City of Chicago

“ It was nothing less than the freedom of the City of Chicago—a compliment I can say with safety that has never been paid to any other Englishman, and what is more, is never likely to be. Chicago, as everyone at all connected with America must know, will within a very few years be the first city in the United States, and probably in the world. ”

“ I believe Chicago has a great heart as well as a great head. I always mistrust people who make the most noise. Beware of men and women who are out for themselves. That’s what keeps us all back—that awful self. Yet these people very often frighten politicians. I am told not to mention this or that subject in Chicago, especially the League of Nations. Now, if there is one city in America where one should talk of the League of Nations—surely it’s Chicago. Look at your population. It’s a City of Nations in itself. When you welcome other nationalities here, you want them to be good citizens. ”

“ But Chicago may not be comprehended in the usual scamper of the tourist; for the interesting thing about this city is the people, and they require [136] time. I do not, of course, mean that they are all worthy of individual scrutiny, but rather that the very fact of so many human beings collecting there, living cheerfully and harmoniously, laboring and aspiring and illustrating the pressing, changing problems of our democracy awakens at once the beholder’s sympathetic interest. Chicago is not New York, nor is it London or Paris: Chicago is different. ”

“ Chicago was already a city of a hundred thousand souls. Thirty to forty thousand visitors, full of life, hope, ambition, most of them from the progressive group of encircling North-western States, and strung to the highest tension of political excitement had come to attend the convention. Charleston had shown a great party in the ebbtide of disintegration, tainted by the spirit of disunion. Chicago exhibited a great party springing to life and power, every motive and force compelling coöperation and growth. ”

“ What a wonderful city Chicago will be when the commandment is honestly enforced which declares, "Thou shalt consume thine own smoke!"
What a wonderful city Chicago will be! That is the ever-recurring burden of one's cogitations. For Chicago is awake, and intelligently awake, to her destinies; so much one perceives even in the reiterated complaints that she is asleep. Discontent is the condition of progress, and Chicago is not in the slightest danger of relapsing into a condition of inert self-complacency. ”

“ Chicago herself, unreached by the plague, was scattering handbills on every Western railroad line, warning immigrants against St. Louis.
The Missourians have relied overmuch upon the Mississippi River, and have forgotten that railroads are superseding steamboats every day. Chicago, on the other hand, which ten years ago was the twentieth city in America, is probably by this time the third. As a center of thought, political and religious, she stands second only to Boston, and her Wabash and Michigan Avenues are among the most beautiful of streets. ”

“ The deep hollow roar of the locomotive, and the shrill scream from the steamboat, are heard here all day; a continuous stream of life ever bustles through the city, and, standing as it does on the very verge of western civilization, Chicago is a vast emporium of the trade of the districts east and west of the Mississippi. ”

“ Did any one then, with all the boasting and bragging, imagine that in half a century Chicago would spring into wonderful prominence, outstripping older towns with a vivid maturity, be burned to ashes, rise again and lift itself not only out of ashes but out of the slough, and if it could not be a city set on a hill, still become marvellous in its advancement of all kinds? I thought then that Eagle fleet of vessels was simply astonishing with the freights they carried across the lake. Men were fighting then for a canal, a clear waterway to the Mississippi without any portage. ”

“ On the homeward trail, eating supper in company with the neighbors he finds aboard, he dilates eloquently upon the wonders of the city, upon its enterprise, upon the heartiness with which its business men meet their customers. Chicago men work longer hours than their New York brethren and take pride in their accessibility. It is easier to get a hearing in high quarters in any field of endeavor in Chicago than in New York; there is less waiting in the anteroom, and a better chance of being asked out for lunch.
The West is proud of Chicago and loves it with a passionate devotion. ”

“ It was predicted then that Chicago would live, and live to be so mighty and so vast that the great fire would be but an incident in its history. The city was to live because beyond it were the giant forces, the teeming millions, the imperial area of the mighty West, which, having made Chicago the gateway to the East, would recreate it under the same natural necessities. ”

“ To him, however, they represented not ladders to prosperity but a social condition of a passing generation, the Chicago of the seventies, a city distinctively American in population and in ideals, a youthful city of a single standard of endeavor, a pleasant place that had been swallowed by the Chicago of the present, that many-tentacled monster of heterogeneous races, that affected him as it did so many of the older residents, with an overwhelming sensation of revolt against its sprawling lack of cohesion. ”

“ What other city has begun so nobly or has planned so liberally for metropolitan solidity, elegance, and recreation? What other has such magnificent, avenues and boulevards, and such a system of parks? The boy is born here who will see the town expanded far beyond these splendid pleasure-grounds, and what is now the circumference of the city will be to Chicago what the vernal gardens from St. James to Hampton are to London. This anticipation hardly seems strange when one remembers what Chicago was fifteen years ago.
Architecturally, Chicago is more interesting than many older cities. ”

“ In the midst of our war with Germany, Chicago re-elected as mayor a man who, throughout the war, was an outspoken enemy of his country. In the outright venality of every sort, the government of the city of Chicago, I am informed, exceeds any in the country, even New York. ”

“ The word Chicago is a simpler form of the Indian name, Chacaqua, given to the river in honor of their deity, the Thunderer. The position of Chicago makes it the greatest lake port in the world. It is already the second city in the United States, though only born in 1830, and has hopes of becoming the first, by growth, and not by annexation policy. True, the newest city inherits the wealth and experience which the older ones had to gain for themselves, yet Chicago has done some fine original things. It hitched up an inland sea as its beast of burden and made a vast lake its pleasure pond. ”

“ Thus the heaven-storming era is probably over; but there is all the more reason to feel assured that the business centre of Chicago will ere long be not only grandiose but architecturally dignified and satisfactory. A growing thirst for beauty has come upon the city, and architects are earnestly studying how to assuage it. In magnificence of internal decoration, Chicago can already challenge the world: for instance, in the white marble vestibule and corridors of The Rookery, and the noble hall of the Illinois Trust Bank. ”

“ If the plan as it stands at present has been accomplished within a long lifetime, Chicago will have maintained her reputation for swift action. Two or three lifetimes would be time enough in any other city. However, Chicago desires the fulfillment of the prophecy she has on paper. Work is going on, and the extent to which it will go on in future depends entirely upon the ability of the city to finance Plan projects. And when a thing depends upon the ability of the city of Chicago, it depends upon a very solid and a very splendid thing. ”

“ May I not hope that the life and youth and moral power of Chicago will join hand in hand in making this vast city great, not only in dimensions and numbers and wealth, but great in that kind of greatness which alone shall exalt a nation and give it memory. ”

“ Chicago is becoming modest. Perhaps the inhabitants may still be able to conceal their modesty, but nevertheless they feel it. The explanation is simple. The city has grown not only beyond the most sanguine expectations of those who indulged in the most inflated hope of its future, but it has grown beyond what they said they expected. This gives the citizens pause—as it might an eagle that laid a roc’s egg. ”

“ CHICAGO COMPARED WITH LONDON.—THE SOLID BLACK AREA REPRESENTS THE ACTUAL BUILDINGS OF CHICAGO; THE GREY AREA COMPLETING THE ADMINISTERED CITY.
Exactly one hundred years ago the American Government built Fort Dearborn, on Lake Michigan. In 1831 there was a village of one hundred people on the site; to-day the city of Chicago has spread out (rather too generously, its rival municipalities think) until it comprises 190-1/2 square miles and a population of 1,698,575. ”

“ This last development, however, is sporadic; hence as a whole the first impression Chicago gives is that of a huge garment made of heterogeneous materials,—here a square of faded cotton, next door a patch let in of fine silk. For the order of life is first existence, then comfort, then luxury, and last—when the human mind begins to suffer ennui—a little beauty for a plaything.
The complex quality of this wonderful city is best seen as the stranger shoots across the prairie in a railroad train, penetrating layer after layer of the folds. ”

“ For many years now Chicago has been known as the ‘pork-packing town.’ Every visitor who comes from overseas insists upon being shown through the ‘Yards.’ English poets have celebrated Chicago for its stockyards odor, and missed the fresh spiritual fragrance of youth and a zest for life that simply exudes from the city through its smoke and its dirt and its city smells. ”

“ Chicago is not a baby and utters no bleating cry that it is “misunderstood,” and yet a great many people have not only misunderstood or misinterpreted it but have expressed their dislike with hearty frankness. To many visitors Chicago is a city of dreadful night, to be explored as hurriedly as possible with outward-bound ticket clenched tightly in hand. ”

“ Confined to a long parallelogram, and limited as to light and air, neither comfort nor individual taste can be consulted or satisfied. Chicago is a city of detached houses, in the humbler quarters as well as in the magnificent avenues, and the effect is home-like and beautiful at the same time. There is great variety—stone, brick, and wood intermingled, plain and ornamental; but drive where you will in the favorite residence parts of the vast city, you will be continually surprised with the sight of noble and artistic houses and homes displaying taste as well as luxury. ”

“ The incident is in itself unimportant, but it seems to me to illustrate the spirit of Chicago. It is a great city and is determined to get things done right. It has besides, and this is its rare distinction, an unfaltering conviction that it can get things done right. Most communities are conscious of some limitations of their powers. For Chicago there are no limitations at all anywhere. Whatever ought to be done Chicago will do. ”

“ Chicago is situated upon the most impossible and unlovely of all places of human habitation. She is simply a city of transportation, and is no better than her rails and boats, though by her rails and boats she lives in every Western state and territory. ”

“ Though that part of Chicago which is built up, stands on more elevated ground, the anticipated limits of the city extend into this wet prairie. We saw the lots staked out as we passed, which I suppose have been sold at a very high price. I could not but think of the remark of a fellow traveller, who, in speaking of this and several other places, said, "If each of these places do not become as large as Pekin in China, these city lots cannot all be built upon."
Chicago is truly an interesting place. It has sprung up here in three or four years—a city—as by the wand of enchantment. ”

“ Chicago is now the centre of an intense and everyday growing commercial excitement, and however the value of every foot of ground and water of its site is over-estimated, and its prospects inflated, it is evidently the nucleus of a permanent city, destined to be one of the great lake capitals. ”

“ The nation was prosperous. Chicago, for a moment paralyzed after a second great fire, had risen from its ruins, white and imperial, and more beautiful than the white city which had been built for its plaything in 1893. ”

“ Chicago was then, as now, looked upon as the City par excellence. Its few inhabitants were supposed to have seen something of the world, and it is to be inferred that the arrival of the smart and dashing young men was an event looked forward to with more satisfaction by the fair of the little settlement than by the swains whose rivals they might become. ”

“ Chicago is a city whose small beginnings are remembered by men still living. It has already attained great dimensions, but shrewd judges predict that in fifty years or less it will be three times its present size, and in respect at once of population and commercial importance easily the first city of the American continent. The University of Chicago is but a child four years old, for its age it is a child of phenomenal proportions, but it is doubtless destined to indefinite expansion. ”