Sweepstakes

Bestselling Author Edna (Giant) Ferber, fresh from a tour of European cities, eased into home port aboard the Cunard liner, Queen Elizabeth, as it docked in New York last week. Even before setting foot ashore, she had some harsh words to say about the city: "New York is the dirtiest city in the world ... a once exquisitely beautiful woman who has declined into a dirty, degraded, blowzy person ... a scab on the face of our country." The streets, she added, were covered with garbage, "and I don't mean dirt."

Edna's description made for Manhattan headlines and some angry retorts. City Sanitation Commissioner Andrew W.

Mulrain called the Ferber taunt "an insult to my hard-working men," challenged his critic to join him in a garbage-seeking tour. The only difficulty was that Mulrain himself had deplored New York's "perennially filthy condition" while urging greater civic pride last February.

In Chicago the Tribune, unwilling to yield to Eastern superiority, vigorously contested Edna's award of what it called "the world's championship for disgustingly filthy cities." The Trib's contention: "She should see our rats . . . rub our air between thumb and forefinger . . . inspect our alleys. Only then should she undertake to award her grand prize, and we know who would win it, hands down."

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