CHAPTER V.

CHICAGO AND ITS MAKERS—THE CITY OF THE 20TH CENTURY.

THE first purpose of our tourists was to see Chicago, the wonder of the West.

They began at the Art Palace, where the statue of La Salle met their view on the boulevard, bringing to mind those December days of 1681, when the bold explorer coasted along the southern shore of Lake Michigan, and ascended the Chicago River, on his way to the Mississippi. Did he dream on that day that he entered the Chicago that the live city of the West would be there?

There were great arches of bridges between the statue and the Art Palace, and all the world seemed passing to the railroad and the boats. The Lake rolled in splendor before the towering buildings, but everything, the Art Palace included, seemed discolored with smoke. The doors of the great Art Palace stood open, as it were, to receive the homeless multitudes, coming from everywhere. It was the hospitable door of Chicago.

It was a short walk from the Art Palace to the Auditorium Building, which is a grand hotel and a theatre, and whose corridors might have been halls of the Pharaohs, they are so dazzling, airy, and beautiful. Every one here seemed to be in a hurry. If each one’s life were to be fated to end with the day, no one could be more in a hurry. Yet every one looked happy; it was not an anxious hurry, but an inspired hurry. New York is slow and Boston slower, but here is the clock of destiny, and one must _do_, ere it strike. The Chicagoan loves Chicago, and resolves to make it the grandest city in the world.

The dream is likely to be fulfilled. Our good Quaker friend said to a boy in the pillared waiting-room of the Auditorium:

“My boy, how many miles is it to Boston?”

The boy gave a lightning glance, gathered up his mouth for one long breath, and answered:—

“Thirty-two hours from Boston (1150 miles); twenty-nine hours from Montreal; twenty-six hours from New York; twenty-four hours from Philadelphia; twenty-six hours from Washington; three and a half days from San Francisco; five days from the City of Mexico; nine days from Queenstown; ten days from Paris; fifteen days from Rome, and sixteen from St. Petersburg. Are there any other places that you would like to inquire about?”

“The land of the ocean! No, not now. You seem to know all about the world. Who is your father, my lad?”

“Daddyism don’t count in Chicago. You came from the East.”

“Yes, I came from the East; and how might a man from the East best see Chicago?”

“Take an elevator—don’t you know the dining-room here is up top, and the roof sweeps the city, the Lake, the Fair and everything!”

“Take an elevator?” said our sedate friend. “I never take any; I favor temperance principles.”

“Oh, then take _the_ elevator. There, it is running now!”

“How many inhabitants do you claim, my lad?”

The answer was as extraordinary as the first:—

“South Division, half a million and more; West Division, half a million and more; North Division, quarter of a million and more. I reckon we are about two million in all. Can’t keep the run of the census here.”

“My boy, if I should conclude to go to Lincoln’s tomb at Springfield, what road would I take?”

The answer was more amazing still:—

“Oh, take the C. A. or the A. T. S. F. and change, or the C. A. and change, or the C. I. If you take the C. A. or the A. T. S. F. or the C. I., you will have to change in this way”—Here the boy began such a distortion of the alphabet as could only be heard in a primary school.

“Do you know all the railroads that go out of Chicago?” asked the Quaker.

“Most of them. There’s the A. T. and S. F; the B. and O.; the C. B. and Q.; the C. E. and L. S.; the C. M. and S. P.; the C. R. I. and P.; the C. S. P. and K. C.; the C. and A.; the C. and E.; the C. and E. I.; the C. and G. T.; the C. and N.; the C. and N. P.; the C. and S.; the C. and W. M.; the C. and W. I.; the C. C. C. and S. L., which is the Big 4; the I. C.; the L. S. and M. C.; the M. C.; the M. L. S. and W.; the M. P.; the N. Y. C. and St. L. Nickle Plate; the P. F. W. and W.; and the W. C.”

“If you wish to go to Springfield by a zigzag, picturesque kind of route, take the—” Here the boy went off into the alphabet again.

“I am afraid I would never get there,” said our good friend, with uplifted hands. “I think that we have about concluded to go to Lincoln Park.”

The party did not find this an easy matter. They went to State Street; the sidewalks were thronged with hurrying crowds; high buildings towered in the sunny and smoky air.

“If I were to come to Chicago,” said the confused Quaker, “I would go into the business of collars and cuffs. Mine were clean when I started out—just see them now! But everybody looks clean; how do they do it?”

After many directions from policemen, the party found the car for the famous park which is the delight and summer rest of Chicago. How lovely it was! The great bronze statue of Lincoln arose before the province of greenery; the Lake rippled near, expanding in purple glory. They hurried toward the Zoölogical Gardens, which are among the finest in the world. The parks and park lands of Chicago are many, and cover nearly two thousand acres. But Lincoln Park, with its lake view and animal shows, has a charm that exceeds all others, and not the least of its attractions is “Admission Free.”

On their return from the park, where they visited the Grant Statue, the flower gardens, and the wonderful collections of tamed animals, the party went to the Auditorium Building, and looked down from the top on the city as it lay spread out in the sunset. How different was the scene from the fort and little hamlet in 1830! The city practically filled the view.

The Post Office and Masonic Buildings are works of marvellous strength and beauty; the stranger would pause in awe before them, did not the crowd at all hours of the day hurry him on. One cannot conveniently stop to talk on the streets in the activity of this rapid city. The Women’s Temple is one of the noblest structures ever erected for benevolent work by women, and the Produce Exchange fittingly expresses its purpose.

The Palmer House is associated with the history of the city since the fire, as few other buildings have been. There are few business men in the country who have not at some time stopped there. The beautiful private residence of its proprietor is famous for its hospitality, and is as unique as it is noble. The women of America are proud of the record of Mrs. Potter Palmer, and are glad that a woman of such public spirit can organize her plans in such a liberal home. The private residences of Mr. Kimball, Mr. McVeach, and the long procession of mansions on Michigan Avenue, display an air, not of ease and rest, but of purpose and energy. They picture the spirit of the times.

There are few public buildings in Europe that display a more massive grandeur than the City Hall. It looks like a colossal palace reared upon lofty foundations, and one from abroad would think that such a structure would have cost the labor of a score of years. The city is full of buildings from eight to sixteen or more stories high, that look like towers.

The Union Stock-Yards here are the largest in the world. They cover three hundred and fifty or more acres with more than eight miles of streets,—a city of cattle. More than $200,000,000 worth of live-stock are sold here annually.

Chicago is the world’s granary. Her grain-elevators would make a city. She handles some 150,000,000 bushels of grain a year.

The Chicago River in 1830 flowed clear and full in view. It is now shut into bridges, and is hardly noticed. The arrival and clearances of vessels in Chicago harbor greatly exceed those of New York, and are probably as many as or more than at the ports of New York and Boston combined.

The lofty and substantial buildings greatly interested the good Quaker, and on returning to the waiting-room of the Auditorium, he met the bright boy who had given him such luminous instructions in regard to the railroads.

“Well, I found the park,” said our friend.

“Took the N. C. S. or W. S. cable, I suppose?” said the boy.

“I think so; the X. Y. Z. or Q. R. S. T. it might have been. I like that park; it is like the story that had no end. What are your very tallest houses here, my lad?”

“There’s the Ashland Block, sixteen stories high; this Auditorium, seventeen stories high; C. C. B., thirteen stories high; C. M. B., fourteen stories high; M. B., sixteen stories high; and the Masonic Building, twenty stories high.”

“There, there, that will do—twenty stories high!”

“There are many others, sir; the U. B., sixteen stories high, and—”

“You needn’t go over the alphabet any more. Why, boy, it would make me crazy to live here. My house isn’t but two stories high; it is an A. B. C. D. house in the perpendicular style of architecture.”

The party went to the great pork-packing establishment. Here the poor pig has hardly a chance to squeal between his easy rural life and sausage meat. The name of Mr. P. D. Armour is associated with an industry, or business, such as the good New England farmer never dreamed of in his simple life, when two pigs, killed after an heroic struggle, were the supply for his frugal pork barrel. Corn, beef, and pork are supply cities by themselves.

The railroad stations, too, would constitute a city. What wonder that the boys say C. B. Q. and I. C. and C. N. W. and C. S. M. W. D.!

The city stretches into suburbs, which themselves widen away and exhibit the outlines of new suburbs. The Hyde Park suburb, Pullman, and other towns that make a semi-circle, are in themselves famous. The Mississippi Valley, the old East, the great lake country of the North,—all seem to focus here. Chicago will be the City of the Twentieth Century.

The eastern and the old world tourists come here, with narrow views and criticism, to which the true Chicagoan has neither the time nor the interest to so much as listen. When this type of man enters into the spirit of Chicago, and feels the new life, he often becomes wonderfully enthusiastic. He lives for the future, and under new horizons; his soul becomes prophetic; he feels that the age of humanity is at hand, and that the city by the great inland sea is to be the capital; and he merges himself in the multitude, and his private interest becomes the good of the whole. All of the enterprises are his; all of the builders are building for him. He has a part in every new structure, enterprise, and beautiful house. One cannot understand this spirit until he has felt it.

The men who lead, inspire him. Davis, Palmer, Pullman, Armour, the grain-merchants, the public officers, are self-made men. Invention and energy are here rewarded. The whole spirit of the place says “Advance;” progress proclaims “I will.” Force and Chicago are one.

Go to the Temple, the scene of the activities of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. It cost a million of dollars. It is the centre of the work of the largest organization of women in the world; of ten thousand moral reform societies in the country. All its directors are women.

Glance at the life of its President, Miss Frances Elizabeth Willard: of New England ancestry, educated at Oberlin, taking a front rank as an educator, living now on the platform, and wherever she goes carrying her pen in hand. She projected the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, is the leader of the White Cross work, and one of the leaders of the National Council of Women. She has set her New England character everywhere in the West. She represents what the true Chicago woman means to be to her age and generation. What does such an example say to girls? What to all aspirators towards a worthy life?

Stand before the hospitable doors of the castle-like mansion where Mrs. Potter Palmer has been accustomed to receive all worthy workers in the cause of humanity and progress. One is proud to feel, in the atmosphere of such a place, that in America queens are born, and that their social thrones are won by nobility. That woman and her friends gave to the Exposition a soul, or made the White City voice what is spiritual. Such women put reform into stone and called it the Temple. They will one day begin a daily journalism that shall lead all that is best in the mind and heart of mankind.

Go to Pullman, some ten miles away. It has been called the model town of the working-men. What does such a suburb say to the American youth? Mr. George M. Pullman once rode on an old-fashioned sleeping-car. He found it a hard experience. He did not sleep. But out of that experience he invented. The Pullman Sleeping Car was the result. People now travel and sleep. “Invent what is needed,” so says Pullman.

Mr. Pullman began life as a clerk in a country store. He now owns a town and employs fifteen thousand people. “Answer the world’s needs,” says the spirit of the thrifty town, “and you shall be supplied in the supply.”

The builders of the expanding city by the Lake were poor boys. Invention, energy, honesty made their success. Like Dr. Livingston, when he graduated from Glasgow University, most of them can say,—“I never had a dollar that I did not earn!” They do not merely exist,—they live. When they have passed their generation they will have left behind them a new creation of life.