Austin Cross Rides 3 New Railways Between Trains on Journey to Frisco, Published 18 April 1945 EN
ROUTE TO SAN FRANCISCO, April 17. Here at Montgomery, Alabama, first
capital of the Confederacy, might be a good place to stop off between
trains and report progress. First of all, it is impossible to travel a thousand miles, through six states, as I have, without seeing a nation at half mast. Not only are these United States mourning the passing of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, at the flag staff, but in their souls too. They know already that they have seen go, before their very eyes, a name that deserves to be associated with Washington and Lincoln. Yet, if good can come out of so sad a thing, good is already beginning to come. People are saying everywhere, from svelte club cars to jerkwater junctions, that San Francisco is going to be a greater success now. The Americans have consecrated themselves to a newer and higher conception of San Francisco. "This is how he would want it done," they are going to say, and then they are going to do it that way. Now that's enough of moralizing. Here I am, typing out this screed in my pajamas, long before eight in the morning, while a day in the Deep South already promises no relief from heat. This Montgomery, first capital of Confederate President Jeff Davis (I am in the Jeff Davis hotel) also is the spiritual center of two well known quandam Ottawa citizens, Lewis Clark, first secretary of the American embassy, and Colonel Bankhead, long-time commercial pontifico of the Americans in Canada. So our sleepy little southern city has a direct tie-up with Wellington street. Well, I must be getting far from home, because the maid who made up the room last night said she "never did hear of Canada." A Day in Atlanta. Yesterday,
in Atlanta, during a brief stay, I had myself a time. Atlanta, which
the real southerners dub derisively "a Yankee Town," was originally the
carpet bagger's capital during the reconstruction days, but it lived
long enough to be famous for baseball's Ty Cobb and golf's Bobby Jones,
to be renowned as the home of "cokes," of a governor called Talmadge
who aspired to be a Kingfish. It also provided the world premiere of
Gone With the Wind. This too was the southern terminus of a party once
thrown by Earl Carroll, when the girls bathed in champagne, and where
the host, Earl Carroll, changed his address from New York
to Atlanta penitentiary. Incidentally, I had a good day yesterday, riding three new railways between trains. |