A Poem for the New Year

Isn’t this a great drawing? I suppose in 1919 smokestacks meant progress and not pollution.   Enumerators prepare to take the 1920 census and have a few questions. Is a lone man or woman without any known relatives a family? Yes. When is a chicken ranch not a chicken ranch? When it earns more than $250 a year. Then it’s a chicken farm.

Dec. 30, 1919:  George Steunenberg writes: "Our streets will be real thoroughfares instead of auto parks; And not a feature will remain to merit the remarks Of those gol-darned New Yorkers who say our town is slow-- L.A. will be a city in the year One-nine-two-O."