I can't be
both. So I choose - billboards. Everyone who reads these words must make
his choice.
I not only enjoy them; I think they are beautiful. A lovely splash of
color in the grayness of the city, a sincere expression of American
life, so sincere that the critics who take their opinions from Europe
never have been able to sneer us out of them.
We must admit, those of us who admire billboards, that the critics had
their justification in the early days. We have not forgotten the days
when mortgaged farmers prostituted their barns by selling advertising
rights to Hood's Sarsaparilla and Carter's Little Liver Pills and to
Lydia Pinkham, and when Bull Durham marred every green meadow from
Boston to Washington. Billboards were an unsavory addition to the
landscape then. But the modern art of bill posting is quite a different
thing and in California it has reached its highest development.
Segregated spots of color in the dun cities, surrounded by well
manicured lawns, supported by classic figures in white and lighted by
dainty top lights. And out along the boulevards, how lovely they are at
night, luminous breaks along the dark highways, suggesting so tactfully
the kind of tire to use or the sort of mattress to lie upon.
The critic has had his mission. He has forced the Poster man.
Fortunately though young America has not taken him seriously.
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