New Waterloo

Quacking taxis waddled and pushed. A scarlet bus snorted. Bicycles got in everybody's way. A scrofulous old horse and barouche tangled with an American jeep. Bobbies waved their arms, even raised their voices.

Then, at one minute to ten, the confusion subsided; all ears were cocked. The husky gong of Big Ben clanged. London's assorted traffic raced for the first time across the Thames's new Waterloo Bridge, and a nineteen-year-old political squabble ended.

Home Secretary Herbert Morrison and an agile-kneed schoolboy, Leonard Mitchell, were the winners. Leonard pedaled his bike furiously, through lanes of bridge workmen perched on railings, reached the Waterloo (South) end of the bridge ahead of the nearest chugging taxi. Exulted Leonard: "It will be something to remember."

Herbert Morrison, away from London on business, commented: "It was a historic struggle." Since 1924 he had fought for replacement of the old, sagging Waterloo Bridge--first within the London County Council, which owned it; then against London taxpayers, who feared they would have to pay for the new bridge; against the Times, which allowed: "London does not need and positively must be spared a new six-lane bridge"; against Stanley Baldwin's Government, which refused a building subsidy. Churchill's Government reversed that decision, will pay 60% of the building bill of -L-648,000.

For five years Londoners have watched the cement-arc slowly growing across the river (see cut). The finished job, 80 ft. wide, with five 240-ft. spans in gleaming Portland stone, looked so fresh and handsome against their war-and weather-battered city that it seemed, like a lorgnette on a charwoman, uncomfortably elegant. The bridge's designer, Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, sharing the public view, wistfully observed: "The chief feature is the underside."

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