Part 17

The present tendency of legislation, pushed to its logical conclusion, is towards a practical confiscation of railway property; that is, its tendency is to so interfere with management, so restrict freedom of arrangement, so reduce rates, that the companies will with difficulty continue operations. The first effect of this will be, necessarily, poorer service and deteriorated equipments and tracks. Roads that do not prosper cannot keep up safe lines. Experienced travellers usually shun those that are in the hands of a receiver. The Western roads of which I speak have been noted for their excellent service and the liberality towards the public in accommodations, especially in fine cars and matters pertaining to the comfort of passengers. Some dining cars on the Omaha system were maintained last year at a cost to the company of ten thousand dollars over receipts. The Western Legislatures assume that because a railway which is thickly strung with cities can carry passengers for two cents a mile, a railway running over an almost unsettled plain can carry for the same price. They assume also that because railway companies in a foolish fight for business cut rates, the lowest rate they touch is a living one for them. The same logic that induces Legislatures to fix rates of transportation, directly or by means of a commission, would lead it to set a price on meat, wheat, and groceries. Legislative restriction is one thing; legislative destruction is another. There is a craze of prohibition and interference. Iowa has an attack of it. In Nebraska, not only the Legislature but the courts have been so hostile to railway enterprise that one hundred and fifty miles of new road graded last year, which was to receive its rails this spring, will not be railed, because it is not safe for the company to make further investments in that State. Between the Grangers on the one side and the labor unions on the other, the railways are in a tight place. Whatever restrictions great corporations may need, the sort of attack now made on them in the West is altogether irrational. Is it always made from public motives? The legislators of one Western State had been accustomed to receive from the various lines that centred at the capital trip passes, in addition to their personal annual passes. Trip passes are passes that the members can send to their relations, friends, and political allies who want to visit the capital. One year the several roads agreed that they would not issue trip passes. When the members asked the agent for them they were told that they were not ready. As days passed and no trip passes were ready, hostile and annoying bills began to be introduced into the Legislature. In six weeks there was a shower of them. The roads yielded, and began to give out the passes. After that, nothing more was heard of the bills.

What the public have a right to complain of is the manipulation of railways in Wall Street gambling. But this does not account for the hostility to the corporations which are developing the West by an extraordinary outlay of money, and cutting their own throats by a war of rates. The vast interests at stake, and the ignorance of the relation of legislation to the laws of business, make the railway problem to a spectator in Chicago one of absorbing interest.

In a thorough discussion of all interests it must be admitted that the railways have brought many of their troubles upon themselves by their greedy wars with each other, and perhaps in some cases by teaching Legislatures that have bettered their instructions, and that tyrannies in management and unjust discriminations (such as the Inter-State Commerce Law was meant to stop) have much to do in provoking hostility that survives many of its causes.

I cannot leave Chicago without a word concerning the town of Pullman, although it has already been fully studied in the pages of Harper’s Monthly. It is one of the most interesting experiments in the world. As it is only a little over seven years old, it would be idle to prophesy about it, and I can only say that thus far many of the predictions as to the effect of “paternalism” have not come true. If it shall turn out that its only valuable result is an “object lesson” in decent and orderly living, the experiment will not have been in vain. It is to be remembered that it is not a philanthropic scheme, but a purely business operation, conducted on the idea that comfort, cleanliness, and agreeable surroundings conduce more to the prosperity of labor and of capital than the opposites.

Pullman is the only city in existence built from the foundation on scientific and sanitary principles, and not more or less the result of accident and variety of purpose and incapacity. Before anything else was done on the flat prairie, perfect drainage, sewerage, and water supply were provided. The shops, the houses, the public buildings, the parks, the streets, the recreation grounds, then followed in intelligent creation. Its public buildings are fine, and the grouping of them about the open flower-planted spaces is very effective. It is a handsome city, with the single drawback of monotony in the well-built houses. Pullman is within the limits of the village of Hyde Park, but it is not included in the annexation of the latter to Chicago.

It is certainly a pleasing industrial city. The workshops are spacious, light, and well ventilated, perfectly systematized; for instance, timber goes into one end of the long car-shop and, without turning back, comes out a freight car at the other, the capacity of the shop being one freight car every fifteen minutes of the working hours. There are a variety of industries, which employ about 4500 workmen. Of these about 500 live outside the city, and there are about 1000 workmen who live in the city and work elsewhere. The company keeps in order the streets, parks, lawns, and shade trees, but nothing else except the schools is free. The schools are excellent, and there are over 1300 children enrolled in them. The company has a well-selected library of over 6000 volumes, containing many scientific and art books, which is open to all residents on payment of an annual subscription of three dollars. Its use increases yearly, and study classes are formed in connection with it. The company rents shops to dealers, but it carries on none of its own. Wages are paid to employés without deduction, except as to rent, and the women appreciate a provision that secures them a home beyond peradventure.

The competition among dealers brings prices to the Chicago rates, or lower, and then the great city is easily accessible for shopping. House rent is a little higher for ordinary workmen than in Chicago, but not higher in proportion to accommodations, and living is reckoned a little cheaper. The reports show that the earnings of operatives exceed those of other working communities, averaging per capita (exclusive of the higher pay of the general management) $590 a year. I noticed that piece-wages were generally paid, and always when possible. The town is a hive of busy workers; employment is furnished to all classes except the school-children, and the fine moral and physical appearance of the young women in the upholstery and other work rooms would please a philanthropist.

Both the health and the morale of the town are exceptional; and the moral tone of the workmen has constantly improved under the agreeable surroundings. Those who prefer the kind of independence that gives them filthy homes and demoralizing associations seem to like to live elsewhere. Pullman has a population of 10,000. I do not know another city of 10,000 that has not a place where liquor is sold, nor a house nor a professional woman of ill repute. With the restrictions as to decent living, the community is free in its political action, its church and other societies, and in all healthful social activity. It has several ministers; it seems to require the services of only one or two policemen; it supports four doctors and one lawyer.

I know that any control, any interference with individual responsibility, is un-American. Our theory is that every person knows what is best for himself. It is not true, but it may be safer, in working out all the social problems, than any lessening of responsibility either in the home or in civil affairs. When I contrast the dirty tenements, with contiguous seductions to vice and idleness, in some parts of Chicago, with the homes of Pullman, I am glad that this experiment has been made. It may be worth some sacrifice to teach people that it is better for them, morally and pecuniarily, to live cleanly and under educational influences that increase their self-respect. No doubt it is best that people should own their homes, and that they should assume all the responsibilities of citizenship. But let us wait the full evolution of the Pullman idea. The town could not have been built as an object lesson in any other way than it was built. The hope is that laboring people will voluntarily do hereafter what they have here been induced to accept. The model city stands there as a lesson, the wonderful creation of less than eight years. The company is now preparing to sell lots on the west side of the railway-tracks, and we shall see what influence this nucleus of order, cleanliness, and system will have upon the larger community rapidly gathering about it. Of course people should be free to go up or go down. Will they be injured by the opportunity of seeing how much pleasanter it is to go up than to go down?

XI.—THREE CAPITALS—SPRINGFIELD, INDIANAPOLIS, COLUMBUS.

To one travelling over this vast country, especially the northern and western portions, the superficial impression made is that of uniformity, and even monotony: towns are alike, cities have a general resemblance, State lines are not recognized, and the idea of conformity and centralization is easily entertained. Similar institutions, facility of communication, a disposition to stronger nationality, we say, are rapidly fusing us into one federal mass.

But when we study a State at its centre, its political action, its organization, its spirit, the management of its institutions of learning and of charity, the tendencies, restrictive or liberal, of its legislation, even the tone of social life and the code of manners, we discover distinctions, individualities, almost as many differences as resemblances. And we see—the saving truth in our national life—that each State is a well-nigh indestructible entity, an empire in itself, proud and conscious of its peculiarities, and jealous of its rights. We see that State boundaries are not imaginary lines, made by the geographers, which could be easily altered by the central power. Nothing, indeed, in our whole national development, considering the common influences that have made us, is so remarkable as the difference of the several States. Even on the lines of a common settlement, say from New England and New York, note the differences between northern Ohio, northern Indiana, northern Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Or take another line, and see the differences between southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and northern Missouri. But each State, with its diverse population, has a certain homogeneity and character of its own. We can understand this where there are great differences of climate, or when one is mountainous and the other flat. But why should Indiana be so totally unlike the two States that flank it, in so many of the developments of civilized life or in retarded action; and why should Iowa, in its entire temper and spirit, be so unlike Illinois? One State copies the institutions of another, but there is always something in its life that it does not copy from any other. And the perpetuity of the Union rests upon the separateness and integrity of this State life. I confess that I am not so much impressed by the magnitude of our country as I am by the wonderful system of our complex government in unity, which permits the freest development of human nature, and the most perfect adaptability to local conditions. I can conceive of no greater enemy to the Union than he who would by any attempt at further centralization weaken the self-dependence, pride, and dignity of a single State. It seems to me that one travels in vain over the United States if he does not learn that lesson.

The State of Illinois is geographically much favored both for agriculture and commerce. With access to the Gulf by two great rivers that bound it on two sides, and communicating with the Atlantic by Lake Michigan, enterprise has aided these commercial advantages by covering it with railways. Stretching from Galena to Cairo, it has a great variety of climate; it is well watered by many noble streams, and contains in its great area scarcely any waste land. It has its contrasts of civilization. In the northern half are the thriving cities; the extreme southern portion, owing in part to a more debilitating, less wholesome climate, and in part to a less virile, ambitious population, still keeps its “Egyptian” reputation. But the railways have already made a great change in southern Illinois, and education is transforming it. The establishment of a normal school at Carbondale in 1874-75 has changed the aspect of a great region. I am told by the State Superintendent of Education that the contrast in dress, manners, cultivation, of the country crowd which came to witness the dedication of the first building, and those who came to see the inauguration of the new school, twelve years later, was something astonishing.

Passing through the central portion of the State to Springfield, after an interval of many years, let us say a generation, I was impressed with the transformation the country had undergone by tree-planting and the growth of considerable patches of forest. The State is generally prosperous. The farmers have money, some surplus to spend in luxuries, in the education of their children, in musical instruments, in the adornment of their homes. This is the universal report of the commercial travellers, those modern couriers of business and information, who run in swarms to and fro over the whole land. To them it is significant—their opinion can go for what it is worth—that Illinois has not tried the restrictive and prohibitory legislation of its western neighbor, Iowa, which, with its rolling prairies and park-like timber, loved in the season of birds and flowers, is one of the most fertile and lovely States in the West.

Springfield, which spreads its 30,000 people extensively over a plain on the Sangamon River, is prosperous, and in the season when any place can be agreeable, a beautiful city. The elm grows well in the rich soil, and its many broad, well-shaded streets, with pretty detached houses and lawns, make it very attractive, a delightful rural capital. The large Illinois towns are slowly lifting themselves out of the slough of rich streets, better adapted to crops than to trade; though good material for pavement is nowhere abundant. Springfield has recently improved its condition by paving, mostly with cedar blocks, twenty-five miles of streets. I notice that in some of the Western towns tile pavement is being tried. Manufacturing is increasing—there is a prosperous rolling-mill and a successful watch factory—but the overwhelming interest of the city is that it is the centre of the political and educational institutions—of the life emanating from the State-honse.

The State-house is, I believe, famous. It is a big building, a great deal has been spent on it in the way of ornamentation, and it enjoys the distinction of the highest State-honse dome in the country—350 feet. It has the merit also of being well placed on an elevation, and its rooms are spacious and very well planned. It is an incongruous pile externally, mixing many styles of architecture, placing Corinthian capitals on Doric columns, and generally losing the impression of a dignified mass in details. Within, it is especially rich in wall-casings of beautiful and variegated marbles, each panel exquisite, but all together tending to dissipate any idea of unity of design or simplicity. Nothing whatever can be said for many of the scenes in relief, or the mural paintings (except that they illustrate the history of the State), nor for most of the statues in the corridors, but the decoration of the chief rooms, in mingling of colors and material, is frankly barbarous.

Illinois has the reputation of being slow in matters of education and reform. A day in the State offices, however, will give the visitor an impression of intelligence and vigor in these directions. The office of the State Board of Pharmacy in the Capitol shows a strict enforcement of the law in the supervision of drugs and druggists. Prison management has also most intelligent consideration. The two great penitentiaries, the Southern, at Chester (with about 800 convicts), and the Northern, at Joliet (with about 1600 convicts), call for no special comment. The one at Joliet is a model of its kind, with a large library, and such schooling as is practicable in the system, and is well administered; and I am glad to see that Mr. McClaughry, the warden, believes that incorrigibles should be permanently held, and that grading, the discipline of labor and education, with a parole system, can make law-abiding citizens of many convicts.

In school education the State is certainly not supine in efforts. Out of a State population of about 8,500,000, there were, in 1887, 1,627,841 under twenty-one years, and 1,096,464 between the ages of six and twenty-one. The school age for free attendance is from six to twenty-one; for compulsory attendance, from eight to fourteen. There were 749,994 children enrolled, and 500,197 in daily attendance. Those enrolled in private schools numbered 87,725. There were 2258 teachers in private schools, and 22,925 in public schools; of this latter, 7402 were men and 15,403 women. The average monthly salary of men was $51.48, and of women $42.17. The sum available for school purposes in 1887 was $12,890,515, in an assessed value of taxable property of $797,752,888. These figures are from Dr. X. W. Edwards, Superintendent of Public Instruction, whose energy is felt In every part of the State.

The State prides itself on its institutions of charity. I saw some of them at Jacksonville, an hour’s ride west of Springfield. Jacksonville is a very pretty city of some 15,000, with elm-shaded avenues that crest but do not rival New Haven—one of those intellectual centres that are a continual surprise to our English friends in their bewildered exploration of our monotonous land. In being the Western centre of Platonic philosophy, it is more like Concord than like New Haven. It is the home of a large number of people who have travelled, who give intelligent attention to art, to literary study in small societies and clubs—its Monday Evening Club of men long antedated most of the similar institutions at the East—and to social problems. I certainly did not expect to find, as I did, water-colors by Turner in Jacksonville, besides many other evidences of a culture that must modify many Eastern ideas of what the West is and is getting to be.

The Illinois College is at Jacksonville. It is one of twenty-five small colleges in the State, and I believe the only one that adheres to the old curriculum, and does not adopt co-education. It has about sixty students in the college proper, and about one hundred and thirty in the preparatory academy. Most of the Illinois colleges have preparatory departments, and so long as they do, and the various sects scatter their energies among so many institutions, the youth of the State who wish a higher education will be obliged to go East. The school perhaps the most vigorous just now is the University of Illinois, at Urbana, a school of agriculture and applied science mainly. The Central Hospital for the Insane (one of three in the State), under the superintendence of Dr. Henry F. Carriel, is a fine establishment, a model of neatness and good management, with over nine hundred patients, about a third of whom do some light work on the farm or in the house. A large conservatory of plants and flowers is rightly regarded as a remedial agency in the treatment of the patients. Here also is a fine school for the education of the blind.

The Institution for the Education of Deaf-Mutes, Dr. Philip H. Gillette, superintendent, is, I believe, the largest in the world, and certainly one of the most thoroughly equipped and successful in its purposes. It has between five hundred and six hundred pupils. All the departments found in many other institutions are united here. The school has a manual training department; articulation is taught; the art school exhibits surprising results in aptitude for both drawing and painting; and industries are taught to the extent of giving every pupil a trade or some means of support—shoemaking, cabinet-making, printing, sewing, gardening, and baking.

Such an institution as this raises many interesting questions. It is at once evident that the loss of the sense of hearing has an effect on character, moral and intellectual. Whatever may be the education of the deaf-mute, he will remain, in some essential and not easily to be characterized respects, different from other people. It is exceedingly hard to cultivate in them a spirit of self-dependence, or eradicate the notion that society owes them perpetual care and support. The education of deaf-mutes, and the teaching them trades, so that they become intelligent and productive members of society, of course induce marriages among them. Is not this calculated to increase the number of deaf-mutes? Dr. Gillette thinks not. The vital statistics show that consanguineous marriages are a large factor in deaf-muteism; about ten per cent., it is estimated, of the deaf-mutes are the offspring of parents related by blood. Ancestral defects are not always perpetuated in kind; they may descend in physical deformity, in deafness, in imbecility. Deafness is more apt to descend in collateral branches than in a straight line. It is a striking fact in a table of relationships prepared by Dr. Gillette that, while the 450 deaf-mutes enumerated had 770 relationships to other deaf-mutes, making a total of 1220, only twelve of them had deaf-mute parents, and only two of them one deaf-mute parent, the mother of these having been able to hear, and that in no case was the mother alone a deaf-mute. Of the pupils who have left this institution, 251 have married deaf-mutes, and 19 hearing persons. These marriages have been as fruitful as the average, and among them all only sixteen have deaf-mute children; in some of the families having a deaf child there are other children who hear. These facts, says the report, clearly indicate that the probability of deaf offspring from deaf parentage is remote, while other facts may clearly indicate that a deaf person probably has or will have a deaf relation other than a child.

Springfield is old enough to have a historic flavor and social traditions; perhaps it might be called a Kentucky flavor, so largely did settlers from Kentucky determine it. There was a leisurely element in it, and it produced a large number of men prominent in politics and in the law, and women celebrated for beauty and spirit. It was a hospitable society, with a certain tone of “family” that distinguished it from other frontier places, a great liking for the telling of racy stories, and a hearty enjoyment of life. The State has provided a Gubernatorial residence which is at once spacious and pleasant, and is a mansion, with its present occupants, typical in a way of the old regime and of modern culture.