TOUTING THE TOURIST 



83 



ing distance from the main line. One map shows San 

 Francisco about as far from Chicago as Herkimer is 

 from New York. Another shows it many times farther. 

 And so it goes until in your bewilderment you call your 

 youngest son to ascertain whether the United States is 

 square, round or oblong and whether the Mississippi 

 river flows through Kansas City before it reaches Cin- 

 cinnati on its way to Galveston. 



As an example of the extremes of distortion to which 

 some railroads will go, there is one folder in the late 

 1916 issue recently in the racks, which shows Chicago as 

 being seven times as far from San Francisco as Los 

 Angeles is. Another shows New Orleans east of a north 

 and south line through Chicago with the distance from 

 New Orleans to Chicago equal to about three-quarters 

 of the distance from New York to Chicago. If the 

 folder you are studying is of a line that runs east and 

 west you will find that the United States is practically 

 served in entirety by this line and that all north and 

 south lines are merely stub feeders. If the line runs 

 north and south the reverse is true. 



Why do railroads do this? They will tell you that 

 these folders maps are purely diagrammatic and calculat- 

 ed to show only in a general way the country traversed. 



They will not acknowledge that the scheme is devised 

 to tout the tourist into the belief that if it takes the fast- 

 est train five hours to carry you from New York to 

 Herkimer the train that can get you to Chicago (which 

 city, according to the map, may be ten times as far 

 away), in twenty hours, is some train. By what authori- 

 ty or right the railroads feel justified in tampering with 

 our geography is not quite clear. That they do is dem- 

 onstrated. Perhaps it is a case of "You quit punching me 

 in the freight rates or I'll smash you in the geography." 

 Of course, this method of demonstrating the relative 

 importance and superiority of any particular line is not 

 directed at the tourist alone. The direct appeal is con- 

 tained in that type of descriptive folder which brought 

 with it the phrase "Railroad Literature." In these the 

 railroads let out the belt and wield the club of metaphor 

 and allegory with Teutonic disregard of consequences. 

 Titan chasms, serrated crests and beetling cliffs are hurl- 

 ed at the reader until he is lost in a cloud of superlatives. 

 Not that there is no scenery that would justify extrava- 

 gant language for there is much in the west that not only 

 justifies but frequently defies it. It is the indiscriminate 

 use of the adjective that is to be deplored. No doubt 

 the railroad folder is responsible, to a large degree, for 



MORMON FLAT, ON THE SALT RIVER 



This spot would seem to have been selected by the Indians especially for the purpose of scalping parties. There is an atmosphere about it that 

 makes it just the place for a nice little massacre, and ninety odd Mormons were done away with by the Indians on this site. 



