managed by Power Construction engineer H.C. Gardett and which was situated near Big Pine along the creek of that name in Inyo County, not far from where the Los Angeles Aqueduct draws its water.
A separate article at the rear of the publication by J.F. Moran noted that “numerous lakes and streams are near at hand” and “a glacier is within a day’s round trip hike,” while pack animals and saddled horses were also available for hire and trout fishing was also featured. Even at an elevation of some 7,000 feet, a good road went to the facility and it was “an easy day’s drive” from the Los Angeles area. It was added that the weather had “zest and snap” but was never too warm while summer evenings were cool enough for campfires.
The camp was to open on 29 May and Moran exhorted “EMPLOYEES, THIS IS YOU CAMP!” and this “splendid opportunity” provided by the Department meant that they should “PATRONIZE IT.” Rates were $2 per day for trips over five days for adults, half that for youngsters from 5-15 years and free for those under 5 and 25 cents more per day for visits under five days inclusive of meals and lodging. A page of photos provided five views of the facility and Moran added,
This camp is maintained for Department employees and their immediate families. The lowest possible rates are charged and the family with children is especially taken care of in these rates. You may have a splendid vacation for the entire family at low cost. A vacation that a King would be pleased with.
Neat, clean beds are furnished in well kept tents that are floored and equipped in modern fashion. An excellent dining room is maintained in a large dining tent, where food is served “family style” by a high class chef.
It was also common in these employee publications to include material emphasizing courtesy in service and a strong work ethic, so a “Civility in Civil Service” section included an editorial emphasizing that “service, plus fair dealing, plus courtesy, means success for well-managed utilities corporations,” while the lack of those qualities “may mean something vastly different.” Claiming improvement from days of yore and “the public be damned attitude,” it was added that “there is still room for betterment and a genuine extension of the theory that courtesy, like honesty, is the best policy.”
Moreover, because “the public is empowered to regulate and control to a great extent, through various State agencies, the activities of such utilities,” it behooved entities like the DWP “to gain the coveted public favor . . . by excellent service and maximum courtesy.” Providing this meant “increased earnings” which “of course, is the goal of alert utilities managers.” The piece ended with a quote from poet Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Life is not so short but that there is always time enough for courtesy.”
The piece simply titled “Work” quoted from President Grover Cleveland in his 1884 Democratic Party convention nomination acceptance speech regarding “the dignity of labor” and how “honor lies in honest toil.” Also quoted was poet Walt Whitman and his statement that, for the laborer, “how near his work is holding him to God,” while another versifier William Ellery (rendered “Elley” in the publication) Channing called work “the grand conqueror” in making nations greater than any wars.
Pouring it on with famed quotations, the article cited the Roman poet Marcus Manilius and his claim that “labor is itself a pleasure,” while Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, whose visage is in a La Casa Nueva Library door to the courtyard with Shakespeare, Cervantes and Milton, was quoted as imploring the reader to “taste the joy / that springs from labor.”
Not as celebratory were Thomas Carlyle, who asserted that the primary issue for men was “to find out what kind of work he is to do in this universe;” Elizabeth Barrett Browning and her offering that “get leave to work / in this world—’tis the best you get at all;” and, lastly, Homer, who uttered that “to labor is the lot of man below / And when Jove gave us life, he gave us woe.”
While there were those, continued the article, who argued that the highest pursuits of life were educational and “this is all very well and highly commendable,” not everyone could be artists, historians, philosophers, poets and the like. So, after quoting one last time from St. Jerome and his advice to “keep doing some kind of work, that the devil may always find you employed” and the anonymous dispenser of wisdom who proclaimed that “Satan always finds some mischief for idle hands to do, the piece concluded,
The great desideratum is that we should be happy in our work, that our toil should be a labor of love . . . Happy is he who works at what he best can do, and thrice happy he who works at what he likes best!
Another frequent element in these publications was the paramount concern of safety, under the heading of “Safety First! Does This Slogan Work?” The discussion, however, was not involving the workplace, but life generally, with the statement that “the annual toll of deaths from accidents in the United States is almost incredibly large,” with the automobile determined to be “the largest single contributing factor.”
Cited was the study of unidentified life insurance company which determined that automobile-related incidents reflected nearly 40% of all accidental deaths in 1928, so that “the automobile must surely be the bête noire of the insurance companies!” The other major causes of fatalities by accident were drowning (10.3%), homicides (9.2%), falls (9%) and railroads and streetcars (3%).
For this Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, we note a remarkable feature in The Intake concerned “China and the Chinese,” which followed articles in the previous editions of the magazine about the nation and its people. This one began with the remark of Mark Twain in Roughing It that “a disorderly Chinaman is rare, and a lazy one does not exist.”
Moreover, the piece quoted from unidentified sources about the purported pros and considered cons “of the people of far Cathay, and their patient, persevering industry; their politeness, peaceableness, and reluctance to give offense; their frugality, credulousness, superstitiousness, insincerity, lack of sympathy, and inveracity.”
On the positive side of the ledger, portions of one quote stated,
The Chinese are not naturally an anti-progressive people. They are peculiarly amendable to reason, have no caste, and no powerful religious bias. Their history shows that they have adopted every manifest improvement, which has presented itself, for these many centuries. The truth is, the Chinese have all the mental, moral, and religious instincts of our common nature. The fact that they have preceded us in many of the most important discoveries of modern times [the compass, gunpowder, printing, paper making, etc.] proves their inventive genius. They are peaceable and civil to strangers.
Another assessment averred that the Chinese were far superior to other Asians, citing the fact that civil authority was more important than that of the military and the focus on letters (education) rather than arms. Intelligence, a strong work ethic and a broad soberness were also cited as was the minimizing of wealth, which was seen as “a considerable moral advantage on the side of the Chinese” because “poverty is in no reproach among them.” Also highlighted was that “the Chinese frequently get the better of Europeans in a discussion, by imperturbable coolness and gravity” through a vigorous discipline to check passion so that “crimes of violence [are] so infrequent among them.”
A short quote was that “there exist no more honorable, law-abiding, and industrious citizens than the Chinese” while another predicted a future in which “this mysterious race which, with the Anglo-Saxons and the Russians, will divide the earth a hundred years hence.” This was because the Chinese were accounted as being “hard-working, frugal and orderly” as well as “admirable and trustworthy men of business” while the skill of artisanship “is only exceeded by their skill and versatility.”
The negative side, however, was populated by brief statements such as “conservatism has been carried to such a degree that the whole nation has become fossilized;” “genius and originality are regarded as hostile and incompatible elements;” and “the only thing no man can accuse the Chinese of is love of change.” A lengthier comment asserted that their moral nature was largely impenetrable to outsiders and that seemingly incompatible vices and virtues were “placed side by side.”
This statement propounded that such valuable qualities as gentleness, industry, cheerfulness, obedience to authority, duty to elders and others were “in one and the same person” opposed by avarice, cruelty, insincerity and untruthfulness and more. The article ended with a conclusion that has a section in bold for a particularly reason that is noteworthy when it comes to the all-too-common habit of making judgments about race and ethnicity broadly speaking:
The Chinese are a weak and timid people and, in consequence, like all similarly constituted races, they seek a natural refuge in deceit and fraud. But examples of moral inconsistency are by no means confined to the Chinese, and I fear that sometimes too much emphasis is laid on the dark side of their character, as if it had no parallel amongst more enlightened nations.
An obvious question, moreover, is: why did the editors of The Intake thing that such a piece was of value to employees of the LADWP? Did it have to do with direct dealings with Chinese-American customers? Was it a well-intentioned attempt at general education? Whatever the purpose, we’ll stop here and return with part three.
The valued virtues of hard work, honesty, quality service, work ethic, and moral standards, mentioned in this magazine 95 years ago, have seemingly all become relics of the past. Isn’t it a trend that “the more civilized a society is, the more uncivilized people become?”
Should the automobile be favored by the insurance companies instead of being the bête noire as stated in the article? Auto insurers are now terrified of the forthcoming legalization of driverless vehicles, which will eliminate car accidents and the need for auto insurance.