Market Street Issue

It is regrettable that Mr. Furlow did not inquire of the black youth his reason for soliciting signatures to qualify the Save Market Street initiative on the November ballot. It could have been simply economics, a paying job. But perhaps he felt strongly that some other street should have been renamed Martin Luther King Jr. Street, Avenue or Way, as the case might have been. Many blacks, we understand, preferred Imperial Avenue.

We would like to think, though, that this young man felt strongly about the cavalier manner in which this whole matter was misjudged and mishandled by the mayor and members of the City Council in not placing it on the ballot in the first place. That is the real issue, the burning issue, here.

There are those who would agree with Mr. Furlow’s view that “the expense of changing the address on checks, letterheads and the like” engenders not much more than little sympathy. This view, unfortunately, overlooks the fact that identifying one’s business with a specific location takes years of hard work, as well as expense.

We doubt very much that Mr. King would want that, nor would even Mr. Lincoln, who, it is fair to say, touched more lives than any other person in our history.

NORMAN V. SCHUTE

San Diego