Samuel Harden Church

“ As we begin our survey of the local field, the wonder grows that the literary production is so large, and that the character of much of it is so very high. Let Pegasus champ his golden bit as he may, and beat his hoof upon the empty air, Pittsburgh men and Pittsburgh women have ridden the classic steed with grace and skill through all the flowered deviations of his bridal paths. ”

“ Has Pittsburgh a literature? Those rolling clouds of smoke, those mighty industries, those men of brawn, those men of energy, that ceaseless calculation of wages and dividends—can these produce an atmosphere for letters? It seems unthinkable. Yet hold! Only the other day on the train a man who has been a resident of New York for thirty-five years remarked in this author's presence that "Pittsburgh is the most intellectual city in America." He had never visited Pittsburgh and the author did not and does not know his name. ”

“ With its charter dating back one hundred and twenty-five years the University is already venerable in this land. Is it not feasible to hope that through the practical benevolence of our people, some working basis of union can be effected between that institution and this? Here we have painting, and sculpture, and architecture, and books, and a wonderfully rich scientific collection, and the abiding spirit of music. We have these fast-growing Technical Schools. ”

“ Several thousand insurgents assembled at Braddock's Field, and marched on Pittsburgh, where the citizens gave them food and submitted to a reign of terror. Then President Washington sent an army of fifteen thousand troops against them, and they melted away, as a mob will ever do when the strong arm of government smites it without fear or respect. ”

“ Red fires rise heavenward from gigantic forges where iron is being fused into wealth. The business section of the city is wedged in by the rivers, its streets are swarming with people, and there is a myriad of retail houses, wholesale houses, banks, tall office buildings, hotels, theaters, and railway terminals ”

“ Ordinary men have been more faithful to asserted principles, but no statesman more frequently departed from asserted principles to secure achievements which redounded to the honor of the nation. During the thirty years in which Pitt exercised the magic spell of his eloquence and power over the English Parliament, the stakes for which he contended against the world were no less than the dominion of North America and of India. ”

“ The Technical Schools do not and should not teach languages, literature, philosophy, and the fine arts, nor the old learned professions, but these must always rest in the University. Should not one school thus supplement the other? And then, the students on each side of this main building would find available here those great collections which, if properly demonstrated, would give them a larger opportunity for systematic culture than could be offered by any other community in the world. ”

“ In the meantime the entire labor system of the South was built upon African slavery, while at the North the horror of the public conscience grew against the degrading institution from year to year. By 1854 the men in the free States who were opposed to slavery had begun to unite themselves by political bonds, and in the spring and summer of that year, groups of such men met in more or less informal conferences in Wisconsin, Michigan, New York, Maine, Massachusetts, Iowa, Ohio, and other northern States. ”

“ History, biography, philosophy, religion, nature, science, criticism, government, coinage and finance, art, poetry, the drama, travel, adventure, fiction, society, education, all avenues of human activity, all themes of human speculation, have been covered in books written with more or less interest and power by men and women of Pittsburgh. Much of this volume of production is ephemeral, but some of it on the other hand is undoubtedly a permanent addition to the world's literature. ”

“ In the music-hall, a symphony orchestra is maintained, and free recitals are given on the great organ twice every week by a capable performer. When the orchestra began its work thirteen years ago, it is doubtful if there were very many persons in Pittsburgh, other than musical students, who knew the difference between a symphony, a suite, a concerto, and a fugue. To-day there are thousands of people in this city who can intelligently describe the shading differences in the Ninth Symphony and give good reasons for their preference as between the two movements of the "Unfinished." ”

“ The governor, with his proclamation, may call and call, but the laboring people, who mostly constitute the militia, won't take up arms to put down their brethren. Will capital then rely on the United States Army? Pshaw! Its ten to fifteen thousand available men would be swept from our path like leaves in a whirlwind. The workingmen of this country can capture and hold it, if they will only stick together, and it looks as though they were going to do so this time. ”

“ Thousands of our serious people annually subscribe for literary reviews of one kind or another in order that they may follow the rapid expansion of the written record of the thought and action of the world, when the whole department might be covered so admirably by our daily newspapers. Should not the newspaper give each household practically all it needs in criticism and information outside of the printed books themselves? ”

“ Pittsburgh maintains by popular support one of the four symphony orchestras in America. She has given many famous men to science, literature, and art. Her astronomical observatory is known throughout the world. Her rich men are often liberal beyond their own needs, particularly so William Thaw, who spent great sums for education and benevolence; Mrs. Mary Schenley, who has given the city a great park, over four hundred acres in the very heart of its boundaries; and Henry Phipps, who erected the largest conservatory for plants and flowers in our country. ”

“ George Hodges, who used to strive together in Pittsburgh to surpass each other in tearing down the walls of religious prejudice that keep people out of the Kingdom of Heaven, have each given us several books on social and religious topics composed on the broad and generous lines of thought which only such sensible teachers know how to employ. ”

“ Music, its theory, composition, and performance on every instrument should be taught where demonstrations could be made with the orchestra and the organ. Successful painters and sculptors, the elected members of the future faculty, should fix their studios near the Institute and teach painting and sculpture as well as it could be done in Paris or Munich. Architecture should thrive by the hand of its trained votaries, while science should continue to reveal the secrets of her most attractive mysteries. ”

“ Greeley sent a telegraphic report of the first day's proceedings to the New York "Tribune," stating that the convention had accomplished much to cement former political differences and distinctions, and that the meeting at Pittsburgh had marked the inauguration of a national party, based upon the principle of freedom. He said that the gathering was very large and the enthusiasm unbounded; that men were acting in the most perfect harmony and with a unity of feeling seldom known to political assemblages of such magnitude; that the body was eminently Republican in principle and tendency ”

“ In pursuance of the claim of Virginia that she owned that part of Pennsylvania in which Pittsburgh is situated, Washington came there as the agent of Governor Dinwiddie to treat with the Indians. With an eye alert for the dangers of the wilderness, and with Christopher Gist beside him, the young Virginian pushed his cautious way to "The Point" of land where the confluence of the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers forms the Ohio. That, he declared, with clear military instinct, was the best site for a fort ”

“ The railroad quickly superseded the canal, however, and when men perceived that the mountains could be conquered by a portage road, it was a natural step to plan the Pennsylvania and Baltimore and Ohio railroads on a system of easy grades, so that all obstacles of height and distance were annihilated. The Pennsylvania Railroad was incorporated April 13, 1846, and completed its roadway from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh February 15, 1854. The canal was for a time operated by the Pennsylvania Canal Company in the interest of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, but its use was gradually abandoned. ”

“ There was almost a wholesale appropriation of goods from the burning cars by men and even women who would at other times have shuddered at the idea of robbery; and after the riot was suppressed goods were for some time voluntarily returned by persons who had taken them unreflectingly, having at length recovered their moral perceptions, which had seemingly been clouded by the vicious influence of the mob. ”

“ At this critical moment the mob received an endorsement that not only greatly encouraged it, but incited it to extreme violence. A local newspaper, on Friday, the 20th, in the course of an editorial headed "The Talk of the Desperate," which formulated what was assumed as the expression of a workingman, used this language:
This may be the great civil war in this country between labor and capital that is bound to come.... The workingmen everywhere are in fullest sympathy with the strikers, and only waiting to see whether they are in earnest enough to fight for their rights. ”

“ The principal railroads serving Pittsburgh are the Pennsylvania, Baltimore and Ohio, the New York Central Lines, and the Wabash System, and she has also a numerous fleet of boats plying the three rivers. Coal is brought to the city by boats as well as by rail, and great fleets of barges carry it and other heavy freight down the Ohio. A ship canal for the establishment of water transportation between Pittsburgh and Lake Erie (127.5 miles) has been projected. The railroads carry through Pittsburgh over eight per cent. of all the railroad traffic of the United States ”

“ The total railway and river tonnage is greater than that of any other city in the world, amounting in 1906 to 122,000,000 tons, of which about 12,000,000 tons were carried on boats down the Ohio. Her tonnage is equal to one half the combined tonnage of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. The following table will be very interesting as showing the extraordinary fact that the tonnage of Pittsburgh exceeds the combined tonnage of the five other greatest cities in the world (1902) :
Pittsburgh has freight yards with a total capacity for more than 60,000 cars. ”

“ Among other charitable institutions maintained by the city are the Home for Orphans, Home for the Aged, Home for Released Convicts, an extensive system of public baths, the Curtis Home for Destitute Women and Girls, the Pittsburgh Newsboys' Home, the Children's Aid Society of Western Pennsylvania, the Protestant Home for Incurables, the Pittsburgh Association for the Improvement of the Poor, and the Western Pennsylvania Humane Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Children, and Aged Persons. ”

“ He was wise, brave, sincere, tolerant, and humane; and no man could more deserve the honor of having named for him a city which was destined to become rich and famous, keeping his memory in more enduring fame than bronze or marble. ”

“ Indeed, the company contended that there ought to be no minimum as there was no maximum under the sliding scale. The workmen insisted that there ought to be a minimum to protect them against unfair dealing between the company and its buyers, as they had no voice or authority in selling the products of their labor.
The reason for changing the time for closing the contract was that the company's business was less active at the end of the calendar year than in midsummer, and that it was easier to complete new arrangements for employment at that time. ”

“ At half past twelve on Sunday morning a committee appointed by a citizens' meeting tried to open a consultation with the mob, but were promptly driven away. The committee found that they were not dealing with dissatisfied railroad employees but with a mob of the worst of the city's population, there being neither organization nor leader, but each man or party of men doing what the frenzy of the moment suggested. ”

“ Father Andrew A. Lambing, President of the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania, has written useful monographs on the early history of this region, and he is one of the first authorities in that field. He has also composed books on religious subjects. E. W. Duckwell wrote "Bacteriology Applied to the Canning and Preserving of Food Products."
Richard Realf was a poet "whose songs gushed from his heart," and some of them hold a place in literature. His "Monarch of the Forges" breathes the deep spirit of industrial life as he found it in Pittsburgh. ”

“ The tax valuation of Pittsburgh property is $609,632,427. She mines one quarter of the bituminous coal of the United States. With an invested capital of $641,000,000, she has 3,029 mills and factories with an annual product worth $551,000,000, and 250,000 employees on a pay-roll of about $1,000,000 a day, or $350,000,000 a year. Her electric street-railway system multiplies itself through her streets for four hundred and ninety-two miles. Natural-gas fuel is conveyed into her mills and houses through one thousand miles of iron pipe. ”