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diff --git a/40884-0.txt b/40884-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bdb3301 --- /dev/null +++ b/40884-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10890 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40884 *** + +[Illustration: _From an etching by E. Horter_ + +MADISON SQUARE, NEW YORK] + + + + + THE PERSONALITY + OF + AMERICAN CITIES + + BY + EDWARD HUNGERFORD + + _Author of_ "_The Modern Railroad_," + "_Gertrude_," _etc._ + + WITH FRONTISPIECE BY + E. HORTER + + NEW YORK + McBRIDE, NAST & COMPANY + 1913 + + + Copyright, 1913, by + MCBRIDE, NAST & CO. + + Published November, 1913 + + + + + TO + MY LITTLE DAUGHTER + ADRIENNE. + + + + +PREFACE + + +This book has been in preparation for nearly four years. In that time +the author has been in each of the cities that he has set forth to +describe herein. With the exception of Charleston, New Orleans and the +three cities of the North Pacific, he has been in each city two or three +or even four or five times. + +The task that he has essayed--placing in a single chapter even something +of the flavor and personality of a typical American town--has not been +an easy one, but he hopes that he has given it a measure of fidelity and +accuracy if nothing more. Of course, he does not believe that he has +included within these covers all of the American cities of distinctive +personality. Such a list would include necessarily such clear-cut New +England towns as Portland, Worcester, Springfield, Hartford and New +Haven; it would give heed to the solid Dutch manors of Albany; the +wonderful development of Detroit, builded into a great city by the +development of the motor car; the distinctive features of Milwaukee; the +southern charm of Indianapolis and Cincinnati and Louisville; the breezy +western atmosphere of Omaha and of Kansas City. And in Canada, Winnipeg, +already proclaiming herself as the "Chicago of the Dominion," Vancouver +and Victoria demand attention. The author regrets that the lack of +personal acquaintance with the charms of some of these cities, as well +as the pressure of space, serves to prevent their being included within +the pages of his book. It is quite possible, however, that some or all +of them may be included within subsequent editions. + +The author bespeaks his thanks to the magazine editors who were gracious +enough to permit him to include portions of his articles from their +pages. He wishes particularly to thank for their generous assistance in +the preparation of this book, R. C. Ellsworth, and Cromwell Childe of +New York; C. Armand Miller, D.D., of Philadelphia; Nat Olds, formerly of +Rochester; Edwin Baxter of Cleveland; and Victor Ross of Toronto. +Without their aid it is conceivable that the book would not have come +into its being. And having aided it, they must be content to be known as +its foster fathers. + + E. H. + + Brooklyn, New York, September, 1913. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + + 1. OUR ANCIENT HUB 1 + + 2. AMERICA'S NEW YORK 17 + + 3. ACROSS THE EAST RIVER 61 + + 4. WILLIAM PENN'S TOWN 76 + + 5. THE MONUMENTAL CITY 95 + + 6. THE AMERICAN MECCA 108 + + 7. THE CITY OF THE SEVEN HILLS 127 + + 8. WHERE ROMANCE AND COURTESY DO NOT FORGET 135 + + 9. ROCHESTER--AND HER NEIGHBORS 153 + + 10. STEEL'S GREAT CAPITAL 171 + + 11. THE SIXTH CITY 185 + + 12. CHICAGO--AND THE CHICAGOANS 198 + + 13. THE TWIN CITIES 212 + + 14. THE GATEWAY OF THE SOUTHWEST 225 + + 15. THE OLD FRENCH LADY BY THE RIVERBANK 236 + + 16. THE CITY OF THE LITTLE SQUARES 256 + + 17. THE AMERICAN PARIS 266 + + 18. TWO RIVALS OF THE NORTH PACIFIC--AND A THIRD 280 + + 19. SAN FRANCISCO--THE NEWEST PHOENIX 288 + + 20. BELFAST IN AMERICA 307 + + 21. WHERE FRENCH AND ENGLISH MEET 318 + + 22. THE CITY THAT NEVER GROWS YOUNG 332 + + + + +THE ILLUSTRATIONS + + + Madison Square, New York _Frontispiece_ + + FACING + PAGE + + Tremont Street, Boston 2 + + Park Street, Boston 10 + + The Brooklyn Bridge 18 + + View of New York from a Skyscraper 30 + + Washington Square, New York 46 + + A Quiet Street on Brooklyn Heights 64 + + An old Brooklyn Homestead 72 + + City Hall Philadelphia 84 + + In Baltimore Harbor 96 + + Charles Street, Baltimore 102 + + The Union Station, Washington 114 + + The Capitol 122 + + St. Michael's Churchyard, Charleston 146 + + The Erie Canal, in Rochester 154 + + A Home in Rochester 160 + + Syracuse--the canal 168 + + The waterfront, Pittsburgh 180 + + One of Cleveland's broad avenues 192 + + Michigan Avenue and lake-front, Chicago 204 + + The River at St. Paul 220 + + Entrance to the University, St. Louis 226 + + A home in the newer St. Louis 232 + + Steamboat at the New Orleans levee 244 + + The big cathedral, San Antonio 256 + + San Juan Mission, San Antonio 262 + + The arch at 17th Street, Denver 270 + + Seattle, Puget Sound and the Olympics 282 + + Where the Pacific rolls up to San Francisco 294 + + The Mission Dolores, San Francisco 302 + + A Church parade in Montreal 320 + + Looking from the Terrace into Lower Quebec 334 + + Four Brethren upon the Terrace 340 + + + + +THE PERSONALITY OF AMERICAN CITIES + + + + +1 + +OUR ANCIENT HUB + + +There are more things forbidden in Boston than in Berlin--and that is +saying much. You may be a citizen of a republic, but when you come to +the old Bay State town you suddenly realize that you are being ruled. At +each park entrance is posted a code of rules and regulations that would +take a quarter of an hour to read and digest; in the elevated and +trolley cars, in public institutions and churches, even in shops and +hotels, the canons laid down for your conduct are sharp in detail and +unvarying in command. You may not whistle in a public park, nor loiter +within a subway station, nor pray aloud upon the Charlesbank. And for +some reason, which seems delightfully unreasonable to a man without the +pale, you may not take an elevated ticket from an elevated railroad +station. It is to be immediately deposited within the chopping-box +before you board your train. As to what might happen to a hapless human +who emerged from a station with a ticket still in his possession, the +Boston code does not distinctly state. + +And yet--like most tightly ruled principalities--Boston's attractiveness +is keen even to the unregulated mind. The effect of many rules and +sundry regulations seems to be law and order--to an extent hardly +reached in any other city within the United States. The Bostonian is +occasionally rude; these occasions are almost invariably upon his +overcrowded streets and in the public places--until the stranger may +begin to wonder if, after all, the street railroad employés have a +monopoly of good manners--but he is always just. His mind is judicial. +He treats you fairly. And if he knows you, knows your forbears as well, +he is courtesy of the highest sort. And there is no hospitality in the +land to be compared with Boston hospitality--once you have been admitted +to its portals. + +[Illustration: Boston's _Via Sacre_--Tremont Street--and Park Street +church] + +So we have come in this second decade of the twentieth century to speak +of the inner cult of the Boston folk as Brahmins. The term is not new. +But in the whole land there is not one better applied. For almost as the +high caste of mystic India hold themselves aloof from even the mere +sight of less favored humans, do these great, somber houses of Beacon +street and the rest of the Back Bay close their doors tightly to the +stranger. Make no mistake as to this very thing. You rarely read of +Boston society--her Brahmin caste--in the columns of her newspapers. +There are, of course, distinguished Boston folk whose names ring there +many times--a young girl who through her athletic triumphs and her sane +fashion of looking at life forms a good example for her sisters across +the land; a brilliant broker, with an itching for printer's ink, who +places small red devils upon his stationery; a society matron who must +always sit in the same balcony seat at the Symphony concerts, and who +houses in her eccentric Back Bay home perhaps the finest private art +gallery in America. These folk and many others of their sort head the +so-called "Society columns" of the Sunday newspapers. But the real +Bostonese do not run to _outre_ stationery or other eccentricities. They +live within the tight walls of their somber, simple, lovely old +red-brick houses, and thank God that there were days that had the names +of Winthrop or Cabot or Adams or Peabody spelled in tinted letters +along the horizon. + +A. M. Howe, who knows his Boston thoroughly, once told of two old ladies +there who always quarreled as to which should have the first look at the +_Transcript_ each evening. + +"I want to see if anybody nice has died in the _Transcript_ this +evening," the older sister would say as she would hear the thud of the +paper against the stout outer door,--and after that the battle was on. + +We always had suspected Mr. Howe of going rather far in this, until we +came to the facts. It seems that there were two old ladies in Cambridge, +which--as every one ought to know, is a sort of scholastic annex to +Boston--and that they never quarreled--save on the matter of the first +possession of the _Transcript_. On that vexed question they never failed +to disagree. The matter was brought to the attention of the owners of +the newspaper--and they settled it by sending an extra copy of the +_Transcript_ each evening, with their compliments. And that could not +have happened anywhere else in this land save on the shores of +Massachusetts Bay. + +Yet these old Bostonians the chance visitor to the city rarely, if ever, +sees. They are conspicuous by their very absence. He will not find them +lunching in the showy restaurants of the Touraine or in its newest +competitor farther up Boylston street. They shrink. He may sometime +catch a glimpse of a patrician New England countenance behind the +window-glass of a carriage-door, or even see the Brahmins quietly +walking home from church through the sacred streets of the Back Bay on a +Sunday morning, but that is all. The doors of the old houses upon those +streets are tightly closed upon him. + +But if one of those doors will open ever and ever so tiny a crack to +him, it will open full-wide, with the generous width of New England +hospitality, and bid him enter. We remember dining in one of these +famous old houses two or three seasons ago. It was in the heart of +winter--a Boston winter--and the night was capriciously changing from +rain to sleet and sleet to rain again. The wind blew in from the sea +with that piercing sharpness, so characteristic of Boston. It bent the +bare branches of the old trees upon the Common, sent swinging overhead +signs to creaking and shrieking in their misery, played sad havoc with +unwary umbrellas, and shot the flares from the bracketed gas-lamps along +the streets into all manner of fanciful forms. In such a storm we made +our way through streets of solid brick houses up the hill to the famous +Bulfinch State House and then down again through Mount Vernon street and +Louisburg square--highways that once properly flattened might have been +taken from Mayfair or Belgravia. Finally our path led to a little +street, boasting but eight of the stolid brick houses and arranged in +the form of a capital T. The shank of the T gave that little colony its +sole access to the remainder of the world. + +To one of these eight old houses--an austere fellow and the product of +an austere age--we were asked. When its solid door closed behind us, we +were in another Boston. Not that the interior of the house belied its +stolid front. It was as simple as yellow tintings and bare walls might +ever be. But the few pieces of furniture that were scattered through the +generous rooms were real furniture, mahogany of a sort that one rarely +ever sees in shops or auction-rooms, the canvases that occasionally +relieved those bare walls were paintings that would have graced even +sizeable public collections. The dinner was simple--compared with New +York standards--but the hospitality was generous, even still compared +with the standards of New York. To that informal dinner had been bidden +a group of Boston men and women fairly representative of the town, a +Harvard professor of real renown, the editor of an influential daily +newspaper, a barrister of national reputation, a sociologist whose heart +has gone toward her work and made that work successful. These folk, +exquisite in their poise because of their absolute simplicity, discussed +the issues of the moment--the city's progress in the playground +movement, the possibilities of minimum wage laws, the tragic devotion of +Mrs. Pankhurst and her daughter to woman suffrage. In New York a similar +group of folk similarly gathered would have discussed the newest and +most elaborate of hotels or George M. Cohan's latest show. + +It is this very quality that makes Boston so different--and so +delightful. She may look like a cleanly London, as she often +boasts--with her sober streets of red brick--and yet she still remains, +despite the great changes that have come to pass in the character of her +people within the past dozen years--a really American town. A few hours +of study of the faces upon the streets and in the public conveyances +will confirm this. And perhaps it is this very fact that makes a +certain, well-known resident of the Middle West come to Boston once or +twice each year without any purpose than his own announced one of +dwelling for a few days within a "really civilized community." + + * * * * * + +We well remember our first visit to Boston some--twenty years ago. We +came over the Boston & Albany railroad down into the old station in +Kneeland street. For it was before the day that those two mammoth and +barnlike terminals, the North and the South stations, had been built. In +those days the railroad stations of Boston expressed more than a little +of her personality--even the dingy ark of the Boston & Maine which +thrust itself out ahead of all its competitors along Causeway street +and reached into Haymarket square. The Providence station in Park square +and the Lowell and the Albany stations bespoke in pretentious +architecture something of the importance and elegance of those three +railroads, while as for the gray stone castellated station of the +Fitchburg railroad--that sublimated passenger-house made timid travelers +almost feel that they were gazing at the East portal of the Hoosic +tunnel itself. It originally held a great hall--superimposed above the +train-shed--and in that hall Jenny Lind sang when first she came to +Boston. Afterwards it was decided that a concert hall over a noisy +train-house was hardly a happy ingenuity and it was torn out. By that +time, however, the Fitchburg station had taken its place in the annals +of Boston. + +But the Fitchburg railroad, even in its palmiest days, was never to be +compared with "the Albany." Even the railroad to Providence, with its +forty-five miles of well-nigh perfect roadbed, over which the trains +thundered in fifty-five minutes, even a half century ago, was not to be +mentioned in the same breath with the Boston & Albany. There _was_ a +railroad. And even if its charter did compel it to pay back to the +commonwealth of Massachusetts every penny that it earned in excess of +eight per cent. dividends upon its stock, that was not to be counted +against it. It had never the least difficulty in earning more than that +sum and, as far as we know, it never paid the state any money. But the +commonwealth of Massachusetts did not lose. It gained a high-grade +railroad--in the day when America hardly knew the meaning of such a +term. The stations along "the Albany" were rare bits of architecture +while the average railroad depot, even in good-sized towns, was a dingy, +barnlike hole. It ripped out wooden and iron bridges by the dozens along +its main line and branches and set the pace for the rest of the country +by building stout stone-arch bridges--of the sort that last the +centuries. These things, and many others, were typical of the road. + +The Boston & Albany was unique in the fact that each stockholder who +lived along its lines received as a yearly perquisite a pass to the +annual meeting in Boston. The annual meetings were always well attended. +Staid college professors, remembering the joys of Boston book shops, old +ladies wearing black bombazine, tiny bonnets and prim expressions--all +these and many others, too, looked forward to the annual meeting of +their railroad as a child looks forward to Christmas. + +This is not the time or place to discuss the vexatious railroad +situation in New England, but it is worth while to note that when the +New York Central railroad leased the Boston & Albany--a little more than +a dozen years ago--and began blotting out the familiar name upon the +engines and the cars, a wave of sentimental anger swept over Boston that +it had hardly known since it had inflamed over slavery and laid the +foundations for the greatest internecine conflict that the world has +ever known. Boston held no quarrel with the owners of the New York +Central--if they would only not disturb the traditions of its great +railroad. But the owners of the New York Central did not understand. It +was not them. It was that word "New York" being blazoned before Boston +eyes that was making the trouble. The old town had seen the Boston & +Providence and then, horror of horrors, the New England disappear before +a railroad that called itself the New York, New Haven & Hartford. And +after these the offense was being created against its pet railroad--the +Boston & Albany. + +The other day the New York Central saw a great light. And in that mental +brilliancy it gave back to Boston its old railroad. As this is being +written "Boston & Albany" is reappearing upon whole brigades of engines +and regiments of freight and passenger cars. A friendly sentiment, +reared in traditions, has not been slow to show its appreciation of the +act of the railroad in New York. And the men in charge of the great +consolidation of the other railroads east of the Hudson river have not +been slow to follow in their action. They have announced that they plan +to build their railroads into one great system called the "New England +Lines." It begins to look as if, after all these years, they have begun +to read the Boston mind. + + * * * * * + +We have strayed far from our text--from our long ago early visit to +Boston. Our first impression of the town then came from a policeman whom +we saw in the old Kneeland street station. The policeman had white +side-whiskers and he wore gold-bowed spectacles. We have never, either +before or after our first arrival in Boston, seen a policeman adorned, +either simultaneously or separately, with white "mutton-chops" or +gold-bowed spectacles, and so it was that this Bostonian made a distinct +impression. Boston, itself, made many impressions. Twenty years ago many +of the institutions of the town that have since disappeared, still +remained. True it is that the horse-cars were going from Tremont street, +for the first of the diminutive subways that have kept the city years +ahead of most American towns in the solution of her intra-urban +transportation problems had been completed and was a nine-days' marvel +to the land. The coldly gray "Christian Science Cathedral," with its +wonderful Sunday congregations, could hardly have existed then, even as +a dream in the mind of its founder. And the Boston Museum still existed. +To be sure, many of its glories in the days of William Warren and Annie +Clarke had disappeared and it was doomed a few months later to such +attractions as the booking syndicates might allot it, but its row of +exterior lamps still blazed in Tremont street: until in June, 1903, it +rang down its green baize curtains and closed its historic doors for the +last time. + +And yet Boston has not changed greatly in twenty years--not in outward +appearance at least. When she builds anew she builds with reverent +regard for her ideals and her past traditions. Her architects must be +steeped in both. Nearly twenty years ago she builded her first +skyscraper--a modest and dignified affair of but twelve stories--and was +then so shocked at her own audacity that she promised to be very, very +good for ever after and never to do anything of that sort again. So when +she found that a new hotel going up near Copley Square had overstepped +her modest limit of seven stories--or is it eight?--she showed that she +could have firmness in her determination. She chopped the cornice and +the upper story boldly off the new hotel, and so it stands today, as if +someone had passed a giant slicing-knife cleanly over the structure. + +So it is that Boston still holds to her attractive sky-line, the +exquisite composition of such distinctive thoroughfares as Park street +from the fine old church at Tremont street up the hill to Beacon street, +the pillared, yellow front of the old State House; still keeps her +meeting-houses with their delicate belfried spires standing guard upon +her many hilltops; maintains the rich traditions of her history in the +infinite detail of her architecture--in some bit of wall or section of +iron fence, in the paneling of a door, the set of a cupola, the thrust +of a street-lamp, and even in the chimney-pots that thrust themselves on +high to the attention of the man upon the pavement. She cherishes her +memories. And when she builds anew she does not forget her ideals. + +She never forgets her ideals. And if at times they may lead her to +regard herself a bit too seriously, they make for the old town one of +the things that too many other American towns lack--a real and +distinctive personality. For instance, take her public houses, her +taverns and inns. They are notable in the fact that they are +distinctive--and something more. In a day and age when the famous +American hotels of other days and generations and the things for which +they stood, have been rather forgotten in the strife to imitate a +certain type of New York skyscraper hotel, the Boston hotels still stand +distinctive. Not that the New York type of skyscraper is not excellent. +It must have had its strong points to have been so copied across the +land. But if all the hotels in every town, big and little, are to be +fashioned in the essentials from the same mold what is to become of the +zest for travel? You travel for variety's sake, otherwise you might as +well go to the local skyscraper hotel in your own town and save railroad +fare and other transportation expenses. + +But no matter what may be true of other towns, the Boston hotels are +different. "I like the Quincy House for its sea-fud," said an old +legislator from Sandisfield more than forty years ago, and as for the +Tremont House, turn the pages of your "American Notes" and recall the +praise that Charles Dickens gave that not-to-be-forgotten hostelry. It +was one of the very few things in the earlier America that did not seem +to excite his entire contempt. + +[Illustration: Up Park Street, past the Common to Boston's famous State +House] + +The Tremont House has gone--it disappeared under the advance of +modernity in the serpent-like guise of the first subway in America, +creeping down in front of it. But other hotels of the old Boston remain +a'plenty, the staid Revere House, Parker's, Young's, the Adams +House,--ages seem to have mellowed but not lessened their comforts to +the traveler. Where else can one find a catalogue of the hotel library +hanging beside his dresser when he retires to the privacy of his room, +not a library crammed with "best-sellers" like these itinerant +institutions on the limited trains, but filled with real books of a far +more solid sort--where else such wisdom on tap in a tavern--but Boston? +And if the traveler fails to be schooled to such possibilities, we might +ask where else in Christendom can he get boiled scrod, or Washington +pie, or fish balls, or cod tongues with bacon, or that magna charta of +the New England appetite, that Plymouth rock from which has come all the +virtues of its sturdy folk, baked beans with brown bread? Eating in +Boston is good. In these things it is superlative. And it is pleasing to +know that Boston's newest hotel--the Copley-Plaza--perhaps the finest +hotel in America, since it has discarded new-fashioned details for the +old--observes the traditions of the town in which it truly earns its +bread and butter. + +And if the traveler have magic sesame, the clubs of the old town may +open to him, clubs with spotless integrity and matchless service, all +the way from the stately Somerset and the Algonquin through to the +democratic City Club--with its more than four thousand enthusiastic +members. This last is perhaps the most representative of Boston clubs. +Its old house--unfortunately soon to be vacated--stands in Beacon +street, within a stone's throw of King's Chapel and Tremont street. It +is a rare old house; two houses in fact, lending tenderly to the Boston +traditions of delicate bow fronts and severity of ornament. Its rooms +are broad and long and low, filled with hospitable tables and +comfortable Windsor chairs. In its great fireplace hickory logs crackle +and the New England tradition of an ash-bank is preserved to the +minutest detail. Its dun-colored walls are lined with rare prints and +old photographs--pictures for the most part of that old Boston which was +and which never again can be. The dishes that come out from its kitchen +are from the best of traditional New England recipes. And as your host +leads you out from the dining-room he delves deep into a barrel and +brings out two bright red apples. He hands you one. + +"We New England folk think that most of the real virtues of life are +seated in red apples," he says--and there is something in his way of +saying it that makes you believe that he is right. + +Another day and he may lead you to still another club--this one down +under the roof of one of those solid old stone warehouses with +steep-pitched roofs that thrust themselves abruptly out into the +harbor-line. It is a yacht club, and its fortress-like windows, shaped +like the port-holes of a ship, look direct to a brisk water highway to +the open sea. Underneath those very windows is the rush and turmoil of +one of the busiest fish markets in the land. There is nothing on either +coast, no, not even down in the picturesque Gulf that can compare with +this place, which reeks with the odors and where the fishermen handle +the cod with huge forks and paint the decks of their staunch little +vessels a distinctive color to show the nationality of the folk who man +it. We remember that the Portuguese have a whimsical fancy for painting +the decks of their little fishing schooners a most unusual blue. + +Of Boston harbor an entire book might easily be written--of the quaint +craft that still tie to its wharves, the brave show of shipping that +passes in and out each day, of Boston Light and that other silent, +watchful sentinel which stands upon Minot's Ledge; of the Navy Yard over +in Charlestown at which the _Constitution_, most famous of all +fighting-ships, rusts out her fighting heart through the long years. And +looking down upon that old Navy Yard from Boston itself is Copp's Hill +burying-ground, a rich grubbing-place for the seekers of epitaphs and of +genealogical lore. We remember once winning the heart of the keeper of +the old cemetery and of being permitted to descend to the vault of one +of the oldest of Boston families. In the dark place there were three +little groups of bones and we knew that only three persons had been +buried there. + +Above, the sunshine beat merrily down upon Copp's Hill, with its +headstones arranged in neat rows along the tidy paths and the elevated +trains in an encircling street fairly belying the bullets in the +stones--shot there from Bunker Hill a century and a quarter before.... +There are many other such burying-grounds in Boston--in the very heart +of the city the Granary and King's Chapel burying-ground where a great +owl sometimes comes at dusk and opens his eyes wide at the traffic of a +great city encircling one of God's acres. And a soul that revels in +these things will, perchance, journey to Salem, seventeen miles distant, +and see the moldering seaport that once rivaled Boston in her prosperity +and that sent her clipper ships sailing around the wide world. There are +many delightful side-trips out from Boston--the sail across the tumbling +bay to Provincetown, which still boasts a town crier, down to Plymouth +or up to Gloucester, with its smart, seaside resorts nearby. And back +from Boston there are other moldering towns, filled with fascination and +romance. Some of them have hardly changed within the century. + +Even Boston does not change rapidly. Thank God for that! She keeps well +to the old customs and the old traditions, holds tightly to her ideals. +Only in the folk who walk her awkward streets can the discerning man see +the new Boston. The old types of Brahmins are outclassed. Some of them +still do amazingly well in the professions but these are few. Long ago +the steady press of immigration at the port of Boston took political +power away from them. Yet the old guard stands resolute. And the +impress of its manners is not lost upon the Boston of to-day. + +For instance, take the vernacular of the town. Boston has a rather +old-fashioned habit of speaking the English language. It came upon us +rather suddenly one day as we journeyed out Huntington avenue to the +smart new gray and red opera house. The very colorings of the _foyer_ of +that house--soft and simple--bespoke the refinement of the Boston +to-day. + +In the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, in every other one of the big +opera houses that are springing up mushroom-fashion across the land, our +ears would have been assailed by "Librettos! Get your librettos!" Not so +in Boston. At the Boston Opera House the young woman back of the _foyer_ +stand calmly announced at clock-like intervals: + +"Translations. Translations." + +And the head usher, whom the older Bostonians grasped by the hand and +seemed to regard as a long-lost friend, did not sip out, "Checks, +please." + +"Locations," he requested, as he condescended to the hand-grasps of the +socially elect. + +"The nearer door for those stepping out," announces the guard upon the +elevated train and as for the surface trolley-cars, those wonderful +green perambulators laden down with more signs than nine ordinary +trolley-cars would carry at one time, they do not speak of the newest +type in Boston as "Pay-as-you-enter cars," after the fashion of less +cultured communities. In the Hub they are known as Prepayment cars--its +precision is unrelenting. + +All of these things make for the furthering of the charm of Boston. They +are tangible assets and even folk from the newer parts of the land are +not slow to realize them as such--remember that man from the Middle West +who makes a journey once or twice each year to be in the very heart of +civilization. There was another Westerner--this man a resident of Omaha, +who sent his boy--already a graduate of a pretty well-known university +near Chicago--to do some post-graduate work at Harvard. A few weeks +later he had a letter from his son. It read something after this +fashion: + +"It seems absurd, Dad, but Harvard does have some absurd regulations. In +fine, they won't let me go out in a shell or boat of any sort upon the +river without special written permission from you. Will you fix me up by +return mail and we will both try to forget this fool undergraduate +regulation, etc...." + +That regulation struck Daddy about as it had hit Sonny. But he hastened +to comply with the request. When he had finished, he felt that he had +turned out quite a document, one that would be enjoyed in the faculty +and perhaps framed and hung up in some quiet nook. It read: + + "To all whom it may concern: + + This is to certify that my son, John Japson Jones, is hereby + authorized and permitted to row, swim, dive or otherwise disport + himself upon, above or under the waters of the Charles river, + Massachusetts bay and waters adjacent to them until especially + revoked. Given under my hand and seal at the city of Omaha in + the state of Nebraska, on the ....th day of October, 19.... + + (Signed) + JAMES JONES." + +Then James Jones awaited the consequences. It was not long after that +the letter came from John Japson. + +"--How could you do it, Dad?" he demanded. "You don't know these folks. +They're not our sort. They don't know humor. They're afraid of it. The +only man I dared to show that awful thing to was the janitor and he +stuck up his nose. 'Guess your pop must have been a little full,' was +his comment." + +James Jones decided to come to Boston forthwith. He wanted to see for +himself what sort of a community John Japson had strayed into. He did +see Boston, Cambridge too, to his heart's content. Boston was his +particular delight. Two of its citizens took the gentleman from Omaha +well in hand. They showed him the Frog Pond--it was just before the +season when they remove the Frog Pond for the season and put down the +boardwalks in the Common--and they showed him the crookedest streets of +any town upon the American continent. They filled him with beans and +with codfish, tickled his palate with the finest Medford rum. He mingled +and he browsed and before they were done with him his barbaric soul +became enraptured. + +"Boston is great," he admitted, frankly. Then, in an afterthought, he +added: + +"I think that I should like to call her the Omaha of the East." + + * * * * * + +The owl still comes on cloudy, troubled nights and sits in a high +tree-limb above the quiet graves in the graveyard of King's Chapel. When +he comes he sees the tardiest of the Boston men, carrying the green +bags, that their daddies and their granddaddies before them carried, as +they go slipping down the School street hill. He is a very old owl and +he loves the old town--loves each of its austere meeting-houses with +their belfried towers, loves the meeting places behind the rows of +chimney-pots, the open reaches of the Common and the adjoining Public +Gardens, where children paddle in the swan-boats all summer long. He +loves the tang and mist of the nearby sea, but best of all he likes the +tree-limb in the old graveyard, the part of Boston that stands +changeless through the years--that thrusts itself into the very face of +modernity with the grimy stone church at its corner and seems to say: + +"I am the Past. To the Past, Reverence." + +And in Boston Modernity halts many times to make obeisance to the Past. + + + + +2 + +AMERICA'S NEW YORK + + +I + +Before the dawn, metropolitan New York is astir. As a matter of far more +accurate fact she never sleeps. You may call her the City of the +Sleepless Eye and hit right upon the mark. For at any time of the lonely +hours of the night she is still a busy place. Elevated and subway trains +and surface cars, although shortened and reduced in number, are upon +their ways and are remarkably well filled. Regiments of men are engaged +in getting out the morning papers--in a dozen different languages of the +sons of men--and another regiment is coming on duty to lay the +foundations of the earliest editions of the evening papers. There are +workers here and there and everywhere in the City of the Sleepless Eye. + +But before the dawn, New York becomes actively astir. Lights flash into +dull radiance in the rows of side-street tenement and apartment houses +all the way from Brooklyn bridge to Bronx Park. New York is beginning to +dress. Other lights flash into short brilliancy before the coming of the +dawn. New York is beginning to eat its breakfast. And right afterwards +the stations of the elevated and the subway, the corners where the +speeding surface cars will sometimes hesitate, become the objects of +attack of an army that is marching upon the town. Workaday New York is +stretching its arms and settling down to business. + +Nor is the awakening city to be confined to the narrow strip of island +between the North and East rivers. Over on Long island are Brooklyn, +Long Island City, Flushing, Jamaica and a score of other important +places now within the limits of Greater New York. Some folk find it more +economical to live in these places than in the cramped confines of +Manhattan, and so it is hardly dawn before the great bridges and the +tubes over and under the East river are doing the work for which they +were built--and doing it masterfully. + +The Brooklyn bridge is the oldest of these and yet it has been bending +to its superhuman task for barely thirty years. In these thirty years it +has been constantly reconstructed--but the best devices of the +engineers, doubling and tripling the facilities of the original +structure, can hardly keep pace with the growth of the communities and +the traffic it has to serve. So within these thirty years other bridges +and two sets of tunnels have come to span the East river. But the work +of the first of all man's highways to conquer the mighty water highway +has hardly lessened. The oldest of the bridges, and the most beautiful +despite the ugliness of its approaches, still pours Brooklynites into +Park Row, fifty, sixty, seventy thousand to the hour. + +[Illustration: The Brooklyn Bridge is the finest of transportation +structures] + +The overloading of the Brooklyn bridge is repeated in the subway--that +hidden giant of New York, which is the real backbone of the island of +Manhattan. Built to carry four hundred thousand humans a day, that busy +railroad has begun to carry more than a million each working day. How it +is done, no one, not even the engineers of the company that operates it, +really knows. The riders in the great tube who have to use it during the +busiest of the rush hours are willing to hazard a guess, however. It is +probable that in no other railroad of the sort would jamming and +crowding of this sort be tolerated for more than a week. Yet the patrons +of the subway not only tolerate but, after a fashion, they like it. +You can ask a New Yorker about it half an hour after his trip down town, +sardine-fashion, and he will only say: + +"The subway? It's the greatest ever. I can come down from Seventy-second +street to Wall street in sixteen minutes, and in the old days it used to +take me twenty-six or twenty-seven minutes by the elevated." + +There is your real New Yorker. He would be perfectly willing to be bound +and gagged and shot through a pneumatic tube like a packet of letters, +if he thought that he could save twenty minutes between the Battery and +the Harlem river. No wonder then that he scorns a relatively greater +degree of comfort in elevated trains and surface cars and hurries to the +overcrowded subway. + +But New York astir in the morning is more even than Manhattan, the Bronx +and the populous boroughs over on Long island. Upon its westerly edge +runs the Hudson river--New Yorkers will always persist in calling it the +North river--one of the masterly water highways of the land. The busy +East river had been spanned by man twice before any man was bold enough +to suggest a continuous railroad across the Hudson. Now there are +several--the wonderful double tubes of the Pennsylvania railroad leading +from its new terminal in the uptown heart of Manhattan--and two double +sets of tunnels of a rapid-transit railroad leading from New Jersey both +uptown and downtown in Manhattan. This rapid transit railroad--the +Hudson & Manhattan, to use its legal name, although most New Yorkers +speak of it as the McAdoo Tubes, because of the man who had the courage +to build it--links workaday New York with a group of great railroad +terminals that line the eastern rim of New Jersey all the way from +Communipaw through Jersey City to Hoboken. And the railroads reach with +more than twenty busy arms off across the Jersey marshes to rolling +hills and incipient mountains. Upon those hills and mountains live +nearly a hundred thousand New Yorkers--men whose business interests are +closely bound up in the metropolis of the New World but whose social and +home ties are laid in a neighboring state. These--together with their +fellows from Westchester county, the southwestern corner of Connecticut +and from the Long island suburban towns--measure a railroad journey of +from ten to thirty miles in the morning, the same journey home at night, +as but an incident in their day's work. They form the great brigade of +commuters, as a rule the last of the working army of New York to come to +business. + +The commuter has his own troubles--sometimes. By reason of his +self-chosen isolation he may suffer certain deprivations. The servant +question is not the least of these. And the extremes of a winter in New +York come hard upon him. There are days when the Eight-twenty-two +suddenly loses all that reputation for steadiness and sobriety that it +has taken half a year to achieve, days when sleepy schooners laden with +brick and claiming the holy right-of-way of the navigator get caught in +the draw-bridges, days when the sharp unexpectedness of a miniature +blizzard freezes terminal switches and signals and tangles traffic +inexplicably--days, and nights as well, when the streets of his suburban +village are well-nigh impassable. But these days are in a tremendous +minority. And even upon the worst of them he can put the rush and +turmoil of the city behind him--in the peace and silence of his country +place he can forget the sorrows of Harlem yesteryear--with the noisy +twins on the floor below and the mechanical piano right overhead. + + * * * * * + +For nearly four hours the steady rush toward work continues. You can +gauge it by a variety of conditions--even by the newspapers that are +being spread wide open the length of the cars. In the early morning the +popular penny papers--the _American_ and the _World_ predominating, with +a sprinkling of the _Press_ in between. Two hours later and while these +popular penny papers are still being read--they seem to have a +particular vogue with the little stenographers and the shopgirls--the +more staid journals show themselves. Men who like the solid reading of +the _Times_, with its law calendars and its market reports; men of the +town who frankly confess to an affection for the flippancy of the _Sun_, +or who have not lost the small-town spirit of their youth enough to +carry them beyond the immensely personal tone of the _Herald_. And in +between these, men who sniff at the mere mention of the name of +Roosevelt, and who read the _Tribune_ because their daddies and their +grand-daddies in their turn read it before them, or frankly business +souls who are opening the day with a conscientious study of the _Journal +of Commerce_ or the Wall street sheets. + +New York goes to work reading its newspaper. And before you have +finished a Day of Days in the biggest city of the land you might also +see that it goes to lunch with a newspaper in its hand, returns home +tired with the fearful thoughts of business to delve comfortably into +the gossip of the day in the favorite evening paper. + +Just as you stand at the portals of the business part of the town and +measure the incoming throng by its favorite papers so can you sieve out +the classes of the workers almost by the hours at which they report for +duty. In the early morning, in the winter still by artificial light, +come those patient souls who exist literally and almost bitterly by the +labor of their hands and the sweat of their brows. With them are the +cleaners and the elevator crews of the great office-buildings--those +tremendous commercial towers that New York has been sending skyward for +the past quarter of a century. On the heels of these the first of the +workers in the office-buildings, office-boys, young clerks, girl +stenographers whose wonderful attire is a reflection of the glories that +we shall see upon Fifth avenue later in this day. It is pinching +business, literally--the dressing of these young girls. But if their +faces are suspiciously pinky or suspiciously chalky, if their pumps and +thin silk stockings, their short skirts and their open-necked waists +atrocious upon a chill and nasty morning, we shall know that they are +but the reflection of their more comfortable sisters uptown. Not all of +this rapidly increasing army of women workers in business New York is +artificial. Not a bit of it. There are girls in downtown offices whose +refinement of dress and deportment, whose exquisite poise, whose +well-schooled voices might have come from the finest old New York +houses. And these are the girls who revel in their Saturday afternoons +uptown--all in the smartness of best bib and tucker--at the matinee or +fussing with tea at Sherry's or the Plaza. + +An army of office workers pours itself into the business buildings that +line Broadway and its important parallel streets all the way from +Forty-second street to the Battery--that cluster with increasing +discomfort in the narrow tip of Manhattan south of the City Hall. +Clerks, stenographers, more clerks, more stenographers, now department +heads and junior partners--finally the big fellows themselves, coming +down democratically in the short-haul trains of the Sixth avenue +elevated that start from Fifty-eighth street or even enduring the +discomforts of the subway, for it takes a leisurely sort of a +millionaire indeed who can afford to come in his motor car all the way +downtown through the press and strain of Broadway traffic. After all +these, the Wall street men. For the exchange opens at the stroke of ten +of Trinity's clock and five brief and bitter hours of trading have +begun. + +For four hours this flood of humans pouring out of the ferry-house and +the railroad terminals, up from the subway kiosks and out from the +narrow stairways of the elevated railroads. The narrow downtown streets +congest, again and again. The sidewalks overflow and traffic takes to +the middle of the streets. But the great office buildings absorb the +major portion of the crowds. Their vertical railroads--eight or ten or +twenty or thirty cars--are working to capacity and workaday New York is +sifting itself to its task. By ten o'clock the office buildings are +aglow with industry--the great machine of business starting below the +level of the street and reaching high within the great commercial +towers. + + +II + +New York is the City of the Towers. + +Sometimes a well-traveled soul will arise in the majesty of +contemplation and say that in the American metropolis he sees the +shadowy ghost of some foreign one. Along Madison square, where the +cabbies still stand in a long, gently-curving, expectant line he will +draw his breath through his teeth, point with his walking stick through +the tracery of spring-blossoming foliage at Diana on her tower-perch and +whisper reverently: + +"It is Paris--Paris once again." + +And there is a lower corner of Central Park that makes him think of +Berlin; a long row of red brick houses with white trimmings along the +north shore of Washington square that is a resemblance to blocks of a +similar sort in London. + +But he is quite mistaken. New York does not aim to be a replica of any +foreign metropolis. She has her own personality, her own aggressive +individualism; she is the City of the Towers as well as the City of the +Sleepless Eye--and no mean city at that. Take some clever European +traveler, a man who can find his way around any of the foreign capitals +with his eyes shut, and let him come to New York for the first time; +approach our own imperial city through her most impressive gateway--that +narrow passage from the sea between the ramparts of the guarding +fortresses. This man, this traveler, has heard of the towers of the +great New World city--they have been baldly pictured to him as giant, +top-heavy barracks, meaningless compositions of ugly blank walls, +punctuated with an infinity of tiny windows. That is the typical libel +that has gone forth about New York. + +He sees naught of such. He sees a great city, the height of its +buildings simply conveying the impression from afar that it is builded +upon a steep ridge. Here and there a building of still loftier height +gives accent to the whole, emphasis to what might otherwise be a +colorless mass; gives that mysterious tone and contrast which the artist +is pleased to call "composition." Four of these towers already rise +distinct from the giant skyscrapers of Manhattan. Each for this moment +proclaims a victory of the American architect and the American builder +over the most difficult problem ever placed before architect or builder. + +The European traveler will give praise to the sky-line of New York as he +sees it from the steamer's deck. + +"It is the City of the Towers," he will say. + + * * * * * + +In this, your Day of Days in New York, come with us and see the making +of a skyscraper. This skyscraper is the new Municipal Building. It is +just behind the tree-filled park in which stands New York's oldest bit +of successful architecture--its venerable City Hall. A long time before +New York dreamed that she might become the City of the Towers they +builded this old City Hall--upon what was then the northerly edge of the +town. So sure were those old fellows that New York would never grow +north of their fine town hall that they grew suddenly economical--the +spirit of their Dutch forbears still dominated them--and builded the +north wall of Virginia freestone instead of the white marble that was +used for the facings of the other walls. + +"No one will ever see that side of the building," they argued. "We might +as well use cheap stone for that wall." + +Today more than ninety-nine per cent. of the population of the immensely +populated island of Manhattan lives north of the City Hall. That cheap +north wall, hidden under countless coats of white paint, is the one +acute reminder of the days that were when the Hall was new--when the +gentle square in which it stood was surrounded by the suburban +residences of prosperous New Yorkers and when the waters of the Collect +Pond--where the New York boys use to skate in the bitterness of +old-fashioned winters--lapped its northerly edge. There was no ugly +Court House or even uglier Post Office to block the view from the +Mayor's office up and down Broadway. New Yorkers were proud of their +City Hall then--and good cause had they for their pride. It is one of +the best bits of architecture in all America. And an even century of +hard usage and countless "restorations" has only brought to it the charm +of serene old age. + +But the City Hall long since was outgrown. The municipal government of +New York is a vast and somewhat unwieldy machine that can hardly be +housed within a dozen giant structures. To provide offices for the +greater part of the city's official machinery, this towering Municipal +Building has just been erected. And because it is so typical of the best +form of the so-called skyscraper architecture, let us stop and take a +look at it, listen to the story of its construction. In appearance the +new Municipal Building is a gray-stone tower twenty-five stories in +height and surmounted by a tower cupola an additional fifteen stories in +height. In plan the structure is a sort of semi-octagon--a very shallow +letter "U," if you please. But its most unusual feature comes from the +fact that it squarely spans one of the busiest crosstown highways in the +lower part of the city--Chambers street. The absorption of that busy +thoroughfare is recognized by a great depressed bay upon the west +front--the main _façade_ of the building. And incidentally that +depressed bay makes interior courts within the structure absolutely +unnecessary. So much for the architectural features, severe in its +detail, save for some ornate and not entirely pleasing sculptures. You +are interested in knowing how one of these giants--so typical of the new +New York--are fabricated. + +This young man--hardly a dozen years out of a big technical school--can +tell you. He has supervised the job. Sometimes he has slept on it--in a +narrow cot in the temporary draughting-house. He knows its every detail, +as he knows the fingers of his hands. + +"Just remember that we began by planning a railroad station in the +basement with eight platform tracks for loading and unloading +passengers." + +"A railroad station?" you interrupt. + +"Certainly," is his decisive reply. "Downstairs we will soon have the +most important terminal of a brand new subway system crossing the +Manhattan and the Williamsburgh bridges and reaching over Brooklyn like +a giant gridiron." + +He goes on to the next matter--this one settled. + +"There was something more than that. We had to plant on that cellar a +building towering forty stories in the air; its steel frame alone +weighing twenty-six thousand tons--more than half the weight of the +heaviest steel cantilever bridge in America--had to be firmly set." + +The young engineer explains--in some detail. To find a foothold for this +building was no sinecure. Tests with the diamond drill had shown that +solid rock rested at a depth of 145 feet below street level at the south +end of the plat. At the north end, the rock sloped away rapidly and so +that part of the building rests upon compact sand. The rock topography +of Manhattan island is uncertain. There are broad areas where solid +gneiss crops close to the street level, others where it falls a hundred +feet or more below water level. There is a hidden valley at Broadway and +Reade street, a deep bowl farther up Broadway. Similarly, the north +extremity of the Municipal Building rests upon the edge of still another +granite bowl--the sub-surface of that same Collect Pond upon which the +New York boys used to skate a century or more ago. + +"That bothered some folks at first," laughs the engineer, "but we met it +by sinking the caissons. We've more than a hundred piers down under this +structure hanging on to Mother Earth. You don't realize the holding +force of those piers," he continues. He turns quickly and points to a +fourteen story building off over the trees of City Hall park. Out in one +of the good-sized towns of the Middle West people would gasp a little at +sight of it--in New York it is no longer even a tower. + +"Turn that fellow right upside down into the hole we dug for this +building," says the engineer, "and the rim of his uppermost cornice +would about reach the feet of our own little forest of buried concrete +piers." + +That was one detail of the construction of the building. Here is +another; the first six stories of the new structure involved elaborate +masonry, giant stones, much carved. From the seventh story the plain +walls of the exterior developing into an elaborate cornice were of +simple construction. If the setting of these upper floors had waited +until the first six stories of elaborate stonework had been made ready +there would have been a delay of months in the construction work. So the +contractor began building the walls--which in the modern steel +skyscraper as you know form no part of the real structure but act rather +as a stone envelope to keep out hard weather--from the seventh story +upward. Eventually the masons working on the first six stories, working +upwards all the time, reached and joined the lower edge of the masonry +that had been set some weeks before. Time had been saved and you know +that time _does_ count in New York. Remember the Wall street man who +preferred to have his ribs crushed and his hat smashed down over his +nose in the subway rather than lose ten minutes each day in the +elevated. + +Now you stand with the young engineer at the topmost outlook of the +tower in the Municipal Building and look down on the busy town. Before +you is that mighty thoroughfare, Broadway--but so lined with towering +buildings that you cannot see it, save for a brief space as it passes +the greenery of the City Hall Park; behind you is that still mightier +highway--the East river. Over that river you see the four bridges--the +oldest of them landing at your very feet--and crawling things upon them, +which a second glance shows to be trains and trolley-cars and +automobiles and wagons in an unending succession. Beyond the East river +and its bridges--the last of these far to the north and barely +discernible--is Brooklyn, and beyond Brooklyn--this time to the +south--is a shimmering slender horizon of silver that the man beside you +tells you is the ocean. + +You let your gaze come back to the wonderful view which the building +squarely faces. You look down upon the towers of New York--big towers +and little towers--and you lift your eyes over the dingy mansard of the +old Post Office and see the greatest of all the towers--the creamy white +structure that a man has builded from his profits in the business of +selling small articles at five and ten cents apiece. It is fifty-five +stories in height--exquisitely beautiful in detail--and the owner will +possess for a little time at least, the highest building in the world. +You can see the towers in every vista, puffing little clouds of white +smoke into the purest blue air that God ever gave a city in which to +spin her fabrications. To the north, the south, the west, they show +themselves in every infinite variety and here and there between them +emerge up-shouldering rivals, steel-naked in their gaunt frames. If your +ears are keen and the wind be favorable perhaps you can hear the clatter +of the riveters and you can see over there the housesmiths riding aloft +on the swinging girders with an utter and immensely professional +indifference, threading the slender, dizzy floor-girders as easily as a +cat might tread the narrow edge of a backyard fence. + +Off with your gaze again. Look uptown, catch the faint patch of dark +green that is Central Park, the spires of the cathedral, the wonderful +campanile at Madison square. Let your glance swing across the gentle +Hudson, over into a New Jersey that is bounded by the ridges of the +Orange mountains, then slowly south and even the great towers that +thrust themselves into almost every buildable foot of Broadway below the +City Hall cannot entirely block your view of the wonderful upper harbor +of New York--of the great ships that bring to an imperial city the +tribute that is rightfully hers. + +Now let your vision drop into the near foreground--into the tracery of +trees about the jewel-box of a City Hall. Let it pause for a moment in +the broad-paved street at your feet with the queer little openings +through which humans are sweeping like a black stream into a funnel; +others from which the human streams come crawling upward like black +molasses and you are again reminded that some of the greatest highways +of New York are those that are subterranean and unseen. The sidewalks +grow a little blacker than before. + +"It's lunch-time," laughs the young engineer. + +Bless you, it is. The morning that you gave to one of the most typical +of the towers has not been ill-spent. + + +III + +Thirty minutes before the big bell of Trinity spire booms out noon-tide +New York's busiest grub-time begins. A few early-breakfasting clerks and +office-boys begin to find their way toward the shrines of the +coffee-urns and the heaped-up piles of sandwiches. + +[Illustration: The view of New York from the lunch club in the +skyscraper] + +Of course, in New York breakfast is an almost endless affair--generally +a fearfully hurried one. But lunch is far more serious. Lunch is almost +an institution. Fifteen minutes after it is fairly begun it is gaining +rapid headway. Thin trails of stenographers and clerks are finding their +ways, lunch-bound, through the canyon-like streets of lower Manhattan, +streams that momentarily increase in volume. By the time that Trinity +finally booms its twelve stout strokes down into Broadway there is +congestion upon the sidewalks--the favorite stools at the counters, the +better tables in the higher-priced places are being rapidly filled. At +twelve-thirty it begins to be luck to get any sort of accommodations at +the really popular places; before one o'clock the intensity of grubbing +verges on panic and pandemonium. And at a little before three cashiers +are totaling their receipts, cooks, donning their hats and coats to go +uptown, and waiters and 'buses are upturning chairs and scrubbing floors +with scant regard for belated lunchers who have to be content with +the crumbs that are left after the ravishing and hungry army has been +fed. Order after pandemonium--readiness for the two hours of gorge upon +the morrow. The restaurants and lunch-rooms are as quiet as Trinity +church-yard and something like three quarters of a million hungry souls +have lunched in the business section of Manhattan south of Twenty-third +street--at a total cost, according to the estimate of a shrewd +restauranteur of a quarter of a million dollars. + + * * * * * + +You may pay your money and take your choice. The shrewd little newsboys +and office-boys who find their way to the short block of Ann street +between Park Row and Nassau--the real Grub street of New York--are +proving themselves financiers of tomorrow by dickering for +sandwiches--"two cents apiece; three for a nickel." They always buy them +in lots of three. That is business and business is not to be scorned for +a single instant. Or you can pay as high prices in the swagger +restaurants downtown as you do in the swagger restaurants uptown--and +that is saying much. When lunch-time comes you can suit the inclinations +of your taste--and your pocket-book. But the average New Yorker seems to +run quite strongly to the peculiar form of lunch-room in which you help +yourself to what you want, compute from the markers the cost of your +midday meal, announce that total to the cashier, who is perfectly +content to take your word for it, pay the amount and walk out. It seems +absurd--to any one who does not understand New Yorkers. The lunch-room +owners do understand them. New York business men and business boys are +honest, as a general thing--particularly honest in little matters of +this sort. + +"It is all very simple," says the manager of one of these big +lunch-rooms, who stands beside you for a moment at the entrance of one +of his places--it boasts that it serves more than two thousand lunches +each business day between eleven and three. "I've been through the whole +mill. I've been check boy and oyster man, cashier--now I'm looking out +for this particular beanery. Honor among New York business men? There's +a lot of it." + +"And you don't run many risks?" you venture. + +"Not many here," he promptly replies. "But there was a man in here +yesterday, who runs a cafeteria out in Chicago. I was telling him some +of the rules of the game here--how when a customer comes in and throws +his hat down in a chair before he goes over to the sandwich and coffee +counters that chair is his, until he gets good and ready to go. My +Chicago friend laughed at that. 'If we were to do that out in my +neck-o'-the-woods,' says he, 'the customer would lose his hat.' And the +uptown department stores don't take any chances, either. At one of the +biggest of them they make the women decide what they will eat, but +before they can start they must buy a check--pay in advance, you +understand. They've tried the downtown way--and now they take no +chances." + +The floor manager laughs nervously. + +"It's different with the girls downtown. We've started one quick buffet +lunch on the honor plan, same dishes and prices and service as the men's +places, but this one is for business girls. They said at first that we +wouldn't make good with them--but we're ready to start another within +the month. The business girls don't cheat--no matter what their uptown +sisters may try to do." + + * * * * * + +As a matter of fact downtown business girls in New York eat very +sensibly. Sweets are popular but not invariable. They prefer candy, with +fruit as a second choice, to be eaten some time during the afternoon. +In big offices, where many girls are employed, "candy pools" are often +made, each girl contributing five cents and getting her pro rata, one +member of the staff being delegated to make the purchases. Eaten in this +way the candy acts as a stimulant during the late afternoon hours, in +much the same way as the invariable tea of the business man in London. + +The business girl in New York takes her full hour for luncheon. It is +seldom a minute more or a minute less. She is willing as a rule to stay +overtime at night but she feels that she must have her sixty minutes in +the middle of the day. A part of the lunch hour is always a +stroll--unless there be a downpour. Certain downtown streets from twelve +to one o'clock each day suggest the proximity of a nearby high school or +seminary. There is much pairing off and quiet flirtation. This noon-day +promenade of girls--for the most part astonishingly well-dressed girls +and invariably in twos and threes--is one of the sights of downtown New +York. Some of the girls gather in the old churchyards of Trinity and St. +Paul's--in lower Broadway--on pleasant days. They sit down among the +tombstones with their little packages of food and eat and chat and then +stroll. No one molests them and the church authorities, although a +little flustered when this first began, have seen that there is no harm +in it and let the girls have their own way. There is always great +decorousness and these big open-air spaces in the midst of the crowded +street canyons are enjoyed by the women who appreciate the grass and +winding paths after the hard pavements. + +All the business girls downtown are not content with sitting after lunch +among the tombstones of St. Paul's churchyard or of Trinity. He was +indeed a canny lunch-man who took note of all the girls strolling in the +narrow streets of downtown Manhattan, who remembered that all New York, +rich or poor, loves to dance and who then fitted up an unrentable third +floor loft over his eating place as a dancing hall. Two violins and a +piano--a gray-bearded sandwich man to patrol the streets with "DANCING" +placarded fore and aft upon his boards--the trick was done. Mamie told +Sadie and Sadie told Elinor and Elinor told Flossie and the lunch-man +began to grow famous. He made further study of the psychology of his +patrons. There were the young fellows--shipping and file clerks and even +ambitious young office-boys to be considered. There were the after-lunch +smokes of these young captains of industry to come into the reckoning. +The lunch-man placed a row of chairs along one edge of his dancing-hall +and over them "Smoking Permitted at This End of the Room." After that +Mamie and Sadie and Elinor and Flossie had partners and the lunch-man +was on the highway to a six-cylinder motor car. He has his imitators. If +you were in business in lower New York and your stenographer began to +hum the "Blue Danube" along about half an hour before noon you would +very well know she was gathering steam for the blissful twenty minutes +of dancing that was going to help her digest her lunch. + + * * * * * + +You, yourself, are going to lunch in still another sort of restaurant. +It is characteristic of a type that has sprung up on the tip of +Manhattan island within the past dozen years. You reach this +grubbing-place by skirting the front doors of unspeakably dirty +eating-houses in a mean street of the Syrian quarter. Finally you turn +the corner of a dingy brick building, which was once the great house of +one of the contemporaries of the first of the Vanderbilts and which has +managed to escape destruction for three quarters of a century and +face--the only skyscraper in congested New York which stands in a +grass-platted yard--the whim of its wealthy owner. A fast elevator +whisks you thirty stories to the top of the building and you step into +the lobby of what looks, at first glance, to be the entrance hall of +some fine restaurant in uptown's Fifth avenue. But this is a +lunching-club--one of the newest in the town as well as one of the most +elaborate. + +Elaborate did we say? This is the elaboration of perfect +taste--unobtrusive rugs, hangings, lighting fixtures and +furniture--great, broad rooms and from their windows there comes to you +another of the spectacular views that lay below the man-made peaks of +Manhattan. To the south--the smooth, blue surface of the upper bay--in +the foreground a nine hundred foot ship coming to the new land, her +funnels lazily breathing smoke at the first lull in her four-day race +across the Atlantic; to the east, a mighty river and its bridges, +Brooklyn again and on very clear days, visions of Long island; to the +north the most wonderful building construction that man has ever +attempted, Babylonic in its immensity; to the west the brisk waterway of +the North river and beyond it, Jersey City, sandwiched in between the +smoky spread of railroad yards. This is the sort of thing that Mr. +Downtown Luncher may have--if he is willing to pay the price. On torrid +summer days he may ascend to the roof-garden, may glance lazily below +him at the activities of the busiest city in the world and sip up the +cool breezes from the sea, while folk down in the bottom of the Broadway +chasm are sweltering from heat and humidity. And in winter he will find +a complete gymnasium in operation on another floor of the club, with a +competent instructor in charge. The "doctor," as they call him, will lay +out a course of work. And that course of work, calling for a half-hour +of exercise each day just before lunch will make dyspeptic and paunchy +old money-grubbers alike, keen as farmhands coming into dinner. + +And yet this club, typical of so many others in the downtown business +heart of Manhattan, is but a cog in the mighty machine of the lunching +of the workaday multitudes of downtown. Its doors are closed and lights +are out at six o'clock in the evening, save on extraordinary occasions; +while most of its hundred or more well-trained waiters go uptown to +assist in the dinner and the late supper rushes of the fashionable +restaurants in the theater and hotel district. Like most of its +compeers, it is an outgrowth of the wonderfully comfortable old Lawyers' +Club, which was completely destroyed in the great fire that burned the +Equitable Building in January, 1912. From that organization, famed for +its noon-day hospitality and for the quality of the folk you might meet +between its walls, have sprung many other downtown lunch clubs--the +Whitehall, the Hardware, the Manufacturers, the Downtown Association, +the new Lawyers--many, many others; almost invariably occupying the +upper floors of some skyscraper that has been planned especially for +them. These clubs are not cheap. It costs from sixty to a hundred +dollars to enter one of them and about as much more yearly in the form +of dues. Their restaurant charges are far from low-priced. They are +never very exclusive organizations and yet they give to the strain of +the workaday New Yorker his last lingering trace of hospitality--the +hospitality that has lingered around Bowling Green and Trinity and St. +Paul's church-yards since colonial days and the coffee houses. + + * * * * * + +Even the hospitality of the genial host seems to end--with the ending of +the lunch-hour. As he takes his last sip of _café noir_ he is tugging at +his watch. + +"Bless me," he says, "It is going on three o'clock. I've got that +railroad crowd due in my office in fifteen minutes." + +That is your dismissal. For ninety minutes he has given you his +hospitality--his rare and unselfish self. He has put the perplexing +details of his business out of his mind and given himself to whatever +flow of talk might suit your fancy. Now the hour and a half of grace is +over--and you are dismissed, courteously--but none the less dismissed. +With your host you descend to the crowded noisome street. He sees you to +the subway--gives you a fine warm grasp of his strong hand--and plunges +back into the great and grinding machine of business. + +Lunch in your Day of Days within the City of the Towers is over. Three +o'clock. Before the last echoes of Trinity's bell go ringing down +through Wall street to halt the busy Exchange--the multitude has been +fed. Miss Stenographer has had her salad and éclair, two waltzes and +perhaps a "turkey trot" into the bargain, and is back at the keys of her +typewriter. Mr. President has entertained that Certain Party at the club +and has made him promise to sign that mighty important contract. And the +certain Party and Mr. President rode for half an hour on the mechanical +horses in the gymnasium. What fun, too, for those old boys? + +Three o'clock! The cashiers are totaling their receipts, the waiters and +the 'buses are upturning chairs and tables to make way for the +scrub-women, some are already beginning to don their overcoats to go +uptown; but the three-quarters of a million of hungry mouths have been +fed. New York has caught its breath in mid-day relaxation and once more +is hard at work--putting in the last of its hours of the business day +with renewed and feverish energy. + + +IV + +You had planned at first to walk up Broadway. You wanted to see once +again the church-yards around Trinity and St. Paul's, perhaps make a +side excursion down toward Fraunces' Tavern--just now come back into its +own again. Some of the old landmarks that are still hidden around +downtown New York seemed to appeal to you. But your host at luncheon +laughed at you. + +"If you want to spend your time that way, all right," he said, "but the +only really old things you will find in New York are the faces of the +young men. You can find those anywhere in the town." + +And there was another reckoning to be figured. Three o'clock means the +day well advanced and there is a _vis-à-vis_ awaiting you uptown. Of +course, there is a Her to enjoy your Day of Days with you. And just for +convenience alone we will call her Katherine. It is a pretty name for a +woman, and it will do here and now quite as well as any other. + +Katherine is waiting for you in the Fourteenth street station of the +subway. She is prompt--after the fashion of most New York girls. And it +is a relief to come out of the overcrowded tube and find her there at +the entrance that leads up to sunshine and fresh air. She knows her New +York thoroughly and as a prelude to the trip uptown she leads you over +to Fifth avenue--to the upper deck of one of those big green +peregrinating omnibuses. + +"It's a shame that we could not have started at Washington square," she +apologizes. "When you sweep around and north through the great arch it +almost seems as if you were passing through the portals of New York. It +is one of the few parts of the town that are not changing rapidly." + +For Fifth avenue--only a few blocks north of that stately arch--has +begun to disintegrate and decay. Not in the ordinary sense of those +terms. But to those who remember the stately street of fifteen or twenty +years ago--lined with the simple and dignified homes of the town--its +change into a business thoroughfare brings keen regrets. Katherine +remembers that she read in a book that there are today more factory +workers employed in Fifth avenue or close to it, than in such great mill +cities as Lowell or Lawrence or Fall River, and when you ask her the +reason why she will tell you how these great buildings went soaring up +as office-buildings, without office tenants to fill them. They represent +speculation, and speculation is New Yorkish. But speculation in +wholesale cannot afford to lose, and that is why the garment +manufacturers and many others of their sort came flocking to the great +retail shopping district between Fourth and Seventh avenues and +Fourteenth and Thirty-fourth streets, and sent the shops soaring further +to the north. It has been expensive business throughout, doubly +expensive, because absolutely unnecessary. Some of the great retail +houses of New York built modern and elaborate structures south of +Thirty-fourth street within the past twenty years in the firm belief +that the retail shopping section had been fixed for the next half +century. But the new stores had hardly been opened before the deluge of +manufacturing came upon them. Shoppers simply would not mix with factory +hands upon lower Fifth avenue and the side streets leading from it. And +so the shop-keepers have had to move north and build anew. And just what +a tax such moving has been upon the consumer no one has ever had the +audacity to estimate. + +"They should have known that nothing ever stays fixed in New York," says +Katherine. "We are a restless folk, who make a restless city. Stay +fixed? Did you notice the station at which you entered today?" + +Of course you did. The new Grand Central, with its marvelous blue +ceiling capping a waiting-room so large that the New York City Hall, +cupola, wings and all could be set within it, can hardly escape the +attention of any traveler who passes within its portals. + +"It is the greatest railroad station in the world," she continues, "and +yet I have read in the newspapers that Commodore Vanderbilt built on +that very plat of ground in 1871 the largest station in the world for +the accommodation of his railroads. He thought that it would last for +all time. In forty years the wreckers were pulling it down. It was +outgrown, utterly outgrown and they were carting it off piece by piece +to the rubbish heaps." + +She turns suddenly upon you. + +"That is typical of our restless, lovely city," she tells you. And you, +yourself, have heard that only two years ago they tore down a nineteen +story building at Wall and Nassau streets so that they might replace it +by another of the towers--this one thirty stories in height. + + * * * * * + +The conductor of the green omnibus thrusts his green fare-box under your +nose. You find two dimes and drop it into the contrivance. + +"You can get more value for less money and less value for much money in +New York than in any other large city in the world," says Katherine. + +She is right--and you know that she is right. You can have a glorious +ride up the street, that even in its days of social decadence is still +the finest highway in the land--a ride that continues across the town +and up its parked rim for long miles--for a mere ten cents of Uncle +Sam's currency and as for the reverse--well you are going to dinner in +a smart hotel with Katherine in a little while. + +You swing across Broadway and up the west edge of Madison square, catch +a single, wondering close-at-hand glimpse of the white campanile of the +Metropolitan tower which dominates that open place and so all but +replaces Diana on her perch above Madison Square Garden--a landmark of +the New York of a quarter of a century ago and which is apt to come into +the hands of the wreckers almost any day now. Now you are at the south +edge of the new shopping district, although some of the ultra places +below Thirty-fourth street have begun to move into that portion of the +avenue just south of Central Park. In a little while they may be +stealing up the loveliest portion of the avenue--from Fifty-ninth street +north. + +The great shops dominate the avenue. And if you look with sharp eyes as +the green bus bears you up this _via sacre_, you may see that one of the +greatest ones--a huge department store encased in architecturally superb +white marble--bears no sign or token of its ownership or trade. An +oversight, you think. Not a bit of it. Four blocks farther up the avenue +is another great store in white marble--a jewelry shop of international +reputation. You will have to scan its broad _façade_ closely indeed +before you find the name of the firm in tiny letters upon the face of +its clock. Oversight? Not a bit of it. It is the ultra of shop-keeping +in New York--the assumption that the shop is so well known that it need +not be placarded to the vulgar world. And if strangers from other points +fail to identify it--well that is because of their lack of knowledge and +the shopkeeper may secretly rejoice. + +But, after all, it is the little shops that mark the character of Fifth +avenue--not its great emporiums. It is the little millinery shops where +an engaging creature in black and white simpers toward you and calls +you, if you are of the eternal feminine, "my dear;" the jewelry shops +where the lapidary rises from his lathe and offers a bit of +craftsmanship; the rare galleries that run from old masters to modern +etchers; specialty shops, filled top to bottom with toys or Persian +rugs, or women's sweaters, or foreign magazines and books, that render +to Fifth avenue its tremendous cosmopolitanism. These little shops make +for personality. There is something in the personal contact between the +proprietor and the customer that makes mere barter possess a real +fascination. And if you do pay two or three times the real value in the +little shop you have just so much more fun out of the shopping. And +there are times when real treasures may come out of their stores. + +"Look at the cornices," interrupts Katherine. "Mr. Arnold Bennett says +that they are the most wonderful things in all New York." + +Katherine may strain her neck, looking at cornices if she so wills. As +for you, the folk who promenade the broad sidewalks are more worth your +while. There are more of them upon the west walk than upon the east--for +some strange reason that has long since brought about a similar +phenomenon upon Broadway and sent west side rents high above those upon +the east. Fifth avenue thrusts its cosmopolitanism upon you, not alone +in her shops, with their wonderfully varied offerings, but in the very +humans who tread her pavements. The New York girl may not always be +beautiful but she is rarely anything but impeccable. And if in the one +instance she is extreme in her styles, in the next she is apt to be +severe in her simplicity of dress. And it is difficult to tell to which +ordinary preference should go. These girls--girls in a broad sense all +the way from trim children in charge of maid or governess to girls whose +pinkness of skin defies the graying of their locks--a sprinkling of +men, not always so faultless in dress or manner as their sisters--and +you have the Fifth avenue crowd. Then between these two quick moving +files of pedestrians--set at all times in the rapid _tempo_ of New +York--a quadruple file of carriages; the greater part of them motor +driven. + +Traffic in Fifth avenue, like traffic almost everywhere else in New York +is a problem increasing in perplexity. A little while ago the situation +was met and for a time improved by slicing off the fronts of the +buildings--perhaps the most expensive shave that the town has ever +known--and setting back the sidewalks six or eight feet. But the +benefits then gained have already been over-reached and the traffic +policeman at the street corners all the way up the avenue must possess +rare wit and diplomacy--while their fellows at such corners as +Thirty-fourth and Forty-second are hardly less than field generals. And +with all the _finesse_ of their work the traffic moves like molasses. +Long double and triple files of touring cars and limousines, the +combined cost of which would render statistics such as would gladden the +heart of a Sunday editor, make their way up and down the great street +tediously. If a man is in a hurry he has no business even to essay the +Avenue. And occasionally the whole tangle is double-tangled. The shriek +of a fire-engine up a side street or the clang of an ambulance demanding +a clear right-of-way makes the traffic question no easier. Yet the +policemen at the street corners are not caught unawares. With the shrill +commands of their own whistles they maneuver trucks and automobiles and +even some old-fashioned hansom cabs, pedestrians, all the rest--as +coolly and as evenly as if it had been rehearsed for whole weeks. + + * * * * * + +New York is wonderful, the traffic of its chief show street--for Fifth +avenue can now be fairly said to have usurped Broadway as the main +highway of the upper city--tremendous. You begin to compute what must be +the rental values upon this proud section of Fifth avenue, as it climbs +Murray Hill from Thirty-fourth street to Forty-second street, when +Katherine interrupts you once again. She knows her New York thoroughly +indeed. + +"Do you notice that house?" she demands. + +You follow her glance to a very simple brick house, upon the corner of +an inconsequential side street. Beside it on Fifth avenue is an open +lot--of perhaps fifty feet frontage, giving to the avenue but a plain +brown wooden fence. + +"A corking building lot," you venture, "Why don't they--" + +"I expected you to say that," she laughs. "They have wanted to build +upon that lot--time and time again. But when they approach the owner he +laughs at them and declines to consider any offer. 'My daughter has a +little dog,' he says politely, 'It must have a place for exercise.' We +New Yorkers are an odd lot," she laughs. "You know that the Goelets kept +a cow in the lawn of their big house at Broadway and Nineteenth street +until almost twenty years ago--until there was not a square foot of +grass outside of a park within five miles. And in New York the man who +can do the odd thing successfully is apt to be applauded. You could not +imagine such a thing in Boston or Baltimore or Philadelphia, could you?" + +You admit that your imagination would fall short of such heights and ask +Katherine if you are going up to the far end of the 'bus run--to that +great group of buildings--university, cathedral, hospital, divinity +school--that have been gathered just beyond the northwestern corner of +Central Park. + +"No, I think not," she quickly decides, "You know that Columbia is not +to New York as Harvard is to Boston. Harvard dominates Boston, Columbia +is but a peg in the educational system of New York. The best families +here do not bow to its fetich. They are quite as apt to send their boys +to Yale or Princeton--even Harvard." + +"Then there's the cathedral and the Drive," you venture. + +"We have a cathedral right here on Fifth avenue that is finished and, in +its way, quite as beautiful. And as for the Drive--it is merely a rim of +top-heavy and expensive apartment houses. The West Side is no longer +extremely smart. The truth of the matter is that we must pause for +afternoon tea." + +You ignore that horrifying truth for an instant. + +"What has happened to the poor West Side?" you demand. + +Katherine all but lowers her voice to a whisper. + +"Twenty years ago and it had every promise of success. It looked as if +Riverside Drive would surpass the Avenue as a street of fine residences. +The side streets were preëminently nice. Then came the subway--and with +it the apartment houses. After that the very nice folk began moving to +the side streets in the upper Fifties, the Sixties and the Seventies +between Park and Fifth avenues." + +"Suppose that the apartment houses should begin to drift in there--in +any numbers?" you demand. + +"Lord knows," says Katherine, and with due reverence adds: "There is the +last stand of the prosperous New Yorker with an old-fashioned notion +that he and his would like to live in a detached house. The Park binds +him in on the West, the tenement district and Lexington avenue on the +East--to the North Harlem and the equally impossible Bronx. The old +guard is standing together." + +"There is Brooklyn?" you venture. + +"No New Yorker," says Katherine, with withering scorn, "ever goes +publicly to Brooklyn unless he is being buried in Greenwood cemetery." + + * * * * * + +Tea for you is being served in a large mausoleum of a white +hotel--excessively white from a profuse use of porcelain tiles which can +be washed occasionally--of most extraordinary architecture. Some day +some one is going to attempt an analysis of hotel architecture in New +York and elsewhere in the U.S.A. but this is not the time and place. +Suffice it to say here and now that you finally found a door entering +the white porcelain mausoleum. What a feast awaited your eyes--as well +as your stomach--within. Rooms of rose pink and rooms of silver gray, +Persian rooms, Japanese rooms, French rooms in the several varieties of +Louis, Greek rooms--Europe, the ancients and the Orient, have been +ransacked for the furnishing of this tavern. And in the center of them +all is a great glass-enclosed garden, filled with giant palms and tiny +tables, tremendous waiters and infinitesimal chairs. A large bland-faced +employé--who is a sort of sublimated edition of the narrow lean hat-boys +who we shall find in the eating places of the Broadway theater +districts--divests you of your outer wraps. You elbow past a band and +arrive at the winter garden. A head waiter in an instant glance of +steel-blue eyes decides that you are fit and finds the tiniest of the +tiny tables for you. It is so far in the shade of the sheltering palm +that you have to bend almost double to drink your tea--and the orchestra +is rather uncomfortably near. + +[Illustration: Washington Square and its lovely Arch--New York] + +Katherine might have taken you to other tea dispensaries--an unusual +place in a converted stable in Thirty-fourth street, another stable loft +in West Twenty-eighth--dozens of little shops, generally feminine to +an intensified degree, which combine the serving of tea with the +vending of their wares. But she preferred the big white hotel. + +"Tea at the Plaza is so satisfactory and so restful," she says, as you +dodge to permit two ladies--one in gray silk and the other in a cut of +blue cloth that gives her the contour of a magnified frog--to slip past +you without knocking your tea out of your untrained fingers. "We might +have gone to the Manhattan--but it's so filled with young girls and the +chappies from the schools--the Ritz is proper but dull, so is +Sherry's--all the rest more or less impossible." + +She rattles on--the matter of restaurants is always dear to the New York +heart. You ignore the details. + +"But why?" you demand. + +"Why what?" she returns. + +"Why tea?" + +You explain that afternoon tea in its real lair--London--in a sort of +climatic necessity. The prevalence of fog, of raw damp days, makes a cup +of hot tea a real bracer--a stimulant that carries the human through +another two or three hours of hard existence until the late London +dinner. The bracing atmosphere of New York--with more clear days than +any other metropolitan city in the world--does not need tea. You say so +frankly. + +"I suppose you are right," Katherine concedes, "but we have ceased in +this big city to rail at the English. We bow the knee to them. The most +fashionable of our newest hotels and shops run--absurdly many times--to +English ways. And afternoon tea has long since ceased to be a novelty in +our lives. Why, they are beginning to serve it at the offices +downtown--just as they do in dear old London." + +You swallow hard--some one has recommended that to you as a method of +suppressing emotion--for polite society is never emotional. + + +V + +Dinner is New York's real function of the day. And dinner in New York +means five million hungry stomachs demanding to be filled. The New York +dinner is as cosmopolitan as the folk who dwell on the narrow island of +Manhattan and the two other islands that press closely to it. The +restaurant and hotel dinners are as cosmopolitan as the others. Of +course, for the sake of brevity, if for no other reason, you must +eliminate the home dinners--and read "home" as quickly into the cold and +heavy great houses of the avenue as into the little clusters of rooms in +crowded East Side tenements where poverty is never far away and next +week's meals a real problem. And remember, that to dine even in a +reasonably complete list of New York's famous eating places--a new one +every night--would take you more than a year. At the best your vision of +them must be desultory. + +Six o'clock sees the New York business army well on its way toward +home--the seething crowds at the Brooklyn bridge terminal in Park Row, +the overloaded subway straining to move its fearful burden, the ferry +and the railroad terminals focal points of great attractiveness. To make +a single instance: take that division of the army that dwells in +Brooklyn. It begins its march dinnerward a little after four o'clock, +becomes a pushing, jostling mob a little later and shows no sign of +abatement until long after six. Within that time the railroad folk at +the Park Row terminal of the old bridge have received, classified and +despatched Brooklynward, more than one hundred and fifty thousand +persons--the population of a city almost the size of Syracuse. And the +famous old bridge is but one of four direct paths from Manhattan to +Brooklyn. + +Six o'clock sees restaurants and cafés alight and ready for the two or +three hours of their really brisk traffic of the day. There are even +dinner restaurants downtown, remarkably good places withal and making +especial appeal to those overworked souls who are forced to stay at the +office at night. There are bright lights in Chinatown where innumerable +"Tuxedos" and "Port Arthurs" are beginning to prepare the chop-suey in +immaculate Mongolian kitchens. But the real restaurant district for the +diner-out hardly begins south of Madison square. There are still a very +few old hotels in Broadway south of that point--a lessening company each +year--one or two in close proximity to Washington square. Two of these +last make a specialty of French cooking--their _table d'hôtes_ are +really famous--and perhaps you may fairly say when you are done at them +that you have eaten at the best restaurants in all New York. From them +Fifth avenue runs a straight course to the newer hotels far to the +north--a silent brilliantly lighted street as night comes "with the +double row of steel-blue electric lamps resembling torch-bearing monks" +one brilliant New York writer has put it. But before the newest of the +new an intermediate era of hotels, the Holland, the nearby Imperial and +the Waldorf-Astoria chief among these. The Waldorf has been from the day +it first opened its doors--more than twenty years ago--New York's really +representative hotel. Newer hostelries have tried to wrest that honor +from it--but in vain. It has clung jealously to its reputation. The +great dinners of the town are held in its wonderful banqueting halls, +the well-known men of New York are constantly in its corridors. It is +club and more than club--it is a clearing-house for all of the best +clubs. It is the focal center for the hotel life of the town. + +There is an important group of hotels in the rather spectacular +neighborhood of Times square--the Astor, with its distinctly German +flavor, and the Knickerbocker which whimsically likes to call itself +"the country club on Forty-second street" distinctive among them. And +ranging upon upper Fifth avenue, or close to it, are other important +houses, the Belmont, the aristocratic Manhattan, the ultra-British +Ritz-Carlton, the St. Regis, the Savoy, the Netherland, the Plaza, and +the Gotham. In between these are those two impeccable restaurants--so +distinctive of New York and so long wrapped up in its history--Sherry's +and Delmonico's. + +Over in the theatrical brilliancy of Broadway up and down from Times +square are other restaurants--Shanley's, Churchill's, Murray's--the list +is constantly changing. A fashionable restaurant in New York is either +tremendously successful--or else, as we shall later see, they are +telephoning for the sheriff. And the last outcome is apt more to follow +than the first. For it is a tremendous undertaking to launch a +restaurant in these days. The decorations of the great dining-rooms must +rival those of a Versailles palace while the so-called minor +appointments--silver, linen, china and the rest must be as faultless as +in any great house upon Fifth avenue. The first cost is staggering, the +upkeep a steady drain. There is but one opportunity for the +proprietor--and that opportunity is in his charges. And when you come to +dine in one of these showy uptown places you will find that he has not +missed his opportunity. + +All New York that dines out does not make for these great places or +their fellows. There are little restaurants that cast a glamour over +their poor food by thrusting out hints of a magic folk named Bohemians +who dine night after night at their dirty tables. There are others who +with a Persian name seek to allure the ill-informed, some stout German +places giving the substantial cheer of the Fatherland, beyond them +restaurants phrasing themselves in the national dishes and the cooking +of every land in the world, save our own. For a real American restaurant +is hard to find in New York--real American dishes treats of increasing +rarity. A great hotel recently banished steaks from its bills-of-fare, +another has placed the ban on pie; and as for strawberry +short-cake--just ask for strawberry short-cake. The concoction that the +waiter will set before you will leave you hesitating between tears and +laughter--ridicule for the pitiful attempts of a French cook and tears +for your thoughts of the tragedy that has overwhelmed an American +institution. Some day some one is going to build a hotel with the +American idea standing back of it right in the heart of New York. He is +going to have the bravery or the patriotism to call it the American +House or the United States Hotel or Congress Hall or some other title +that means something quite removed from the aristocratic nomenclature +that our modern generation of tavern-keepers have borrowed from Europe +without the slightest sense of fitness; and to that man shall be given +more than mere riches--the satisfaction that will come to him from +having accomplished a real work. + +The truth of the matter is that we have borrowed more than nomenclature +from Europe. We have taken the so-called "European plan" with all of its +disadvantages and none of its advantages. We have done away with the +stuffy over-eating "American plan" and have made a rule of +"pay-as-you-go" that is quite all right--and is not. For to the simple +"European plan" has recently been added many complications. In other +days the generosity of the portions in a New York hotel was famous. A +single portion of any important dish was ample for two. Your smiling +old-fashioned waiter told you that. The waiter in a New York restaurant +today does not smile. He merely tells you that the food is served "per +portion" which generally means that an unnecessary amount of food is +prepared in the kitchen and sent from the table, uneaten, as waste. And +a smart New York _restauranteur_ recently made a "cover charge" of +twenty-five cents for bread and butter and ice-water. Others followed. +It will not be long before a smarter _restauranteur_ will make the +"cover charge" fifty cents, and then folk will begin streaming into his +place. They don't complain. That's not the New York way. + +They do not even complain of the hat-boys--bloodthirsty little brigands +who snatch your hat and other wraps before you enter a restaurant. The +brigands are skillfully chosen--lean, hungry little boys every time, +never fat, sleek, well-fed looking little boys. They are employed by a +trust, which rents the "hat-checking privilege" from the proprietor of +the hotel or restaurant. The owner of the trust pays well for these +privileges and the little boys must work hard to bring him back his +rental fees and a fair profit beside. + +Leave that to them. Emerge from a restaurant, well-fed and at peace with +the world and deny that lean-looking, swarthy-faced, black-eyed boy a +quarter if you can--or dare. A dime is out of the question. He might +insult you, probably would. But a quarter buys your self-respect and the +head of the trust a share in his new motor car. The lean-looking boy +buys no motor cars. He works on a salary and there are no pockets in his +uniform. There is a stern-visaged cicerone in the background and to the +cicerone roll all the quarters, but the New Yorker does not +complain--save when he reaches Los Angeles or Atlanta or some other +fairly distant place and finds the same sort of highway brigandage in +effect there. + + +VI + +After the dinner and the hat-boy--the theater. You suggest the theater +to Katherine. She is enthusiastic. You pick the theater. It is close at +hand and you quickly find your way to it. A gentleman, whose politeness +is of a variety, somewhat _frappé_, awaits you in the box-office. A line +of hopeful mortals is shuffling toward him, to disperse with hope left +behind. But this anticipates. + +You inquire of the man in the box-office for two seats--two particularly +good seats. You remember going to the theater in Indianapolis once upon +a time, a stranger, and having been seated behind the fattest theater +pillar that you could have ever possibly imagined. But you need not +worry about the pillars in this New York playhouse. The box-office +gentleman, whose thoughts seem to be a thousand miles away, blandly +replies that the house is sold out. + +"So good?" you brashly venture. You had not fancied this production so +successful. He does not even assume to hear your comment. You decide +that you will see this particular play at a later time. You suggest as +much to the indifferent creature behind the wicket. He replies by +telling you that he can only give you tickets for a Monday or Tuesday +three weeks hence--and then nothing ahead of the seventeenth row. Can he +not do better than that? He cannot. He is positive that he cannot. And +his positiveness is Gibraltarian in its immobility. A faint sign of +irritation covers his bland face. He wants you to see that you are +taking too much of his time. + +Katherine saves the situation. She whispers to you that she noticed a +little shop nearby with a sign "Tickets for all Theaters" displayed upon +it. + +"You know they abolished the speculators two years ago," she explains. + +You move on to the little shop with the inviting sign. The gentleman +behind its counters has manners at least. He greets you with the smile +of the professional shopkeeper. + +"Have you tickets for 'The Giddiest Girl'?" you inquire. + +He smiles ingratiatingly. Of course he has, for any night and anywhere +you wish them. + +"What is the price of them?" + +You are not coldly commercial but, despite that smile, merely +apprehensive. And you are beginning to understand New York. + +"Four dollars." + +Not so bad at that--just the box-office price. You bring out four greasy +one-dollar bills. His eyes fixed upon them, he places a ticket down upon +the counter. + +"There--there are two of us," you stammer. + +He does not stammer. + +"Do you think that they are four dollars a dozen?" he sallies. + +You give him a ten dollar bill this time. You do not kick. Even though +the show is perfectly rotten and the usherette charges you ten cents for +a poorly printed program and scowls because you take the change from her +itching palm, do not complain. You would not complain even if you knew +that the man in the chair next to you paid only the regular prices, +because he happened to belong to the same lodge as the cousin of the +treasurer of the theater, while the man in the chair next to Katherine +paid nothing at all for his seat--having a relative who advertises in +the theater programs. You do not kick. Complaint has long since been +eliminated from the New York code and you have begun to realize that. + + * * * * * + +After the theater, another restaurant--this time for supper--more +hat-boys, more brigandage but it is the thing to do and you must do it. +And you must do it well. Splendor costs and you pay--your full +proportion. If up in your home town you know a nice little place where +you can drop in after the show at the local playhouse and have a glass +of beer and a rarebit--dismiss that as a prevailing idea in the +neighborhood of Long Acre square. The White Light district of Broadway +can buy no motor cars on the beer and rarebit trade. Louey's trade in +his modest little place up home is sufficient to keep him in moderate +living year in and year out, but Louey does not have to pay Broadway +ground rent, or Broadway prices for food-stuffs or Broadway salaries--to +say nothing of having a thirst for a bigger and faster automobile than +his neighbor. And as we have said, the opportunity for bankruptcy in the +so-called "lobster palaces" of Broadway runs high. As this is being +written, one of the most famous of them has collapsed. + +Its proprietor--he was a smart caterer come east from Chicago where he +had made his place fashionable and himself fairly rich--for a dozen +years ran a prosperous restaurant within a stone-throw of the tall white +shaft of the _Times_ building. And even if the heels were the highest, +the gowns the lowest, the food was impeccable and if you knew New York +at all you knew who went there. It was gay and beautiful and +high-priced. It was immensely popular. Then the proprietor listened to +sirens. They commanded him to tear down the simple structure of his +restaurant and there build a towering hotel. He obeyed orders. With the +magic of New York builders the new building was ready within the +twelvemonth. It represented all that might be desired--or that upper +Broadway at least might desire--in modern hotel construction. + +But it could not succeed. A salacious play which made a considerable +commercial success took its title from the new hotel and called itself +"The Girl from R----'s." That was the last straw. It might have been +good fun for the man from Baraboo or the man from Jefferson City to come +to New York and dine quietly and elegantly at R----'s, but to stop at +R----'s hotel, to have his mail sent there, to have the local paper +report that he was registered at that really splendid hostelry--ah, that +was a different matter, indeed. Your Baraboo citizen had some fairly +conservative connections--church and business--and he took no risks. The +new hotel went bankrupt.[A] + + [A] Another hotel man has just taken the property. His first + step has been to change its name and, if possible, its + reputation. E. H. + +Beer and rarebits, indeed. Sam Blythe tells of the little group of four +who went into a hotel grillroom not far from Forty-second street and +Broadway, who mildly asked for beer and rabbits. + +"We have fine partridges," said the head-waiter, insinuatingly. + +"We asked for beer and rabbits," insisted the host of the little group. +He really did not know his New York. + +"We have fine partridges," reiterated the head-waiter, then yawned +slightly behind his hand. That yawn settled it. The head of the party +was bellicose. He lost his temper completely. In a few minutes an +ambulance and a patrol wagon came racing up Broadway. But the hotel had +won. It always does. + + * * * * * + +One thing more--the _cabaret_. We think that if you are really fond of +Katherine, and Katherine's reputation, you will avoid the restaurants +that make a specialty of the so-called _cabarets_. Really good +restaurants manage to get along without them. And the very best that can +be said of them is that they are invariably indifferently poor--a +_mélange_ contributed by broken-down actors or actresses, or boys or +girls stolen from the possibilities of a really decent way of earning a +living. As for the worst, it is enough to say that the familiarity that +begins by breeding contempt follows in the wake of the _cabaret_. It may +be very jolly for you, of a lonely summer evening in New York and +forgetting all the real pleasures of a lonely summer night in the big +town--wonderful orchestral concerts in Central Park, dining on open-air +terraces and cool quiet roofs, motoring off to wonderful shore dinners +in queer old taverns--to hunt out these great gay places in the heart of +the town. Easy _camaraderie_ is part and parcel of them. But you will +not want such comrades to meet any of the Katherines of your family. And +therein lies a more than subtle distinction. + + +VII + +It has all quite dazed you. You turn toward Katherine as you ride home +with her in the taxicab--space forbids a description of the horrors and +the indignities of the taxicab trust. + +"Is it like this--every night?" you feebly ask. + +"Every night of the year," she replies. "And typical New Yorkers like +it." + +That puts a brand-new thought into your mind. + +"What is a typical New Yorker?" you demand. + +"We are all typical New Yorkers," she laughs. + +It is a foolish answer--of course. But the strange part of the whole +thing is that Katherine is right. Either there are no typical New +Yorkers--as many sane folk solemnly aver--or else every one who tarries +in the city through the passing of even a single night is a typical New +Yorker. How can it be else in a city who is still growing like a girl in +her teens, who adds to herself each year in permanent population 135,000 +human beings, whose transient population is nightly estimated at over a +hundred thousand? They are all typical New Yorkers. + +Here is Solomon Strunsky who has just arrived through Ellis Island, +scared and forlorn, with his scared and forlorn little family trailing +on behind, Solomon Strunsky all but penniless, and the merciless +home-sickness for the little faraway town in Polish hills tearing at his +heart. Is Solomon Strunsky less a typical New Yorker than the scion of +this fine old family which for sixty years lived and died in a red-brick +mansion close by Washington square? For in four years Solomon Strunsky +will be keeping his own little store in the East Side, in another year +he will be moving his brood up to a fine new house in Harlem, an even +dozen years from the entrance at Ellis Island and you may be reading the +proud patronymic of Strunsky spelled along a signboard upon one of the +great new commercial barracks, which, not content with remaining +downtown, began the despoliation of Fifth avenue and its adjacent retail +district. Can you keep Solomon Strunsky out of the family of typical New +Yorkers? We think not. + +We think that you cannot exclude the man who through some stroke of +fortune has accumulated money in a smaller city, and who has come to New +York to live and to spend it. There are many thousands of him dwelling +upon the island of Manhattan; with his families they make a considerable +community by itself. They are good spenders, good New Yorkers in that +they never complain while the strings of their purses are never tightly +tied. They live in smart apartments uptown, at tremendously high +rentals, keep at least one car in service at all seasons of the year, +dine luxuriously in luxurious eating-places, attend the opera once a +week or a fortnight, see the new plays, keep abreast of the showy side +of New York. They are typical New Yorkers. In an apartment a little +further down the street--which rents at half the figure and comes +dangerously near being called a flat--is another family. This family +also attends the new plays, although it is far more apt to go a floor or +even two aloft, than to meet the speculator's prices for orchestra +seats. It also goes to the opera, and the young woman of the house is in +deadly earnest when she says that she does not mind standing through the +four or five long acts of a Wagnerian matinee, because the nice young +ushers let you sit on the floor in the intermissions. But this family +goes farther than the drama--spoken or sung. It is conversant with the +new books and the new pictures. That same young woman swings the Phi +Beta Kappa key of the most difficult institution of learning on this +continent. And she knows more about the trend of modern art than half of +the artists themselves. And yet she "goes to business"--is the capable +secretary of a very capable man downtown. + +These are typical New Yorkers. So are a family over in the next +block--theirs is frankly a flat in every sense of that despised word. +They have not been in the theater in a dozen years, never in one of the +big modern restaurants or hotels. Yet the head of that family is a man +whose name is known and spoken reverently through little homes all the +way across America. He is a worker in the church, although not a +clergyman, a militant friend of education, although not an educator, and +he believes that New York is the most thoughtful and benevolent city in +the world. And if you attempt to argue with him, he will prove easily +and smilingly, that he is right and you--are just mistaken. He and his +know their New York--a New York of high Christian force and precept--and +they, too, are New Yorkers. + +So, too, is Bliffkins and the little Bliffkins--although Bliffkins holds +property in a bustling Ohio city and votes within its precincts. To tell +the truth baldly, the Bliffkinses descend upon New York once each year +and never remain more than a fortnight. But they stop at a great hotel +and they are great spenders. Floor-walkers, head-waiters, head-ushers +know them. Annually, and for a few golden days they are part of New +York--typical New Yorkers, if you please. And when they are gone other +Bliffkinses, from almost every town across the land, big and little, +come to replace them. And all these are typical New Yorkers. + +What is the typical New Yorker? + +Are the sane folk right when they say that he does not exist? We do not +think so. We think that Katherine in all her flippancy was right. They +are all typical New Yorkers who sojourn, no matter for how little a +time, within her boundaries. We will go farther still. You might almost +say that all Americans are typical New Yorkers. For New York is, in no +small sense, America. Other towns and cities may publicly scoff her, +down in their hearts they slavishly imitate her, her store fronts, her +fashions, her hotel and her theater customs, her policemen, even her +white-winged street cleaners. They publicly laugh at her--down in their +hearts they secretly adore her. + + + + +3 + +ACROSS THE EAST RIVER + + +Physically only the East river separates Brooklyn from Manhattan island. +The island of Manhattan was and still is to many folk the city of New +York. Across that narrow wale of the East river--one of the busiest +water-highways in all the world--men have thrust several great bridges +and tunnels. Politically Brooklyn and Manhattan are one. They are the +most important boroughs of that which has for the past fifteen years +been known as Greater New York. + +But in almost every other way Manhattan and Brooklyn are nearly a +thousand miles apart. In social customs, in many of the details of +living they are vastly different, and this despite the fact that the +greater part of the male population of Brooklyn daily travels to +Manhattan island to work in its offices and shops and you can all but +toss a stone from one community into the other. The very fact that +Brooklyn is a dwelling place for New York--professional funny-men long +ago called it a "bed-chamber"--has done much, as we shall see, toward +building up the peculiar characteristics of the town that stands just +across the East river from the tip of the busiest little island in the +world. + +Consider for an instant the situation of Brooklyn. It fills almost the +entire west end of Long island--a slightly rolling tract of land between +a narrow and unspeakably filthy stream on the north known as Newtown +creek and the great cool ocean on the south. This entire tract has for +many years been known as Kings county--its name a slight proof of its +antiquity. Many years ago there were various villages in the old +county--among them Greenpoint, Bushwick, Williamsburgh, Canarsie, +Flatbush, Gravesend and Brooklyn. They were Dutch towns, and you can +still see some evidences of this in their old houses, although these are +disappearing quite rapidly nowadays. Brooklyn grew the most +rapidly--from almost the very day of the establishment of the republic. +Robert Fulton developed his steam-ferry and the East river ceased to be +the bugaboo it had always been to sailing vessels. Fulton ferry was +popular from the first. With the use of steam its importance waxed and +soon it was overcrowded. Another ferry came, another and another--many, +many others. They were all crowded, for Brooklyn was growing, a close +rim of houses and churches and shops all the way along the bank of the +East river from the Navy Yard at the sharp crook of the river that the +Dutch called the Wallabout, south to the marshy Gowanus bay. Upon the +river shore, north of the Wallabout, was Williamsburgh, which was also +growing and which had been incorporated into a city. But when the +horse-cars came and men were no longer forced to walk to and from the +ferries or to ride in miserable omnibuses, Brooklyn and Williamsburgh +became physically one. Williamsburgh then gave up its charter and its +identity and became lost in the growth of a greater Brooklyn. That was +repeated slowly but surely throughout all Kings county. Within +comparatively recent years there came the elevated railroad--at almost +the same time the great miracle of the Brooklyn bridge--and all the +previous growth of the town was as nothing. For two decades it grew as +rapidly as ever grew a "boom-town" in the West. The coming of electric +city transportation, the multiplying of bridges, the boring of the first +East river tunnel, all helped in this great growth. But the fairy web +of steel that John A. Roebling thrust across the busiest part of the +East river marked the transformation of Brooklyn--a transformation that +did not end when Brooklyn sold her political birthright and became part +and parcel of New York. That transformation is still in progress. + +We have slipped into history because we have wanted you to understand +why Brooklyn today is just what she is. The submerging of these little +Dutch villages with their individual customs and traditions has done its +part in the making of the customs and traditions of the Brooklyn of +today. For Brooklyn today remains a congregation of separate +communities. You may slip from one to the other without realizing that +you have done more than pass down a compactly built block of houses or +crossed a crowded street. + +And so it has come to pass that Brooklyn has no main street--in the +sense that about every other town in the United States, big or little, +has a main street. If you wish to call Fulton street, running from the +historic Fulton ferry right through the heart of the original city and +far out into the open country a main street, you will be forced to admit +that it is the ugliest main street of any town in the land: narrow, +inconsequential, robbed of its light and air by a low-hanging elevated +railroad almost its entire length. And yet right on Fulton street you +will find two department-stores unusually complete and unusually well +operated. New Yorkers come to them frequently to shop. The two stores +seem lost in the dreariness of Fulton street--a very contradiction to +that highway. + +Yet Brooklyn is a community of contradictions. Here we have called +Fulton street a possible main street of Brooklyn, and yet there is a +street in the town, for the most part miles removed from it, that is +quite as brisk by day and the only street in the borough which has any +real activity at night. Like that great main-stem of Manhattan it is +called Broadway, and it is a wider and more pretentious street than +Fulton, although in its turn also encumbered with an elevated railroad. +But up and down Broadway there courses a constant traffic; on foot, in +automobiles, in trolley-cars. Broadway boasts its own department-stores, +some of them sizable, many hundreds of small shops, cheap theaters--and +some better--by the score. It is an entertaining thoroughfare and yet we +will venture to say that not one in ten thousand of the many transients +who come to New York at regular intervals and who know the Great White +Way as well as four corners up at home, have ever stepped foot within +it. We will go further. Of the two million humans who go to make the +population of Brooklyn; a large part, probably half, certainly a third, +have never seen its own Broadway. + +This speaks volumes for the provincialism of the great community across +the East river from Manhattan. Remember all this while that it is a +community of communities, self-centered and rather more intent upon the +problem of getting back and forth between its homes and Manhattan than +on any other one thing in the world. As a rule, people live in Brooklyn +because it is less expensive than residence upon the island of +Manhattan, more accessible and far more comfortable than the Bronx or +the larger cities of New Jersey that range themselves close to the shore +of the Hudson river. It is in reality a larger and a better Jersey City +or a Hoboken or a Long Island City. + +[Illustration: A quiet street on Brooklyn Heights] + +And yet, like each of these three, it is something more than a mere +housing place for folk who work within congested Manhattan. It, too, is +a manufacturing center of no small importance. Despite the +transportation obstacles of being divided by one or two rivers from most +of the trunk-line railroads that terminate at the port of New York, +hundreds of factory chimneys, large and small, proclaim its industrial +importance. Its output of manufactures reaches high into the millions +each year. And the pay-roll of its factory operatives is annually an +impressive figure. + +The fact remains, however, that it is a community of communities, each +pulling very largely for itself. A smart western town of twenty-five +thousand population can center more energy and secure for itself +precisely what it wishes more rapidly and more precisely than can this +great borough of nearly two million population. Brooklyn has not yet +learned the lesson of concentrated effort. + +Now consider these communities of old Kings county once again. We have +touched upon their location and their growth; let us see the manner of +folk who made them grow. About the second decade of the last century a +virtual hegira of New England folk began to move toward New York City. +The New England states were the first portion of the land to show +anything like congestion, the wonderful city at the mouth of the Hudson +was beginning to come into its own--opportunity loomed large in the eyes +of the shrewd New Englanders. They began picking up and moving toward +New York. And they are still coming, although, of course, in no such +volume as in the first half of the nineteenth century. + +These New England folk found New York already aping +metropolitanism--with its unshaded streets and its tightly built rows of +houses. Over on Long island across busy Fulton ferry it was different. +There must have been something in the early Brooklyn, with its gentle +shade-trees down the streets and its genial air of quiet comfort that +made the New Englanders think of the pretty Massachusetts and +Connecticut towns that they had left. For into Brooklyn they came--a +steady stream which did not lessen in volume until the days of the +Civil War. They gave the place a blood infusion that it needed. They +crowded the old Dutch families to one side and laid the social +foundations of the Brooklyn of today. + +It was New England who founded the excellent private schools and small +colleges of Brooklyn, who early gave to her a public-school system of +wide reputation. It was New England who sprinkled the Congregational +churches over the older Brooklyn, who gave to their pulpits a Talmage +and a Storrs, who brought Henry Ward Beecher out from the wilds of the +Mid-west and made him the most famous preacher that America has ever +known. It was New England who for forty years made Brooklyn +Heights--with its exquisite situation on a plateau overlooking the upper +harbor of New York--the finest residential locality in the land. It was +New England for almost all that time who filled the great churches of +the Heights to their capacity Sabbath morning after Sabbath morning--New +England who stood for high thought, decent living and real progress in +Brooklyn. It was New England that made Brooklyn eat her pork and beans +religiously each Sabbath eve. + +The great churches and the fine houses still stand on Brooklyn Heights, +but alas, there are few struggles at the church-doors any more on +Sabbath morning. The old houses, the fine, gentle old houses--many of +them--have said good-by to their masters, their gayeties and their +glories. Some of them have been pulled down to make room for gingerbread +apartment structures and some of those that have remained have suffered +degradation as lodging- and as boarding-houses. It has been hard to hold +the younger generation of fashionable Brooklyn in Brooklyn. Manhattan is +too near, too alluring with all of its cosmopolitan airs, and these days +there is another steady hegira across the East river--the first +families of Brooklyn seeking residence among the smart streets of upper +Manhattan. + +There is another reason for this. We have told how Brooklyn sold her +birthright when she threw off her political individuality and made +herself a borough of an enlarged New York. Perhaps it would be more true +to say that she mortgaged that birthright the very hour when the +Brooklyn bridge, then new, took up the fullness of its mighty work. In +the weaving of that bridge is wrapped one of the little-known tragedies +of Brooklyn--the immensely human story of Roebling, its designer and its +builder, who suffered fatal injuries upon it and who died a lingering +death before it was completed. Roebling's apartments were upon a high +crest of Brooklyn Heights and the windows of his sick-room looked down +upon the workmen who were weaving the steel web of the bridge. In the +last hours of his life he could see the creation of his mind, the +structure that was about to be known as one of the eight modern wonders +of the world, being made ready for its task of the long years. + +The coming of that first bridge began the transformation of Brooklyn; +although for a long time Brooklyn did not realize it. The New England +element within her population did not even realize it when she gave up +her political identity as a city. Then something else happened. Two +miles to the north of the first bridge another was built--this with its +one arm touching the East Side of Manhattan--the most crowded residence +district in the new world--while its other hand reached that portion of +Brooklyn, formerly known as Williamsburgh. We have already spoken of +Williamsburgh--in its day a city of some promise but for sixty years now +part of Brooklyn. In the greater part of these sixty years it hung +tenaciously to its personality. Back of it was a great area of regular +streets and small houses known as the Eastern District. The folk who +lived there called themselves Brooklyn folk. Williamsburgh was +different. Its folk were glad to give themselves the name of the old +town, although the pattern of its streets ran closely into the pattern +of the streets of the community which had engulfed it. They held +themselves a bit by themselves. They had their own shops, their own +theater, their own clubs, their own churches, their own schools. They +also had the opportunity of seeing the social and the business changes +that the development of the first bridge had wrought in old Brooklyn; +how Fulton street from the old City Hall down to the ferry-house had +lost its gayety and was entering upon decadence. + +The Williamsburgh bridge repeated the story of the Brooklyn bridge--only +in sharper measure. It was like a tube lancing the overcrowded mass of +the East Side of Manhattan. It had hardly been completed before it had +its own hegira. The Jews of the crowded tenements of Rivington and Allen +and Essex and all the other congested narrow streets east of the Bowery +began moving over the new bridge and out to a distant section of +Brooklyn, known as Brownsville. They had preëmpted Brownsville for their +own. For a time that was all right. Then the wiser men of that wise old +race began asking themselves "why go to Brownsville, eight or nine miles +distant, when at the other end of the bridge is a fair land for +settlement?" + +So began changed conditions for Williamsburgh. For a little while it +sought to oppose the change, but an ox might as well pull against the +mighty power of a locomotive, as a community try to defy the working of +economic law. For a decade now Williamsburgh has been "moving out," her +houses, her churches, many of her pet institutions--going the most part +farther out upon Long island and there rebuilding under many protective +restrictions. The old Williamsburgh is nearly gone. Strange tongues and +strange creeds are heard within her churches. And some of them have been +pulled down, along with whole blocks of the gentle red-brick houses, to +give way to cheap apartments, wrought wondrously and fearfully and +echoing with the babbling of unfamiliar words. Nor has the +transformation stopped at Williamsburgh. The invasion has crept, is +still creeping into the Eastern District just beyond, transforming quiet +house-lined streets into noisy ways lined with crowded apartments. + +It is only within a comparatively little time that the older Brooklyn +has realized the change that is coming upon her. She has known for years +of the presence of many thousands of Irish and German within her +boundaries. They have been useful citizens in her development and have +done much for her in both a generous and an intelligent fashion. She +holds today great colonies of Norse and of the Swedish--down close to +the waterfront in the neighborhood of the Narrows, and her Italian +citizens, taken by themselves, would make the greatest Italian city in +the world. She has the largest single colony of Syrians in the New World +and more than half a million Jews. According to reliable estimates, +three-quarters of her adult population today are foreign-born. + +Thus can we record the transformation of a community. It is a +transformation which has created many problems, far too many to be +recounted here. We have only room to show the nature of the change to a +town where grandfathers used to be all in all and which has sleepily +awakened to find itself cosmopolitan, its institutions changing, its +future uncertain. There have not been a dozen important Protestant +churches builded in Brooklyn within the past twelve years--and some of +these merely new edifices for old congregations which have been forced +to pick up and move. And there have been old churches of old faiths that +finally have had to give up and close their doors for the final time. +Even the old custom of singing Christmas songs in the public schools has +been forbidden. The New England strain of Americanism in Brooklyn is +dying. + + * * * * * + +Brooklyn today has no theater of wide reputation, although in Greenwood +she has what is deservedly the most famous cemetery in America. Hold on, +Brooklyn may have no theater, but she has a town-hall and a town-hall +that is worthy of mention here. They do not call it the town-hall or the +opera-house, but it is known as the Academy of Music and it is an +institution well worth the while of any town. And the Brooklyn Academy +of Music is the rallying or focal point for so much that stands for good +within the community that we must see how it has come into being. + +It seems that when Brooklyn men and women of today were Brooklyn boys +and girls there stood down on Montague street in the oldest part of the +town an elder Academy of Music and to it they were taken on certain +great occasions to hear a splendid lecture with magic-lantern pictures, +the Swiss Bell Ringers, or perhaps even real drama or real opera, +although play-acting was frowned upon in the early days of that +barn-like structure. Eventually, its directors capitulated entirely. +Times were changing. So it was that Brooklyn saw the great actors and +the great singers of yesterday upon the stage of its old Academy; from +that stage it heard its own preachers, heard such orators as Edward +Everett and John B. Gough; crowded into the spacious auditorium at the +Commencement exercises and the amateur dramatics of its boys and girls. +The old Academy was a part of the social fabric of old Brooklyn. + +There comes an end to all temporal things and a winter's morning a full +decade ago saw the historic opera house go up in a truly theatrical puff +of smoke and flame. And it was said that day that Brooklyn had lost an +institution by which it was as well known as the Navy Yard or Plymouth +church--where Beecher had once thundered. Before the ruins in Montague +street were cool there were demands that the Academy be rebuilt. +Brooklynites even then were beginning to feel that the old Brooklyn was +beginning to pass. Beecher was dead; the last of Talmage's Tabernacles +was burned and was not to be rebuilt. The idea of becoming a second +Harlem was appalling. The rebuilding of the Academy was a popular +measure, a test as to Brooklyn's ability to preserve at least a vestige +of civic unity unto herself. + +It was a hard test and it almost failed. There was a time when it seemed +as if Brooklyn must give up and become the Cinderella of all the +boroughs of the new New York. But it seems that there were other +institutions in Brooklyn and not the least of these was, and still is, +the Institute of Arts and Sciences. This is a sort of civic Chautauqua. +Toward it several thousand men and women each pay five dollars a year +for the opportunity to gain culture and entertainment at the same time. +They have lectures, museums, picture-shows, recitals and the like and +this institute has so fat a purse that the impresario or prima donna is +yet to be found who is strong enough to withstand its pleadings. + +This institute came valiantly to the aid of the Academy project and +saved the day. While it has no proprietary interest in the new +structure, it is its chief tenant, and the new Academy was planned in +detail to meet the needs of this popular educational institution. So, +while the old Academy had a single auditorium, the new has a half-dozen +big and comfortable meeting-places. On a single night Brooklyn can snap +its fingers at the Metropolitan Opera House, over across the East +river, and can gather within its own Temple of Song--a spacious and +elegant theater which receives the Metropolitan company once a week +during the season--can place another great audience in the adjoining +Music Hall, with its well-renowned pipe-organ; in still another hall +hear some traveler show his pretty pictures and tell of distant climes +and strange peoples; in a lofty ballroom, hold formal reception and +dance; and gather in a still smaller hall to hear Professor +Something-or-other discuss the geological strata of Iceland or the like. +In this way, several audiences, all bent on divers purposes, can be +assembled in this big and passing handsome structure and yet be +completely independent of each other. The new Brooklyn Academy, wrought +after a hard fight, is no tiny toy. + +The building was largely a labor of love to those who succeeded in +getting the subscriptions for it. Its maintenance is today almost a +labor of love for its stockholders are not alone the wealthy bankers and +the merchants of the town. Its stock-list is as catholic as its +endeavors--and they are legion. It is designed to be eventually a +gathering-place for the butcher, the baker, the candle-stick maker; all +the sturdy folk who have their homes from Greenpoint to Coney island. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: An early Brooklyn Citizen] + +"One thing more," you demand. "How about Coney island?" + +Coney island is a part of Brooklyn. It is also the most advertised and +the most over-rated show place in the whole land. While the older +Brooklyn used to drive down to that sand-spit facing the sea for clams +and for fish-dinner in the summer days, it is only within the past few +years that it has been commercialized and an attempt made to place it +upon a business basis. We are inclined to think that the attempt, +measured in the long run, has been a failure. It began about ten +years ago, when the standard of entertainment at the famous beach had +fallen low. A young man, with a gift for the show business, created a +great amusement park there by the side of the sea. + +"People do not come to Coney island to see the ocean," he said. "They +come down here for a good time." + +It looked as if he was right. His amusement park was a great novelty and +for a time a tremendous success. It had splendid imitators almost within +a stone-throw--its name and its purpose were being copied all the way +across the land. Perhaps people did not go to Coney island, after all, +to see the cool and lovely ocean. + +But after a time the fickle taste of metropolitan New York seemed to +change. New Yorkers did not seem to care quite as much for the gay +creations of paint and tinsel, the eerie cities that were born anew each +night in the glories of electric lighting. Fire came to Coney +island--again and again. It scoured the paint and tinsel cities, thrust +the highest of their towers, a blackened ruin, to the ground. Pious folk +said that God was scourging Coney island for its contempt for His laws. +And the fact remains that it has not regained the preëminence of its +position ten years ago. + +We think that a man who had been out of Brooklyn for twenty years and +whose recollections of the wonderful beach that forms her southern +outpost were recollections of great gardens; of Patrick Gilmore playing +inimitable marches in front of one giant hotel and of the incomparable +Siedl leading his orchestra beside another, would do better than to +return to Coney island. Siedl is dead; so is Gilmore and even the huge +wooden hotel that looked down upon him was pulled apart last year to +make room for the encroaching streets and houses of a growing Brooklyn. +The paint and the tinsel of Coney island grows tarnished--and that +twenty-year exile could find little else than the sea to hold his +interest. And the folk who go to Coney island today seem to care very +little for the sea--save perhaps as a giant bath-tub. + +We think that the absentee of twenty years' standing would do far better +to go to Prospect Park. That really superb pleasure-ground, planned +through the foresight of a Brooklyn man of half a century ago, remains +practically unchanged through the years. It remains one of the great +parks, not only of America, but of the entire world. It is the real lion +of Brooklyn. It is incomparably finer than its rival, the somewhat +neglected Central Park of Manhattan. And alas, Manhattan seems to think +so, too, for to Prospect Park it sends each bright summer Sunday not the +best but the roughest of its hordes. And Brooklyn sighs when it sees its +lovely playground stolen from it. + +It is more than playground--Prospect Park. It is history. There are no +historic buildings in Brooklyn--unless we except the Dutch Reformed +church out in Flatbush--but all of Prospect Park was once a +battlefield--the theater of that bitter and bloody conflict of July, +1776, when Washington was routed by British strategy and forced to +retire from the city that he needed most of all to hold. Through its +great meadows Continental and Briton and Hessian once marched with +murder in their hearts. In those great meadows today the boys and girls +of the Brooklyn of today play tennis; the older men, after the fashion +of the Brooklyn of other days, their croquet. And annually down the +greensward the little children of Brooklyn march in brilliant June-time +pageant. + +The Sunday-school parade of Brooklyn is one of the older institutions of +the town that still survives. Annually and upon the first Thursday +afternoon of June the children of all the Sabbath-schools of the borough +march out upon its streets. There is not room even in Prospect Park for +all of these--for sometimes there are 150,000 of them marching of an +afternoon; and the great distances within Brooklyn must also be brought +into consideration. But the largest of the individual parades always +marches in the park--marches like trained troopers up past the +dignitaries in the reviewing stand, and the mayor, and the other city +officers, the Governor of the State, not infrequently the President of +the United States. There is much music, great excitement--and ice-cream +afterwards. Sharp denominational bars are let down and the ice-cream +goes to all. And the boys and girls who are to be the men and women of +the Brooklyn of tomorrow and who are to face its great problems march +proudly by, knowing that the loving eye of father or of mother must be +upon them. + +The problems of the Brooklyn of tomorrow are not to be carelessly +dismissed. Nor is the problem of Brooklyn's future in any way hopeless. +The changing of conditions, the changing of habits, the changing of +institutions does not of necessity spell utter ruin. Cosmopolitanism +does not mean the end of all things. We have called her dull and +emotionless and provincial, and yet many of her residents are quick and +appreciative--well-traveled and well-read--anxious to meet the new +conditions, to solve the problems that have been entailed. And we have +not the slightest doubt that in the long run they will be solved, that +Brooklyn will be ready and willing to undertake the great problem that +has been thrust upon her--the fusing of her hundreds of thousands of +foreign-born into first-rate Americans. + + + + +4 + +WILLIAM PENN'S TOWN + + +To approach Philadelphia in a humble spirit of absolute appreciation, +you must come to her by one of the historic pikes that spread from her +like cart-wheel spokes from their hub. You will find one of those old +roads easily enough, for they radiate from her in every direction. And +when you have found your pike you will discover that it is a fine road, +even in these days when there is a "good-roads movement" abroad in the +land. You can traverse it into town as best suits your fancy--and your +purse. If you are fortunate enough to own an automobile you will find +motoring one of the greatest of many joys in the southeastern corner of +Pennsylvania. If your purse is thin you can have joyous health out of +walking the long miles such as is denied to your proud motorist. And if +you have neither money nor robust health for hard walking, you will find +a trolley line along each of the important pikes. Philadelphia does not +close her most gracious avenues of approach to you--no matter who you +are or what you are. + + * * * * * + +Here we are at the William Penn Inn at dawn of a September morning +waiting to tramp our way, at least to the outskirts of the closely built +part of the city. And before we are away from the tavern which has kept +us through the lonely chill of the night, give it a single parting +glance. It has been standing there at the cross-roads of two of the busy +pikes of Montgomery county for a full century and a half. In all those +years it has not closed its door against man or beast, seeking shelter +or refreshment. There is a record of one hundred and fifty years of +hospitality for which it does not have to make apologies. + +Sometimes you will discover small inns of this sort along the roadsides +of New England, but we do not know where else you will find them without +crossing the Atlantic and seeking them out in the Surrey and the Sussex +of the older England. Yet around Philadelphia they are plentiful--with +their yellow plastered walls, tight green shutters hung against them, +their low-ceilinged rooms, their broad fire-places, their stout stone +out-buildings, and their shady piazzas, giving to the highway. Some of +them have quite wonderful signs and all of them have a wonderful +hospitality--heritage from the Quaker manner of living. + +So from the William Penn Inn one may start after breakfast as one might +have started a century ago--to walk his way into the busy town. The four +corners where the pikes cross stand upon a high ridge--a smooth white +house of stone, a meeting-house of the Friends, and the tavern occupying +three of them. The fourth gives to a view of distant fields--and such a +view! Montgomery is a county of fat farms. You can see the rich lands +down in the valleys, the shrewder genius required to make the more +sterile ridge acres yield. And, as you trudge down the pike, the view +stays with you for a long while. + +At the bottom of the hill a little stream and the inevitable toll-gate +that seem to hedge in Philadelphia from every side. But your payment to +the toll-keeper upon the Bethlehem pike this morning is voluntary. His +smile is genial, his gate open. A cigar is to his liking and if you +would tarry for a little time within the living-room of the toll-house +he would tell you stories of the pike--stories that would make it worth +the waiting. But--Philadelphia is miles away, the road to it long and +dusty. You pick up your way and off you go. + +Little towns and big. Sleepy towns most of them; but occasionally one +into which the railroad has thrust itself and Industry flaunts a smoky +chimney up to the blue sky. Quaker meeting-houses a plenty, with the +tiny grave-stones hardly showing themselves through the long grass +roundabout them. But those same neat stones show that the Friends are a +long-lived folk, and if you lift yourself up to peer through the windows +of one of these meeting-houses you may see the exquisite simplicity of +its arrangement. The meeting-house is modern--it only dates back to +1823--and yet it is typical. Two masses of benches on a slightly +inclined floor, the one side for the men, the other for the women. +Facing them two rows of benches, for the elders. No altar, not even a +pulpit or reading-desk; there is an utter absence of decoration. You do +not wonder that the young folk in this mad, gay day fail to incline to +the old faith of "thee" and "thou," and that no more than forty or fifty +folk, almost all of them close to the evenings of their life gather here +on the morning of First Day. + +Between the villages and the meeting-houses the solid, substantial +farmhouses. And what farmhouses! Farmhouses, immaculate as to whitewash +and to lawn, with cool porches, shaded by brightly striped awnings and +holding windsor chairs and big swinging Gloucester hammocks. This is +farming. And the prosperous look of the staunch barns belies even +thought that this is _dilettante_ agriculture. It is merely evidence +that farmers along the great pikes of Montgomery and Bucks and Berks +have not lost their old-time cunning. And if the farmer no longer drives +his great Conestoga wagons into market at Philadelphia, it is because he +prefers to run in with his own motor car and let other and more modern +transportation methods bring his products to the consumer. + +Lunch at another roadside tavern. Bless your heart, this one, like the +meeting-house of the Friends back the pike a way, is cursed with +modernity. It can only claim sixty years of hospitable existence. Mine +host can tell no fascinating yarn of General Washington having slept +beneath his roof, even though his tavern is named after no less a +personage. Instead he relates mournfully how a tavern over on the +Bristol pike has a tablet in its tap-room telling of the memorable night +that the members of the Continental Congress moving from New York to +Philadelphia tarried under that roof. Two good anecdotes and a corking +name almost make a wayside inn. But the anecdotes are not always easy to +find. + +After lunch and a good rest the last stages of the journey. The little +towns grow more closely together; there are more houses, more +intersecting cross-roads. It will be worth your while not to miss the +signs upon these. The very names on the sign-posts--Plymouth Meeting, +Wheel Pump, Spring House, Bird-in-hand--seem to proclaim that this is a +venerable country indeed. More closely do the houses grow together, the +farms disappear, an ancient mile-post thrusts itself into your vision. +It is stone, but, after the fashion of these Pennsylvania Dutch, +white-washed and readable. It tells you: + + P + 10-1/2 + C.H. + 1 M. + +But Philadelphia in reality is no ten miles away. For here is Chestnut +Hill, the houses numbered, city-fashion and the yellow trolley cars +multiplied within the busy highway which has become a city street +without you having realized the transition. The smart looking policeman +at the corner will tell you that Chestnut Hill is today one of the wards +of Philadelphia. + +The city at last! You may turn at the top of a long hill and for a final +instant confront the country beyond, rolling, fertile, prosperous, the +gentle wooded hills giving soft undulation to the horizon. Then look +forward and face the busy town. For a long time yet your way shall be +down what seems to be the main street of a prosperous village, with its +great homes set away back in green lawns from the noisy pavement and the +public sidewalk. There are shops but they are distinctly local shops and +the churches bear the names of the brisk towns that were submerged in +the making of a larger Philadelphia--Chestnut Hill, Mount Airy, +Germantown. + +And down this same busy street history has marched before you. Some of +it has been recorded here and there in bronze tablets along the street. +In front of one old house, one learns that General Washington conferred +with his officers at the eve of the battle of Germantown and on the +door-steps of another--set even today in its own deep grounds--Redcoat +and Buff struggled in a memorable conflict. For this was the mansion of +Judge Chew, transformed in an instant of an autumn day from +country-house to fortress. It was from the windows of this old house +that six companies of Colonel Musgrave's Fortieth regiment poured down a +deadly fire upon Mad Anthony Wayne and his men even as they attempted to +set fire to it. The house stood and so stood the Fortieth regiment. +General Washington lost his chance to enter Philadelphia that autumn, +and Valley Forge was so writ into the pages of history. + +History! It is spread up and down this main street of Germantown, it +slips down the side-streets and up the alleys, into the hospitable +front-doors of stout stonehouses. Here it shows its teeth in the +bullet-holes of the aged wooden fence back of the Johnson house and +here is the Logan house, the Morris house, the Wend house, the Concord +school and the burying-ground. Any resident of Germantown will tell you +what these old houses mean to it, the part they have played in its +making. + +After Germantown--Philadelphia itself. The road dips down a sudden hill, +loses itself in a short tunnel under a black maze of railroad tracks. +Beyond the railroad track the city is solidly built, row upon row of +narrow streets lined with small flat-roofed brick houses, the monotony +only accentuated by an occasional church-spire or towering factory. In +the distance a group of higher buildings--downtown Philadelphia--rising +above the tallest of them Father Penn poised on the great tower of the +City Hall. No need now for more tramping. The fascination of the open +country is gone and a trolley car will take you through tedious city +blocks--in Philadelphia they call them squares--almost to the door of +that City Hall. They _are tedious_ blocks. Architecturally Philadelphia +is the most monotonous city in America with its little red-brick houses. +Dr. S. Weir Mitchell who has known it through all the years of his life +has called it the "Red City" and rightly, too. + +For mile after mile of the older Philadelphia is mile after mile of +those flat-roofed red-brick houses. They seemingly must have been made +at some mill, in great quantities and from a limited variety of +patterns. For they are almost all alike, with their two or three stories +of narrow windows and doors; steps and lintels and cornice of white +marble and invariably set close upon the sidewalk line. There is no more +generosity than individuality about the typical side streets of +Philadelphia. + +A single thing will catch your eye about these Philadelphia houses--a +small metal device which is usually placed upon the ledge of a +second-story window. The window must be my lady's sitting-room, for a +closer look shows the device to be a mirror, rather two or three +mirrors, so cunningly placed that they will show her folk passing up and +down or standing upon her doorstep without troubling her to leave her +comfortable rocking chair. There must be a hundred thousand of these +devices in Philadelphia. They call them "busy-bodies" quite +appropriately, and they are as typical of the town as its breakfast +scrapple and sausage. + + * * * * * + +Even a slow-moving Philadelphia trolley car eventually accomplishes its +purpose and you will find yourself slipping from the older town into the +oldest. The trolley car grinds around an open square--Franklin square, +the conductor informs you and then tells you that despite its name it is +not to be confounded with that aristocrat, Rittenhouse square, nor even +with the more democratic Logan square. You see that for yourself. There +are mean streets aroundabout this square. Oldest Philadelphia assuredly +is not putting her best foot forward. + +And yet these sordid streets are not without their fascination. The ugly +monotony of flat-roofs is gone. These roofs are high-pitched and bristle +with small-paned dormer windows and with chimneys, for the houses that +stand beneath them are very, very old indeed. And they are typical of +that Georgian architecture that we love to call Colonial. A brave show +these houses once must have made--even today a bit of battered rail, a +fragment of door or window-casing or fanlight proclaims that once they +were quality. Fallen to a low estate, to the housing of Italians or +Chinese instead of quiet Quakers, they seem almost to be content that +their streets have fallen with them; that few seem to seek them out in +this decidedly unfashionable corner of Philadelphia. + +"Arch street," calls the conductor and it is time to get out. It is time +to thread your way down one of the earliest streets of the old Red +City, time to pay your respects at the tomb of him who ranked with Penn, +the Proprietor, as the greatest citizen. You can find this tomb +easily--any newsboy on the street can point the way to it. He is buried +with others of his faith in the quiet yard of Christ church at Fifth and +Arch streets. And in order that the passing world may sometimes stop to +do him the homage of a passing thought, a single section of the old +brick wall has been cut away and replaced by an iron grating. Through +that grating you may see his tomb--a slab of stone sunk flat, for he was +an unpretentious man--and on its face read: + + "Benjamin and Deborah Franklin. 1790." + +Beyond that graveyard you will see a meeting-house of the Friends, one +of the best-known in all that grave city which their patron founded. It +is the meeting-house of the Free Quakers, and to its building both +Franklin and Washington, himself, lent a liberal aid. And you can still +see upon a tablet set in one of its faded brick walls these four lines: + + "By General Subscription, + For the Free Quakers. + Erected A. D. 1783, + Of the Empire 8." + +That "Empire 8" has puzzled a good many tourists. In a republic and +erected upon the gathering-place of as simple a sect as the Friends it +provokes many questions. + +"They must have thought it was goin' to be an empire like that French +Empire that was started by the war in '75," the aged caretaker patiently +will tell you with a shake of the head which shows that he has been +asked that very question many times before and never found a really good +answer for it. + +A few squares below its graveyard is Christ church itself--a splendid +example of the Georgian architecture as we find it in the older cities +close to the Atlantic seaboard. Designed by the architect of +Independence Hall it is second to that great building only in historic +interest. Its grave-yard is a roster of the Philadelphia aristocracy of +other days. In its exquisitely beautiful steeple there hangs a chime of +eight bells brought in the long ago from old England in Captain Budden's +clipper-ship _Matilda_ freight-free. And local tradition relates that +for many years thereafter the approach of Captain Budden's _Matilda_ up +the Delaware was invariably heralded by a merry peal of welcome from the +bells. + +[Illustration: Where William Penn looks down upon the town he loved so +well] + +Philadelphia is rich in such treasure-houses of history. To the +traveler, whose bent runs to such pursuits, she offers a rare field. In +the oldest part of the city there is hardly a square that will not offer +some landmark ripe with tradition and rich with interest. Time has laid +a gentle hand upon the City of Brotherly Love. And no American, who +considers himself worthy of the name, can afford not to visit at least +once in his lifetime the greatest of our shrines--Independence Hall. +Within recent years this fine old building has, like many of its +fellows, undergone reconstruction. But the workmen have labored +faithfully and truthfully and the old State House today, in all its +details, is undoubtedly very much as it stood at the time of the signing +of the Declaration. It still houses the Liberty Bell, that intrepid and +seemingly tireless tourist who visits all the world's fairs with a +resigned patience that might well commend itself to human travelers. + + * * * * * + +Around these landmarks of colonial Philadelphia there ebbs and flows the +human tides of the modern city. The windows of what is today the finest +as well as the largest printing-house in the land look down upon the +tree-filled square in which stands Independence Hall. A little while +ago this printing concern looked down upon the grave of that earlier +printer--Franklin. But growth made it necessary to move from Arch +street--the busiest and the noisiest if not the narrowest of all precise +pattern of parallel roads that William Penn--the Proprietor of other +days--laid back from the Delaware to the Schuylkill river. + +One square from Arch street is Market, designed years ago by the +far-sighted Quaker to be just what it is today--a great commercial +thoroughfare of one of the metropolitan cities of America. At its feet +the ferries cross the Delaware to the fair New Jersey land. Up its +course to the City Hall--or as the Philadelphian will always have it, +the Public Buildings--are department stores, one of them a commercial +monument to the man who made the modern department store possible and so +doing became the greatest merchant of his generation. Department stores, +big and little, two huge railroad terminals which seem always +thronged--beyond the second of them desolation for Market street--a +dreary course to the Schuylkill; beyond that stream it exists as a mere +utility street, a chief artery to the great residence region known as +West Philadelphia. + +Arch street, Market street, then the next--Chestnut street. Now the +heart of your real Philadelphian begins to beat staccato. Other lands +may have their Market streets--your San Francisco man may hardly admit +that his own Market street could ever be equaled--but there is only one +Chestnut street in all this land. + +The big department stores have given way to smaller shops--shops where +Philadelphia quality likes to browse and bargain. Small restaurants, +designed quite largely to meet the luncheon and afternoon tea tastes of +feminine shoppers show themselves. Upon a prominent corner there stands +a very unusual grocery shop. That is, it must be a grocery shop for +that is what it advertises itself, but in the window is a _papier-mache_ +reproduction of the _table-d'hôte_ luncheon that it serves upon its +balcony, and within there are quotations from Shakespeare upon the wall +and "best-sellers" sold upon its counters. + +And after Chestnut street, which runs the gamut from banks to retail +shops and then to smart homes, Walnut street. We have been tempted to +call Walnut "the Street of the Little Tailors," for so many shops have +they from Seventh street to Broad that one comes quickly to know why +Philadelphia men are as immaculate to clothes as to good manners. +Between the little shops of the tailors there are other little +shops--places where one may find old prints, old books, old bits of +china or bronze. Walnut street runs its course and at the intersection +of Broad is a group of four great hotels, two of them properly +hyphenated, after modern fashion. Beyond Broad it changes. No shops may +now profane it, for it now penetrates the finest residential district of +Philadelphia. Here is the highway of aristocracy and in a little way +will be Rittenhouse square--the holy of holies. + +Just as Market street in San Francisco forms the sharp demarking line +between possible and impossible so does Market street, Philadelphia, +perform a similar service for William Penn's city. You must live "below" +Market street, which means somewhere south of that thoroughfare. "No +one" lives "above Market," which is, of course, untrue, for many +hundreds of thousands of very estimable folk live north of that street. +In fact, two-thirds of the entire population of Philadelphia live north +of Market, which runs in a straight line almost east and west. But +society--and society in Philadelphia rules with no unsteady +hand--decries that a few city squares south of Market and west of Broad +shall be its own _demesne_. You may have your country house out in the +lovely suburbs of the town, if you will, and there are no finer suburban +villages in all the world than Bryn Mawr or Ognotz or Jenkintown--but if +you live in town you must live in the correct part of the town or give +up social ambitions. And there is little use carrying social ambitions +to Philadelphia anyway. No city in the land, not even Boston or +Charleston, opens its doors more reluctantly to strange faces and +strange names, than open these doors of the old houses roundabout +Rittenhouse square. And for man or woman coming resident to the town to +hope to enter one of Philadelphia's great annual Assemblies within a +generation is quite out of the possibilities. + +Rittenhouse square may seem warm and friendly and democratic with its +neat pattern of paths and grass-plots, its rather genteel loungers upon +its shadiest benches, the children of the nurse-maids playing beneath +the trees. But the great houses that look down into it are neither warm +nor friendly nor democratic. They are merely gazing at you--and +inquiring--inquiring if you please, if you have Pennsylvania blood and +breeding. If you have not, closed houses they are to remain to you. But +if you do possess these things they will open--with as warm and friendly +a hospitality as you may find in the land. There is the first trace of +the Southland in the hospitality of Philadelphia, just as her red brick +houses, her brick pavement and her old-fashioned use of the market, +smack of the cities that rest to the south rather than those to the +north. + + * * * * * + +To give more than a glimpse of the concrete Philadelphia within these +limits is quite out of the question. It would mean incidentally the +telling of her great charities, her wonderful museum of art whose winter +show is an annual pilgrimage for the painters from all the eastern +portion of the land, of her vast educational projects. Two of these +last deserve a passing mention, however. One might never write of +Philadelphia and forget her university--that great institution upon the +west bank of the Schuylkill which awoke almost overnight to find itself +man-size, a man-sized opportunity awaiting. And one should not speak of +the University of Pennsylvania and forget the college that Stephen +Girard founded. Of course Girard College is not a college at all but a +great charity school for boys, but it is none the less interesting +because of that. + +The story of Stephen Girard is the story of the man who was not alone +the richest man in Philadelphia but the richest man in America as well. +But among all his assets he did not have happiness. His beautiful young +wife was sent to a madhouse early in her life, and Girard shut himself +off from the companionship of men, save the necessity of business +dealings with them. He was known as a stern, irascible, hard screw of a +man--immensely just but seemingly hardly human. Only once did +Philadelphia ever see him as anything else--and that was in the yellow +fever panic at the end of the eighteenth century when Stephen Girard, +its great merchant and banker, went out and with his own purse and his +own hands took his part in alleviating the disaster. It was many years +afterward that Girard College came into being; its center structure a +Greek temple, probably the most beautiful of its sort in the land, and +its stern provision against the admission of clergymen even to the +grounds of the institution, a reflection of its founder's hard mind +coming down through the years. Today it is a great charity school, +taking boys at eight years of age and keeping them, if need be, until +they are eighteen, and in all those years not only schooling but housing +them and feeding them as well as the finest private-school in all this +land. + +And as Girard College and the University of Pennsylvania stand among the +colleges of America, so stands Fairmount Park among the public pleasure +grounds of the country. It was probably the first public park in the +whole land, and a lady who knows her Philadelphia thoroughly has found +many first things in Philadelphia--the first newspaper, the first +magazine, the first circulating library, the first medical college, the +first corporate bank, the first American warship, the unfurling of the +first American flag, not least of these the first real world's fair ever +held upon this side of the Atlantic. For it was the Centennial which not +only made Fairmount Park a resort of nation-wide reputation, not only +opened new possibilities of amusement to a land which had always taken +itself rather seriously, but marked the turning of an era in the +artistic and the social, as well as the political life of the United +States. The Centennial was, judged by the standard of the greatest +expositions that followed it, a rather crude affair. Its exhibits were +simple, the buildings that housed them fantastic and barnlike. And the +weather-man assisted in the general enjoyment by sending the mercury to +unprecedented heights that entire summer. Philadelphia is never very +chilly in the summer; the northern folk who went to it in that +not-to-be-forgotten summer of 1876 felt that they had penetrated the +tropics. And yet when it was all over America had the pleased feeling of +a boy who finds that he can do something new. And even sober folk felt +that a beginning had been made toward a wider view of life across the +United States. + +It is nearly forty years since the Centennial sent the tongues of a +whole land buzzing and the two huge structures that it left in Fairmount +Park have begun to grow old, but the park itself is as fresh and as new +as in the days of its beginning, and there are parts of it that were +half a century old before the Centennial opened its doors. There are +many provisions for recreation within its great boundaries, boating upon +the Schuylkill, the drives that border that river, the further drive +that leaves it and sweeps through the lovely glen of the Wissahickon. + +The Wissahickon Drive is a joy that does not come to every +Philadelphian. That winding road is barred to sight-seeing cars and +automobiles of indiscriminate sort because the quality of the town +prefers to keep it to itself. So runs Philadelphia; a town which is in +many ways sordid, which has probably the full share of suffering that +must come to every large city, but which bars its fine drive to the +proletariat while Rittenhouse square blandly wonders why Socialism makes +progress across the land. Philadelphia does not progress--in any broad +social sense. She plays cricket--splendidly--is one of the few American +towns in which that fine English game flourishes--and she dispenses her +splendid charity in the same senseless fashion as sixty years ago. But +she does not understand the trend of things today--and so she bars her +Wissahickon Drive except to those who drive in private carriages or +their own motor car, and delivers the finest of the old Colonial houses +within her Fairmount Park area to clubs--of quality. + +Personally we much prefer John Bartram's house to any of those splendid +old country-seats within Fairmount. To find Bartram's Gardens you need a +guide--or a really intelligent street-car conductor. For there is not +even a marking sign upon its entrance, although Philadelphia professes +to maintain it as a public park. Little has been done, however, to the +property, and for that he who comes to it almost as a shrine has reason +to be profoundly thankful. For the old house stands, with its barns, +almost exactly as it stood in the days of the great naturalist. One may +see where his hands placed the great stone inscribed "John-Ann Bartram +1731" within its gable; on the side wall another tablet chiseled there +forty years later, and reading: + + "Tis God alone, almighty Lord, + The holy one by me adored." + +Neglect may have come upon the gardens but even John Bartram could not +deny the wild beauty of these untrammeled things. The gentle river is +still at the foot of the garden, within it, most of the shrubs and trees +he planted are still growing into green old age. And next to his fine +old simple house one sees the tangled yew-tree and the Jerusalem +"Christ's-thorn" that his own hands placed within the ground. + + * * * * * + +Philadelphia prides herself upon her dominant Americanism--and with no +small reason. She insists that by keeping the doorways to her houses +sharply barred she maintains her native stock, her trained and +responsible stock, if you please, dominant. She avers that she protects +American institutions. New York may become truly cosmopolitan, may ape +foreign manners and foreign customs. Philadelphia in her quiet, gentle +way prefers to preserve those of her fathers. + +One instance will suffice. She has preserved the American +Sabbath--almost exactly as it existed half a century ago. As to the +merits and demerits of that very thing, they have no place here. But the +fact remains that Philadelphia has accomplished it. From Saturday night +to Monday morning a great desolation comes upon the town. There are no +theaters not even masquerading grotesquely as "sacred concerts," no open +saloons, no baseball games, no moving pictures--nothing exhibiting for +admission under a tight statute of Pennsylvania, in effect now for more +than a century. And it is only a few years ago that the churches were +permitted to stretch chains across the streets during the hours of +their services. A few bad fires, however, with the fire-engines +becoming entangled with the chains and this custom was abandoned. But +the churches are still open, and they are well attended. It is an +old-fashioned Sabbath and it seems very good indeed to old-fashioned +Americans. + +But upon the other six days of the week she offers a plenitude of +comfort and of amusement. She is accustomed to good living--her oysters, +her red-snappers, and her scrapple are justly famous. She is accustomed +to good playing. In the summer she has far more than Fairmount Park. +Atlantic City--our American Brighton--is just fifty-six miles distant +both in crow-flight and in the even path of the railroads, and because +of their wonderful high-speed service many Philadelphians commute back +and forth there all summer long. + +For the old Red City is a paradise for commuters. Those few blocks +aroundabout Rittenhouse square that her social rulers have set aside as +being elect for city residence, long since have grown all too small for +a great city--the great monotonous home sections north of Market and +west of the Schuylkill are hot and dreary. So he who can, builds a stone +house out in the lovely vicinage of the great city, and when you are far +away from the high tower of the Public Buildings and find two +Philadelphians having joyous argument you will probably find that they +are discussing the relative merits of the "Main Line," the "Central +Division" or the "Reading." + +And yet the best of Philadelphia good times come in winter. She is famed +for her dances and her dinners--large and small. She is inordinately +fond of recitals and of exhibitions. She is a great theater-goer. And +local tradition makes one strict demand. In New York if a young man of +good family takes a young girl of good family to the theater he is +expected to take her in a carriage. She may provide the carriage--for +these days have become shameful--but it must be a carriage none the +less. In Philadelphia if a young man of good family takes a young woman +of good family to the theater he must not take her in a carriage, not +even if he owns a whole fleet of limousines. Therein one can perhaps see +something of the dominating distinctions between the two great +communities. + +But what Philadelphia loves most of all is a public festival. It does +not matter so very much just what is to be celebrated as long as there +can be a fine parade up Broad street--which just seems to have been +really designed for fine parades. On New Year's Eve while New York is +drinking itself into a drunken stupor, Philadelphia masks and +disguises--and parades. On every possible anniversary, on each public +birthday of every sort she parades--with the gay discordancies of many +bands, with long files of stolid and perspiring policemen or firemen or +civic societies, with rumbling top-heavy floats that mean whatever you +choose to have them mean. Rittenhouse square does not hold aloof from +these festivals. Oh, no, indeed! Rittenhouse square disguises itself as +grandfather or grandmother or as any of the many local heroes and rides +within the parade--more likely upon the floats. The parades are +invariably well done. And the proletariat of Philadelphia comes out from +the side streets and makes a double black wall of humanity for the long +miles of Broad street. + +There is something reminiscent of Bourbon France in the way that Bourbon +Rittenhouse square dispenses these festivals unto the rest of the town. +It is all very diaphanous and very artificial but it is very sensuous +and beautiful withal, and perhaps the rest of the town for a night +forgets some of its sordidness and misery. And the picture that one of +these celebrations makes upon the mind of a stranger is indelible. + +Like all of such _fêtes_ it gains its greatest glory at dusk. As +twilight comes the strident colors of the city fade; it becomes a thing +of shapes and shadows--even the restless crowd is tired and softened. +Then the genius of electricity comes to transform workaday land into +fairyland and all these shapes and shadows sharpen--this time in living +glowing lines of fire. It is time for men to exult, to forget that they +have ever been tired. Such is the setting that modern America can give a +parade. Father Penn stands on his tall tower above it all, the most +commanding figure of his town. Below him the searchlights play and a +million incandescents glow; the shuffling of the crowds, the faint +cadences of the band, the echoes of the cheering crowd come up to him. +But he does not move. His hands, his great bronze hands, are spread in +benediction over the great gay sturdy city which he brought into +existence these long years ago. + + + + +5 + +THE MONUMENTAL CITY + + +If you approach Philadelphia by dusty highway, it is quite as +appropriate that you come to Baltimore by water highway. A multitude of +them run out from her brisk and busy harbor and not all of them find +their way to the sea. In fact one of the most fascinating of all of them +leads to Philadelphia--an ancient canal dug when the railroad was being +born and in all these years a busy and a useful water-carrier. If you +are a tourist and time is not a spurring object, take the little steamer +which runs through the old canal from the city of William Penn to the +city of Lord Baltimore. It is one of the nicest one-day trips that we +know in all the east--and apparently the one that is the least known. +Few gazetteers or tourist-guides recommend or even notice it. And yet it +remains one of the most attractive single-day journeys by water that we +have ever taken. + +If you will only scan your atlas you will find that nature has offered +slight aid to such a single-day voyage. She builded no direct way +herself but long ago man made up the omission. He dug the Chesapeake and +Delaware canal in the very year that railroading was born within the +United States. For remember that in 1829 the dreamers, who many times +build the future, saw the entire nation a great network of +waterways--natural and artificial. They builded the Chesapeake and +Delaware canal bigger than any that had gone before. No mere mule-drawn +barges were to monopolize it. It was designed for river and bay +craft--a highway for vessels of considerable tonnage. + + * * * * * + +You arrive at this canal after sailing three hours down the Delaware +river from Philadelphia--past the Navy Yard at League island, the piers +and jetties at Marcus Hook that help to keep navigation open throughout +the winter and many and many a town whose age does not detract from all +its charm. The river widens into a great estuary of the sea. The narrow +procession of inbound and outbound craft files through a thin channel +that finally widens in a really magnificent fairway. + +Suddenly your steamer turns sharply toward the starboard, toward another +of the sleepy little towns that you have been watching all the way down +from Philadelphia--the man who knows and who stands beside you on the +deck will tell you that it is Delaware City--and right there under a +little clump of trees is the beginning of the canal. You can see it +plainly, with its entrance lock and guarding light, and if the day be +Sunday or some holiday the townfolk will be down under the trees +watching the steamer enter the lock. It is not much of a lock--scarcely +eleven inches of raise at the flow of the tide--but it serves to protect +the languid stretch of canal that reaches a long way inland. This +gateway is a busy one at all times, for the Chesapeake and Delaware is +one of the few old-time canals that has retained its prestige and its +traffic. An immense freight tonnage passes through it in addition to the +day-boats and the night-boats between Philadelphia and Baltimore. +Moreover, the motor boats are already finding it of great service as an +important link in the inside water-route that stretches north and south +for a considerable distance along the Atlantic coast. + +[Illustration: In Baltimore Harbor] + +Engines go at quarter-speed through the thirteen miles of the canal and +the man who prefers to take his travel fast has no place upon the +boat. Four miles an hour is its official speed limit and even then the +"wash" of larger craft is frequently destructive to the banks. But what +of that speed limit with a good magazine in your hands and a slowly +changing vista of open country ever spread before your hungry eyes? You +approach swing-bridges with distinction, they slowly unfold at the sharp +order of the boat's whistle, holding back ancient nags of little +Delaware, drawing mud-covered buggies; heavy Conestoga wagons filled +with farm produce for the towns and cities to the north; sometimes a big +automobile snorting and puffing as if in rage at a few minutes of +enforced delay. + +On the long stretches between the bridges the canal twists and turns as +if finding its way, railroad fashion, between increasing slight +elevations. Sometimes it is very wide and the tow-path side--for +sailing-craft are often drawn by mules through it--is a slender +embankment reaching across a broad expanse of water. You meet whole +flotillas of freighters all the way and when edging your way past them +you throw your Philadelphia morning paper into their wheel-houses you +win real thanks. All the way the country changes its variety--and does +not lose its fascination. + +So sail to Baltimore. At Chesapeake City you are done with the canal, +just when it may have begun to tire you ever and ever so slightly. Your +vessel drops through a deep lock into the Back creek, an estuary of the +Elk river. The Elk river in turn is an estuary of Chesapeake bay and you +are upon one of the remote tendons of that really marvelous system of +waterways that has its focal point in Hampton Roads and reaches for +thousands of miles into Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and North +Carolina. + +You sweep through the Elk river and then through the upper waters of the +Chesapeake bay, just born from the yellow flood of the Susquehanna, as +the day dies. As the sun is nearly down, your ship turns sharply, leaves +the Bay and begins the ascent of the Patapsco river. Signs of a nearby +city, a great city if you please, multiply. There are shipbuilding +plants upon distant shores, the glares of foundry cupolas, multiplying +commerce--Baltimore is close at hand. + +And so you sail into Baltimore--into that lagoon-like harbor at the very +heart of the town. The steamboats that go sailing further down the +Chesapeake that poke their inquisitive noses into the reaches of the +Pocomoke, the Pianatank, the Nanticoke, the Rappahannock, the +Cocohannock, the Big Wicomico and the Little Wicomico--all of these +water highways of a land of milk and honey and only rivaling one another +in their quiet lordly beauty--sail in and out of Baltimore. There are +many of these steamers as you come into the inner harbor of the city, +tightly tethered together with noses against the pier just as we used to +see horses tied closely to one another at the hitching-rails, at +fair-time in the home town years ago. And they speak the strength of the +manorial city of Lord Baltimore. For the city that sits upon the hills +above her landlocked little harbor draws her strength from a rich +country for many miles roundabout. For many years she has set there, +confident in her strength, leading in progress, firm in resource. + +For well you may call Baltimore--quite as much as Philadelphia--a city +of first things. There are almost too many of these to be recounted +here. It is worthy of note, however, that in Baltimore came the first +use in America of illuminating gas, which drove out the candle and the +oil lamp as relics of a past age. Baltimore's historic playhouse, +Peale's Museum, was the first in all the land to be set aglow by the new +illuminant. And one may well imagine the glow of pride also that dwelt +that memorable evening upon the faces of all the folk who were gathered +in that ancient temple of the drama. + +And yet there was an earlier "first thing" of even greater +importance--the hour of inspiration a century ago when an enemy's guns +were trained on that stout old guardian of the town's harbor, Fort +McHenry--an engagement to be remembered almost solely by the fact that +the "Star Spangled Banner" first lodged itself in the mind of man. But +to our minds the greatest of the many, many "first things" of Baltimore +was the coming of the railroad. For the first real railroad system in +America--the Baltimore & Ohio--was planned by the citizens of the old +town--ambitious dreamers each of them--as an offset to those rival +cities to the north, Philadelphia and New York, who were creating canals +to develop their commerce--at the expense of the commerce of Baltimore. +So it was that a little group of merchants gathered in the house of +George Brown, on the evening of the 12th of February, 1827, a date not +to be regarded lightly in the annals of the land. For out of that +meeting was to come a new America--a growing land that refused to be +bound by high mountains or wide rivers. Not that the little gathering of +Baltimore merchants pointed an instant or an easy path to quick +prosperity. The path of the Baltimore & Ohio was hedged about for many +years with trials and disappointments. It was more than a quarter of a +century before it was a railroad worthy of the name, meeting even in +part the ideals and dreams of the men who had planned it to bring their +city in touch with the Ohio and the other navigable rivers of the +unknown West. And at the beginning it was a fog-blinded path that +confronted them. Over in England an unknown youth was experimenting with +that uncertain toy, the steam locomotive, while a Russian gentleman of +known intelligence gravely predicted that a car set with sails to go +before the wind upon its rails was the most practical form of +transportation. And it is worthy of mention that the earliest of the +Baltimore and Ohio steam locomotives was beaten in a neck-and-neck race +toward the West by a stout gray horse. The name of the old locomotive is +still recorded in the annals of the railroad but that of the gray horse +is lost forever. + + * * * * * + +To know and to love the Baltimore of today, one must know and love the +Baltimore of yesterday. He must know her lore, her traditions, her first +families--the things that have gone to make the modern city. He must +see, as through magic glasses, the Baltimore of other days, the city +that came into her own within a very few years after the close of the +American Revolution. His imagination must depict that stout old merchant +and banker, Alexander Brown; Evan Thomas, the first president of +Baltimore's own railroad; B. H. Latrobe, the first great architect and +engineer that a young nation should come to know and whose real memorial +is in certain portions of the great Federal Capitol at Washington. He +must see Winans, the car-builder, and Peter Cooper, tinkering with the +locomotive. He may turn toward less commercial things and find Rembrandt +Peale; and if his glasses be softened by the amber tints of charity he +may see a drunkard staggering through the streets of old Baltimore to +die finally in a gutter, while some men put their fingers to their lips +and whisper that "Mr. Poe's _Raven_ may be literature after all." + +It is indeed the old Baltimore that you must first come to know and to +love, if you are ever to understand the personality of the Baltimore of +today. The new Baltimore is a splendid city. Its fine new homes, its +many, many schools and colleges proclaim that here is a center of real +culture; its great churches, its theaters, its modern hotels, its broad +avenues are worthy of a city of six hundred thousand humans. Druid Hill +Park at the back of the new Baltimore is worthy of a city of a million +souls. From it you can ride or stroll downtown through Eutaw place, that +broad parked avenue which is the full pride of the new Baltimore. +Suddenly you turn to the left, pass through a few mean streets, the gray +pile of the Fifth Regiment armory, known nationally because of the great +conventions that have been held beneath its spreading walls, see the +nearby tower of Mount Royal station--after that you are in the region of +the uptown hotels and theaters--thrusting themselves into the long lines +of tight, red-brick houses. These are builded after the fashion of the +Philadelphia houses, even as to their white marble door-steps, and yet +possess a charm and distinction of their own. + +There are many of these old houses upon this really fine street, and you +crane your neck at the first intersection to catch its name upon the +sign-post. "Charles Street" it reads and with a little gladsome memory +you recall a bit of verse that you saw a long time ago in the _Baltimore +Sun_. It reads somewhat after this fashion: + + Its heart is in Mount Vernon square, + Its head is in the green wood: + Its feet are stretched along the ways + Where swarms the foreign brood; + A modicum of Bon Marche, + That sublimated store-- + And Oh, the treasure that we have + In Charles street, Baltimore! + + I love to watch the moving throng, + The afternoon parade; + The coaches rolling home to tea, + The young man and the maid; + The gentlemen who dwell in clubs, + The magnates of the town-- + Oh, Charles street has a smile for them, + And never wears a frown! + + The little shops, so cool and sweet; + The finesse and the grace + Which mark the mercantility + Of such a market-place; + And then beyond the tempting stores + The quietness that runs + Into the calm and stately square + With marble denizens. + + The little and the larger stores + Are tempting, to be sure; + But they are only half the charm + That Charles street holds to lure; + For here and there along the way, + How sweet the homes befall-- + The domicile that holds his Grace, + The gentle Cardinal. + + The mansions with pacific mien + Whose windows say "Come in!" + The touches of colonialness, + The farness of the din + That rolls a city league away + And leaves this dainty street + A cool and comfortable spot + Where past and present meet. + + A measure of la boulevard + Before whose windows pass + The madame and the damoisel, + The gallant and the lass; + The gravest and the most sedate, + The young and gay it calls; + And, oh, how proper over it-- + The shadows of St. Paul's! + + Dip down the hill and well away, + The southward track it takes, + O fickleness, how many quips, + How many turns it takes! + But ever in its greensward heart, + From head to foot we pour + The homage of our love of it-- + Dear Charles street, Baltimore! + +[Illustration: Charles Street--Baltimore] + +You are standing in Mount Vernon square, the very heart of Charles +street. It is a little open place, shaped like a Maltese cross rather +than a real square or oblong, with a modern apartment house looming up +upon it, whose façades of French Renaissance give a slightly Parisian +touch to that corner of the square. To the rest of it, bordered with +sober, old-time mansions there is nothing Parisian, unless you stand +apart and gaze at the Monument, which sends its great shaft some two +hundred feet up into the air. There are such columns in Paris. + +It is the Monument that dominates Mount Vernon square, that adds variety +to the vistas up and down through Charles street. For eighty years it +has stood there, straight and true; for eighty years General Washington +has looked down into the gardens of Charles street, upon the children +who are playing there, the folk coming home at night. It is the most +dominating thing in Baltimore, which has never acquired the sky-scraper +habit, and because of it we have always known Baltimore as the +Monumental City. + + * * * * * + +Now turn from the modern Baltimore--right down this street which runs +madly off the sharp hill of Mount Vernon square. Charles street, with +all of its shops and gentle gayety, is quickly left behind. At the foot +of the hill runs St. Paul street and it is a busy and a somewhat sordid +way. But at St. Paul street rises Calvert station and since you are to +see so many great railroad stations before you are done with the cities +of America, take a second look at this. Calvert station is not great. It +is not magnificent. It is not imposing. It is old, very, very old--as +far as we know the oldest of all the important stations that are still +in use today. From its smoky trainshed the trains have been going up the +Northern Central toward Harrisburg and the Susquehanna country--the +farther lands beyond--since 1848. And that trainshed, with its +stout-pegged wooden-trussed roof held aloft on two rows of solid stone +pillars, seems good for another sixty-five years. + +Old Baltimore holds tightly to its ideals of yesterday. Over in another +of the older parts of the town you can still find Camden station, which +in 1857 was not only proclaimed as the finest railroad terminal that was +ever built but that ever could be built, still in use and a busy place +indeed. The Eutaw House, spared by the great fire of a decade ago, but +finally forced to close its doors in the face of the competition of +better located and more elaborate hostelries, still stands. The ancient +cathedral remains a great lion, the old-time red shaft of the Merchants' +Tower still thrusts itself into the vista as you look east from the +Monument square there in front of the Post Office. Across the harbor you +can find Fort McHenry, as silent sentinel of that busy place. Baltimore +does not easily forget. + +And here, as you plunge down into the little congested district +roundabout Jones Falls you are at last in the really old Baltimore. The +streets are as rambling and as crooked as old Quebec. Some of their +gutters still run with sewage although it is to be fairly said to the +credit of the town that she is today fast doing away with these. And +once in a time you can stand at the open door of an oyster establishment +and watch the negroes shocking those bivalves--singing as they work. For +just below Baltimore is a great _habitat_ of the oyster as well as of +the crab, to say nothing of some more aristocratic denizens--the +diamond-back terrapin for instance. Boys with trays--many of them +negroes--walk the wharves and streets of old Baltimore selling cold +deviled crabs at five cents each. Those crabs are uniformly delicious, +and the boys sell them as freely on the streets as the boys down in +Staunton and some other Virginia towns sell cold chicken. + +Now we are across Jones Falls[B]--that unimpressive stream that gullies +through Baltimore--and plunging into Old Town. Other cities may boast +their _quartiers_, Baltimore has Old Town. And she clings to the name +and the traditions it signifies with real affection. Here is indeed the +oldest part of Old Town and if we search quietly through its narrow, +crowded streets we may still see some of the old inns, dating well back +into the eighteenth century, their cluttered court-yards still telling +in eloquent silence of the commotion that used to come when the coaches +started forth up the new National Pike to Cumberland or distant +Wheeling, north to York and Philadelphia. And everywhere are the little +old houses of that earlier day. Even in the more distinctively +residential sections of the town many of them still stand, and they are +so very much like toy houses enlarged under some powerful glass that we +think of Spotless Town and those wonderful rhymes that we used to see +above our heads in the street cars. But they represent Baltimore's +solution of her housing problem. + + [B] During the past year Baltimore has made a very + creditable progress toward building an important commercial + street over Jones Falls; thus transforming it into a hidden, + tunneled sewer. Residents of the city will not soon forget, + however, that it was at Jones Falls that the engines of the + New York Fire Department took their stand and halted the + great fire of 1904. E. H. + +For she has no tenements, even few high-grade apartments. She has, like +her Quaker neighbor to the north, mile upon mile of little red-brick +houses, all these also with white door-steps--marble many times, and in +other times wood, kept dazzling and immaculate with fresh paintings. In +these little houses Baltimore lives. You may find here and there some +one of them no more than ten or twelve feet in width and but two stories +high, but it is a house and while you occupy it, your own. And the rent +of it is ridiculously low--compared even with the lower-priced +apartments and the tenements of New York. That low rent, combined with +the profuse and inexpensive markets of the town, makes Baltimore a cheap +place in which to live. The proximity of her parks and the democracy of +her boulevards makes her a very comfortable place of residence--even for +a poor man. And you may live within your little house and of a summer +evening sit upon your "pleasure porch" as comfortably as any prince. + +In Baltimore it is always a "pleasure porch," thus proclaiming her as a +real gateway to the old South--the South of flavor and of romance. In +Baltimore, you always say "Baltimore City," probably in distinction to +Baltimore county, which surrounds it, and your real Baltimorean delights +to speak of his morning journal as "that _Sun_ paper." The town clings +conservatively to its old tricks of speech, and if you pick up that +newspaper you will perhaps find the advertisement of an auctioneer +preparing to sell the effects of some family "declining housekeeping." + +That same fine conservatism is reflected in her nomenclature--first as +you see it upon the shop signs and the door-plates. She has not felt the +flood of foreign invasion as some of our other cities have felt it. She +is not cosmopolitan--and she is proud of that. And the names that one +sees along her streets are for the most part the good names of English +lineage. Even the names of the streets themselves are proof of +that--Alpaca and April alleys, Apple, and Apricot courts, Crab +court, Cuba street, China street--which takes one back to the +days of the famous clipper ships which sailed from the wharves of +Baltimore--Featherbed lane, Johnny-cake road, Maidenchoice lane, Pen +Lucy avenue, Sarah Ann street--who shall say that conservatism does not +linger in these cognomens? And what shall one say of conservatism and +Baltimore's devotion to Charles street, sending that famous thoroughfare +up through the county to the north as Charles Street avenue and then as +Charles Street Avenue extension? + + * * * * * + +Do not mistake Baltimore conservatism for a lack of progress. You can +hardly make greater mistake. For Baltimore today is constantly planning +to better her harbor, to improve the beginning that she has already made +in the establishment of municipal docks--her jealousy of a certain +Virginia harbor far to the south is working much good to herself. She is +constantly bettering her markets--today they are not only among the most +wonderful but the most efficient in the whole land. And today she is +planning a great common terminal for freight right within her heart--a +sizable enterprise to be erected at a cost of some ten millions of +dollars. For she is determined that her reputation for giving good +living to her citizens and at a low cost shall be maintained. She +realizes that much of that cost is the cost of food distribution, and +while almost every other city in the land is floundering and +experimenting she is going straight ahead--with definite progress in +view. Such purpose and such plans make first-rate aids to conservatism. + + * * * * * + +"Baltimore can prove to any one who will give her half a chance, what a +good, a dignified, a charming thing it is to be an American town," +writes one man of her. He knows her well and he does not go by the mark. +Baltimore is good, is dignified, is altogether charming. And she is an +American town of the very first rank. + + + + +6 + +THE AMERICAN MECCA + + +Just as all the roads of old Italy led to Rome so do all the roads of +this broad republic lead to Washington--its seat of government. At every +season of the year travelers are bound to it. It is in the spring-time, +however, that this travel begins to assume the proportions of the +hegira. It is a patriotic trek--essentially. And the slogan "Every true +American should see Washington at least once" has been changed by shrewd +railroad agents and hotel-keepers to "Every true American should see +Washington once a year," although some of the true Americans after one +experience with Washington hotel-keepers are apt to say that once in a +life-time is quite enough. But the national capital is worth all the +hardships, all the extortions large and small. It is a patriotic shrine +and, quite incidentally, the most beautiful city in America, if not the +world, and so it is that there is not a month in the year that Americans +are not pouring through its gateway--the wonderful new Union station. + +That terminal still opens the eyes of those folk who come trooping down +toward the Potomac--old fellows who still remember the last time they +went to Washington and the entire country was a-bristle with military +camps and bristling guns, little shavers entering for the first time the +City of Perpetual Delights, lovelorn bridal couples, excursions from +Ohio, round-trips from off back in the Blue Ridge mountains, parties +from up in Pennsylvania--the broad concourse of the railroad station at +Washington is a veritable parade-ground of latent and varied +Americanism. + +The members of a self-appointed Reception Committee are waiting for the +tourists--just outside the marble portals of the station. Some of them +are hotel-runners, others are cab-drivers, but they are all there and +their eyes are seemingly unerring. How quickly they detect the stranger +who has heard the "true American" slogan for the first time, and who has +the return part of his ten-day limit ticket tucked safely away in his +shabby old wallet. + +"Seein' Washington! A brilliant trip of two hours through the homes of +wealth an' fashion, with a lecture explainin' every point of interest +an' fame." + +Here is the first welcoming cry of the Reception Committee--and seasoned +tourist that you are, you do not yield to it. You shake your head in a +determined "no" to the barker at the station but a little while later +over in Pennsylvania avenue you succumb. Two dashing young black-haired +ladies--slender symphonies in white--are sitting high upon one of the +large travel-stained peripatetic grandstands. On another sight-seeing +automobile over across the street are two very blondes--in black. You +cast your fate upon the ladies with the black hair and the white dresses +and climb upon the wagon with them. At intervals you look enviously upon +mere passers-by. Then the intervals cease. Two young men climb upon the +wagon and boldly engage themselves in conversation with the young +ladies. At the very moment when you are about to interfere in the name +of propriety, you discover that the young ladies seem to like it. At any +rate you decide it will be interesting to listen to their conversation +and the important young man who is in charge of the grandstand has taken +your non-refundable dollar for the trip. Otherwise you might still +change in favor of the blondes who are sitting huddled under a single +green sunshade and who look bored with themselves. + +You sit ... and sit ... and sit. An old lady finds her cumbersome way up +on the front seat and fumbles for her dollar. A deaf gentleman perches +himself upon the rear bench. After which you sit some more. Three or +four more true Americans find their way upon the wagon. You still sit. +An elderly couple crowds in upon your bench. The man has whiskers like +Uncle Joe Cannon or a cartoon, but his wife seems to have subdued him, +after all these years. The sitting continues. Finally, when patience is +all but exhausted, the personal conductor of the car shouts "All aboard" +and the two young ladies in white duck drop off nimbly. For a moment +their acquaintances seem non-plussed. Then they understand, for they, +too, jump off and follow after. + +The chauffeur fumbles with the crank of the top-heavy car. It does not +respond readily. The chauffeur perspires and the personal conductor--who +will shortly emerge in the rôle of lecturer--offers advice. The +chauffeur softly profanes. Interested spectators gather about and begin +to make comments of a personal nature. Finally, when the chauffeur is +about to give it all up and you and yours are to be plunged into +mortification--you can safely suspect those young blondes on the rival +enterprise across the way of laughing in their tight little sleeves at +you--the engine begins to snort violently and throb industriously. The +chauffeur wipes the perspiration from his brow with the back of his hand +and smiles triumphantly at the scoffers across the street. + +He jumps into his seat briskly, as if afraid that the car might change +its mind, and you are off. The ship's company settles into various +stages of contentment. Seein' Washington at last.... The lecturer +reaches for his megaphone. + +But not so fast--this is Washington. + +The real start has not yet begun. All these are but preliminaries to the +start of the real start. You are not going to bump into the world of +wealth and fashion as quickly as all this. You go along Pennsylvania +avenue for another two squares and for twenty minutes more traffic is +solicited. The novelty wears off and contentment ceases. + +"I don't purpose to pay a dollar for a ride and spend the hull time +settin' 'round like a public hack in front of th' hotels," says a +bald-headed man and he voices a rising sentiment. He is from Baltimore +and he is frankly skeptical of all things in Washington. The lecturer +and the chauffeur confer. The performance with the engine crank is given +once again and you finally make a real start. + +Entertainment begins from that start. But you get history as a +preliminary to wealth and fashion, for it so happens that wealth and +fashion do not dwell in that part of Pennsylvania avenue. + +"Site of first p'lice station in Washington," the young man rattles out +through his megaphone. "Oldest hotel in Washington. Washington's +Chinatown. Peace Monument. Monument to Albert Pike, Gran' Master of the +Southern Masons; only Confederate monument in the city. Home o' Fightin' +Bob Evans, there with the tree against the window. His house was--" + +"What was that about the Confederates?" the deaf man interrupts from the +back seat. The lecturer, with an expression of utter boredom, repeats. +At this moment the chauffeur comes into the limelight. He recognizes a +girl friend on the sidewalk and in the enthusiasm of that recognition +nearly bumps the grandstand into a load of brick. When order is restored +and you go forward in a straight course once again, the lecturer +resumes-- + +"On our right the United States Pension Office, the largest brick +buildin' in the world and famed for the inaugural balls it has every +four years--only it didn't have one las' time. But when Mr. Taft was +inaugurated nine thousand couples were a-waltzin' an--" + +Some of the folk upon the car look shocked. They come from communities +where dancing is taboo, and the lecturer seems to hint at an orgy there +in one of the taxpayer's buildings. + +"There is also the largest frieze in the world 'round that building," he +continues, "an' it ain't the North Pole, either. Eighteen hundred +soldiers and sailors--count 'em some day--marchin' there, the sick an' +the wounded laggin' behind, the trail of martyr's blood markin' their +path, comrade helpin' comrade--all a-bringin' honor an' glory to the +flag." + +He drops the megaphone to catch his breath and whispers into your ear. +He realizes that you have understood him--and half apologizes for +himself: + +"They like that," he explains, in an undertone. "A little oratory now +an' then tickles 'em. An' then they like this:" + +The megaphone goes into action. + +"We are travelin' west in F street, the Wall street of Washington, the +place of the banker an' broker." + +"Ain't we goin' to see the houses of the fashionable people?" demands +the wife of the bald-headed Baltimorean. "Now over in our city Eutaw +place is--" + +"We are comin' there, madam," says the lecturer, courteously. + +And in a little while you do come there. You sit back complacently in +your seat and smack your mental lips at the sight of the mansion of the +man who owns three banks; of that of him who, the lecturer solemnly +affirms, is the president of the Whiskey Trust; at a third where dwells +"the richest minister of the United States." A little school-teacher, +who has come down from Hartford, Conn., makes profuse notes in a neat +leather-covered book. It is plain to see that she takes the duty of the +true Americans as a serious enterprise, indeed. + +You all start and look when ex-Speaker Cannon's house is passed, and you +catch a glimpse of the old man coming down the door-steps. The public +interest in him has not seemed to cease with his retirement from the +center of the national arena. But it has lessened. You realize that a +moment later when your peregrinating grandstand rolls by a solemn-faced +man walking down the street--a big man in a black suit, his face hidden +by a black slouch hat. + +"Mr. Bryan," whispers the lecturer, this time without the megaphone. + +It is quite unnecessary. For a brief instant Washington is forgotten. In +that instant the crowd regards the second or third best-known man in +America--silently and curiously. The lecturer brings them back to their +dollar's worth. He boldly points out the Larz Anderson house as the home +of "the richest real estate man in the country," the new home of Perry +Belmont as having "three stories above ground and three below"--an +excursionist from Reading, Pa., interrupts to ask how much coal they +will need to fill such a cellar--you see the home of the late Mr. Walsh +with "a forty-five hundred dollar marble bench in the yard, all cut out +of a single piece," the sedate and stately house of Gifford Pinchot. + +It is pleasant, driving through these smooth Washington streets, even if +the low-hanging tree branches do make you jump and start at times. You +go up this street, down that, past long rows of neat Colonial houses +that some day are going to look neat and old--turn by one of the lovely +open squares of the city. They have just erected a statue +there--grandstands are already going up around about it and there will +be speeches and oratory before long. + +Washington is constantly in the throes of an epidemic of dedications. +There are now more statues in the city than Mr. Baedeker ever can tally +and each of them has undergone dedication--at least once. The President +has been corralled, if possible, although Mr. Wilson has already shown a +reticence for this sort of thing. If the President simply will not come, +a Governor or a rather famous Senator will do as well. And in the far +pinch there are many Representatives in Washington who are mighty good +orators. You can almost get a Representative at the crook of your +finger, and you cannot have a real dedication without a splurry of +oratory. It is almost as necessary as music--or the refreshments. + +As you slip by one of those statues--"the equestrian figure of General +Andrew Jackson on horseback"--the gentleman from Reading demands that +the car stop. He wants to ask a question and apparently he cannot ask a +question and be in motion at the same time. So he demands that the car +be stopped. It is one of the privileges of a man who has paid a +perfectly good dollar for the trip. The car stops--abruptly. + +You will probably recall that Jackson statue, standing in the center of +Lafayette square and directly in front of the White House. Perhaps +General Jackson rode a horse that way and perhaps he did not, but there +the doughty old warrior sits, his bronze mount plunging high upon hind +legs. + +"What is ever going to keep that statue from falling over some day?" +demands the man from Reading. He has a keen professional interest in the +matter, for he has been a blacksmith up in that brisk Pennsylvania town +for many a year. + +[Illustration: Through the portals of this Union Station come all the +visitors to Washington] + +The lecturer explains that the tail of the bronze horse is heavily +weighted and that the whole figure is held in balance that way. But the +blacksmith is Pennsylvania Dutch--of the sort not to be convinced in an +instant--and he sets forth his opinion of the danger at length, to +the bald-headed man from Baltimore, who sits just behind him. + +The lecturer goes forward once again. You look at the proud old mansion +that faces Lafayette square, and gasp when the intelligent young man +with the megaphone tells you that it was given to Daniel Webster by the +American people and that he gambled it away. You notice the house that +Admiral Dewey got from the same source, and wonder if he could not have +contrived possibly to gamble it away. You note St. John's church--"the +Church of State," the young man calls it--and turn into Sixteenth +street. But alas, it is Sixteenth street no longer. Through a bit of the +official snobbery that frequently comes to the surface in the governing +of the national capital that fine highway has been named "the Avenue of +the Presidents," a name that is so out of harmony of our fine American +town that it will probably be changed in the not distant future. + +The lecturer points your attention to another house. + +"The Dolly Madison Hotel, for women only," he announces. "No men or dogs +allowed above the first floor. The only male thing around the premises +is the mail-box and it is--" + +He has gone too far. You fix your steely glance of disapproval upon him +and he withers. He drops his megaphone and whispers into your ear once +again: + +"I hate to do it," he apologizes, "but I have to. The boss says:--'Give +'em wit an' humor, Harry, or back you goes to your old job on a +Fourteenth street car.' Think of givin' that bunch wit an' humor! Look +at that old sobersides next to you, still a-worryin' about that statue!" + +Wit and humor it is then. Wit and humor and wealth and fashion. It +almost seems too little to offer a mere dollar for such joys. You make +the turn around the drive in back of the White House and you miss the +Taft cow--which in other days was wont to feast upon the greensward. You +ask the lecturer what became of Mr. Taft's cow. + +"She was deceased," he solemnly explained, "a year before his term was +up--of the colic." + +And of that somewhat ambiguous statement you can make your own +translation. + + * * * * * + +The sight-seeing car stops at the little group of hotels in Pennsylvania +avenue, near the site of the old Baltimore & Potomac railroad station. +The lecturer begins to use his megaphone to expatiate upon the +advantages of a trip to Arlington which is about to begin, but Arlington +is too sweetly serious a memorial to be explored by a humorous +motor-car. And--in the offing--you are seeing something else. Another +car of the line upon which you have been voyaging is moored at the very +point from which you started, not quite two hours ago. Upon that car sit +the same two young black-haired ladies. Two young men are climbing up to +sit beside them. Your gaze wanders. On the rival car across the way the +two very blondes in black are still holding giggling conversation. Your +suspicions are roused. + +Do they ever ride? + +Apparently not. Tomorrow they will be upon the cars again, the blondes +upon the right, the brunettes upon the left. And the day after tomorrow +they will sit and wait and appear interested and in joyous anticipation. +And if it rains upon the following day they will don their little +mackintoshes and talk pleasantly about its being nearly time to clear +up. + +Now you know. Seein' Washington employs cappers. Those young ladies sit +there to induce dollars--faith, 'tis seduction, pure and simple--from +narrow masculine pockets. You do know, now. + + * * * * * + +If we are giving much space to the tourist view of Washington it is +because the tourist plays so important a part in the life of the town. +He is one of its chief assets and, seriously speaking, there is +something rather pathetic in the joy that comes to the faces of those +who step out from the great portals of the new station for the very +first time. There is something in their very expressions that seems to +express long seasons of saving and of scrimping, perhaps of downright +deprivation in order that our great American mecca may finally be +reached. You will see the same expressions upon the faces of the humbler +folk who go to visit any of the great expositions that periodically are +held across the land. + +That expression of eminent satisfaction--for who could fail to see +Washington for the first time and not be eminently satisfied--reaches +its climax each week-day afternoon in the East Room of the White House. +If President Wilson has reached a finer determination than his +determination to let the folk of his nation-wide family come and see +him, we have yet to hear of it. And there is not a man or woman in the +land who should be above attending the simple official reception that +the President gives each afternoon at his house to all who may care to +come. + +There is little red-tape about the arrangements in advance. The tendency +to hedge the President around with restrictions has been completely +offset in the present administration. A note or a hurried call upon the +President's secretary in advance--a card of invitation is quickly +forthcoming. And at half-past two o'clock of any ordinary afternoon you +present yourself at the east wing of the White House. Your card is +quickly scrutinized and you may be sure of it that the sharp-eyed +Irishman who is more than policeman but rather a mentor at the gate, has +scrutinized you, too. His judgment is quick, rarely erring. And unless +you meet his entire approval, you are not going to enter the President's +house. But he has approved and before you know it you--there are several +hundred of you--are slipping forward in a march into the basement of the +Executive Mansion and up one of its broad stairs. There are numerous +attendants along the path. + +"Single file!" shouts one of them and single file you all go--just as +you used to play Indian or follow-your-leader in long-ago days. And you +all step from the stair-head into the East Room, while the women-folk +among you conjure imagination to their aid and endeavor to see that +lovely apartment dressed for a great reception or, best of all, one of +the infrequent White House weddings. + +Other attendants quickly and easily form you into a great crescent, two +or three human files in width and extending in a great sweep from a vast +pair of closed doors which give to the living portion of the house. No +one speaks, but every one takes stock of his neighbors. If it is in +vacation season there are many boys and girls--for whole schools make +the Washington expedition in these days--there may be several Indians in +war-paint and feather making ceremonious visit to the Great White +Brother. If you are traveled you will probably see New England or +Carolina or Kansas or California in these folk, whose hearts are +quickened in anticipation. + +Suddenly--the great door opens, just a little. A thin, wiry man in gray +steps into the room and takes his position near the head of the +crescent. An aide in undress military uniform stands close to him, two +sharp-faced young men stand a little to the left of them and act as a +human Scylla and Charybdis through which all must pass. There are no +preliminaries--no hint of ceremony. Within five seconds of the time when +the President has taken his place, the line begins to move forward. In +twenty minutes he has shaken hands with three or four hundred people and +the reception is over. But in the brief fraction of a single minute when +your hand has grasped that of the President you feel that he knows no +one else on earth. He concentrates upon you and that, in itself, is a +gift of which any statesman may well be proud. And while you are +thinking of the pleasure that his word or two of greeting has given you, +you awake to find yourself out of the room and hunting for your umbrella +at the check-stand in the lower hall. The pleasant personal feeling is +with you even after you have left the shelter of the White House roof. +It is showering gently and a man under a tree is murmuring something +about Secretary Bryan seeing visitors at a quarter to five but neither +makes impress upon you. You are merely thinking how much easier it is to +come to see the President of the greatest republic in the world than +many a lesser man within it--railroad heads, bankers, even petty +politicians. + +In other days it was not as easy to gain admittance to the President, +but the tourist who was not above guile could be photographed shaking +hands with the great person. A place on that always alluring +Pennsylvania avenue did the trick. You stepped in a canvas screen into +the place of the enlarged image of a sailor who was once snapped shaking +hands with President Taft. When the picture was finished you were where +the sailor had been, and you had a post-card that would make the folks +back home take notice. True you were a little more prominent in it than +the President, but then Mr. Taft was not paying for the picture. In fact +Mr. Taft, when he heard of the practice, grew extremely annoyed and had +it stopped, so ending abruptly one of the tourist joys of Washington. + +After the White House, the Capitol is an endless source of delight to +those who have come to Washington from afar. A little squad of aged men, +who have a wolfish scent for tourists, act as its own particular +Reception Committee. These old men, between their cards and the sporting +extras of the evening papers, condescend to act as guides to the huge +building. We shall spare you the details of a trip through it with them. +It is enough to say that they are, in the spirit at least, sight-seeing +car lecturers grown into another generation. Their quarrels with the +Capitol police are endless. On one memorable occasion, a captain of that +really efficient police-force had decided to mark the famous whispering +stone in the old Hall of Representatives with a bit of paint. You can +read about that whispering stone in any of the tourist-guides which the +train-boy sells you on your way to Washington. Suffice it now to say +that when you have found this phonetic marvel and have stood upon it +your whisper will be heard distinctly in a certain far corner of the +gallery of the room. It is an acoustic freak of which the schoolboys out +in Racine can tell you better than I. And it is one of the prized assets +of the Capitol guides. The police captain forgot that when he set out to +mark it. + +It came back to him the evening of that day, however, when the building +had been cleared. He chanced to cross the old hall and, looking for his +marker, found three of the guides upon their knees carefully restoring +it to absolute uniformity with its neighbors. And the captain nearly +lost his job. He had sought to interfere with prerogative, and +prerogative is a particularly sacred thing at the Federal capital--as we +shall see in a little while. + + * * * * * + +Late in a pleasant afternoon all Washington seems to walk in F street. +The little girls come out of the matinees, the bigger girls drift out +from the tea-rooms, there is a swirl of motor vehicles--gasoline and +electric--but the tourist knows not of all this. The gay flammeries of +Pennsylvania avenue hold him fascinated. Souvenir shops rivet him to +their counters. Post-cards--grave, humorous, abominable--urge themselves +upon him. But if all these fail--they have post-cards nowadays of the +high schools in each of the little Arizona towns--here upon a counter +are the little statuettes of pre-digested currency. + +Mr. Lincoln in $10,000 of greenbacks. And yet that money today could not +buy one drop of gasoline, let alone an imported touring automobile, for +once it has passed through the government's macerating machine it is +only fit for the sculptor. Three thousand dollars go into a Benjamin +Harrison hat, fifteen thousand into a model of the Washington Monument +that looks as if it were about to melt beneath a summer sun. Twenty +thousand doll--stay, there is a limit to credulity. And you refuse to +buy without a signed certificate from the Treasury Department as to +these valuations. + +Most of the tourists do buy, however. They seem to be blindly +credulous--these folk who feel their way to Washington. It was not so +very many spring-times ago that a rumor worked afloat of a dull Sabbath +to the effect that the Washington Monument was about to fall. That rumor +slipped around the town with amazing rapidity--Washington is hardly more +than a gossipy, rumor-filled village after all. Two or three thousand +folk went down to the Mall to be present at the fall. No two of them +could agree as to the direction in which the shaft would tumble and they +all made a long and cautious line that completely encircled it--at a +safe distance. After long hours of waiting they all went home. Yet no +one was angry. They all seemed to think it part of the day's program. + + * * * * * + +There is another side of Washington not so funny and tourists, even of +the most sedate sort, who stop at the large hotels and who ride about in +dignified motor-cars, do not see it. It is the side of heart-burnings. +For in no other city of the land is the social code more sharply +defined--and regulated. There are many cities in the country and we are +telling of them in this book, who draw deep breaths upon exclusiveness. +But in none of these save Washington do the folk who do obtain flaunt +themselves in the faces of those who do not. The fine old houses of +Beacon street, in Boston, and of the Battery down at Charleston may draw +themselves apart, but they do it silently and unostentatiously. In the +very nature of things in Washington much modesty is quite out of the +question. + +[Illustration: The stately dome of our lovely Capitol] + +For here at our Federal capital we have a strange mixture of real +democracy and false aristocracy as well as real--if there be any such +thing as real aristocracy. The fact that almost every person in the town +works, more or less directly, for Uncle Sam makes for the democracy. And +that self-same fact seems to fairly establish the aristocracy--you can +frankly call much of it snobbishness--of the place. To understand the +whys and wherefores of this paradox one would need, himself, to be an +employé of the government, of large or small degree. They are many and +they are complicated. But an illustration or two will suffice to show +what we mean: + +A rule, which no one nowadays seems very desirous of fathering, but +nevertheless a rule of long standing, states that when a department +chief enters an elevator in any of the department buildings it must +carry him without other stops to his floor. The other passengers in the +car must wait the time and the will of the chief, no matter how +urgent may be their errands or how short the time at their command. A +gradual increase of this silly rule has made it include many assistants, +sub-chiefs and assistants to sub-chiefs. Only the elevator man knows the +rank at which a government employé becomes entitled to this peculiar +privilege. But he does know, and woe be to that little stenographer who +enters the Department of X---- at just three minutes of nine in the +morning, with the expectation of being at her desk with that promptness +which the Federal government demands of the folk in its service. The +second assistant to a second assistant of a sub-chief of a sub-division +may have entered. The little stenographer's desk is upon the third +floor; the gentleman whose official title spelled out reaches almost +across a sheet of note paper is upon the seventh. There are folk within +the crowded elevator-car for the fourth and fifth and sixth floors as +well. But they have neither title nor rank and the car shoots to the +seventh floor for the benefit of the Mr. Assistant Somebody. If there is +another Assistant Somebody there to ride down to the ground floor--and +there frequently is--you can imagine the consternation of the clerks. +And yet it is part of the system under which they have to work when they +work for that most democratic of employers--Uncle Samuel. + +The secretary of an important department who entered the cabinet with +the present administration stayed very late at his office one evening, +but found the elevator man awaiting him when he stepped out into the +hallway of the deserted building. It was only a short flight of stairs +to the street, and the secretary--it was Mr. Bryan--asked the man why he +had not gone home. + +"My orders are to stay here, sir, until the secretary has gone home for +the night," was the reply. + +It is hardly necessary to say that right there was one order in the +State department that was immediately revoked, while some twenty +thousand clerks and stenographers who form the working staff of official +Washington sent up little prayers of thanksgiving. These clerks and +stenographers make up the every-day fiber of the town life. They go to +work in the morning at nine--for a half-hour before that time you can +see human streams of them pouring toward the larger departments--and +they quit at half past four. The closing hour used to be five, but the +clerks decided that they would have a shorter lunch-time and so they +moved their afternoon session thirty minutes ahead. Half an hour is a +short lunch-time and so official Washington carries its lunch to its +desk, more or less cleverly disguised. The owners of popular priced +downtown restaurants have long since given up in utter disgust. + +But official Washington does not care. Official Washington ends its day +at half-past four and official Washington is such a power that matinées, +afternoon lectures and concerts of any popular sort are rarely planned +to begin before that hour. And on the hot summer afternoons of the +Federal capital the wisdom of such early closing is hardly to be +doubted. On such afternoons, matinée or concert, a cup of tea or a walk +along the shop windows of F street are all forgotten. For beyond the +heat of the city, within easy reach by its really wonderful +transportation system, are playgrounds of infinite variety and joy. True +it is that the really fine parts of Rock Creek Park are rather rigidly +held for those folk who can afford to ride in motor cars, but there is +the river, innumerable picnic-grounds in every direction, fine bathing +at Chesapeake beach, not far distant--and the canal. + +Of all these the old Chesapeake and Ohio canal is by far the most +distinctive. And how the Washington folk do love that old waterway! What +fun they do have out of it with their motor boats and their canoes. If +that old water-highway, almost losing its path in the stretches of +thick wood and undergrowth, had been created as a plaything for the +capital city, it could hardly have been better devised. The motor boats +and the canoes set forth from Georgetown--on holidays and Sundays in +great droves. They go all the way up to Great Falls--and even +beyond--working their passage through the old locks, exchanging repartee +with the lock-tenders, loafing under the shadows of the trees, drinking +in the indolence of the summer days. + + * * * * * + +But Shafer's Lock or Cabin John's Bridge is not the Chevy Chase Club and +official Washington knows that. It reads in the daily papers of that +other life, of the folk who wear white flannels and dawdle around great +porches all day long; hears rumors brought, Lord knows how, from the +gossipy Metropolitan Club; almost touches shoulders with its smart +breakfasts and lunches and dinners when it comes in and out of the +confectioners' and the big hotels. But it is none the less apart, +hopelessly and irrevocably apart. Uncle Sam may take the office folk of +his capital and give them the assurance of a livelihood through long +years, but that is all. He gives them no chance to step out of the +comfortable rut into which they have been placed. The good positions, +the positions that mean rank and title and entrance to the hallowed +places, rarely come through promotions. They are the gifts of fortune, +gifts even to strange folk from Cleveland or Madison or Stockton. They +are not the reward of faithful service at an unknown desk. + +And so official Washington, as we have seen here, is quite helpless. The +other official Washington--the official Washington of the society +columns--little cares. It is not above noticing the twenty thousand, but +it is mere notice and nothing more. And as for interest or graciousness +or kind-heartedness--they are quite out of the question. Washington is +being rebuilt, in both its physical and its social structure. The +architects of its social structure are not less capable than those folk +who are working out marvels in steel and marble. These first see the +Washington of tomorrow, modeled closely after the structures of European +capitals. Already our newly created class of American idle rich is +establishing its _habitat_ along the lovely streets of our handsomest +town. That is a beginning. In some of the departments they have begun to +serve tea at four of an afternoon--just as they do on the terrace of the +House of Commons. That is another beginning. We are starting. + +The structure of European capitals is largely built upon class +distinctions. Washington is being builded close to its models. + +For ourselves, we prefer the touch of Europe as the architects work them +in steel and in marble. A man who has been to Washington and who has not +returned within the decade will be astonished to see the change already +worked in its appearance. From the moment he steps across the threshold +of the fine new station--itself a revelation after the old-time railroad +terminals of the town--he will see transformation. Washington is still +in growth. They are tearing down the ugly buildings and building upon +their sites the beautiful, weaving in the almost gentle creations of the +modern architects, a new city which after a little time will cease to be +modeled upon Europe but which will serve, in itself, as a model capital +for the entire world to follow. + + + + +7 + +THE CITY OF THE SEVEN HILLS + + +You can compare Richmond with Rome if you will, with an allusion upon +the side to her seven hills; but, if you have even a remote desire for +originality, you will not. Rather compare the old southern capital with +a bit of rare lace or a stout bit of mahogany. Of the two we would +prefer the mahogany, for Richmond is substantial, rather than +diaphanous. And like some of the fine old tables in the dining-rooms of +her great houses she has taken some hard knocks and in the long run come +out of them rather well. She is scarred, but still beautiful. And she +wears her scars, visible and invisible, both bravely and well. + +But if a man come down from the North with any idea of the histories of +that war, which is now fifty years old and almost ready to be forgotten, +too sharply in his memory, and so imagines that he is to see a Richmond +of 1865, with grass growing in the streets, ruins everywhere, mules and +negroes in the streets, he is doomed to an awakening. There are still +plenty of mules and negroes in the streets and probably will be until +the end of time, but the Richmond of today boasts miles and miles of as +fine modern smooth pavements as his motor car might ever wish to find. +And as for ruins, bless you, Richmond has begun to tear down some of the +buildings which she built after the war so as to get building-sites for +her newest skyscrapers. + +Do not forget that there is a new spirit abroad in the South--and +Virginia, in many ways the most poetic and dramatic of all our states, +has not lagged in it. There are Boards of Trade at Roanoke and Lynchburg +that are not averse to sounding the praises of those lively +manufacturing towns of the up-country, and as for Norfolk--let any +Norfolk man get hold of you and in two hours he will have almost +convinced you that his town is going to be the greatest seaport along +the North Atlantic--and that within two decades, sir. But this chapter +is not written of Roanoke or Lynchburg or Norfolk. This is Richmond's +chapter and in it to be writ the fact that the capital of Virginia has +not lagged in enterprise or progress behind any of the other cities of +the state. In the transformation she has sacrificed few of her +landmarks, none of that delightful personality that makes itself +apparent to those who tarry for a little time within her gates. That +makes it all the better. + +It is the spirit of the new South that is not only bringing such +wonderful towns as Birmingham, to make a single instance, to the front, +but is working the transformation of such staunch old settlements as +Memphis or Atlanta--or Richmond. Not that Richmond is willing to forget +the past. There is something about the Virginia spirit that seems +incapable of death. There is something about the Virginian's loyalty to +his native state, his blindness to her imperfections, almost every one +of them the result of decades of civic poverty, that cannot escape the +most calloused commercial soul that ever walked out of North or South. +And there is something about this bringing up of spirit and of loyalty +with the spirit of the new America that makes a combination well-nigh +irresistible. + +Here, then, is the new South. The generation that liked to discuss the +detail of Pickett's charge and the horrors of those days in the +Wilderness is gone. The new generations are rather bored with such +detail. The new generations are not less spirited, not less loyal than +the old. But they are new. That, of itself, almost explains the +difference. Now see it in a little closer light. + +Volumes have been written of the loyalty of the old South. Richmond +herself today presents more volumes, although unwritten, of that +loyalty. You can read it in her streets, in her fine old square houses, +in that stately building atop of Schokoe hill, which generations have +known as the Capitol and which was for a little time the seat of +government of a new nation. Within that Capitol stands a statue. It is +the marble effigy of a great Virginian, who was, himself, the first head +of a new government. The guide-books call it the Houdini statue of +Washington, and keen critics have long since asserted that it is not +only the finest statue in the United States but one of the most notable +art works of the world. It was known as such in France at the time of +the Civil War. And hardly had that very dark page in our history been +turned before the Louvre made overtures to Virginia for the purchase of +the Houdini statue. The matter of price was not definitely fixed. +France, in the spendthrift glories of the Second Empire, was willing to +pay high for a new toy for her great gallery. + +Poor Virginia! She was hard pressed those days for the necessities of +life, to say nothing of its ordinary comforts. Her pockets were empty. +She was bankrupt. Her mouth must have watered a bit at thought of those +hundreds of thousands of French francs. But she stood firm, and if you +know Virginia at all, you will say "of course she stood firm." A +Southern gentleman would almost repudiate his financial obligations +before he would sell one of the choice possessions of his families. +There are great plantation houses still standing in the Old Dominion, +which were spared the torch of war by the mercy of God, and whose walls +hold aloft the handiwork of the finest painters of England, in the +seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; rare portraits of the masters and +mistresses of those old houses. In them, too, are furniture and silver +whose real value is hardly to be computed, not even by the screw of a +dealer in antiques. The folk in these old houses may be poor--if they +come of the oldest Virginia stock they very likely are. They stand +bravely, though, to the traditions of their hospitality, even though +they wonder if the bacon is going to last and if it is safe for the +brood to kill another chicken. But they would close their kitchen and +live on berries and on herbs before they would part with even the +humblest piece of silver or of furniture; while if a dealer should come +down from Washington or New York and make an offer, no matter how +generous, for one of the paintings, he would probably be put off the +place. + +Family means much to these Virginians. If you do not believe this go to +Richmond, stop in one of its fine houses and make your host take you to +one of the dances for which the city is famed. Almost any dance will do +and from the beginning you will be charmed. The minor appointments will +approach perfection, and you will find the men and women of the city +worthy of its best traditions. Some places may disappoint in their +well-advertised charm but the girls of Richmond never disappoint. Here +is one of them. She gets you in a quiet corner of the place, meets a +friend over there, and a conversation somewhat after this fashion gets +under way: + +"Miss Rhett, allow me to introduce my friend, Mr. Blinkins, of New +York." + +You bow low and ask Miss Rhett if by any chance she is related to the +Rhetts of Charleston. + +"Only distantly. My people are all Virginians. The Charleston Rhetts are +quite another branch. My grandfather's brother married a Miss Morris, +from Savannah and the Charleston Rhetts all come from them. If my papa +were only here he would explain." + +You say that you understand and murmur something about having met a +Richard Henry Rhett at the old Colonial town of Williamsburgh a few +years ago when you were down for the Jamestown exposition. + +"He was a Petersburgh Rhett," the young lady explains, "son of a cousin +of my father. He married Miss Virginia Tredegar last year." + +You remember hearing of a Miss Virginia Tredegar of Roanoke, and you +slip out that fact. But this is Miss Virginia Tredegar of Weldon and a +cousin of Miss Virginia Tredegar of Roanoke. Miss Virginia Tredegar of +Weldon--now Mrs. Richard Henry Rhett, of course, is a delightful girl. +The young lady who has you in the corner assures you that--and she, +herself, is not lacking in charms. Mrs. Rhett was a sponsor for the +state for several years, and you vaguely wonder just what that may mean +as you have visions of large floats lumbering along in street parades, +with really lovely girls in white standing upon them. And you also have +visions of the Miss Virginia Tredegar, of Weldon, sitting in the other +days upon the door-steps of an old red and white Colonial house, which +faces a hot little open square, visions of her accomplishments and her +beauty; of her ability to ride the roughest horse in the county, to +dance seven hours without seeming fatigue, of the jealous beaux who come +flocking to her feet. You find yourself idly speaking of these visions +to your companion. She laughs. + +"I've just the right girl for you," she says, "and she is here in this +ball-room. She is all these things--and some more; the rightest, +smartest girl in all our state--Miss Virginia Bauregard, daughter of Mr. +Calhoun Bauregard, of Belle Manor in King and Queen county." + +Apparently they are all named Virginia in Richmond, seemingly +three-quarters of these girls who live in the nicer parts of the town +are thus to bespeak through their lives the affectionate loyalty of +their parents to the Old Dominion. + +All these folk come quite easily to the transformation that has come +over the South within the decade, since she ceased to grieve over a past +that could never be brought back and overcome. The young boys and the +young girls turn readily from fine horses to fine motor cars, the coming +of imported customs causes few shocks, it is even rumored that the +newest of the new dances have invaded the sober drawing-rooms of the +place. But the New South is kind to Richmond. She does not seek to +eliminate the Old South. And so the old customs and the old traditions +run side by side with the new. And even the old families seem to soften +and many times to welcome the new. + + * * * * * + +If you wish to see the real Old South in Richmond go out to Hollywood +cemetery, which is perhaps the greatest of all its landmarks. It is easy +of access, very beautiful, although not in the elaborate and immaculate +fashion of Greenwood, at Brooklyn, or Mount Auburn, just outside of +Boston. But where man has fallen short at Hollywood, Nature has more +than done her part. She rounded the lovely hills upon which Richmond +might place the treasure-chest of her memories, and then she swept the +finest of all Virginia rivers--the James--by those hills. Man did the +rest. It was man who created the roadways and who placed the monuments. +And not the least interesting of these is the strange tomb of President +James Monroe, an imposing bronze structure, in these days reminding one +of an enlarged bird-cage. It is interesting perhaps because nearby there +is another grave--the grave of still another man who came to the highest +office of the American people. The second grave is marked by a small +headstone, scarcely large enough to accommodate its two words: "John +Tyler." + +But more interesting than these older monuments is the group that stands +alone, at the far corner of the cemetery and atop of one of those +little hillocks close beside the river. The head of that family is +buried beneath his effigy. It is the grave of Jefferson Davis, who +stands facing the city, as if he still dreamed of the days that might +have been but never were. And close beside is the grave of his little +girl, "The Daughter of Confederacy." When she died, only a few years +since, the South felt that the last of the living links that tied it +with the days when men fought and died for the Lost Cause had been +severed. It was then that it set to work to build the new out of the +old. + +Nowadays the Old South does not come publicly into the streets of +Richmond--save on that memorable occasion in the spring of 1907 when a +feeble trail of aging men--all that remained of a great gray +army--limped down a triumphant path through the heart of the town. The +Old South sits in her dead cities, and perhaps that is the reason why +the Southerner so quickly takes the stranger within his gates to the +cemetery. It is his apologies for thirty or forty years lost in the +march of progress. And it is an apology that no man of breadth or +generosity can refuse to accept. + + * * * * * + +Here, then, is the new Richmond, riding stoutly upon her great hills and +shooting the tendrils of her growth in every direction. For she is +growing, rapidly and handsomely. Her new buildings--her wonderful +cathedral, her superb modern hotels, the fine homes multiplying out by +the Lee statue--what self-respecting southern town does not have a Lee +statue--all bespeak the quality of her growth. But her new buildings +cannot easily surpass the old. It was rare good judgment in an American +town for her to refrain from tearing down or even "modernizing" that +Greek temple that stands atop of Schokoe hill and which generations have +known as the Capitol. The two flanking wings which were made absolutely +necessary by the awakening of the Old Dominion have not robbed the older +portion of the building of one whit of its charm. + +It typifies the Old South and the New South, come to stand beside one +another. In other days Virginia was proud of her capital, it was with no +small pride that she thrust it ahead when a seat of government was to be +chosen for the Confederacy, that for a little time she saw it take its +stormy place among the nations of the world. In these days Virginia may +still be proud of her capital town--it is still a seat of government +quite worthy of a state of pride and of traditions. + + + + +8 + +WHERE ROMANCE AND COURTESY DO NOT FORGET + + +"You are not going to write your book and leave out Charleston?" said +the Man who Makes Magazines. + +We hesitated at acknowledging the truth. In some way or other Charleston +had escaped us upon our travels. The Magazine Maker read our answer +before we could gain strength to make it. + +"Well, you can't afford to miss that town," he said conclusively. "It's +great stuff." + +"Great stuff?" we ventured. + +"If you are looking into the personality of American cities you must +include Charleston. She has more personality than any of the other old +Colonial towns--save Boston. She's personality personified, old age +glorified, charm and sweetness magnified--the flavor of the past hangs +in every one of her old houses and her narrow streets. You cannot pass +by Charleston." + +After that we went over to a railroad ticket office in Fifth avenue and +purchased a round-trip ticket to the metropolis of South Carolina. And a +week later we were on a southbound train, running like mad across the +Jersey meadows. Five days in Charleston! It seemed almost sacrilege. +Five miserable days in the town which the Maker of Magazines averred +fairly oozed personality. But five days were better than no days at +all--and Charleston must be included in this book. + +The greater part of one day--crossing New Jersey, Pennsylvania, the +up-stretched head of little Delaware, Maryland--finally the Old +Dominion and the real South. A day spent behind the glass of the car +window--the brisk and busy Jersey towns, the Delaware easily crossed; +Philadelphia, with her great outspreading of suburbs; Wilmington; a +short cut through the basements of Baltimore; the afternoon light dying +on the superb dome of the Washington Capitol--after that the Potomac. +Then a few evening hours through Virginia, the southern accent growing +more pronounced, the very air softer, the negroes more prevalent, the +porter of our car continually more deferential, more polite. After that +a few hours of oblivion, even in the clattering Pullman which, after the +fashion of all these tremendously safe new steel cars, was a bit chilly +and a bit noisy. + +In the morning a low and unkempt land, the railroad trestling its way +over morass and swamp and bayou on long timber structures and many times +threading sluggish yellow southern rivers by larger bridges. Between +these a sandy mainland--thick forests of pine with increasing numbers of +live-oaks holding soft moss aloft--at last the outskirts of a town. +Other folk might gather their luggage together, the vision of a distant +place with its white spires, the soft gray fog that tells of the +proximity of the open sea blowing in upon them, held us at the window +pane. A river showed itself in the distance to the one side of the +train, with mast-heads dominating its shores; another, lined with +factories stretched upon the other side. After these, the streets of the +town, a trolley car stalled impatient to let our train pass--low streets +and mean streets of an unmistakable negro quarter, the broad shed of a +sizable railroad station showing at the right. + +"Charleston, sah," said the porter. Remember now that he had been a +haughty creature in New York and Philadelphia, ebon dignity in Baltimore +and in Washington. Now he was docility itself, a courtesy hardly to be +measured by the mere expectation of gratuity. + +The first glimpse of Charleston a rough paved street--our hotel 'bus +finding itself with almost dangerous celerity in front of trolley cars. +That unimportant way led into another broad highway of the town and +seemingly entitled to distinction. + +"Meeting street," said our driver. "And I can tell you that Charleston +is right proud of it, sir," he added. + +Charleston has good cause to be proud of its main highway, with the +lovely old houses along it rising out of blooming gardens, like fine +ladies from their ball gowns; at its upper end the big open square and +the adjacent Citadel--pouring out its gray-uniformed boys to drill just +as their daddies and their grand-daddies drilled there before them--the +charms of St. Michael's, and the never-to-be-forgotten Battery at the +foot of the street. + +We sped down it and drew up at a snow-white hotel which in its +immaculate coat might have sprung up yesterday, were it not for the +stately row of great pillars, three stories in height, with which it +faced the street. They do not build hotels that way nowadays--more's the +pity. For when the Charleston Hotel was builded it entered a +distinguished brotherhood--the Tremont in Boston, the Astor and the St. +Nicholas in New York, Willard's in Washington, the Monongahela at +Pittsburgh, and the St. Charles in New Orleans were among its +contemporaries. It was worthy to be ranked with the best of these--a +hotel at which the great planters of the Carolinas and of Georgia could +feel that the best had been created for them within the very heart of +their favorite city. + +We pushed our way into the heart of the generous office of the hotel, +thronged with the folk who had crowded into Charleston--followers of +the races, just then holding sway upon the outskirts of the town, +tourists from the North, Carolinans who will never lose the habit of +going to Charleston as long as Charleston exists. In due time a brisk +and bustling hotel clerk--he was an importation, plainly, none of your +courteous, ease-taking Southerners--had placed us in a room big enough +for the holding of a reception. From the shutters of the room we could +look down into Meeting street--into the charred remnants of a store that +had been burned long before and the débris never removed. When we threw +up the window sash we could thrust our heads out and see, a little way +down the street, the most distinctive and the most revered of all +Charleston's landmarks--the belfried spire of St. Michael's. As we +leaned from that window the bells of St. Michael's spoke the +quarter-hour, just as they have been speaking quarter-hours close upon a +century and a half. + +We had been given the first taste of the potent charm of a most +distinctive southern town. + + * * * * * + +"... The most appealing, the most lovely, the most wistful town in +America; whose visible sadness and distinction seem almost to speak +audibly, speak in the sound of the quiet waves that ripple round her +southern front, speak in the church-bells on Sunday morning and breathe +not only in the soft salt air, but in the perfume of every gentle, +old-fashioned rose that blooms behind the high garden walls of falling +mellow-tinted plaster; King's Port the retrospective, King's Port the +belated, who from her pensive porticoes looks over her two rivers to the +marshes and the trees beyond, the live-oaks veiled in gray moss, +brooding with memories. Were she my city how I should love her...." + +So wrote Owen Wister of the city that he came to know so well. You can +read Charleston in _Lady Baltimore_ each time he speaks of "King's +Port" and read correctly. For it was in Charleston he spun his romance +of the last stronghold of old manners, old families, old traditions and +old affections. In no other city of the land might he have laid such a +story. For no other city of the land bears the memory of tragedy so +plaintively, so uncomplainingly as the old town that occupies the flat +peninsula between the Cooper and the Ashley rivers at the very gateway +of South Carolina. Like a scarred man, Charleston will bear the visible +traces of her great disaster until the end of her days. And each of +them, like the scars of Richmond, makes her but the more potent in her +charm. + +Up one street and down another--fascinating pathways, every blessed one +of them. Meeting and King and Queen and Legare and Calhoun and +Tradd--with their high, narrow-ended houses rising right from the +sidewalks and stretching, with their generous spirit of hospitality, +inward, beside gardens that blossom as only a southern garden can +bloom--with jessamine and narcissus and oleander and japonica. Galleries +give to these fragrant gardens. Only Charleston, unique among her +sisters of the Southland, does not call them galleries. She calls them +piazzas, with the accent strong upon the "pi." + +The gardens themselves are more than a little English, speaking clearly +something of the old-time English spirit of the town, which has its most +visible other expression in the stolid Georgian architecture of its +older public buildings and churches. And some of the older folk, defying +the Charleston convention of four o'clock dinner, will take tea in the +softness of the late afternoon. Local tradition still relates how, in +other days, a certain distinguished and elderly citizen, possessing +neither garden nor gallery with his house, was wont to have a table and +chair placed upon the sidewalk and there take his tea of a late +afternoon. And the Charleston of that other day walked upon the far side +of the street rather than disturb the gentleman! + +Nor is all that spirit quite gone in the Charleston of today. The older +negroes will touch their hats, if not remove them, when you glance at +them. They will step into the gutter when you pass them upon the narrow +sidewalks of the narrow streets. They came of a generation that made +more than the small distinction of separate schools and separate places +in the railroad cars between white and black. But they are rapidly +disappearing from the streets of the old city. Those younger negroes who +drive the clumsy two-wheeled carts in town and out over the rough-paved +streets have learned no good manners. And when the burly negresses who +amble up the sidewalks balancing huge trays of crabs or fresh fruits or +baked stuffs smile at you, theirs is the smile of insolence. Fifty years +of the Fifteenth Amendment have done their work--any older resident of +Charleston will tell you that, and thank God for the inborn courtesy +that keeps him from profanity with the telling. + +But if oncoming years have worked great changes in the manner of the +race which continues to be of numerical importance in the seaport city, +it will take more than one or two or three or even four generations to +work great changes in the manners of the well-born white-skinned folk +who have ruled Charleston through the years by wit, diplomacy, the keen +force of intellect more than even the force of arms. And, as the city +now runs its course, it will take far more years for her to change her +outward guise. + +For Charleston does not change easily. She continues to be a city of +yellow and of white. Other southern towns may claim distinction because +of their red-walled brick houses with their white porticos, but the reds +of Charleston long since softened, the green moss and the lichens have +grown up and over the old walls--exquisite bits of masonry, every one of +them and the products of an age when every artisan was an artist and +full master of his craft. The distinctive color of the town shades from +a creamy yellow to a grayish white. The houses, as we have already said, +stand with their ends to the streets, with flanking walls hiding the +rich gardens from the sidewalk, save for a few seductive glimpses +through the well-wrought grillings of an occasional gateway. Charleston +does not parade herself. The closed windows of her houses seem to close +jealously against the Present as if they sought to hold within their +great rooms the Past and all of the glories that were of it. + +Builded of brick in most instances, the larger houses and the two most +famous churches, as well, were long ago given plaster coatings that they +might conform to the yellow-white dominating color of the town. +Invariably very high and almost invariably very narrow and bald of +cornice, these old houses are roofed with heavy corrugated tiles, once +red but now softened by Time into a dozen different tints. If there is +another town in the land where roof-tile has been used to such +picturesque advantage we have failed to see it. It gives to Charleston +an incredibly foreign aspect. If it were not for the Georgian churches +and the older public buildings one might see in the plaster walls and +the red-tiled roofs a distinct trace of the French or the Italian. +Charleston herself is not unlike many towns that sleep in the south of +France or the north of Italy. It only takes the hordes of negroes upon +her streets to dispel the illusion that one is again treading some +corner of the Old World. + +Perhaps the best way that the casual visitor to Charleston can +appreciate these negroes is in their street calls--if he has not been up +too late upon the preceding night. For long before seven o'clock the +brigades of itinerant merchants are on their ways through the narrow +streets of the old town. From the soft, deep marshlands behind it and +the crevices and the turnings of the sea and all its inlets come the +finest and the rarest of delicacies, and these food-stuffs find their +way quite naturally to the street vendors. Porgies and garden truck, +lobsters and shrimp and crab, home-made candies--the list runs to great +length. + +You turn restlessly in your bed at dawn. Something has stolen that last +precious "forty winks" away from you. If you could find that +something.... Hark. There it is: Through the crispness of morning air it +comes musically to your ears: + +"Swimpy waw, waw.... Swimpy waw, waw." + +And from another direction comes a slowly modulated: + +"Waw cwab. WAW Cwab. Waw Cwa-a-a-b." + +A sharp staccato breaks in upon both of these. + +"She cwaib, she cwaib, she cwaib," it calls, and you know that there is +a preference in crabs. Up one street and down another, male vendors, +female vendors old and young, but generally old. If any one wishes to +sleep in Charleston--well, he simply cannot sleep late in Charleston. To +dream of rest while: "Sweet Pete ate her! Sweet Pete ate her!" comes +rolling up to your window in tones as dulcet as ever rang within an +opera house would be outrageous. It is a merry jangle to open the day, +quite as remote from euphony and as thoroughly delightful as the early +morning church-bells of Montreal or of Quebec. By breakfast time it is +quite gone--unless you wish to include the coal-black mammy who chants: +"Come chilluns, get yer monkey meat--monkey _meat_." And that old relic +of ante-bellum days who rides a two-wheel cart in all the narrow lanes +and permeates the very air with his melancholy: "Char--coal. +Char--coal." + +If you inquire as to "monkey meat," your Charlestonian will tell you of +the delectable mixture of cocoanut and molasses candy which is to the +younger generation of the town as the incomparable Lady Baltimore cake +is to the older. + + * * * * * + +The churches of Charleston are her greatest charm. And of these, boldly +asserting its prerogative by rising from the busiest corner of the town, +the most famed is St. Michael's. St. Michael's is the lion of +Charleston. Since 1764 she has stood there at Broad and Meeting streets +and demanded the obeisance of the port--gladly rendered her. She has +stood to her corner through sunshine and through storm--through the glad +busy years when Charleston dreamed of power and of surpassing those +upstart northern towns--New York and Boston--through the bitterness of +two great wars and the dangers of a third and lesser one, through four +cyclones and the most devastating earthquake that the Atlantic coast has +ever known--through all these perils this solidly wrought Temple of the +Lord has come safely. She is the real old lady of Charleston, and when +she speaks the folk within the town stand at attention. The soft, sweet +bells of St. Michael's are the tenderest memory that can come to a +resident of the city when he is gone a long way from her streets and her +lovely homes. And when the bells of St. Michael's have been stilled it +has been a stilled Charleston. + +For there have been times when the bells of St. Michael's have not +spoken down from their high white belfry. In fact, they have crossed the +Atlantic not less than five times. Cast in the middle of the eighteenth +century in an English bell-foundry, they had hardly been hung within +their belfry before the Revolution broke out--broke out at Charleston +just as did the Civil War. Before the British left the city for the last +time the commanding officer had claimed the eight bells as his +"perquisite" and had shipped them back to England. An indignant American +town demanded their return. Even the British commanding officer at New +York, Sir Guy Carleton, did not have it within his heart to countenance +such sacrilege. The bells had been already sold in England upon a +speculation, but the purchaser was compelled to return them. The people +of the Colonial town drew them from the wharf to St. Michael's in formal +procession--the swinging of them anew was hardly a less ceremonial. The +first notes they sang were like unto a religious rite. And for seventy +years the soft voice of the old lady of Charleston spoke down to her +children--at the quarters of the hours. + +After those seventy years more war--ugly guns that are remembered with a +shudder as "Swamp Angels," pouring shells into a proud, rebellious, +hungry, unrelenting city, the stout white tower of St. Michael's a fair +and shining mark for northern gunners. Charleston suddenly realized the +danger to the voice of her pet old lady. There were few able-bodied men +in the town--all of them were fighting within the Confederate lines--but +they unshipped those precious bells and sent them up-state--to Columbia, +the state capitol, far inland and safe from the possibility of sea +marauders. They were hidden there but not so well but that Sherman's men +in the march to the sea found them and by an act of vandalism which the +South today believes far greater than that of an angered British army, +completely destroyed them. + +When peace came again Charleston--bruised and battered and bleeding +Charleston, with the scars that time could never heal--gave first +thought to her bells--a mere mass of molten and broken metal. There was +a single chance and Charleston took it. That chance won. The English are +a conservative nation--to put it lightly. The old bell-foundry still +had the molds in which the chime was first cast--a hundred years before. +Once again those old casts were wheeled into the foundry and from them +came again the bells of St. Michael's, the sweetness of their tones +unchanged. The town had regained its voice. + +If we have dwelt at length upon the bells of St. Michael's it is because +they speak so truly the real personality of the town. The church itself +is not of less interest. And the churchyard that surrounds it upon two +sides is as filled with charm and rare flavor as any churchyard we have +ever seen. Under its old stones sleep forever the folk who lived in +Charleston in the days of her glories--Pringles and Pinckneys; +Moultries; those three famous "R's" of South Carolina--Rutledge and +Ravenel and Rhett--the names within that silent place read like the +roster of the colonial aristocracy. Above the silent markers, the +moldering and crumbling tombs, rises a riot of God's growing things; in +the soft southern air a perpetual tribute to the dead--narcissus, +oleander, jessamine, the stately Pride of India bush. And on the morning +that we first strolled into the shady, quiet place a red-bird--the +famous Cardinal Crossbeak of the south--sang to us from his perch in a +magnolia tree. Twenty-four hours before and we had crossed the Hudson +river at New York in a driving and a blizzard-threatening snowstorm. + +The greatest charm of St. Michael's does not rest alone within the +little paths of her high-walled churchyard. Within the sturdy church, in +the serenity of her sanctuary, in the great square box-pews where sat so +many years the elect of Charleston, of the very Southland you might say; +in the high-set pulpit and the unusual desk underneath where sat the old +time "clark" to read the responses and the notices; even the stately +pew, set aside from all the others, in which General Washington sat on +the occasion of a memorable visit to the South Carolina town, is the +fullness of her charm. If you are given imagination, you can see the +brown and white church filled as in the old days with the planters and +their families--generation after generation of them, coming first to the +church, being baptized in its dove-crowned font at the door and then, +years later, being carried out of that center aisle for the final time. +You can see the congregations of half a century ago, faces white and set +and determined. You can see one memorable congregation, as it hears the +crash of a Federal shell against the heavy tower, and then listen to the +gentle rector finishing the implication of the Litany before he +dismisses his little flock. + +Dear old St. Michael's! The years--the sunny years and the tragic +years--set lightly upon her. When war and storm have wrecked her, it has +been her children and her children's children who have arisen to help +wipe away the scars. In a memorable storm of August, 1885, the great +wooden ball at the top of her weather vane, one hundred and eighty-five +feet above the street was sent hurtling down to the ground. They will +show you the dent it made in the pavement flag. It was quickly replaced. +But within a year worse than cyclone was upon St. Michael's--the +memorable earthquake which sank the great tower eight inches deeper into +the earth. And only last year another of the fearful summer storms that +come now and then upon the place wreaked fearful damage upon the old +church. Yet St. Michael's has been patiently repaired each time; she +still towers above these disasters--as her quaint weather-vane towers +above the town, itself. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: St. Michael's churchyard, Charleston--a veritable roster +of the Colonial Elect] + +After St. Michael's, St. Philip's--although St. Philip's is the real +mother church of all Charleston. The old town does not pin her faith +upon a single lion. The first time we found our way down Meeting street, +we saw a delicate and belfried spire rising above the greenery of the +trees in a distant churchyard. The staunch church from which that spire +springs was well worth our attention. And so we found our way to St. +Philip's. We turned down Broad street from St. Michael's--to commercial +Charleston as its namesake street is to New York--then at the little +red-brick library, housed in the same place for nearly three-quarters of +a century, we turned again. The south portico of St. Philip's, +tall-columned, dignified almost beyond expression, confronted us. And a +moment later we found ourselves within a churchyard that ranked in +interest and importance with that of St. Michael's, itself. + +A shambling negro care-taker came toward us. He had been engaged in +helping some children get a kitten down from the upper branches of a +tree in the old churchyard. With the intuition of his kind, he saw in +us, strangers--manifest possibilities. He devoted himself to attention +upon us. And he sounded the praises of his own exhibit in no mild key. + +"Yessa--de fines' church in all de South," he said, as he swung the +great door of St. Philip's wide open. He seemed to feel, also +intuitively, that we had just come from the rival exhibit. And we felt +more than a slight suspicion of jealousy within the air. + +The negro was right. St. Philip's, Charleston, is more than the finest +church in all the South. Perhaps it is not too much to say that it is +the most beautiful church in all the land. Copied, rather broadly, from +St. Martins-in-the-Fields, London, it thrusts itself out into the +street, indeed, makes the highway take a broad double curve in order to +pass its front portico. But St. Philip's commits the fearful Charleston +sin of being new. The present structure has only been thrusting its +nose out into Church street for a mere eighty years. The old St. +Philip's was burned--one of the most fearful of all Charleston +tragedies--in 1834. + +"Yessa--a big fire dat," said the caretaker. "They gib two slaves dere +freedom for helpin' at dat fire." + +But history only records the fact that the efforts to put out the fire +in St. Philip's were both feeble and futile. It does tell, however, of a +negro sailor who, when the old church was threatened by fire on an +earlier occasion, climbed to the tower and tore the blazing shingles +from it and was afterward presented with his freedom and a fishing-boat +and outfit. Does that sound familiar? It was in our Third Reader--some +lurid verses but, alas for the accuracy that should be imparted to the +growing mind--it was St. Michael's to whom that widespread glory was +given. St. Michael's of the heart of the town once again. No wonder that +St. Philip's of the side-street grieves in silence. + +In silence, you say. How about the bells of St. Philip's? + +If you are from the North it were better that you did not ask that +question. The bells of St. Philip's, in their day hardly less famous +than those of the sister church, went into cannon for the defense of the +South. When the last of the copper gutters had been torn from the barren +houses, when the final iron kettle had gone to the gun-foundry, the +supreme sacrifice was made. The bells rang merrily on a Sabbath morn and +for a final time. The next day they were unshipping them and one of the +silvery voices of Charleston was forever hushed. + +But St. Philip's has her own distinctions. In the first place, her own +graveyard is a roll-call of the Colonial elect. Within it stands the +humble tomb of him who was the greatest of all the great men of South +Carolina--John C. Calhoun--while nightly from her high-lifted spire +there gleams the only light that ever a church-tower sent far out to sea +for the guidance of the mariner. The ship-pilots along the North +Atlantic very well know when they pass Charleston light-ship, the range +between Fort Sumter and St. Philip's spire shows a clear fairway all the +distance up to the wharves of Charleston. + + * * * * * + +There are other great churches of Charleston--some of them very handsome +and with a deal of local history clustering about them, but perhaps none +of these can approach in interest the Huguenot edifice at the corner of +Queen and Church streets. It is a little church, modestly disdaining +such a worldly thing as a spire, in a crumbling churchyard whose +tombstones have their inscriptions written in French. A few folk find +their way to it on Sunday mornings and there they listen attentively to +its scholarly blind preacher, for sixty years the leader of his little +flock. But this little chapel is the sole flame of a famous old faith, +which still burns, albeit ever so faintly, in the blackness and the +shadow of the New World. + +That is the real Charleston--the unexpected confronting you at almost +every turn of its quiet streets: here across from the shrine of the +Huguenots a ruinous building through which white and negro children play +together democratically and at will, and which in its day was the +Planters' Hotel and a hostelry to be reckoned with; down another byway a +tiny remnant of the city's one-time wall in the form of a powder +magazine; over in Meeting street the attenuated market with a Greek +temple of a hall set upon one end and the place where they sold the +slaves still pointed out to folk from the North; farther down on Meeting +street the hall of the South Carolina Society, a really exquisite aged +building wherein that distinguished old-time organization together with +its still older brother, the St. Andrews, still dines on an appointed +day each month and whose polished ballroom floor has felt the light +dance-falls of the St. Cecilias. + +"The St. Cecilia Society?" you interrupt; "why, I've heard of that." + +Of course you have. For the St. Cecilia typifies Charleston--the social +life of the place, which is all there is left to it since her monumental +tragedy of half a century ago. In Charleston there is no middle ground. + +You are either recognized socially--or else you are not. And the St. +Cecilia Society is the sharply-drawn dividing point. Established +somewhere before the beginning of the Revolution it has dominated +Charleston society these many years. Invitations to its three balls each +year are eagerly sought by all the feminine folk within the town. And +the privilege of being invited to these formal affairs is never to be +scorned--more often it is the cause of many heart-burnings. + +No one thing shows Charleston the more clearly than the fact that on the +following morning you may search the columns of the venerable _News and +Courier_ almost in vain for a notice of the St. Cecilia ball. In any +other town an event of such importance would be a task indeed for the +society editor and all of her sub-editresses. If there was not a +flashlight photograph there would be the description of the frocks--a +list of the out-of-town guests at any rate. Charleston society does not +concede a single one of these things. And the most the _News and +Courier_ ever prints is "The ball of the St. Cecilia Society was held +last evening at Hibernian Hall," or a two-line notice of similar +purport. + +Charleston society concedes little or nothing--not even these +new-fashioned meal hours of the upstart Northern towns. In Charleston a +meal each four hours--breakfast at eight, a light lunch at sharp noon, +dinner at four, supper again at eight. These hours were good enough for +other days--ergo, they are good enough for these. And from eleven to +two and again from five to seven-thirty remain the smart calling hours +among the elect of the place. Those great houses do not yield readily to +the Present. + +Charleston society is never democratic--no matter how Charleston +politics may run. Its great houses, behind the exclusion of those high +and forbidding walls, are tightly closed to such strangers as come +without the right marks of identification. From without you may breathe +the hints of old mahogany, of fine silver and china, of impeccable +linen, of well-trained servants, but your imagination must meet the +every test as to the details. Gentility does not flaunt herself. And if +the younger girls of Charleston society do drive their motor cars +pleasant mornings through the crowded shopping district of King street, +that does not mean that Charleston--the Charleston of the barouche and +the closed coupé--will ever approve. + + * * * * * + +On the April day half a century ago that the first gun blazed defiantly +from Fort Sumter and opened a page of history that bade fair to alter +the very course of things, Prosperity slipped out of Charleston. +Gentility, Courage, Romance alone remained. Prosperity with her giant +steamships and her long railroad trains never returned. The great docks +along the front of the splendid harbor stand unused, the warehouses upon +them molder. A brisk Texas town upon a sand-spit--Galveston--boasts that +she is the second ocean-port of America, with the hundreds of thousands +of Texas acres turned from grazing ranges into cotton-field, just behind +her. New Orleans is the south gate of the Middle West that has come into +existence, since Charleston faced her greatest of tragedies. And the +docks along her waterfront grow rusty with disuse. + +She lives in her yesterdays of triumphs. Tell her that they have +builded a tower in New York that is fifty-five stories in height, and +she will reply that you can still see the house in Church street where +President Washington was entertained in royal fashion by her citizens; +hint to her of the great canal to the south, and she will ask you if you +remember how the blockade runners slipped night after night through the +tight chain that the Federal gunboats drew across the entrance of her +harbor for four long years; bespeak into her ears the social glories of +the great hotels and the opera of New York, and she will tell you of the +gentle French and English blood that went into the making of her first +families. Charleston has lost nothing. For what is Prosperity, she may +ask you, but a dollar-mark? Romance and Courtesy are without price. +Romance and Courtesy still walk in her streets, in the hot and lazy +summer days, in the brilliancy of the southern moon beating down upon +her graceful guarding spires, in the thunder of the storm and the soft +gray blankets of the ocean mantling her houses and her gardens. And +Romance and Courtesy do not forget. + + + + +9 + +ROCHESTER--AND HER NEIGHBORS + + +The three great cities of western New York--Syracuse, Rochester, +Buffalo--are like jewels to the famous railroad along which they are +strung, and effectively they serve to offset the great metropolitan +district at the east end of the state. They have many things in common +and yet they are not in the least alike. Their growth has been due to +virtually a common cause; the development of transportation facilities +across New York state; and yet their personality is as varied as that of +three sisters; lovely but different. + +Of the three, Rochester is the most distinctive; one of the most +distinctive of all our American towns and hence chosen as the chief +subject for this chapter. But Buffalo is the largest, and Syracuse the +most ingenious, so they are not to be ignored. Rochester is +conservative. Rochester proves her conservatism by her smart clubs, and +the general cultivation of her inhabitants. Certain excellent persons +there, like certain excellent persons in Charleston, frown upon +newspaper reports of their social activities. In Syracuse, on the +contrary, the Sunday newspapers have columns of "society notes" and the +reporters who go to dances and receptions prove their industry by +writing long lists of the "among those present." Buffalo leans more to +Syracuse custom in this regard. Rochester scans rather critically the +man who comes to dwell there--unless he comes labeled with letters of +introduction. In Syracuse and in Buffalo, too, there is more of a spirit +of _camaraderie_. A man is taken into good society there because of +what he is, rather than for that from which he may have sprung. So it +may be said that Syracuse and Buffalo breathe the spirit of the West in +their social life, while Rochester clings firmly to the conservatism of +the East. Indeed, her citizens rather like to call her "the Boston of +the West," just as the man from the Missouri Bottoms called the real +Boston "the Omaha of the East." + +Take these cities separately and their personality becomes the more +pertinent and compelling. Consider them one by one as a traveler sees +them on a westbound train of the New York Central railroad--Syracuse, +Rochester, Buffalo--and in the same grading they increase in population; +roughly speaking, in a geometrical ratio. Syracuse has a little more +than a hundred thousand inhabitants, Rochester is about twice her size +and Buffalo is about twice the size of Rochester. + +[Illustration: The Erie Canal still finds an amiable path through +Rochester] + +Each of them is the result of the Erie canal. There had been famous +post-roads across central and western New York before DeWitt Clinton dug +his great ditch, and the Mohawk valley together with the little known +"lake country" of New York formed one of the earliest passage-ways to +the West. But the Erie canal, providing a water level from the Great +Lakes to the Hudson river and so to the Atlantic, was a tremendous +impulse to the state of New York. Small towns grew apace and the three +big towns were out of their swaddling clothes and accounted as cities +almost before they realized it. The building of the railroads across the +state and their merging into great systems was a second step in their +transition, while the third can hardly be said to be completed--the +planning and construction of a network of inter-urban electric lines +that shall again unite the three and--what is far more important to +each--bring a great territory of small cities, villages and rich farms +into closer touch with them. + +In Rochester, a good many years ago, one Sam Patch jumped into the falls +of the Genesee. He first planned his spectacular jump for a Sunday, but +the citizens of Rochesterville, as the town by the great falls was first +known, objected strenuously to such profanation of the Sabbath. So Sam +Patch jumped not on a Sunday but on a Friday, which almost any +superstitious person might have recognized as an unfortunate change of +date; and jumping, he did not survive to jump again. But the point of +this incident hinges not on Fridays, but upon Sundays in Rochester. All +that was a long time ago, but she has not changed her ideas of Sabbath +observance very much since then--despite the vast change in Sunday +across the land. The citizens of Rochester still go to church on Sunday +and they "point with pride" to the big and progressive religious +institutions of their community. People in Syracuse, however, have +Sunday picnics and outings off into the country, while Buffalo has +always been known for its "liberal Sunday," whatever that may mean. +Rochester has always frowned upon that sort of thing. She has the same +point of view as her Canadian neighbor across Lake Ontario--Toronto--a +city which we shall see in a little time. Rochester rather cleaves to +the old-fashioned Sabbath; even her noisy beach down at Ontario's edge, +which has always served as a sort of Coney island to western New York, +has been a thorn in the side of her conservative population. If you want +to stop and consider how the old-fashioned Sabbath of your boyhood days +still reigns at the city at the falls of the Genesee, recall the fact +that in one street that is bordered by some of the town's largest +churches the trolley cars are not operated on Sundays.[C] In +Philadelphia you will remember they used years ago to stretch ropes +across the streets in front of the churches at service times. But +imagine the possibilities of that sort of thing in New York, or Chicago, +or San Francisco. + + [C] A recent rerouting of the trolley cars in Rochester has + left this particular street without regular service most of + the days of the week. The fact remains, however, that for + many years the Park avenue line had its terminal loop + through Church street. On the Sabbath that terminal was + moved bodily so that churchgoers would not be annoyed. E. H. + + * * * * * + +Syracuse is famed for the Onondaga Indians and for James Roscoe Day. The +Onondaga Indians are the oldest inhabitants, and a great help to the +ingenious local artists who design cigar-box labels. No apologies are +needed for Chancellor Day. He has never asked them. He has taken a +half-baked Methodist college that stood on a wind-swept and barren hill +and by his indomitable ability and Simon-pure genius has transformed it +into a real university. For Syracuse University is tremendously real to +the four thousand men and women who study within its halls. It is a poor +man's college and Chancellor Day is proud of that. They come, these four +thousand men and women, from the small cities and villages, from the +farms of that which the metropolitan is rather apt indifferently to term +"Up State." To these, four years in a university mean four years of +cultivation and opportunity, and so has come the growth, the vast hidden +power of the institution upon the hill at Syracuse. She makes no claim +to college spirit of surpassing dimensions. She does claim individual +spirit among her students, however, that is second to none. As a +university--as some know a university--the collection of ill-matched +architectural edifices that house her is typical; but as an opportunity +for popular education to the boys and girls of the rural districts of +the state of New York she is monumental, and they come swarming to her +in greater numbers each autumn. + +So much for the hill--they call it Mount Olympus--which holds the +university and those things that are the university's. Now for downtown +Syracuse; for while the city's newer districts are ranged upon a series +of impressive heights, her old houses, her stores and her factories are +squatted upon the flats at the head of Onondaga lake. + +We all remember the pictures of Syracuse that every self-respecting +geography used to print; salt-sheds running off over an indefinite +acreage. We were given to understand that Syracuse's chief excuse for +existence was as a sort of huge salt-cellar for the rest of the nation. +Nowadays nine-tenths of the Syracusans have forgotten that there is a +salt industry left, and will tell you glibly of the typewriters, +automobiles, steel-tubing and the like that are made in their town in +the course of a twelvemonth. + +They will not tell you of one thing, for of that thing you may judge +yourself. Life in Syracuse is punctuated by the railroad and the canal. +The canal is not so much of an obstruction unless one of the cumbersome +lift-bridges sticks and refuses to move up or down, but that railroad! +Every few minutes life in Syracuse comes to an actual standstill because +of it. Men whose time is worth ten or fifteen dollars an hour and who +grow puffy with over-exertion are violently halted by the passing of +switch-engines with trails of box-cars. Appointments are missed. Board +meetings at the banks halt for directors--directors who are halted in +their turn by the dignified and stately passage of the Canastota Local +through the heart of the city. + +But the old canal is going to go some day--when the State's new barge +canal well to the north of the town is completed--and perhaps in that +same day Syracuse will have a broad, central avenue replacing the +present dirty, foul-smelling ditch. Some day, some very big Syracusan +will miss an appointment while he stands in Salina street watching the +serene Canastota Local drag its way past him. That missed appointment +will cost the very big Syracusan a lot of money and there will be a +revolution in Syracuse--a railroad revolution. After that the +locomotives will no longer blow their smoky breaths against the fronts +of Syracuse's best buildings and grind their way slowly down Washington +street from the tunnel to the depot, for the railroad which operates +them stands in the forefront of the progressive transportation systems +of America, and it is only waiting for Syracuse to take the first +definite step of progress. Some day Syracuse--Syracuse delayed--is going +to take that step. Only a year or two ago the Chicago Limited held up +the carnival parade--and therein lies the final paragraph of this +telling of Syracuse. + +She is a festive lass. Each September she rolls up her sleeves, her +business men swell the subscription lists, her matrons and her pretty +girls bestir themselves, and there is a concert of action that gives +Syracuse a harvest week long to be remembered. By day folk go out to the +State Fair and see the best agricultural show that New York state has +ever known--a veritable agricultural show that endeavors not only to +furnish an ample measure of fun, but also endeavors to be a real help to +the progressive owners of those rich farms of central and western New +York. By night Syracuse is in festival. Do not let them tell you that an +American town cannot enter into the carnival spirit and still preserve +her graciousness and a certain underlying sense of decorum. Tell those +scoffers to go to Syracuse during the week of the State Fair. They will +see a demonstration of the contrary--Salina street ablaze with an +incandescent beauty, lined with row upon row of eager citizens. The +street is cleared to a broad strip of stone carpet down its center and +over this carpet rolls float after float. These in a single year will +symbolize a single thing. In one September we recall that they +represented the nations of the world and that the Queen of Ancient +Ireland wore eyeglasses; but that is as nothing, the policemen in Boston +are addicted to straighteners, and Mr. Syracuse and Mrs. Syracuse, Miss +Syracuse and Master Syracuse stand open-eyed in pleasure and go home +very late at night on trolley cars that are as crowded as the trolley +cars in very big cities, convinced that there possibly may be other +towns but there is only one Syracuse.[D] + + [D] Let it be recorded in the interest of accuracy that the + fall festival of 1913 was not given--much to the + disappointment of Mr. Syracuse, Mrs. Syracuse, Miss Syracuse + and Master Syracuse. It is hoped, however, that the festival + has not been permanently abandoned. The loss of its + influence would be felt far outside of Syracuse. E. H. + +All of which is exactly as it should be. Syracuse's great hope for her +future rests in just such optimism on the part of her people. And in +such optimism she has a strong foundation on which to build through +coming years. + + * * * * * + +Buffalo is not as frivolous as Syracuse. She cares but little for +festivals but speaks of herself in the cold commercial terms of success. +If you have ever met a man from Buffalo, when you were traveling, and he +began to tell you of his town, you will know exactly what we mean. He +undoubtedly began by quoting marvelous statistics, some of them +concerning the number of trains that arrived and departed from his +native heath in the course of twenty-four hours. When he was through, +you had a confused idea that Buffalo was some sort of an exaggerated +railroad yard, where you changed cars to go from any one corner of the +universe to any other corner. When your time came to see Buffalo for +yourself, that confused idea returned to you. Your train slipped for +miles through an apparently unending wilderness of branching tracks and +dusty freight cars, past grimy round-houses and steaming locomotives, +until you were ready to believe that any conceivable number of trains +arrived at and departed from that busy town within a single calendar +day. + +If you have approached her by water in the summertime you have seen her +as a mighty port, her congestion of water traffic suggesting salt water +rather than fresh. When we come to visit the neighboring port of +Cleveland we shall give heed to the wonderful traffic of the inland +seas, but for this moment consider Buffalo as something more than a +railroad yard, a busy harbor, or even a melting-pot for the fusing of as +large and as difficult a foreign element as is given to any American +town to fuse. Consider Buffalo dreaming metropolitan dreams. The dull +roar of Niagara, almost infinite in its possibilities of power, is +within hearing. That dull roar has been Buffalo's incentive, the lullaby +which induced her dreams of industrial as well as of commercial +strength. And much has been written of her growing strength in these +great lines. + +To our own minds the real Buffalo is to be found in her typical citizen. +If he is really typical of the city at the west gate of the Empire +state, you will find him optimistic and energetic to a singular degree, +and he needs all his optimism and his energy to combat the problems that +come to a town of exceeding growth, just crossing the threshold of +metropolitanism. Those problems demand cool heads and stout hearts. +Buffalo is just beginning to appreciate that. It is becoming less +difficult than of old for them to pull together, to dig deep into their +purses if need be, and to plan their city of tomorrow in a generous +spirit of coöperation. + +[Illustration: Rochester is a city of charming homes] + +The Buffalonians have a full measure of enjoyment in their city. They +are intensely proud of it and rightfully--do not forget the man who once +told you of the number of railroad trains within twenty-four hours--and +they are thoroughly happy in and around it. Niagara Falls and a +half-dozen of lake beaches on Erie and Ontario are within easy reach, +while nearer still is the lovely park of the town--which a goodly corner +of America remembers as the site of the Pan-American Exposition, in +1901. The Buffalonians live much of the time outdoors, and that holds +true whether they are able to patronize their country clubs or the less +pretentious suburban resorts. They play at golf, at baseball, at +football, and in the long hard winter months at basketball and hockey +and bowling. They organize teams in all these sports--and some +others--and then go down to Rochester and enter into amiable contests +with the folks who live by the Genesee. Syracuse, too, comes into the +fray and these three cities of the western end of the state of New York +fight out their natural and healthy rivalry in series upon series of +sturdy athletic championships. The bond between them is really very +close indeed. + + * * * * * + +Rochester stands halfway between Syracuse and Buffalo and as we have +already said, is different from both of them. One difference is apparent +even to the man who does not alight from his through train. For no +railroad has dared to thrust itself down a main business street in +Rochester; in fact she was one of the very first cities in America to +remove the deadly grade crossings from her avenues, and incalculable +fatalities and near fatalities have been prevented by her wisdom. Many +years ago she placed the main line of the New York Central railroad, +which crosses close to her heart, upon a great viaduct. When that +viaduct was built, a great change came upon the town. The old depot, +with its vaulted wooden roof clearing both tracks and street and +anchored in the walls of the historic Brackett House; with its ancient +white horse switching the cars of earlier days (as it is years and years +and years since that white horse went to graze in heavenly meadows) +vanished from sight, and a great stone-lined embankment--high enough and +thick enough to be a city wall--appeared, as if by magic, while +Rochester reveled in a vast new station, big enough and fine enough for +all time. At least that was the way the station seemed when it was first +built in 1882. But alas, for restless America! They have begun to tear +the old station down as this is being written--a larger and still finer +structure replaces it. And the folk who pray for the conservatism of our +feverish American energy are praying that it will last more than +thirty-one years! + +But in just this way Rochester has grown apace and quite ahead of the +facilities which her earlier generations thought would be abundant for +all time. The high civic standard that forced the great railroad +improvement in the earlier days when most American towns, like Topsy, +were "jus' growin'" and giving little thought for the morrow, made +Rochester different. It made her seek to better her water supply and in +this she succeeded, tapping a spring pure lake forty miles back in the +high hills and bringing its contents to her by a far-reaching aqueduct. +It was a large undertaking for a small city of the earlier days, but the +small city was plucky and it today possesses a water supply that is +second to none. That same early placed high civic standard made +fireproof buildings an actuality in Rochester, years in advance of other +towns of the same size. + +That civic standard has worked wonders for the town by the falls of the +Genesee. For one thing it has made her prolific in propaganda of one +sort or another. Strange religious sects have come to light within her +boundaries. Spiritualism was one of these, for it was in Rochester that +the famed Fox sisters heard the mysterious rappings, and it was only a +little way outside the town where Joseph Smith asserted that he found +the Book of Mormon and so brought a new church into existence. And the +ladies who are conducting the "Votes for Women" campaign with such ardor +should not forget that it was in Rochester that Susan B. Anthony lived +for long years of her life, working not alone for the cause that was +close to her heart, but in every way for the good of the town that meant +so much to her. + +Perhaps the most interesting phases of the Rochester civic standard are +those that have worked inwardly. She has a new city plan--of course. +What modern city has not dreamed these glowing things, of transforming +ugly squares into plazas of European magnificence, of making dingy Main +and State streets into boulevards? And who shall say that such dreams +are idly dreamed? Rochester is not dreaming idly. She has already +conceived a wonderful new City Hall, to spring upwards from her Main +street, but what is perhaps more interesting to her casual visitors in +her new plan is the architectural recognition that it gives to the +Genesee. The Genesee is a splendid river--in many ways not unlike the +more famous Niagara. You have already known the part it has played in +the making of Rochester. Yet the city has seen fit, apparently, to all +but ignore it. Main street--for Rochester is a famous one-street +town--crosses it on a solid stone bridge but that bridge is lined with +buildings, like the prints you used to see of old London bridge. None of +the folk who walk that famous thoroughfare ever see the river. In the +new scheme the old rookeries that hang upon the edge of Main street +bridge are to be torn away and the river is to come into its own. And +Rochester folk feel that that day can come none too soon. + +But the Rochester civic standard has worked no better for her than in +social reforms. The phases of these are far too many to be enumerated +here, but one of them stands forth too sharply to be ignored. A few +years ago some Rochesterian conceived the idea of making the schools +work nights as well as day. He had studied the work of the settlement +houses in the larger cities, and while Rochester had no such slums as +called for settlement houses it did have a large population that +demanded some interest and attention. For instance, within the past few +years a large number of Italians have come there, and although they +present no such difficult fusing problem as the Jews of New York, the +Polocks of Buffalo or the Huns of Pittsburgh, it is not the Rochester +way to ignore in the larger social sense any of the folk who come to +her. + +"We will make the school-houses into clubs, we will make them open +forums where people can come evenings and get a little instruction, a +little more entertainment, but best of all can speak their minds +freely," said this enthusiast. "We will broaden out the idea of the ward +clubs." + +The ward clubs to which he referred were neat and attractive structures +situated in residential parts of the town, where folk who lived in their +own neat homes and who earned from three to eight thousand dollars a +year gather for their dances, their bridges, their small lectures and +the like. The enthusiast proposed to enlarge this idea, by the simple +process of opening the school-houses evenings. His idea was immensely +popular from the first. And within a very few weeks it was in process of +fruition. The school-houses--they called them "Social Centers"--were +opened and night after night they were filled. It looked as if Rochester +had launched another pretty big idea upon the world. + +That idea, however, has been radically changed, today. One of the +professors of the local university threw himself into it, possibly with +more enthusiasm than judgment, and was reported in the local prints as +having said that the red flag might be carried in street parades along +with the Stars and Stripes. That settled it. Rochester is a pretty +conservative town, and its folk who live quietly in its great houses sat +up and took notice of the professor's remarks. Those great houses had +smiled rather complacently at the pretty experiment in the schools. Of +a sudden they decided that they were being transformed into incubators +for the making of socialists or of anarchists--great houses do not make +very discerning discriminations. + +The professor had kicked over the boat. A powerful church which has +taken a very definite stand against Socialism joined with the great +houses. The question was brought into local politics. The professor lost +his job out at the university, and the school-houses ceased to be open +forums. Today they are called "Recreation Centers" and are content with +instruction and entertainment, but the full breadth of the idea they +started has swept across the country and many cities of the mid-West and +the West are adopting it. + +The Rochester way of doing things is a very good way, indeed. For +instance, the city decided a few years ago that it ought to have a fair. +It had been many years since it had had an annual fair, and it saw +Syracuse and Toronto each year becoming greater magnets because of their +exhibitions. Straightway Rochester decided that it would have some sort +of fall show, just what sort was a bit of a problem at first. It wanted +something far bigger than a county fair, and yet it could hardly ask the +state for aid when the state had spent so much on its own show in nearby +Syracuse. + +Then it was that Rochester decided to dig down into its own pockets. It +saw a fortunate opening just ahead. The state in abandoning a penal +institution had left fourteen or fifteen acres of land within a mile of +the center of the city--the famous Four Corners. The city took that +land, tore down the great stone wall that had encircled it, erected some +new buildings and transformed some of the older ones, created a park of +the entire property and announced that it was going in the show +business, itself. It has gone into the show business and succeeded. The +Rochester Exposition is as much a part of the city organization as its +park board or its health department. Throughout the greater part of the +year the show-grounds are a public park, holding a museum of local +history that is not to be despised. And for two weeks in each September +it comes into its own--a great, dignified show, builded not of wood and +staff so as to make a memorable season and then be forgotten, but +builded of steel and stone and concrete for both beauty and permanency. + + * * * * * + +"Now what are the things that have gone to make these things possible?" +you are beginning to say. "What is the nature of the typical +Rochesterian?" + +Putting the thing the wrong way about we should say that the typical +Rochesterian is pretty near the typical American. And still continuing +in the reversed order of things consider, for an instant, the beginnings +of Rochester. We have spoken of these three cities of the western end of +New York state as the first fruit of the wonderful Erie canal. That is +quite true and yet it is also true that before the canal came there was +quite a town at the falls of the Genesee, trying in crude fashion to +avail itself of the wonderful water-power. And while the canal was still +an unfinished ditch, three men rode up from the south--Rochester and +Fitzhugh and Carroll--and surveyed a city to replace the straggling +town. That little village had, during the ten brief years of its +existence, been known as Falls Town. Col. Rochester gave his own name to +the city that he foresaw and lived to see it make its definite +beginnings. All that was in the third decade of the last century, and +Rochester has yet to celebrate her first centenary under her present +name. + +Her career divides itself into three epochs. In the first of these--from +the days of her settlement up to the close of the Civil War--she was +famed for her flouring-mills. She was known the world over as the Flour +City, and she held that title until the great wheat farms of the land +were moved far to the west. But they still continued to call her by the +same name although they spelled it differently now--the Flower City. For +a new industry arose within her. America was awakening to a quickened +sense of beauty. Flowers and florists were becoming popular, and a group +of shrewd men in and around Rochester made the nursery business into a +very great industry. In more recent years the nature of her manufactures +has broadened--her camera factory is the most famous in all the world, +optical goods, boots and shoes, ready-made clothing, come pouring out of +her in a great tidal stream of enterprise. + +She is an industrial city, definitely and distinctly. Fortunately she is +an industrial city employing a high grade of labor almost exclusively, +and yet none the less a town devoted to manufacturing. Once again, do +not forget that she has not neglected her social life, and you may read +this as you please. You may look away from the broadening work of the +ward clubs and of the school-houses and demand if there is an +aristocracy in Rochester. The resident of the town will lead you over +into its Third ward--a compact community almost within stone-throw of +the Four Corners, and shut off from the rest of the vulgar world by a +river, a canal and a railroad yard. In that compact community, its +tree-lined streets suggesting the byways of some tranquil New England +community, is the seat of Rochester social government. The residents of +the Third ward are a neighborly folk, borrowing things of one another +and visiting about with delightful informality among themselves, and yet +their rule is undisputed. + +East avenue--the great show street of Rochester--feels that rule. East +avenue is lined with great houses, far greater houses than those of the +Third ward--many of them built with the profits of "Kodak" stock--yet +East avenue represents a younger generation, a generation which seems to +have made money rather easily. There has been some intermarriage and +some letting down of the bars between the ambitious East avenue and the +dominant Third ward--but not much of it. Rochester is far too +conservative to change easily or rapidly. + +[Illustration: The canal gives Syracuse a Venetian look] + +She is proud of herself as she is--and rightly so. Her people will sing +of her charms by the hours--and rightly so, again. They live their lives +and live them well. For when all is said and done, the glory of +Rochester is not in her public buildings, her water-power, her fair, her +movements toward social reform, not even in her parks--although +Rochester parks are superb, for Nature has been their chief architect +and she has executed her commission in splendid fashion--nor does it +reside in her imposing Main street, nor in her vast manufactories that +may be translated into stunning arrays of statistics--her glory is in +her homes. The tenement, as we know it in the big cities, and the city +house, with its dead cold walls, are practically unknown there. +Apartment houses are rarities--there are not more than twenty or thirty +in the town--and consequently oddities. Your Rochesterian, rich and +poor, dwells in a detached house on his own tract of land; the chances +are that he has market-truck growing in his backyard, a real +kitchen-garden. There are thousands of these little homes in the +outlying sections of the town, with more pretentious ones lining East +avenue and the other more elaborate streets. All of these taken together +are the real regulators of the town. For the citizens of Rochester are +less governed and themselves govern more than in most places of the +size. That is the value of the detached house to the city. Detached +houses in a city seem to mean good schools, good fire and police +service, clean streets, health protection, social progress--Rochester +has all of these in profusion. + +East avenue, in its rather luscious beauty, represents these ideals of +Rochester on dress parade. We rather think, however, that you can read +the character of the town better in the side streets. Now a long street, +filled with somewhat monotonous rows of simple frame houses does not +mean much at a glance--even when the street is parked and filled for a +mile with blossoming magnolias, as Oxford street in Rochester is filled. +But such a street, together with all the other streets of its sort, +means that much of the disappearing charm and loveliness of our American +village life is being absorbed right into the heart of a community of +goodly size. + +Sometimes citizens from other towns running hard amuck Rochester's +conservatism call her provincial. She has clung to some of her small +town customs longer than her neighbors, but of late she has attempted +metropolitanism--they have builded two big new hotels in the place, and +the radicals have dared to place a big building or two off Main +street--quite a step in a town which has become famous as a one-street +town. + +But Rochester, like most conservatives, is careless of outside +criticism. She points to the big things that she has accomplished. She +shows you her streets of the detached houses and her parks--perhaps +takes you down to Genesee Valley Park of a summer night when carnival is +in the air and the city's band, the city's _very own band_, if you +please, is playing from a great float in midstream, while voices from +two or three thousand gaily decorated canoes carry the melodies a long +way. She shows you her robust glories, the fair country in which she is +situate. For miles upon miles of splendid highways surround her, the +Genesee indolent for a time above the Valley Park appeals to the man +with a canoe, the great lake to the north gives favorable breezes to +the yachtsman. Do you wonder that the Rochesterians know that they dwell +in a garden land, and that they are in the open through the fullness of +a summer that stretches month after month, from early spring to late +autumn? Do you wonder that they really live their lives? + + + + +10 + +STEEL'S GREAT CAPITAL + + +A man, traveling across the land for the very first time, slips into a +strange town--after dark. It is his first time in the strange town, of +course. Otherwise it would not be strange. He finds his hotel with +little difficulty, for a taxicab takes him to it. He immediately +discovers that it is not more than two squares from the very station at +which he has arrived. Still a friendly taxicab in a strange town is not +an institution at which to scoff, and the man who is very tired is glad +to get into his hotel room and to bed without delay. + +He awakes the next morning very early--at least it must be very early +for it is still dark. It is dark indeed as he stumbles his way across +the room to the electric switch. In the sudden radiance that follows, he +sputters at himself for having arisen so early--for he is a man fond of +his lazy sleep in the morning. He fumbles in his pockets and finds his +watch. Ten minutes to nine, it says to him. + +"Stopped," says the man, half aloud. "That's another time I forgot to +wind it." + +But the watch has not stopped. Insecure in his own mind he lifts it to +his ear. It is ticking briskly. The man is perplexed. He goes to the +window and peeps out from it. A great office building across the way is +gaily alight--a strange performance for before dawn of a September +morning. He looks down into the street. Two long files of brightly +lighted cars are passing through the street, one up, the other down. The +glistening pavements are peopled, the stores are brightly lighted--the +man glances at his watch once again. Eight minutes of nine, it tells him +this time. + +He smiles as he gazes down into that busy street. + +"This is Pittsburgh," he says. + +Later that day that same man stands in another window--of a tall +skyscraper this time--and again gazes down. Suspended there below him is +a seeming chaos. There are smoke and fog and dirt there, through +these--showing ever and ever so faintly--tall, artificial cliffs, +punctured with row upon row of windows, brightly lighted at midday. From +the narrow gorges between these cliffs come the rustle and the rattle of +much traffic. It comes to the man in waves of indefinite sound. + +He lifts his gaze and sees beyond these artificial cliffs, +mountains--real mountains--towering, with houses upon their crests, and +steep, inclined railroads climbing their precipitous sides. In these +houses, also, there are lights burning at midday. Below them are great +stacks--row upon row upon row of them, like coarse-toothed combs turned +upside down--and the black smoke that pours up from them is pierced now +and then and again by bright tongues of flame--the radiance of furnaces +that glow throughout the night and day. + +"We're mud and dirt up to our knees--and money all the rest of the way," +says the owner of that office. He is a native of the city. He comes to +the window and points to one of the rivers--a yellow-brown mirrored +surface, scarcely glistening under leaden clouds but bearing long tows +by the dozen--coal barges, convoyed by dirty stern-wheeled steamboats. + +"There is one of the busiest harbors in the world," says the Pittsburgh +man. "A harbor which in tonnage is not so far back of your own blessed +New York." + +The New Yorker, for this man is a New Yorker, laughs at the very idea of +calling that sluggish narrow river a harbor. They have a real harbor in +his town and real rivers lead into it. This does not even seem a real +river. It reminds him quite definitely of Newtown creek--that slimy, +busy waterway along which trains used to pass in the days when the +Thirty-fourth street ferry was the gateway to Long Island. + +"We have tonnage in this town," says the proud resident of Pittsburgh, +"and if you won't believe what I tell you about the water traffic, how +about our neat little railroad business? If you won't listen to our +harbor-master here when I take you down to him, look at the lines of +freight cars for forty miles out every trunk-line railroad that gets in +here. This is the real gathering ground for all the freight +rolling-stock of this land." + +And then he falls to telling the native of Manhattan island how all that +traffic has come to pass--how a mere quarter of a century ago the +Pittsburgh & Lake Erie railroad had offered itself to the historic Erie +for a mere hundred thousand dollars--and had been refused as not worth +while. Today the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie is the pet child of the entire +Vanderbilt family of aristocratic railroads, earning more clear profit +to the mile than any other railroad in the world. The Pittsburgh man +makes this all clear to his caller. But the man from New York only looks +out again upon the city in semi-darkness at midday, and thinks of the +towers of his own Manhattan rising high into the clearest blue sky that +one might imagine, and whispers incoherently: + +"This Pittsburgh gets me." + +Pittsburgh gets some others, too. It gets them from the back country, +green country lads filled with ambition rather than anything else, and +if they have the sticking qualities it makes them millionaires, if that +so happens that such is the scheme of their ambitions. It has made some +other millionaires, almost overnight, as we shall see in a few minutes. +The picking for dollars seems good in the neighborhood of the +confluence of the Monongahela and the Allegheny. + +Consider for a moment that confluence--the geography of Pittsburgh, if +you please. In a general way the older part of the town has a situation +not unlike that of the great metropolis of the continent. For New York's +East river, substitute the Monongahela; for the Hudson, the Allegheny; +and let the Ohio, beginning its long course at the Point--Pittsburgh's +Battery--represent the two harbors of New York. Then you will begin to +get the rough resemblance. To the south of the Monongahela, Pittsburgh's +Brooklyn is Birmingham, set under the half-day shadows of the towering +cliffs of Mount Washington. Allegheny--now a part of the city of +Pittsburgh and beginning to be known semi-officially as the North +Side--corresponds in location with Jersey City. + +And the problems that have beset Pittsburgh in her growth have been +almost the very problems that from the first have hampered the growth of +metropolitan New York. If her rivers have been no such stupendous +affairs as the Hudson or the East rivers, the overpowering hills and +mountains that close in upon her on every side have presented barriers +of equal magnitude. To conquer them has been the labor of many tunnels +and of steep inclined railroads, the like of which are not to be seen in +any great city in America. It has been no easy conquest. + +As a result of all these things the growth of the city has been uneven +and erratic. Down on the narrow spit of flat-land at the junction of the +two rivers that go to make the Ohio--a location exactly corresponding +with Manhattan island below the City Hall and of even less area--is the +business center of metropolitan Pittsburgh--wholesale and retail stores, +banks, office buildings, railroad passenger terminals, hotels, theaters +and the like. The same causes that made the skyscraper a necessity in +New York have worked a like necessity in the city at the head of the +Ohio. + +So it has come to pass that no one lives in Pittsburgh itself, unless +under absolute compulsion. The suburbs present housing facilities for +the better part of its folk--Sewickley and East Liberty vie for greatest +favor with them and there are dozens of smaller communities that crowd +close upon these two social successes. "We can never get a decent census +figure," growls the Pittsburgh man, as he contemplates the size of these +outlying boroughs that go to make the city strong in everything, save in +that popular competitive feature of population. And that very reason +made the merging of the old city of Allegheny a popular issue, indeed. + +The fact that Pittsburgh men live outside of Pittsburgh goes to give her +the fourth largest suburban train service in the country. Only New York, +Boston and Philadelphia surpass her in this wise. Even San Francisco has +less. One hundred and fifty miles to the northwest is Cleveland, the +sixth city in the country and outranking Pittsburgh in population. There +is not a single distinctive suburban train run in or out of Cleveland. +From one single terminal in Pittsburgh four hundred passenger trains +arrive and depart in the course of a single business day and ninety-five +percent of these are for the sole benefit of the commuter. + +So congested have even these railroad facilities become that the city +cries bitterly all the while for a transit relief and experts have been +at work months and years planning a subway to aid both the steam roads +and the overworked trolley lines. At best it is no sinecure to operate +the trolley cars of Pittsburgh. Combined with narrow streets, uptown and +downtown, are the fearful slopes of the great hills. It takes big cars +to climb those hills, let alone haul the trailers that are a feature of +the Pittsburgh rush-hour traffic. When the New Yorker sees those cars +for the first time he looks again. They are chariots of steel, hardly +smaller than those that thread the subway in his daily trip to and from +Harlem, and when they come toward him they make him think of +locomotives. The heavy car gives a sense of strength and of hill +capability. But the company staggers twice each day under a traffic that +is far beyond its facilities--and it staggers under its political +burdens. + +For it is almost as much as your very life is worth to "talk back" to a +street car conductor in Pittsburgh. The conductor is probably an arm of +the big political machine that holds that western Pennsylvania town as +in the hollow of its hand. The conductors get their jobs through their +alderman, and they hold them through their alderman. So if a New York +man forgets that he is four hundred and forty miles from Broadway, and +gets to asserting his mind to the man who is in charge of the car let +him look out for trouble. Chances are nine to one that he will be hauled +up before a magistrate for breaking the peace, and that another arm of +the political machine will come hard upon him. + +A man, who was a life-long resident of Pittsburgh, once made a protest +to the conductor of a car coming across from Allegheny. The passenger +was in the right and the conductor knew it. But he answered that protest +with a volley of profanity. If that thing had happened in a seaboard +town, the conductor's job would not have been worth the formality of a +resignation. In Pittsburgh a bystander warned--the passenger--and he +saved himself arrest by keeping his mouth shut and getting off the car. + +But the Pittsburgh man had not quite lost his sense of justice, and so +he hurried to a certain high officer of the street railroad company. +When he came to the company's offices he was ushered in in high state, +for it so happened that the born Pittsburgh man was a director of that +very corporation. It so happens that street railroad directors do not +ride--like their steam railroad brethren--on passes, and the conductor +did not know that he was playing flip-flap with his job. + +"You'll have to fire that man," said the director, in ending his +complaint. "If that had happened at the club I would have punched him in +the head." + +The big man who operated the street railroad looked at the director, and +smiled what the lady novelists call a sweet, sad smile. + +"Sorry, Ben," said he, "but I know that man. He's one of Alderman +X----'s men, and if we fired him X---- would hang us up on half a dozen +things." + +Do you wonder that in the face of such a state of things transit relief +comes rather slowly to Pittsburgh? + +Pittsburgh men have been trying to worm their way out of their +difficulties for about a century and a half now, for it was 1758 that +saw a permanent settlement started there at the junction of the three +great rivers. Before that had been the memorable fight and defeat of +Braddock--not far from where more recently Mr. Frick and Mr. Carnegie +have been engaged in a rivalry as to which could erect the higher +skyscraper and most effectually block out the _façade_ of the very +beautiful Court House that the genius of H. H. Richardson designed--more +than a score of years ago. At Braddock's defeat George Washington fought +and it was no less a prophetic mind than that of the Father of His +Country which foresaw and prophesied that Pittsburgh, with proper +transportation facilities, would become one of the master cities of the +country. + +Today, when Pittsburgh men grow nervous in one of their chronic fits of +agitation--generally started by some talkative city, such as Chicago and +Duluth, proclaiming herself as the future center of the steel +industry--she gains comfort from the sayings of two Presidents--General +Washington, as just quoted, and the gentleman who sits at the head of +the board of the United States Steel Corporation, who goes out there +from time to time and tells them to be of good cheer, that the center of +the steel business is irrevocably fixed within their town. Pittsburgh +worries much more about the steel business than about the Richardson +Court House, which has just been left high and dry upon a local +Gibraltar because of the desire of the local aldermen to lower Fifth +avenue some eight or ten feet. But who shall say that she should not be +restive about a business that reaches an output in a single twelvemonth +of something over 150,000,000 tons? That is a jewel that is well worth +the keeping. + + * * * * * + +Philadelphia stands at the east end of Pennsylvania; Pittsburgh is the +west gate of that Keystone commonwealth. Yet two peas in a pod were +never half so different. Philadelphia stands for conservatism, +Pittsburgh for progress. While Philadelphia was climbing to the zenith +of her power and influence through the first three-quarters of the last +century and reaching her apotheosis in her great Centennial, Pittsburgh +was quiet beneath her smoke umbrellas experimenting with that strange +new metal, which man called steel. In the day dreams that Philadelphia +enjoyed in 1876 Pittsburgh was forgotten. + +"I suppose the Pennsylvania railroad must have some place to end at," +said a lady from Rittenhouse square, when her attention was called to +the city at the junction of the three rivers. And in the next year that +lady and many other ladies of the staunch old Quaker town were holding +up their hands in holy horror at the news from Pittsburgh. Great riots, +the bloodiest that had ever been known, were marking the railroad strike +there--why, in a single day the rioters had burned the great Union +station, every other railroad structure, and every car in the place. +That was bad advertising for a town that had none too many friends. + +But Pittsburgh was finding herself--she is still in that fascinating +process of development. For word was eking out from the rough mountains +of western Pennsylvania that a little group of Scotchmen--led by a +shrewd ironmaster whom politic folk were already calling "Mr. +Carnegie"--had made steel an economic structural possibility. In this +day when wood has become a luxury, steel is coming into its own and +Pittsburgh is today the most metropolitan city between New York and +Chicago. But she is still finding herself. The Survey, financed by Mrs. +Russell Sage, and equipped with some of the ablest and fairest minded +social workers in America, has called sharp attention to her +shortcomings. The Survey did its work thoroughly and it was not the work +of a minute or a day or a week or a month. When its report was ready, +Pittsburgh smarted. It was the sort of smarting that goes before a cure. + +Much has been done already. The man who went to Pittsburgh as recently +as ten years ago carried away some pretty definite memories of neglected +railroad stations and inferior hotel facilities. He remembered that in +Liberty and Penn avenues--two of the chief shopping streets in the +city--long trails of freight cars were constantly being shifted by dirty +switch engines in among the trolley cars, while farther up these same +avenues the Fort Wayne railroad tracks formed two of the nastiest grade +crossings in America. When a fine new hotel was finally built away out +Fifth avenue, he could sit on its porch and face Pittsburgh's famous +farm. The Schenley farm stretched over the hill and far away. Its barns +were sharply silhouetted upon the horizon, rail zigzag fences ran up and +down the slopes and sometimes one could see cattle outlined against the +sky edge. + +The farm was a sore spot in Pittsburgh development. It occupied a tract +somewhat similar in location to that of Central Park in Manhattan, and +the struggling, growing town crawled its way around the obstacle +slowly--then grew many miles east once again. Resentment gathered +against the farm, and finally a bill was slipped through at Harrisburg +imposing double taxes on property held by persons residing out of the +United States--a distinct slap at the Schenley estate. When the estate +protested, word was carried oversea to it that if a good part of the +farm were dedicated to the city as a park that bill would be withdrawn. + +So Pittsburgh gained its splendid new park, and a site for one of the +finest civic centers in America. The farm has begun to disappear--the +University of Pittsburgh is absorbing its last undeveloped slope for an +American Acropolis that shall put Athens in the pale. The new Athletic +Club, the development of the Hotel Schenley, the great Soldiers' +Memorial Hall which Allegheny county has just finished, the even greater +Carnegie Institute, the graceful twin-spired cathedral, all are going +toward the making of this fine, new civic center, and Pittsburgh being +Pittsburgh, and the Pirates social heroes, Forbes Field the finest +baseball park in all this land--a wizardry of glass and steel and +concrete--is a distinctive feature of this improvement. + +[Illustration: The old and the new at Pittsburgh] + +The freight trains are gone from the downtown shopping streets and the +two wicked grade crossings disappeared when the Pennsylvania built its +splendid new Union Station. Other fine railroad terminals and new hotels +have added to the comfort of the stranger. They are beginning in a faint +way to give transfers on the trolley cars, and there is more than a +promise that some day wayfarers will not be taxed a penny every time +they walk across the bridges that bind the heart of the city. The bridge +companies are private affairs, paying from fifteen to twenty percent +in annual dividends, and they hang pretty tightly on to their bonanzas. +But the Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce is after them, and that Chamber +is a fairly energetic body. It has already sought the devil in his lair +and tried to abolish the smoke nuisance, with some definite results. + +A New York girl who has been living in Pittsburgh for the last four +years complained that she had never seen but two sunsets there. There is +hope for that girl. If the Chamber of Commerce keeps hard at its +anti-smoke campaign, she may yet stand on the Point and down the muddy +Ohio see something that dimly resembles the glorious dying of the day, +as one sees it from the heights of New York city's Riverside Drive. + +A keen-eyed man sat in an easy chair in the luxury of the Duquesne Club, +and faced the New York man. + +"Are we so bad?" he demanded. "You New York men like to paint us that +way. You judge us falsely. You think that when you come out here you are +going to see a sort of modern Sodom, bowing to all the gods of money and +the gods of the high tariff. You think you are going to fairly revel in +a wide open town, in the full significance of that phrase, and what do +you see? + +"You see a pretty solid sort of a Scotch Presbyterian town, where you +cannot even get shaved in your hotel on Sunday, to say nothing of buying +a drink. And as for shows, you can't buy your way into a concert here on +Sunday. Why, some of the elders of my kirk have even looked askance at +Mr. Carnegie for the free recitals that he gives Sabbath afternoons in +that splendid hall of the Institute. + +"There's your real Pittsburgher, and if some of the boys have chafed a +bit under all the restraint that they have had here and gone to the +wicked city after a little fling and a little advertising, is that any +just reason why it all should be charged against Pittsburgh? Pittsburgh +has enough troubles of her own without borrowing any additional ones. + +"The trouble is we've been making too much money to notice much about +the boys, or give proper attention to some pretty vital civic +problems--that's why the rottenness cropped out in the City Councils. +It's the taint of the almighty dollar, Mr. New Yorker! Why, Mr. Carnegie +made a couple of hundred of us millionaires within a single twenty-four +hours. Can you think of any worse blow for an average town? + +"He took some of us, who had been working for him a long time, and got +us into the business--some for an eighth interest, others for a +sixteenth or even a thirty-second. That was great, and we appreciated +it, but it kept us fairly tight on ready money for a while, even though +Frick and Mellen were standing pat with an offer of a hundred million +dollars for the bonds of the steel company. I tell you I was short on +ready money myself, and wondering if I could not cut down on my house +rent $2,000 a year and get my wife to keep two hired girls instead of +three. Then you know what happened. Carnegie himself took over the bonds +at a cold two hundred million dollars. Within a week or so I was in New +York talking with an architect about building a new house for the +missus, and getting passage tickets through to Europe." + +The ironmaster called his automobile and bundled the New York man within +it. + +"We are going down into the slums," he said. "I can show you a single +block where thirteen different languages are spoken. That is the new +Pittsburgh--taking up one another's burdens, or something of that sort, +as they call it. It is queer until you get used to it, and when you get +used to it, it makes you feel like going up on the roof and yelling that +Pittsburgh is going to be the greatest city on earth, not just the +greatest in tonnage or in dollars. + +"That is why we are cottoning to that idea of a civic center out by +Schenley Park; that's why we pat Andrew Carnegie on the back when we +know that he is giving us the best in pictures and in music in America; +that's why Frick is holding back with his horse pasture there in front +of Carnegie Institute to build something bigger and better. Don't you +get the idea now of the bigger and better Pittsburgh?" + +The limousine stopped and the ironmaster beckoned a large, whiskered +Russian to it. "Here's a real anarchist," he said, "but he is one of my +protégés. He speaks down in a dirty hall in Liberty avenue, near the +Wabash terminal, but he's for the new Pittsburgh, and he's for it +strong--so we come together after a fashion." + +The Russian, who was a teacher, came close to the big automobile and +pointed to a woman of his own people--a woman wretchedly poor, who dwelt +in one of the hovels which are today Pittsburgh's greatest shame. + +"She's reading Byron," he said quietly, "and she has been in America +less than six months. She says there is a magnificent comparison between +Byron and Tolstoy." + +That reminded the ironmaster of an incident. + +"After that bad time in 1907," he said, "I chanced into one of Mr. +Carnegie's libraries, and the librarian complained to me of the way the +books were being ruined. Their backs were being scratched and filled +with rust and even shavings. I had an idea on that myself. I went back +to our own mill--it was pretty dull there and I was dodging the forlorn +place as much as I could. But we were sifting out a gang from the men +who were beating at our doors every morning for work, and even then we +were carrying twice as many men as we really needed. I went around back +of the furnaces and there were the library books--the men were reading +them in the long shifts." + +"They weren't reading fiction?" asked the New Yorker. + +"Not a bit of it," said the ironmaster. Then he added: + +"One of them spoke to me. He was only getting three days a week. 'Mr. +Carnegie can give the books,' was his quiet observation, 'and the money +to buy them. But we need more than money. Can't he ever give us the +leisure to read them without its costing us the money for our food?' + +"That, New Yorker, from the mouth of one of those of the new Pittsburgh +is the real answer to your question." + + + + +11 + +THE SIXTH CITY + + +They call her the Sixth City, but that is only in a comparative sense, +and exclusively in regard to her statistical position in the population +ranks of the large cities of our land. For no real citizen of Cleveland +will ever admit that his community is less than first, in all of the +things that make for the advance of a strong and healthy American town. +His might better be called "the City of Boundless Enthusiasm." Your +Cleveland man, however, is content to know it as the Sixth City. + +"Not that it really matters whether we are the fifth or the seventh--or +the sixth," he tells you. "Only it all goes to show how we've bobbed up +in the last twenty years. You know what we used to be--an inconsiderable +lake port up on the north brink of Ohio with Cincinnati down there in +the south pruning herself as a real metropolis and calling herself the +Queen City. We might call ourselves the Queen City today and stretch no +points, but that's a sort of fancy title that's gone out of fashion now. +The Sixth City sounds more like the Twentieth Century." + +And Cleveland having thus baptized herself, as it were, proceeded to +spread her new name to the world. "Cleveland--Sixth City" appeared on +the stationery of her business houses; her tailors stitched it in upon +the labels of the ready-made suits they sent to all corners of the land; +her bakers stamped it on the products of their ovens; big shippers +stenciled it over packing-cases; manufacturers even placed it upon the +brass-plates of the lathes and other complicated machines they sent +forth from their shops. Today when you say "Sixth City" to an American +he replies "Cleveland," which is precisely what Cleveland intended he +should reply. + +Now why has Cleveland taken her new position of sixth among the cities +of the land? Ask your Cleveland man that, and he will take you by the +elbow and march you straight toward the docks, that not only line her +lake front but extend for miles up within the curious twistings of the +Cuyahoga river. + +"Lake traffic," he will tell you, and begin to quote statistics. + +We will spare you most of the statistics. It is meet that you should +know, however, that upon the five Great Lakes there throbs a commerce +that might well be the envy of any far-reaching, salty sea. To put the +thing concretely, the freight portion of this traffic alone reached +tremendous totals in 1912. In the navigation months of that year, +exactly 47,435,477 tons of iron ore and an even greater tonnage of coal +moved upon the Lakes, while the enormous total of 158,000,000 bushels of +grain were received at the port of Buffalo. And although there are tens +of thousands of sailormen upon the salt seas who have never heard of +Cleveland, the business of the port of Cleveland is comparable with that +of the port of Liverpool, one of the very greatest and the very busiest +harbors in all the world. For four out of every five of the great steel +steamships carrying the iron ore and coal cargoes of the lakes are +operated from Cleveland. Until the formation of the United States Steel +corporation a few years ago she could also say that she owned four out +of five of these vessels. And today her indirect interest in them, +through the steel corporation, is not small. + +As the Cleveland man continues to din these statistics into your ear, +you let your gaze wander. Over across a narrow slip a gaunt steel +framework rises. It holds a cradle, large enough and strong enough to +accommodate a single steel railroad "gondola," which in turn carries +fifty tons of bituminous coal. The sides of the table are clamped over +the sides of one of these "gondola" cars, which a seemingly tireless +switch-engine has just shunted into it. Slowly the cradle is raised to +the top of the framework. A bell strikes and it raises itself upon edge, +three-quarters of the way over. The coal rushes out of the car in an +uprising cloud of black dust and drops through a funnel into the +expansive hold of the vessel that is moored at the dock. The car is +righted; some remaining coal rattles to its bottom. Once again it is +overturned and the remaining coal goes through the funnel. When it is +righted the second time it is entirely empty. The cradle returns to its +low level, the car is unfastened and given a push. It makes a gravity +movement and returns to a string of its fellows that have been through a +similar process. + +You take out your watch. The process consumes just two minutes for each +car. That means thirty cars an hour. In an hour fifteen hundred tons of +coal, the capacity of a long and heavily laden train, have been placed +in the hold of the waiting vessel. You are familiar, perhaps, with the +craft that tie up at the wharves of seaboard towns, and you roughly +estimate the capacity of this coal-carrier at some forty-five hundred +tons. It is going to take but three hours to fill her great hold, and +you find yourself astonished at the result of such computations. You +confide that astonishment to your Cleveland man. He smiles at you, +benignly. + +"That is really not very rapid work," he says, "they put eleven thousand +tons of ore into the _Corey_ in thirty-nine minutes up at Superior last +year." + +And that is the record loading of a vessel for all the world. When the +British ship-owners heard of that feat at a port two thousand miles +inland, they ceased to deride American docking facilities. + +The Cleveland man begins telling you something of this lake traffic in +iron ore and soft coal--almost three-quarters of the total tonnage of +the lakes. The workable iron deposits of America are today in greatest +profusion within a comparatively few miles of the head of Lake +Superior--nothing has yet robbed western Pennsylvania and West Virginia +of their supremacy as producers of bituminous coal. There is an ideal +traffic condition, the condition that lines the railroad cars for forty +miles roundabout Pittsburgh. The great cost in handling freight upon the +average railroad comes from the fact that it is generally what is known +as "one-way" business--that is, the volume of traffic moves in a single +direction, necessitating an expensive and wasteful return haul of empty +cars. There is no such traffic waste upon the Great Lakes. The ships +that go up and down the long water lanes of Erie and Huron and Superior +do not worry about ballast for the return. They carry coal from Buffalo, +Erie, Ashtabula, Conneaut and Cleveland to Duluth and Superior and they +come back with their capacious holds filled with red iron ore. There is +your true economy in transportation, and the reflection of it comes in +the fact that these ships haul cargo at the rate of .78 of a mill for a +ton-mile, which is the lowest freight-rate in the world. + +Cleveland built these ships, in fact she still is building the greater +part of them. And she thinks nothing of building the largest of these +steel vessels in ninety days. Take a second look at that vessel--the +coal cars are still pouring their grimy treasure into her hold. She is +builded, like all of these new freighters, with a severity that shows +the bluff utilitarianism of the shipbuilders of the Great Lakes. None of +the finicky traditions of the Clyde rule the minds of the men who today +are building the merchant marine of the Lakes. One deckhouse, with the +navigating headquarters, is forward; the other, with funnel and the +other externals of the ship's propelling mechanism, is at the extreme +stern. Amidships your Great Lakes carrier is cargo--and nothing else. No +tangle of line or burden of trivials; just a red-walled hull of thick +steel plates and a steel-plate deck--broken into thirty-six hatches and +of precisely the same shade of red--for these ships are quickly painted +by hose-spray. Remember that it is ninety days--from keel-plates to +launching. In another thirty days the ship's simple fittings are +finished and her engines in her heart are ready to pound from down-Lakes +to up-Lakes and back innumerable times. + + * * * * * + +If we have given some attention in this Cleveland chapter to the traffic +of the Great Lakes, it is, as we have already intimated, because the +traffic of the Great Lakes has made her the Sixth City. It has also made +the most important of her industries, the very greatest of her fortunes. +Your Cleveland man will tell you of one of these--before you leave the +pier-edge. It was the fortune that an old Lake captain left at his death +a little time ago--the fortune a mere matter of some twenty-eight +millions of dollars. The old captain knew the Lakes and he had studied +their traffic--all his life. But his will directed that his money should +not be expended in the building of ships. It provided that at least a +quarter of a million of the income should annually go to the purchase of +Cleveland real estate. And Cleveland was quick to explain that it was +not that the old man loved shipping less, but that he loved Cleveland +real estate more. He had the gift of foresight. + +If you would see that foresight in his own eyes drive out Euclid +avenue--that broad thoroughfare that leads from the old-fashioned Public +Square in the heart of the city straight toward the southeast. Euclid +avenue gained its fame in other days. Travelers used to come back from +Cleveland and tell of the glories of that highway. Alas, today those +glories are largely those of memory. The old houses still sit in their +great lawns, but the grime of the city's industry has made them seem +doubly old and decadent, while Commerce has pushed her smart new shops +out among them to the very sidewalk line. Many of these shops are given +over to the automobile business--a business which does not hesitate in +any of our towns to transform resident streets into commercial. But in +Cleveland one may partly forgive the audacity of this particular trade +in recognition of its perspicacity. For Euclid avenue, rapidly growing +now from an entirely residential street into an entirely business +highway, is the great automobile thoroughfare of the East Side of the +city. And when you consider that one out of every ten Cleveland families +has a motor car, you can begin to estimate the traffic through Euclid +avenue. + +There is a West Side of Cleveland--you might almost say, of course--but +one does not come to know it until he comes to know Cleveland well. The +city is builded upon a high plateau that rises in a steep bluff from the +very edge of the lake. Through this plateau, at the very bottom of a +ravine, wide and deep, the navigable Cuyahoga twists its tortuous way +into Lake Erie. It seems as if that ravine must almost have been cut to +test the resources of the bridge-builders of America. For it has been +their problem to keep the Sixth City from becoming entirely severed by +her great water artery. They have solved it by the construction of one +huge steel viaduct after another but the West Side remains the West +Side--and always somewhat jealous of the East. She knows that the great +public buildings of Cleveland--that comprehensive civic center plan to +which we shall come in a moment--are fixed for all time upon the East. +And so when Cleveland decides to build a great new city hall, the West +Side demands and receives the finest market house in all the land. + +So it is that it is the East Side that your Cleveland man shows you +alone when your time is limited, and so it is that Euclid avenue is the +one great thoroughfare of the whole East Side. + +"If you want to know how we've bobbed up, look at here," the Cleveland +man tells you. + +You look. A contractor is busy changing a railroad crossing from level +to overhead; a much-needed improvement--despite the fact that it should +have been under-surface rather than overhead--when you come to consider +the traffic that moves through Euclid avenue in all the daylight hours +and far into the night. + +"When the old Cleveland and Pittsburgh--it's part of the Pennsylvania, +now--was built, thirty-five or forty years ago, they thought they would +put the line around the town. But the town was up to their line before +they knew it--and they decided ten or a dozen years ago that they would +put a suburban station here." He points to a handsome red brick +structure of modern architecture. "The Pennsylvania folks are +long-headed--almost always. But if they had known that Cleveland was to +become the Sixth City within ten years they never would have put two +hundred thousand dollars in a grade crossing station at Euclid avenue. +The way we've grown has sort of startled all of us." + +Today Euclid avenue is a compactly built thoroughfare for miles east of +that Pennsylvania railroad crossing. It is at least two miles and a half +from that crossing to Cleveland's two great educational lions--the Case +School of Applied Science and the Western Reserve University--and they +in turn only mark the beginning of the city's newest and most +fashionable residence district. + +Indeed Cleveland has "bobbed up." And her growth within the last quarter +of a century has been more than physical, more than that recorded by +emotionless census-takers. For beneath those grimy old houses on Euclid +avenue and the down town residence streets, beneath the roofs of those +gray and grimy story-and-a-half wooden houses which line far less +pretentious streets for long miles, lies as restless and as hopeful a +civic spirit as any town in America can boast. It makes itself manifest +in many ways--as we shall see. The man who first brought it into a +working force was a resourceful little man who died a little while ago. +But before Tom L. Johnson died he was Mayor of the city; something more; +he was the best liked and the best hated man that Cleveland had ever +known; and he was better liked than he was hated. + +In person a plump little man with a ceaseless smile that might have been +stolen from a Raphael cherub, a democratic little man, who knew his +fellows and who could read them, almost unfailingly. And the smile could +change from softness into severity--when Tom L. Johnson wanted a thing +he wanted it mighty hard. And he generally succeeded in getting it. He +could not only read men; he could read affairs. He saw Cleveland coming +to be the Sixth City. And he determined that she should realize the +dignity of metropolitanism in other fashion than in merely census totals +or bank clearances. + +[Illustration: Cleveland is proud of her great, broad streets] + +Johnson began by going after the street railroad system of the town. He +had had some experience in building and operating street railroads in +other parts of the country, and he set out along paths that were not +entirely unfamiliar to him. It so happened that at the time he began his +crusade Cleveland was quite satisfied with her street railroad service. +Her residents went out to other cities of the land and bragged about how +their big yellow cars ran out to all the far corners of their rapidly +growing city. But Johnson was not criticising the service. He was merely +saying in his gentle insistent way that five cents was too much for a +man to pay to ride upon a street car. He thought three cents was quite +enough. The street railroad company quite naturally thought differently. +In every other town in the land five cents was the standard fare, and +any Cleveland man could tell you how much better the car-service was at +home. That company produced vast tables of statistics to prove its +contentions. Tom L. Johnson merely laughed at the statistics and +reiterated that three cents was a sufficient street-car fare for +Cleveland. + +The details of that _cause celébre_ are not to be recited here. It is +enough here to say that Tom L. Johnson lived long enough to see +three-cent fares upon the Cleveland cars, and that the conclusion was +not reached until a long and bitter battle had been fought. The +conclusion itself as it stands today is interesting. The owners of the +street railroad stock, the successors of the men who invested their +money on a courageous gamble that Cleveland was to grow into a real city +are assured of a legitimate six percent upon their stock. They cannot +expect more. If the railroad earns more than that fixed six percent its +fares must be reduced. If, on the other hand, it fails to earn six +percent the fares must be raised sufficiently to permit that return. The +fare-steps are simple, a cent at a time, with a cent being charged for a +transfer, or a transfer being furnished free as best may meet the income +need of the railroad. + +At present the fare is three cents, transfers being furnished free. A +little while ago the fare was three cents, a cent being charged for the +transfer. That brought an unnecessarily high revenue to the railroad, +and so today while the conductor who issues you a transfer gravely +charges you a cent for it, the conductor who accepts it, with equal +gravity, presents you a cent in return for it. This prevents the +transfers being used as stationery or otherwise frivoled away. For, +while the street car system of Cleveland is among the best operated in +America, it is also one of the most whimsical. Its cars are proof of +that. Some of them are operated on the so-called "pay-as-you-enter" +principle, although Cleveland, which has almost a passion for +abbreviation, calls them the "paye" cars. These cars are still a +distinct novelty in most of our cities. In Cleveland they are almost as +old as Noah's Ark compared with a car in which you pay as you leave--a +most sensible fashion--or a still newer car in which you can pay as you +enter or pay as you leave--a choice which you elect by going to one end +or the other of the vehicle. + +But the fact remains that Cleveland has three-cent fares upon her +excellent street railroad system, to say nothing of having control over +her most important utility, the street railroad, which pays six percent +dividends to its owners. The three-cent fare seems standard in +Cleveland. In fact, she is becoming a three-cent city. Small shops make +attractive offers at that low figure, and "three-cent movies" are +springing up along her streets. She has already gone down to Washington +and demanded that the Federal government issue a three-cent piece--to +meet her peculiar needs. So does the spirit of Tom L. Johnson still go +marching on. + +It must have been the spirit of Tom L. Johnson that gave Cleveland a +brand-new charter in this year of Grace, 1913. Into this new charter +have been written many things that would have been deemed impossible in +the charter of a large American city even a decade ago. Initiative and +referendum, of course--Johnson and his little band of faithful followers +were not satisfied until they had gone to Columbus a few winters ago +and written that into the new constitution of the state of Ohio--a +department of public welfare to regulate everything from the safety and +morals of "three-cent movies" to the larger questions of public health +and even of public employment, the very sensible short ballot, and even +the newest comer in our family of civic reforms--the preferential +ballot, although at the time that this is being written it is being +sharply contested in the high courts at Columbus. Cleveland rejected the +commission form of government. The fact that a good many other +progressive American towns have accepted it, did not, in her mind, +weigh for or against it. She has never been a city of strong +conventions--witness her refusal to regard the five-cent fare as +standard, simply because other towns had it. Neither has tradition been +permitted to warp her course. A few years ago her citizens decided that +her system of street names was not good enough or expansive enough for a +town that was entering the metropolitan class. So she changed most of +her street names--almost in the passing of a night. In most American +towns that would have been out of the question. Folk cling to street +names almost as they cling to family traditions. But Cleveland folk +seemed to realize instantly that the new system of numbered +cross-streets--with the broad diagonal highways named "roads"--after the +fashion of some English cities--was so far the best that she immediately +gave herself to the new scheme with heart and soul, as seems to be her +way. + +To tell of a splendid new charter adopted, of the control gained over +her chief utility and necessity, of the progressive social reforms that +she houses, is not alone to tell of the splendid heart and soul that +beats within the walls and roofs of her houses. It is, quite as much, to +tell of a remarkable coöperation, remarkable when you consider that +Cleveland has become a city of more than six hundred thousand humans. +That coöperation may best be illustrated by a single incident: + +A retail dealer in hardware recently opened a fine new store out in +Euclid avenue. He opened it as some small cities might open their new +library or their new city hall--with music and a reception. His friends +sent great bouquets of flowers, the concerns from which he bought his +supplies sent more flowers; but the biggest bunch of flowers came from +the men who were his competitors in the same line of business. That was +Cleveland--Cleveland spirit, Cleveland generosity. Perhaps that is the +secret of Cleveland success. + + * * * * * + +One thing more--the plan for the Cleveland civic center. For the Sixth +City having set her mental house in order is to build for it a physical +house of great utility and of compelling beauty. You may have heard of +the Cleveland civic plan. It is in the possibility that you have not, +that we bring it in for a final word. When Cleveland set out to obtain a +new Federal Post Office and Court House for herself, a few years ago, it +came to her of a sudden that she was singularly lacking in fine public +buildings. It was suggested that she should seek for herself not only a +Federal building but a new Court House and City Hall as well. In the +same breath it was proposed that these be brought into a beautiful and a +practical group. It was an attractive suggestion. In the fertile soil of +Cleveland attractive suggestions take quick root. And so in Cleveland +was born the civic center idea that has spread almost like the +proverbial wildfire all the way across the land. + +To create her civic group she moved in a broad and decisive fashion. She +engaged three of the greatest of American architects--A. W. Brunner, +John M. Carrere, D. H. Burnham--two of them poets and idealists, the +third almost the creator of America's most utilitarian type of +building, the modern skyscraper. To these men she gave a broad and +unlocked path. And they created for her, along a broad Mall stretching +from Superior street to the very edge of that mighty cliff that +overlooks the lake, a plan for the housing of her greatest functions. + +It is not too much that Cleveland should dream of this Mall as an +American Place de la Concorde. It was not too much when the architects +breathed twenty millions of dollars as the possible cost of this civic +dream. Cleveland merely breathed "Go ahead," and the architects have +gone ahead. The Post Office and the new County Building are already +completed and in use, the City Hall should be completed before 1915 +comes to take his place in the history of the world. Other buildings are +to follow, not the least of them a new Union station--although there +will be travelers who will sincerely regret the passing of Cleveland's +stout old stone station, whose high-vaulted train-shed seemed to them in +boyhood days to be the most lofty and wonderful of apartments. The bulk +of this new open square is yet to be cleared of the many buildings that +today occupy it. But that is merely a detail in the development of +Cleveland's greatest architectural ambition. + +The civic group can never be more than the outward expression of the +ambitious spirit of a new giant among the metropolitan cities of +America. As such it can be eminently successful. It can speak for the +city whose civic heart it becomes, proclaiming her not merely great in +dollars or in the swarming throngs of her population, but rather great +in strength of character, in charity, in generosity--in all those +admirable things that go to make a town preëminently good and great. And +in these things your Cleveland man will not proclaim his as the Sixth +City, but rather as in the front rank of all the larger communities of +the United States. + + + + +12 + +CHICAGO--AND THE CHICAGOANS + + +Early in the morning the city by the lake is astir. Before the first +long scouting rays of earliest sunlight are thrusting themselves over +the barren reaches of Michigan--state and lake--Chicago is in action. +The nervous little suburban trains are reaching into her heart from +South, from North and from West. The long trains of elevated cars are +slipping along their alley-routes, skirting behind long rows of the +dirty colorless houses of the most monotonous city on earth, threading +themselves around the loop--receiving passengers, discharging passengers +before dawn has fully come upon the town. The windows of the tedious, +almost endless rows of houses flash into light and life, the trolley +cars in the broad streets come at shorter intervals, in whole companies, +brigades, regiments--a mighty army of trucks and wagons begin to send up +a great wave of noise and of clatter from the shrieking highways and +byways of the city. + + * * * * * + +The traveler coming to the city from the east and by night finds it +indeed a mighty affair. For an hour and a half before his train arrives +at the terminal station, he is making his way through Chicago +environs--coming from dull flat monotonies of sand and brush and pine +into Gary--with its newness and its bigness proclaimed upon its very +face so that even he who flits through at fifty miles an hour may read +both--jolting over main line railroads that cross and recross at every +conceivable angle, snapping up through Hammond and Kensington and Grand +Crossing--to the right and to the left long vistas with the ungainly, +picturesque outlines of steel mills with upturned rows of smoking +stacks, of gas-holders and of packing-houses, the vistas suddenly closed +off by long trails of travel-worn freight-cars, through which the +traveler's train finds its way with a mighty clattering and +reverberating of noisy echoes. This is Chicago--Chicago spreading itself +over miles of absolutely flat shore-land at almost the extreme southern +tip of Lake Michigan--Chicago proudly proclaiming herself as the +business and the transportation metropolis of the land, disdaining such +mere seaport places as New York or Boston or Baltimore or San +Francisco--Chicago with the most wretched approaches on her main lines +of travel of any great city of the world. + +If you come to her on at least one of the great railroads that link her +with the Atlantic seaboard, you will get a glimpse of her one redeeming +natural feature, for five or six miles before your train comes to a +final grinding stop at the main terminal--the blue waters of the lake. +This railroad spun its way many years ago on the very edge of the +lake--much to the present-day grief of the town. It gives no grief to +the incoming traveler--to turn from the sordid streets, the quick +glimpses of rows of pretentious but fearfully dirty and uninteresting +houses--to the great open space to the east of Chicago--nature's +assurance of fresh air and light and health to one of the really vast +cluster-holds of mankind. To him the lake is in relief--even in splendid +contrast to the noise, the dirt, the streets darkened and narrowed by +the over-shouldering constructions of man. From the intricate and the +confusing, to the simplicity of open water--no wonder then that Chicago +has finally come to appreciate her lake, that she seizes upon her +remaining free waterfront like a hungry and ill-fed child, that she +builds great hotels and office-buildings where their windows may +look--not upon the town, stretching itself to the horizon on the +prairie, but upon the lake, with its tranquillity and its beauty, the +infinite majesty of a great, silent open place. + + * * * * * + +In the terminal stations of the city you first begin to divine the real +character of the city. You see it, a great crucible into which the +people of all nations and all the corners of one of the greatest of the +nations are being poured. Pressing her nose against the glass of a +window that looks down into surpassingly busy streets, overshadowed by +the ungainly bulk of an elevated railroad, is the bent figure of a +hatless peasant woman from the south of Europe--seeing her America for +the first time and almost shrinking from the glass in a mixture of fear +and of amazement. Next to her is a sleek, well-groomed man who may be +from the East--from an Atlantic seaport city, but do not be too sure of +that, for he may have his home over on Michigan avenue and think that +"New York is a pretty town but not in it with Chicago." You never can +tell in the most American and most cosmopolitan of American cities. At a +third window is a man who has come from South Dakota. He has a big ranch +up in that wonderful state. You know that because last night he sat +beside you on a bench in the dingy, busy office of the old Palmer House +and told you of Chicago as he saw it. + +"I've a farm up in the South Dakota," he told you, in brief. "This is my +first time East." You started in a bit of surprise at that, for it had +always occurred to you that Chicago was West, that you, born New Yorker, +were reaching into the real West whenever you crossed to the far side of +Main street, in Buffalo. You looked at the ranchman, feeling that he was +joking, and then you took a second look into his tired eyes and knew +that you were talking to no humorist. + +"The first real big town that I ever ran into," he said, in his simple +way, "was Sioux City, and I set up and took a little notice on it. It +seemed mighty big, but that was five years ago, and four years ago I +took my stock down to Cudahy in Omaha--and there _was_ a town. You could +walk half a day in Omaha and never come to cattle country. Just houses +and houses and houses--an' you begin to wonder where they find the folks +to fill them. This year I come here with the beef for the first +time--an' you could put Omaha in this town and never know the +difference." + +After that you confessed, with much pride, that you lived in New York +city, and you began. You knew the number of miles of subway from the +Bronx over to Brooklyn, and the number of stories in the Woolworth +building, all those things, and when you caught your breath, the +stockman asked you if Tom Sharkey really had a saloon in your town, and +was Steve Brodie still alive, and did New York folks like to go down to +the Statue of Liberty on pleasant Sunday afternoons. You answered those +questions, and then you told the stockman more--of London, made of +dozens of Omahas, where the United States was but a pleasant and withal +a somewhat uncertain dream, of Paris the beautiful, and of Berlin the +awfully clean. When you were done, you went with the stockman to eat in +a basement--that is the Chicago idea of distinction in restaurants--and +he took you to a lively show afterwards. + +Now you never would have wandered into a Broadway hotel lobby and made +the acquaintance of a perfect stranger, dined with him and spent the +evening with him--no, not even if you were a Chicagoan and fearfully +lonely in New York. It is the Chicago that gets into a New Yorker's +veins when he comes within her expanded limits, it is the unseen aura +of the West that creeps as far east as the south tip of Lake Michigan. +It made you acknowledge with hearty appreciation the "good mornings" of +each man as he filed into the wash-room of the sleeping car in the early +morning. You never say "good morning" to strangers in the sleeping cars +going from New York over to Boston. For that is the East and that is +different. + + * * * * * + +A Chicago man sits back in the regal comfort of a leather-padded office +chair and tells you between hurried bites of the lunch that has been +placed upon his desk, of the real town that is sprawled along the Lake +Michigan shore. + +"Don't know as you particularly care for horse-food," he apologizes, +between mouthfuls, "but that's the cult in this neck-o'-woods nowadays." + +"The cult?" you inquire, as he plunges more deeply in his bran-mash. + +"Precisely," he nods. "We're living in cults out here now. We've got +Boston beaten to culture." + +He shoves back the remnant of his "health food" luncheon with an +expression that surely says that he wishes it was steak, smothered with +onions and flanked by an ample-girthed staff of vegetables, and faces +you--you New Yorker--with determination to set your path straight. + +"Along in the prehistoric ages--which in Chicago means about the time of +the World's Fair--we were trying to live up to anything and everything, +but particularly the ambition to be the overwhelmingest biggest town in +creation, and to make your old New York look like an annexed seaport. We +had no cults, no woman's societies, nothing except a lot of men making +money hand over fist, killing hogs, and building cars and selling stuff +at retail by catalogues. We were not æsthetic and we didn't +particularly care. We liked plain shows as long as the girls in them +weren't plain, and we had a motto that a big lady carried around on a +shield. The motto was 'I will,' and translated it meant to the bottom of +the sea with New York or St. Louis or any other upstart town that tried +to live on the same side of the earth as Chicago. We were going to have +two million population inside of two years and--" + +He dives again into his cultish lunch and after a moment resumes: + +"The big lady has lost her job and we've thrown the shield--motto and +all--into the lake. We're trying to forget the motto and that's why +we've got the cult habit. We're class and we're close on the heels of +you New Yorkers--only last winter they began to pass the French pastry +around on a tray at my club. We learn quickly and then go you one +better. We've finally given Jane Addams the recognition and the support +that she should have had a dozen years ago. We're strong and we're +sincere for culture--the university to the south of us has had some +funny cracks but that is all history. Together with the one to the north +of us, they are finally institutions--and Chicago respects them as such. + +"Take opera. We used to think it was a fad to hear good music, and only +the society folks went to hear it--so that the opera fairly starved to +death when it came out here. Now they are falling over one another to +get into the Auditorium, and our opera company is not only an +institution but you New Yorkers would give your very hearts to have it +in your own big opera house." + +"You'll build an opera house out here then," you venture, "the +biggest--" + +He interrupts. + +"Not necessarily the biggest," he corrects, "but as fine as the very +best." + +The talk changes. You are frankly interested in the cults. You have +heard of how one is working in the public schools, how the school +children of Chicago work in classrooms with the windows wide open, and +you ask him about it. + +"It must be fine for the children?" you finally venture. + +"It is," he says. "My daughter teaches in a school down Englewood way, +and she says that it is fine for the children--but hell on the teachers. +They weren't trained to it in the beginning." + +You are beginning to understand Chicago. A half an hour ago you could +not have understood how a man like this--head of a giant corporation +employing half a hundred thousand workmen, a man with three or four big +houses, a stable full of automobiles, a man of vast resources and +influences--would have his daughter teaching in a public school. You are +beginning to understand the man--the man who is typical of Chicago. You +come to know him the more clearly as he tells you of the city that he +really loves. He tells you how Sorolla "caught on" over at the +Institute--although more recently the Cubists rather dimmed the +brilliance of the Spaniard's reception--and how the people who go to the +Chicago libraries are reading less fiction and more solid literature all +the while. Then--of a sudden, for he realizes that he must be back again +into the grind and the routine of his work--he turns to you and says: + +"And yesterday we had the big girl and the motto. It was hardly more +than yesterday that we thought that population counted, that acreage was +a factor in the consummation of a great city." + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: Michigan Avenue and the wonderful lakefront--Chicago] + +So you see that Chicago is only America, not boastful, not arrogant, but +strong in her convictions, strong in her sincerity, strong in her poise +between right and power together, and not merely power without right. +A city set in the heart of America must certainly take strong American +tone, no matter how many foreigners New York's great gateway may pour +into her ample lap in the course of a single twelvemonth. Chicago has +taken that dominating tone upon herself. + +She is a great city. Her policemen wear star-shaped badges after the +fashion of country constables in rural drama, and her citizens call the +trolleys that run after midnight "owl cars," but she is a great city +none the less for these things. Her small shops along Michigan avenue +have the smartness of Paris or of Vienna, the greatest of her department +stores is one of the greatest department stores in all the land, which +means in the whole world. It is softly carpeted, floor upon floor, and +the best of Chicago delights to lunch upon one of its upper floors. +Chicago likes to go high for its meals or else, as we have already +intimated, down into basements. The reason for this last may be that one +of the world's greatest _restauranteurs_, who had his start in the city +by Lake Michigan, has always had his place below sidewalk level on a +busy corner of the city. + +The city is fearfully busy at all of its downtown corners. New Yorkers +shudder at Thirty-fourth street and Broadway. Inside the Chicago loop +are several dozen Thirty-fourth streets and Broadways. There you have +it--the Chicago loop, designed to afford magnificent relief to the town +and in effect having tightly drawn a belt about its waist. The loop is a +belt-line terminal, slightly less than a mile in diameter, designed to +serve the elevated railroads that stretch their caterpillar-like +structures over three directions of the widespread town. Within it are +the theaters, the hotels, the department stores, the retail district, +and the wholesale and the railroad terminals. Just without it is an arid +belt and then somewhere to the north, the west and the south, the great +residential districts. So it is a mistake. For, with the exception of a +little way along Michigan avenue to the south, the loop has acted +against the growth of the city, has kept it tightly girdled within +itself. + +"Within the loop," is a meaningful phrase in Chicago. It means +congestion in every form and the very worst forms to the fore. It means +that what was originally intended to be an adequate terminal to the +various elevated railroads has become a transportation abomination and a +matter of local contempt. For you cannot exaggerate the condition that +it has created. It is fearful on ordinary days, and when you come to +extraordinary days, like the memorable summer when the Knights Templar +held their triennial conclave there, the newspapers print "boxed" +summaries of the persons killed and injured by congestion conditions +"within the loop." That takes it out of being a mere laughing matter. + +It is no laughing matter to folks who have to thread it. Trolley cars, +automobiles, taxicabs, the long lumbering 'buses that remind one of the +photographs of Broadway, New York, a quarter of a century ago or more, +entangle themselves with one another and with unfortunate pedestrians +and still no one comes forward with practical relief. The 'buses are +peculiarly Chicago institutions. For long years they have been taking +passengers from one railroad station to another. A considerable part of +Western America has been ferried across the city by Lake Michigan, in +these institutions. For Chicago, with the wisdom of nearly seventy-five +years of growth, has steadily refused to accept the union station idea. +St. Louis has a union station--and bitterly regrets it. Modern big towns +are scorning the idea of a union station; in fact, Buffalo has just +rejected the scheme for herself. For a union station, no matter how big +or how pretentious it may be architecturally, will reduce a city to +way-station dimensions. St. Louis is a big town, a town with +personality, the great trunk lines of east and south and west have +terminals there; but the many thousands of travelers who pass through +there in the course of a twelvemonth, see nothing of her. They file from +one train into the waiting-room of her glorious station--one of the few +really great railroad stations of the world--and in a little while take +an outbound train--without ever having stepped out into the streets of +the town. + +In Chicago--as it is almost a form of _lese majeste_ to discuss St. +Louis in a chapter devoted to Chicago we herewith submit our full +apologies--four-fifths of the through passengers have to be carried in +the omnibuses from one of the big railroad stations to another. They +know that in advance, and they generally arrange to stop over there for +at least a night. This means business for the hotels, large and small. +It also means business for the retail stores and the theaters. And it is +one of the ways that Chicago preserves her metropolitanism. + +And yet with all of that metropolitanism--there is a spirit in Chicago +that distinctly breathes the smaller town, a spirit that might seem +foreign to the most important city that we have between the two oceans. +It is the spirit of Madison, or Ottumwa, or Jackson, perhaps a little +flavor still surviving of the not long-distant days when Chicago was +merely a town. You may or you may not know that in the days before her +terrific fire she was called "the Garden City." The catalpa trees that +shaded her chief business streets had a wide fame, and older prints show +the Cook County Court House standing in lawn-plats. In those days +Chicago folk knew one another and, to a decent extent, one another's +business. In these days, much of that town feeling remains. You sit in +the great tomb-like halls of the Union League, or in the more modern +University Club, perhaps up in that wonderful bungalow which the +Cliff-dwellers have erected upon the roof of Orchestra Hall, and you +hear all of the small talk of the town. Smith has finally got that +franchise, although he will pay mighty well for it; Jones is going to +put another fourteen-story addition on his store. Wilkins has bought a +yacht that is going to clean up everything on the lake, and then head +straight for laurels on the Atlantic seaboard. You would have the same +thing in a smaller western town, expressed in proportionate dimensions. +After all, the circle of men who accomplish the real things in the real +Chicago is wonderfully small. But the things that they accomplish are +very large, indeed. + +They will take you out to see some of these big things--that department +store, without an equal outside of New York or Philadelphia at least, +and where Chicago dearly loves to lunch; a mail-order house which +actually boasts that six acres of forest timber are cleared each day to +furnish the paper for its catalogue, of which a mere six million copies +are issued annually; they will point out in the distance the stacks and +smoke clouds of South Chicago and will tell you in tens of thousands of +dollars, the details of the steel industry; take you, of course, to the +stock-yards and there tell you of the horrible slaughter that goes +forward there at all hours of the day and far into the night. Perhaps +they will show you some of the Chicago things that are great in another +sense--Hull House and the McCormick Open Air School, for instance. And +they will be sure to show you the park system. + +A good many folk, Eastern and Western, do not give Chicago credit for +the remarkable park system that she has builded up within recent years. +These larger parks, with their connecting boulevards, make an entire +circuit around the back of the town, and the city is making a distinct +effort to wrest the control of the water-front from the railroad that +has skirted it for many years, so that she may make all this park land, +too--in connection with her ambitious city plan. She has accomplished a +distinct start already in the water-front plan along her retail shop and +hotel district--from Twelfth street north to the river. The railroad +tracks formerly ran along the edge of the lake all that distance. Now +they are almost a third of a mile inland; the city has reclaimed some +hundreds of acres from the more shallow part of Lake Michigan and has in +Grant Park a pleasure-ground quite as centrally located as Boston's +famous Common. It is still far from complete. While the broad strip +between Michigan avenue and the depressed railroad tracks is wonderfully +trim and green, and the Art Institute standing within it so grimy that +one might easily mistake it for old age, the "made ground" to the east +of the tracks is still barren. But Chicago is making good use of it. The +boys and young men come out of the office-buildings in the noon recess +to play baseball there, the police drill and parade upon it to their +heart's content, it is gaining fame as a site for military encampments +and aviation meets. + +Chicago makes good use of all her parks. You look a long way within them +before you find the "Keep off the Grass" signs. And on Saturday +afternoons in midsummer you will find the park lawns thronged with +picnic parties--hundreds and even thousands of them--bringing their +lunches out from the tighter sections of the town and eating them in +shade and comfort and the cooling breezes off Lake Michigan. For Chicago +regards the lake as hardly more than an annex to her park system, even +today when the question of lake-front rights is not entirely settled +with the railroad. On pleasant summer days, her residents go bathing in +the lake by the thousands, and if they live within half a dozen blocks +of the shore they will go and come in their bathing suits, with perhaps +a light coat or bath-robe thrown over them. A man from New York might be +shocked to see a Chicago man in a bathing suit riding a motorcycle down +an important residence street--without the semblance of coat or robe; +but that is Chicago, and Chicago seems to think nothing of it. She +wonders if a man from Boston might not be embarrassed to see a coatless, +vestless, collarless, suspendered man driving a four-thousand-dollar +electric car through Michigan avenue. + +Chicago is fast changing, however, in these respects. She is growing +more truly metropolitan each twelvemonth--less like an overgrown country +town. It was only a moment ago that we sat in the office of the +manufacturer, and he told us of the Chicago of yesterday, of the big +girl who had "I will" emblazoned upon her shield. There is a Chicago of +tomorrow, and a hint of its glory has been spread upon the walls of a +single great gallery of the Art Institute, in the concrete form of +splendid plans and perspectives. The Chicago of tomorrow is to be +different; it is to forget the disadvantages of a lack of contour and +reap those of a magnificent shore front. In the Chicago of tomorrow the +railroads will not hold mile after mile of lake-edge for themselves, the +elevated trains will cease to have a merry-go-round on the loop, the +arid belt between downtown and uptown will have disappeared, great +railroad terminal stations and public buildings built in architectural +plan and relation to one another are to arise, her splendid park and +boulevard system is to be vastly multiplied. + +Chicago looks hungrily forward to her tomorrow. She is never discouraged +with her today, but with true American spirit, she anticipates the +future. The present generation cares little for itself, it can tolerate +the loop and its abominations, the _hodge-podge_ of the queer and the +_nouveau_ that distinguishes the city by the lake in this present year +of grace. But the oncoming generations! There is the rub. The oncoming +generations are to have all that the wisdom and the wealth of today can +possibly dedicate to them. There, then, is your Chicago spirit, the +dominating inspiration that rises above the housetops of rows of +monotonous, dun-colored houses and surveys the sprawling, disorderly +town, and proclaims it triumphant over its outer self. + + + + +13 + +THE TWIN CITIES + + +A fine yellow train takes you from Chicago to St. Paul and Minneapolis, +in the passing of a single night. And if you ever meet in the course of +your travel the typical globe-trotter who is inclined to carp at +American railroads, refer him to these yellow trains that run from +Chicago up into the Northwest. There are no finer steam caravans in all +the entire world. And when the globe-trotter comes back at you with his +telling final shot about the abominable open sleepers of America--and +you in your heart of hearts must think them abominable--tell him in +detail of the yellow trains. For a price not greater than he would pay +for a room in a first-class hotel over-night, he can have a real room in +the yellow trains. Like the compartments in the night-trains of Europe? +No, not at all. These are real rooms--a whole car filled with them and +they are the final and unanswerable argument for the comfort and luxury +of the yellow trains. + +In such a stateroom and over smooth rails you sleep--sleep as a child +sleeps until Lemuel, the porter, comes and tears you forth by +entreaties, persuading you that you are almost upon the brink of--not +St. Peter but of St. Paul. Of course, Lemuel has let his enthusiasm +carry away his accuracy--even a porter upon a yellow train is apt to do +that--but you have full chance to arise and dress leisurely before your +train stops in the ancient ark of a Union station[E] upon the river +level at the capital of the state of Minnesota. For at St. Paul you +have come to the Mississippi--the Father of Waters of legendary lore. If +you have only seen the stream at St. Louis or at New Orleans, polluted +by the muddy waters of the Missouri or the Ohio or a dozen sluggish +southern streams, you will not recognize the clear northern river +flowing turbulently through a high-walled gorge, as the Mississippi. +There are a few of the flat-bottomed, gaily caparisoned steamboats at +the St. Paul to heighten the resemblance between the lower river and the +upper, but that is all. + + [E] Since the above was written word has come of the + destruction of the Union station by fire, an event which + will not be regretted by travelers or by residents of the + place. E. H. + +St. Paul owes her birth to the river-trade nevertheless. For she was, +and still is, at the real head of navigation on the Mississippi and in +other days that meant very much indeed. A few miles above her levee were +the falls of St. Anthony and a thriving little town called +Minneapolis--of which very much more in a moment. From that levee at St. +Paul began the first railroad building into the then unknown country of +the Northwest. The first locomotive--the _William Crooks_--which ran +into the virgin territory is still carefully preserved. And the man who +made railroading from St. Paul into a great trunk line system still +lives in the town. + +He began by being assistant wharfmaster--in the days when there was +something to do in such a job. Today they know him as the Empire +Builder. The Swedes, who form so important a factor in the population of +the Twin Cities, call him "Yem Hill" and he loves it. But he is entered +in all records as James J. Hill. + +To tell the story of the growth of Jim Hill from wharfmaster to master +of the railroads, would be to tell the story of one of the two or three +really great men who are living in America today. It is a story closely +interwoven with the story of St. Paul, the struggling town to which he +came while yet a mere boy. He has lived to see St. Paul become an +important city, the rival village at the falls of St. Anthony even +exceed her in size and in commercial importance, but his affection for +the old river town to which he has given so much of his life and +abundant personality has not dimmed. He has made it the gateway of his +Northwest and when one says "Hill's Northwest" he says it advisedly; for +while there might have been a Northwest without Jim Hill, there would +have been no Jim Hill without the Northwest. + +He found it a raw and little known land over which stretched a single +water-logged railroad fighting adversity, and in momentary danger of +extinction through receivership; a trunk-line railroad at that time +distinguished more for its arrogance than for any other one feature of +its being. Somewhere in the late eighties J. J. Hill took a trip over +that railroad. He saw Seattle for the first time and found it a mere +lumber-shipping town of but a few thousand population and with but +little apparent future. He saw great stretches of open country--whole +counties the size of the majestic states of New York and of Pennsylvania +and still all but unknown. He also saw unbridled streams, high-seated +mountain ranges and because J. J. Hill was a dreamer he saw promise in +these things. + +From that trip he returned to the budding city of St. Paul, enthused +beyond ordinary measure, and determined that in the coming development +of the half-dozen territories at the northwestern corner of the country +he would share no ordinary part. He turned his back on the navigation of +the Mississippi--already beginning to wane--and gave his attention to +railroading. Purchasing an inconsequential lumber railroad in Minnesota, +he laid the foundations for his Great Northern system. There was a +something about Jim Hill in those earlier days by which he could give +his enthusiasm and his lofty inspiration to those with whom he came in +contact. That rare faculty was his salvation. Men listened to the +confident talker from St. Paul and then placed their modest savings at +his disposal. They have not regretted their steps. The Great Northern, +through Hill's careful leadership has, despite much of the sparse +territory through which it passes, become one of the great conservative +railroad properties of the United States. + +But Hill did more. He took that earlier system--the Northern Pacific, so +closely allied to his territory--and made it hardly second in efficiency +to the Great Northern itself. Both of these great railroads of the +Northwest have never reached farther east than St. Paul, which Hill, +with that fine sentiment which is so important a part of his nature, has +been pleased to maintain as the gateway city of his own part of the +land. But, while he has been a most helpful citizen of St. Paul, he has +not hesitated to dominate her. A few years ago when the Metropolitan +company presenting grand opera came to St. Paul, it was Hill who headed +the subscription list for a guarantee--headed it with a good round +figure. Three days before the opening night of the opera he walked into +the passenger office of the linking railroad that he owned between the +Twin Cities and Chicago. The singers were scheduled to come from +Chicago. + +"Are you going to bring the troupe up in extra cars or in a special +train?" he demanded, in his peremptory fashion. + +There was confusion in that office, and finally it was explained to him +that a rival line, the M----, had been given the haul of the special +train, as a return courtesy for having placed its advertisement on the +rear cover of the opera programmes. Hill's muscles tightened. + +"If the troupe doesn't come up over our road," he said, "I will withdraw +the opera subscription." + +The M---- road lost the movement of that opera company. + + * * * * * + +Hill is an advertiser, a patient, persistent and entirely consistent +user of public print in every form. Of the really big men of the land he +is perhaps the most accessible. His door swings quickly open to any +resident of the Northwest. He is in demand at public dinners in the East +and at every conceivable function in his own territory. And yet those +folk of his own town who come to know Mr. Hill intimately know him +rather as a great publicist, no poor musician, a painter of real +ability, and a kind-hearted neighbor. His house in Summit avenue +contains one of the finest art galleries west of Chicago. In this rare +taste for good art he is not unlike the late Collis P. Huntington, or +Sir William C. Van Horne, the dominating force of the Canadian Pacific. + +Hill has a real faculty not only for judging, but for executing oil +paintings. It is related on good authority that, having been a member of +a committee to purchase a portrait of a distinguished western +railroader, he found the picture as it hung in the artist's studio in +Chicago far from his liking. + +"He's missed W----'s expression entirely," said the Empire Builder. And +so saying he grasped a palette that was resting on a table, dove his +brush into the soft paints, and before the astonished artist could +recover enough self-possession to protest, Hill was deftly at work upon +the canvas. In five minutes he had convinced the little committee of +which he was chairman, that the expression of the portrait had been +lacking, for it was Hill who made that portrait so speaking a likeness +that the artist received warm and undue praise for the fidelity of his +work. + + * * * * * + +There is in St. Paul--a city of wealthy men--a man who is even +wealthier than J. J. Hill. His name is Frederick Weyerheuser, and +newspapers have a habit of speaking of him as the Lumber King. Mr. +Weyerheuser does not court publicity, he shrinks from invitations to +speak at public dinners. He has a press agent whose chief work it was +for many years to keep his chief out of the columns of the newspapers. +It is only within a comparatively short time that Weyerheuser consented +to give his first interview to the press. + +He is quite typical of the conservatism of St. Paul. Minneapolis snaps +its fingers at conservatism, social and business, and signs of progress. +But Minneapolis mortgages her downtown business property. St. Paul does +not. The two towns are as different as if they were a thousand instead +of but ten miles apart. And St. Paul believes that Minneapolis may do as +she pleases. St. Paul has a reputation to preserve. She is the capital +of the state of Minnesota and as capital her pride and her dignity are +not slight. + +Perhaps it was that pride that made her set forth to build a capitol +that should stand through the long years as the Bulfinch State House in +Boston has stood through the long years--a monument to good taste, +restraint, real beauty in architecture. She summoned one of her native +sons to do the work. He was unhampered in its details. And when he was +done and had placed it upon a sightly knoll he must have been proud of +his handiwork. In years to come the Capitol of Minnesota may become +quite as famous as the capitols of older states, and the name of Cass +Gilbert, its architect, may be placed alongside of that of Bulfinch. + +St. Paul is hardly less proud of her Auditorium. It is really a +remarkable building and perhaps the first theater in the land to be +operated by a municipality, although we have a distinct feeling that the +small city of Northampton, Mass., has also accomplished something of +the sort. But the St. Paul Auditorium is hardly to be placed in the same +class as any mere theater. It is a huge building although so cunningly +constructed that within ten hours it can be changed from a compact +theater into a great hall with some 10,000 seats. And this change can be +effected, if necessary, without the slightest disturbance to the +audience. + +To this great hall come grand opera, well-famed orators, conventions of +state and national bodies, drama, concerts of every sort in great +frequency and variety. Perhaps no entertainment that it houses, however, +has keener interest for the entire city than the free concerts that are +given each winter. Last year there were five of these concerts, and it +was soon found that the small-sized auditorium with its three thousand +seats was too small. It became necessary to utilize the entire capacity +of the structure. The concerts were immensely popular from the +beginning. + +They were but typical of the high public spirit of the capital city of +Minnesota, a spirit which showed itself in the early adoption of the +commission form of city government, in the establishment of playgrounds +and modern markets, in the buildings of the great public baths on +Harriet island, in the development of a half hundred active and +progressive forms of modern civic endeavor. St. Paul, with all her rare +flavor of history and her great conservatism can well be reckoned in the +list of the modern cities that form the gateways of what was once called +the West and is today rapidly becoming an integral part of the nation. + + * * * * * + +The first time that we ever came into Minneapolis was at dusk of a July +night two years ago. That is, it might have been dusk in theory. For +while the clocks of the town spelled "eight," the northern day hung +wonderfully clear and wonderfully sharp--a twilight that was hardly +done until well towards ten of the evening. We came out of the somewhat +barn-like Union station, found an unpretentious cab and drove up +Nicollet avenue toward our hotel. + +The initial impression that a city makes upon one is not easily +forgotten. And the first impression that Nicollet avenue makes upon a +first-comer to Minneapolis cannot easily be erased. It is with pleasure +that a stranger notes that it has not been invaded by street railroad +tracks. The chief shopping and show-street of the largest city of +Minnesota thereby conveys a sense of breadth and roominess that the +chief streets of some other fairly important American towns lack +utterly. And we distinctly recall that upon that July night the cluster +lights up and down Nicollet avenue each bore a great flower-box, warm +and summerlike with the brightness of geraniums. In the windows of the +large stores that lined the avenue were more window-boxes, up to their +seventh and eighth floors. The entire effect was distinct and different +from that of any other town that we have ever seen. It seemed as if +Minneapolis at first sight typified the new America. + +Nor was that impression lessened when a little later we drove out in the +softness of the summer night to see the residence streets of the +city--quiet, shady streets that seem to have been stolen from older +eastern towns; drove into the parks, caught here and there the strains +of bands, saw the canoes darting here and there and everywhere upon the +surface of the park lakes. In other cities they have to build waterways +within their parks and boast to you of the way in which they have done +it. In Minneapolis they can have no such boast. For they have builded +their parks around their lakes, and a man can have a sheet of water +instead of greensward at the door of his home if he so choose. Where a +modern canoe shoots across the waters of Lakes Calhoun or Harriet, the +Indian once shot his birch-bark creation. There are some two hundred +lakes in Hennepin county. But the lake of all lakes--the joy of the +residents of the Twin Cities for a day's outing, Minnetonka--was the +favored gathering spot for the council fires of the Indian tribes for +many miles around. Do not forget that the Falls of St. Anthony were the +making of Minneapolis--and you can go by trolley within the half-hour +from the center of the city to the gentler Falls of Minnehaha and there +recount once again the immortal romance of Hiawatha. + +Minneapolis has all but forgotten the Falls of St. Anthony--despite the +fact that they were the very cause of her existence. They are hemmed in +by great flouring-mills, great dusty, unceasing engines of industry with +a capacity of some eighty thousand barrels a day, and even if you steal +your way to them across one of the roadway bridges over the turbulent +Mississippi you will find them lost beneath the artificial works that +turn their energy to the aid of man. The roar of the great Falls of St. +Anthony are the roar of the flouring-mills, their energy, the +bread-stuff of the nation. + +[Illustration: St. Paul is still a river town] + +Minneapolis does not affect to forget entirely her mother river. For a +long time it irritated her that St. Paul should be regarded as the head +of navigation upon the Mississippi, and within the past twenty years she +has put the Federal government to much trouble and incidentally the +expenditure of something over a million dollars, to make herself a +maritime city. A ship-channel has been dredged, locks put in, draws cut +in the railroad bridges but all apparently without a very definite +purpose in mind--save possible holding her own in the expenditure of the +annual rivers and harbors appropriation. For one can hardly imagine +water commerce coming in great volume to the docks of Minneapolis, the +one exclusive glory of St. Paul--passed long ago by her greatest +rival in the commercial race of the Northwest--stolen from the older +town. But one could hardly have driven out from the brisk little city of +St. Paul forty years ago to the straggling mill village at the Falls of +St. Anthony and imagined that in the second decade of the twentieth +century it would have become a city of more than three hundred thousand +souls. The men who are today active in the affairs of the city have seen +her grow from a straggling town into a city of almost first rank. + +Here was one of them who sat the other day in the well-ordered elegance +of the Minneapolis Club--a structure instantly comparable with the +finest club-houses of New York or Boston or Philadelphia--who admitted +that he had seen the town grow from eight thousand to over three hundred +thousand population, the receipts of his own fine business increase from +eighty-eight to twenty-two thousand dollars a day. But he was a modest +man, far more modest than many of these western captains of industry, +and he quickly turned the talk from himself and to the commercial +importance of the town with which he was pressing forward. Still he +delighted in statistics and the fact that Minneapolis "was doing a +wholesale business of $300,000,000 a year" seemed to give him an immense +and personal pride. + +But do not believe that Minneapolis is all commercial--and nothing else. +A quick ride through those shaded streets and lake-filled parks will +convince you that she is a home-city; a cursory glance of the University +of Minnesota, so cleverly located that she may share it with her rival +twin, together with an inspection of her schools, large and small, would +make you believe that she is a city that prides herself upon being well +educated. The dominant strain of Norse blood that the Swedish immigrants +have been bringing her for more than half a century is a strain that +calls for education--and makes the call in no uncertain fashion. And +when you come to delve into the details of her living you will make sure +that she is a well-governed city. She has not gone deeply into what she +calls "the fads of municipal government" but she is a town which offers +security and comfort, as well as pretty broad measure of opportunity, to +her residents. And in no better way can you gauge the sensible way in +which she takes care of her residents than in the one item of the street +railroad system. It has never been necessary for either St. Paul or +Minneapolis to assume control, actual or subtle, over the street +railroad property which they share. And yet each has a street railroad +service far superior to that of most American towns--with the possible +exception of Washington. The traction company seems to have assimilated +much of the breadth of spirit that dominates the Twin Cities of the +Northwest. + +Nor can you assume that Minneapolis is content to be merely commercially +alive, well educated or efficiently governed. Down on one of the quiet +business streets of the city is a printing-shop, so unique and so very +distinctive that it deserves a paragraph here and now. In that printing +shop is published a trade paper of the milling industry which has to +make no apologies for its existence, and a weekly newspaper called the +_Bellman_. Some one is yet to write an appreciation of the new weekly +press of America, the weekly press outside of New York, if you please, +such publications as the _Argonaut_ of San Francisco; the _Mirror_ of +St. Louis, the _Dial_ of Chicago and the _Minneapolis Bellman_. The part +that these papers are playing in the making of a broad and cultured +America will perhaps never be known; but that it is a large part no one +who reads them faithfully will ever doubt. The _Bellman_ holds its own +among this distinguished coterie. Its house is a fit temple for its +soul, and you may gain a little insight into that soul when you are +bidden to join its staff at one of its Thursday luncheons at the +dining-board of the printing-house--a fashion quickly and easily brought +from _London Punch_ halfway across the continent and into Minneapolis. + +No American of taste or appreciation would ever go to Minneapolis and +miss one wonderful shop there--no huge box-like structure rearing itself +from sidewalk edge and vulgarly proclaiming its wares through the +brilliancy of immaculate windows of plate-glass, but a shadowy +structure, set in a lawn and giving faint but unmistakable hints of the +real treasures that it holds. For it is a rare shop, indeed, and a +revelation to folk from the seaboard who may imagine that the interior +of the land is an intellectual desolation. + +It may have been one of these who dined a little time ago at a house in +one of these shaded streets of Minneapolis. After dinner the talk +drifted without apparent reason to painting, and the man from the +seaboard found his host in sharp touch with many of the new pictures. +Definitely the talk turned to Walter Graves, London's newest sensation +among the portrait painters, and the possibilities of his succeeding +Whistler. + +The Minneapolis man beckoned the guest into the hall, and pointed +silently to a picture hung there. It was a splendid portrait of +Whistler,[F] painted by Walter Graves. + +"I never expected to find a picture like that--out here," frankly +stammered the man from the seaboard. + +"You will find many things here that you do not expect," was all that +the man from Minneapolis said. + + [F] Since writing the above we have been led to believe, by + a gentleman from Rochester that a picture of Whistler by + Graves is no great prize. He says that he can buy them by + the dozen at a certain London shop. Because we claim no wit + as an art critic we take no sides in this matter. The facts + are here. You may choose for yourself. E. H. + + * * * * * + +If a town that is scarce forty years old can accomplish these things, +how long will it be before the older cities of the land will have to +look sharply as to their laurels? The new cities of America are to be a +force in her intellectual progress not to be under-estimated or +despised. + + + + +14 + +THE GATEWAY OF THE SOUTHWEST + + +There are three great cities, or rather three groups of great cities, +along the course of the Mississippi. To the north are St. Paul and +Minneapolis, while far to the south is New Orleans, to which we will +come in the due order of things. Between these St. Louis stands, close +to the business center of the land. For nearly twenty miles she sprawls +herself along the west bank of the Mississippi. Throughout her central +portion she extends for a dozen miles straight back from her once busy +levee. She is a great city, a very great city, in wealth, in industry, +in resource. And yet she is a rather unimpressive city to the eye, at +first sight and at last. + +It takes even a seasoned traveler some time to get used to that. If he +dreams of St. Louis as a French city and preserving something of the +French atmosphere, as do New Orleans and Quebec, he is doomed to utter +disappointment. Save for a few tatterdemalion cottages down in +Carondolet, at the south tip of the town, there is no trace of the +builders of the city to which they gave the name of one of their kings. +And if he has heard of the great German population and dreams of great +summer-gardens, of winter-gardens, too, with huge bands and huge steins, +he is doomed to no less disappointment. For that sort of thing you go to +Milwaukee. St. Louis has as many Germans as that brisk Wisconsin city, +and the largest brewery in the world, but she has never specialized in +beer-gardens. She is old and yet you could hardly call her quaint. +There are rows of small houses in her older streets, their green blinds +tightly closed as if seemingly to escape the almost endless bath of soot +and cinders that falls upon them, and the flat-bottomed steamboats still +are fastened at the wharf-boats along the levee. But these make a +pitiful showing nowadays when your mind compares them with the tales of +ante-bellum days when there were so many of them that they could only +put the noses of their bows against the levees. But tradition still +rules the hearts of the rivermen, and the Mississippi steamboat has lost +none of those fantastics of naval architecture that has endeared it to +every writer from Mark Twain down to the present day. + +The streets aroundabout the levee are mean and dirty, and nowadays as +silent as the Sabbath. Those convivial resorts, the Widow's Vow and the +Boatman's Thirst have long since ceased to exist. As this is being +written the Southern Hotel has closed its doors. Cobwebs are growing +through its wonderful office, and the glorious marble stair up which a +regiment might have marched is silent, save for the occasional halting +steps of a watchman. The old Planters'--than which there was no more +famous hostelry in the Mississippi valley, unless we choose to except +the St. Charles down at New Orleans--is long since gone, torn away +twenty years ago to make room for a new Planters', which has already +begun to get grimy and aged. The Lindell went its way a dozen years ago. +The St. Louis of the riverman is dead. They are tearing away the old +warehouses from the levees, and no one looks at the Mississippi any more +save when it gets upon one of its annual rampages and makes itself a +yellow sea. + +[Illustration: The entrance to the University--St. Louis] + +But do not for an instant think that St. Louis herself is dead. There +are other hotels, and far finer than those of the war-times and the +river-trade. And you have only to walk a few squares back from the levee +to find industry flourishing once again, solid squares of solid +buildings, grimy, commercial, uncompromising, but each representing +commerce. St. Louis is still the very center of the world to the great +Southwest and to her it pays its tribute, in demands for merchandise of +every sort. That is why she builds shoe-stores and dry-goods stores and +wholesale stores of almost every other conceivable sort, and builds them +for eight or ten or twelve stories in height, closely huddled together, +even through unimportant side streets. That is her reason for existence +today--when the river-trade, her first reason for growth and expansion, +is dead. But the railroad is a living, vital force, when the rivers are +frozen and dead, and railroads slip out from St. Louis in every possible +direction. Their rails are glistening from traffic, and there at the +city from whence they radiate Commerce sits enthroned. + +For you must look upon St. Louis, yesterday and today, as essentially a +commercial city. She is not a cultured city, although she has an +excellent press, including a weekly newspaper of more than ordinary +distinction. Still you will find few real bookshops in all her many +miles of streets, she has never leaned to fads or cults of any sort; but +she measures the percentage which a business dollar will earn with a +delightful accuracy. She is a commercial city. That is why she is to the +casual traveler an unimpressive city, although we think that her lack of +a dignified main street in her business section is responsible for much +of this impression. In other years Broadway--Fifth street upon her city +plan and a fearfully long thoroughfare running parallel to the +river--ranked almost as a main street and had some dignity, if little +beauty. But today St. Louis, like so many other of our American towns, +is restless and she has slipped back and away from Broadway, leaving +that thoroughfare somewhat forlorn and deserted and herself without a +single great business thoroughfare--such as Market street, San Francisco +or State street, Chicago. Her downtown streets are narrow and as much +alike as peas in a pod. + +And yet even a casual traveler can find much to interest him in St. +Louis. Let him start his inspection of the levee, let romance and +sentiment and memory work within his mind. Let his fancy see the +riverboats and then he, himself, inspect one of them. Here is one of +them, gay in her ginger-bready architecture. Her stacks rise high above +her "Texas" but they are placed ahead of her wheel-house, a fancy +peculiar to the old naval architects along the Mississippi. She is +driven by sidewheels and if our casual traveler goes upon her he will +find that each sidewheel is driven by a separate engine, a marvelous +affair painted in reds and blues and yellows. With one engine going +ahead and the other reversed a really capable Mississippi pilot--and who +shall doubt that a Mississippi river pilot, even in these decadent days, +is ever anything less than capable--could send the boat spinning like a +top upon the yellow stream. That pretty trick would hardly be possible +with one of the flat-bottomed stern wheel boats, and there still are +hundreds of these upon the Father of Waters and his tributaries, moving +slowly and serenely up and down and all with a mighty splashing of dirty +water. + +If you are a casual traveler and upon your first visit to the +Mississippi valley, you will make a mental reservation to ride upon one +of the old boats before you leave St. Louis. They may not be there so +very many more years. The steel barges have begun to show themselves, +and commerce is looking inquiringly at the idle stream to see if it +cannot be brought into real efficiency as a transportation agent. And +before you leave that levee, with the grass growing up between its +ancient stones, you will find a very small and a very dirty sidewalk +that leads from it up into and upon the great Eads bridge. + +St. Louis does not think very much of the Eads bridge these days. Yet it +was only a few years ago that it was bragging about that wonderful +conception of the engineer--who had finally spanned the lordly +Mississippi and right at his chief city. But other bridges have come, +two huge ungainly railroad structures to the north and a public bridge +to the south--that is, it will be a public bridge if the voters of St. +Louis ever cease quarreling about it. At the present time it is hardly a +bridge, only a great span over the water and for long months absolutely +unprovided with approaches because the taxpayers of St. Louis refuse to +vote the funds for its completion. So it is that the Eads bridge is +today but a single agency out of three or four for the spanning of the +river; it, too, has grown grimy in forty years and the railroad +travelers who come across through its lower deck only remember that from +it there leads under the heart of the city of St. Louis one of the +smokiest railroad tunnels in existence--and that is saying much. + +But the fact remains that it was the first structure to span the river, +and to end the importunities of the unspeakable ferry. And today it is, +with all of its grime, the one impressive feature of downtown St. Louis. +It is the only wagonway that leads from the sovereign state of Illinois +into the sovereign city of St. Louis. Across its upper deck passes at +all hours of the day and far into the night a silent parade of trolley +cars, mule teams, automobiles, farm trucks, folk of every sort and +description, on foot. It is as interesting as London bridge and a far +finer piece of architecture. But the modern St. Louis has all but +forgotten it, save when it chooses to take a motor run across the +Illinois prairies. + + * * * * * + +The casual traveler finally turns his back upon the river and its +oldest bridge, although not without some regret if any real sentiment +dwells within him. He threads his way through the narrow streets of +downtown St. Louis and finally he enters the oldest residential part, +the streets still narrow but the houses of rather a fine sort, many of +them transformed into small shops or given these days to lodgers. They +are of a type somewhat peculiar to the town. They were built high and +rather narrow and as a rule set upon a terrace and detached. Builded of +brick, the fancy of those old-time architects seemed to turn almost +invariably to a façade of marble, an unblushing and unashamed veneer to +the street, with the side walls humble and honest in dark red brick. +Steps and lintels were of marble or what must have been marble in the +beginning. A Philadelphia housewife would quail beneath the steady bath +of smoke and cinders that falls upon St. Louis. + +There are many thousands of these red-brick and white-marble houses, +finally important cross streets, such as Jefferson and Grand, and then +you come into the newer St. Louis--a residential district of which any +city might well be proud. In the newer St. Louis the houses are more +modern and more attractive perhaps, due partly to the fact that they are +farther away from the river and the great factories and railroad yards +that line it. You can trace the varying fads in American house +architecture in layers as you go back street by street in the new St. +Louis--Norman, Italian Renaissance, American Colonial, Elizabethan--all +like the slices in a fat layer-cake. Some of the more pretentious of +these houses are grouped in great parks or reservations which give to +the public streets by entrance gates and are known as Westminster place, +or Vandeventer place, or the like. They form a most charming feature of +the planning of St. Louis, and one almost as distinctive as the tidy +alleys which act as serviceways to all the houses. The houses +themselves are almost invariably set in lawns, although there are many +fine apartments and apartment hotels. The fearful monotony of the side +street of New York or Philadelphia does not exist within the town. + +At the rear of these fine streets of the newer St. Louis stands the +chief park of the town, not very distinctive and famed chiefly as the +site of the biggest World's Fair that was ever held, "considerably +larger than that Chicago affair," your loyal resident will tell you. Our +individual fancy rather turns to Tower Grove Park and the Botanical +Gardens just adjoining it. Tower Grove is in no very attractive section +of St. Louis, and as an example of landscape gardening it is rather +lugubrious, little groups of stones from the old Southern Hotel, which +was burned many years ago and was a fearful tragedy, being set here and +there. But intangibly it breathes the spirit of St. Louis, and hard by +is the Botanical Gardens that Henry Shaw gave to the city in which he +was for so many years a dominating figure. And for even a casual +traveler to go to St. Louis and never see Shaw's Gardens is almost +inconceivable. + +In the first place, it is an excellent collection of plants and of trees +and of exceeding interest to those folk who let their tastes carry them +that way. And in the second place, Henry Shaw was so typical of the old +St. Louis that you must stop for a moment and remember him. You must +think of the steady purpose of the man visiting all the great gardens of +Europe and then seeking to create one that should outrank all of them, +in the mud-bog of St. Louis. For the St. Louis of war-times, the St. +Louis to which Shaw gave his benefaction was little more than a bog. And +Americans of those days laughed at parks. True there was Fairmount Park +in Philadelphia, but the Fairmount Park of those days was a fantastic +idea and hardly to be compared with the Fairmount Park of today. Henry +Shaw went much farther than the banks of the Schuylkill, although he +must have known and appreciated John Bartram's historic gardens there. + +Shaw was only forty years of age when he retired from business. He had +saved through his keen business acumen and a decent sense of thrift, a +quarter of a million dollars--a tremendous fortune for those days. He +was quite frank in saying that he thought that $250,000 was all that a +man could honestly earn or honestly possess, and he retired to enjoy his +fortune as best it might please him to do. He traveled far and wide +through Europe, and upon one of the earliest of those trips he visited +the World's Fair of 1851, at the Crystal Palace, London; one of the very +first of these international exhibitions. He was impressed not so much +by the exhibits as by the fine park in which the Crystal Palace stood. A +little later he was a guest at Chatsworth House, that splendid English +home given by William the Conqueror to his natural son, William Peveril, +and he became a frequent visitor at Kew Gardens. It was at that time he +decided to make a botanical garden out of the place which he had just +purchased outside of St. Louis. + +[Illustration: A luxurious home in the newer St. Louis] + +Henry Shaw must have remembered his boyhood days in St. Louis and the +wonderful garden of Madame Rosalie Saugrain. In those earlier days St. +Louis was small enough in population but large enough in the material +for social enjoyment. The French element was still dominant, although +Madame Saugrain was comparatively a newcomer, an accomplished lady who +had brought the manners and tastes of Paris into the wilds of western +America. Her garden, which was then in open country beyond the +struggling town, was close to what is today Seventh street, St. Louis. +Great skyscrapers and solid warehouses have sprung up where formerly +Madame's roses and hollyhocks bloomed, and one would have to go weary +blocks to find a spear of grass, unless within some public park. + +But Shaw's Gardens still exist, although their founder lived to a ripe +old age and has now been dead a quarter of a century. Older folk of St. +Louis remember him distinctly, a vigorous and seemingly lonely man, +unmarried, but who seemed to be content to live alone in his great house +in the Gardens, giving a loving and a personal care to his flowers and +then, as dusk came on, invariably sitting in his room and reading far +into the night. They will show you his will when you go to the museum in +the Gardens, a curious old document, keenly prepared and devising to the +remaining members of his family, servants and intimates, everything from +immensely valuable real estate in the very heart of St. Louis down to +the port and sherry from his cellars. But the part that interested St. +Louis most was that part which gave the Gardens to the town, although +not without restrictions. And the old Missouri town made Shaw's Gardens +quite as much a part of its existence as its County Fair. + +The St. Louis Fair was a real institution. There have been far greater +shows of the kind in our land, but perhaps none that ever entered more +thoroughly into the hearts of the folk to whom it catered. Every one in +St. Louis used to go to the Fair. It had a social status quite its own. +When, after the hot and gruelling summer which causes all St. Louis folk +who possibly can to flee to the ocean or to the mountains, they came +home again in the joys of Indian summer there was the Fair--up under the +trees of Grand avenue in the north part of the town--to serve for a +getting together once again. It had served that way since long before +wartime. And with it ran that mighty social bulwark of St. Louis, the +Procession of the Veiled Prophet. One night in "Fair Week"--locally +known as "Big Thursday"--was annually given to this pageant, frankly +modeled upon the Mardi Gras festivities at New Orleans. Through the +streets of the town the pageant rolled its triumphal course, all St. +Louis came out to see it, and afterwards there was a ball. To be bidden +to that ball was the social recognition that the city gave you. + +But in 1904 there came that greater fair--the Louisiana Purchase +Exposition, to which the world was bidden. It was a really great fair +and it has left a permanent impress upon the town in the form of a fine +Art Gallery and the splendid group of buildings at the west edge of the +city which are being devoted to the uses of Washington University. But +the big fair spelled the doom of the smaller. The town had grown out +around its grounds and they were no longer in the country. So the career +of the old St. Louis Fair ended--brilliantly in that not-to-be-forgotten +exposition. Although some attempts have recently been made to +reëstablish it in another part of the town, the older folk of St. Louis +shake their heads. They very well know that you cannot bring the old +days back by the mere waving of a wand. + +Upon a crisp October evening, the Veiled Prophet still makes his way +through the narrow streets of the town. The preparations for his coming +are hedged about with greatest secrecy, and the young girls of St. Louis +grow expectant just as their mothers and their grandmothers before them +used to grow expectant when October came close at hand. At last, +expectancy rewarded--out of the unknown an engraved summons to attend +the court of a single night--with the engraved summons some souvenir of +no slight worth; the prophet's favor is a generous one. + +Absurd, you say? Not a bit of it. It is a pity that we do not have more +of it in our land. We have been rather busy grubbing; given ourselves +rather too much to utility and efficiency, to the sordid business of +merely making money. A Veiled Prophet is a good thing for a town, a +Mardi Gras a tonic. It is an idea that is spreading across America, and +America is profiting by it. + + * * * * * + +This is a personality sketch of St. Louis and not a guide-book. If it +were the latter, it would recount the superb commercial position of the +city, each of the bulwarks of its financial fortresses. The river-trade +is dead indeed; even the most optimistic of those who are most anxious +to see it revived doubt, in their heart of hearts, if ever it can be +revived. But commerce is not dead at St. Louis. As St. Paul and +Minneapolis are gateways to the Northwest remember that she is one of +the great gateways to the Southwest. To the man in Arkansas or Oklahoma +or Texas she is another New York; she stands to him as London stands to +the folk of the English counties. And this relation she capitalizes and +so grows rich. She is solid and substantial--the old French town of the +yesterdays has taken her permanent place among the leading cities of +America. + + + + +15 + +THE OLD FRENCH LADY OF THE RIVERBANK + + +At the bend of the river she stands--this drowsy old French lady of the +long ago. They have called her the Crescent City. But the Mississippi +makes more than a single turn around the wide-spreading town. And the +results are most puzzling, even to those steadyminded folk who assert +that they are direction-wise. In New Orleans, east seems west and north +seems south. It must almost be that the Father of Rivers reverses all +the laws of Mother Nature and runs his course up-stream. + +New Orleans is upon the east bank of the Mississippi. All the +guide-books will tell you that. But in the morning the sun arises from +over across the river, and in the cool of evening his reddish radiance +is dying over Lake Ponchartrain, directly east from the river--at least, +so your direction-wise intelligence seems to tell you. But east is east +and west is west and Old Sol has made such a habit of rising and setting +these many thousand years that his reliability is not to be trusted. As +to the reliability of the Father of Waters--there is quite another +matter. + +Truth to tell, the Mississippi river is probably the most utterly +unreliable thing within the North American continent. He has shifted his +course so many times within the brief century that the white-skinned men +have known him, that the oldest of them have lost all trace of his +original course. And so to steer a vessel up and down the stream is a +doubly difficult art. The pilot does not merely have to know his +steering-marks--the range between that point and this, the thrust of +some hidden and fearfully dangerous reef, the advantage to be gained +between eddies and currents for easy running--he has to learn the entire +thing anew each time he brings a craft up or down the river. Mark Twain +has long since immortalized the ample genius of the Mississippi pilots. +The stories of the river's unreliability, of its constant tendency to +change its channel are apocryphal--almost as old as the oldest of the +houses of old New Orleans. And this is not the story of the river. + +Yet it must not be forgotten that the river almost is New Orleans, that +from the beginning it has been the source of the French lady's strength +and prosperity. Before there was even thought of a city the river was +there--pouring its yellow flood down from an unknown land to the great +gulf. Bienville, the real founder of New Orleans, saw with the prophetic +sight of a really great thinker what even a river that came to the sea +from an unexplored land might mean in years to come to the city of his +creation. His prophecy was right. When the river, with the traffic upon +its bosom, has prospered, New Orleans has prospered. And in the lean +years when the river traffic has dwindled, New Orleans has felt the loss +in her every fiber. There are old-timers in the city who shake their +heads when they tell you of the fat river-boats crowding in at the +levee, of the clipper-ships and the newer steam-propelled craft at the +deeper docks, of the crowds around the old St. Louis and the St. Charles +Hotels, the congested narrow streets, the halcyon days when the markets +of the two greatest nations in the world halted on the cotton news from +Factors Row. And New Orleans awaits the opening of the Panama canal with +something like feverish anticipation, for she feels that this mighty +nick finally cut into the thin neck of the American continents, her +wharves will again be crowded with shipping--this time with a variety of +craft plying to and from the strange ports of the Pacific. So much does +her river still mean to her. + +Factors Row still stands, rusty and somewhat grimed. No longer is it +consequential in the markets of the world. In fact, to put a bald truth +baldly, no longer is New Orleans of supreme consequence in the cotton +problem of all nations. A great cotton shipping port she still is and +will long remain. But the multiplication of railroad points and the +rapid development of such newer cotton ports as Galveston, to make a +single instance, have all worked against her preëminence. + +This is not a story of the commercial importance of New Orleans, either. +There are plenty who are willing to tell that story, with all of its +romantic traditions of the past and its brilliant prophecies for the +future. This is the story of the New Orleans of today, the city who with +an almost reverential respect for the Past and its monuments still holds +her doors open to the Present and its wonders. + +Of the Past one may know at every turn. North of Canal street--that +broad thoroughfare which ranks as a dividing path with Market street in +San Francisco--the city has changed but little since the Civil War. +South of Canal--still called the "new" part of the city--there has been +some really modern development. Prosperous looking skyscrapers have +lifted their lordly heads above the narrow streets and the compactly +built "squares" which they encompass; there are several modern hotels +with all the momentary glory of artificial marbles and chromatic +frescoes, department stores with show windows as brave and gay as any of +those in New York or Chicago or Boston. But even if the narrow streets +were to be widened, New Orleans would never look like Indianapolis or +Kansas City or St. Paul--any of the typical cities of the so-called +Middle West. Too many of her stout old structures of the fifties and the +sixties still remain. And hung upon these, uncompromising and +triumphant, are the galleries. + +The galleries of New Orleans! They are perhaps the most typical of the +outward expressions of a town whose personality is as distinct as that +of Boston or Charleston or San Francisco. They must have been master +workmen whose fingers and whose ancient forges worked those delicate and +lacelike traceries. And it has been many thankful generations who have +praised the practical side of their handicraft. For in the long hot +summer months of New Orleans these galleries furnish a shade that is a +delight and a comfort. On rainy days they are arcades keeping dry the +sidewalks of the heart of the town. And from the offices within, the +galleries, their rails lined with growing things, are veritable +triumphs. Once in a great while some one will rise up and suggest that +they be abolished--that they are old-fashioned and have long since +served their full purpose. That some one is generally a smart shopkeeper +who has drifted down from one of these upstart cities from the North or +East. But New Orleans is smarter still. She well knows the commercial +value of her personality. There are newer cities and showier within the +radius of a single night's ride upon a fast train. But where one man +comes to one of these, a dozen alight at the old French town by the bend +of the yellow river. + +"Give J---- a few French restaurants, some fame for its cocktails or its +gin-fizzes--just as New Orleans has--and I will bring a dozen big new +factories here within the next three years," said the secretary of the +Chamber of Commerce of a thriving Texas town the other day. He knew +whereof he spake. And now, we shall know whereof we speak. We shall +give a moment of attention to the little restaurants and the gin-fizzes. + +Let the gin-fizzes come first, for they are nearly as characteristic of +the old town as her galleries! You will find their chief habitat just +across a narrow alley from the St. Charles Hotel. There is a long bar on +the one side of the room, upon which stand great piles of ice-bound +southern oysters--twelve months of the year, for New Orleans never reads +an "R" in or out of her oyster-eating calendar. But any bar may bring +forth oysters, and only one bar in the world brings forth the real New +Orleans gin-fizz. Two enterprising young men stand behind the +bar-keepers in a perpetual shaking of the fizzes. If it is tantalizing +to shake that whereof you do not taste, they show it not. And in the +hours of rush traffic there are six of the non-bar-keeping bartenders +who give the correct amount of ague to New Orleans' most delectable +beverage. A hustler from North or East would put in electric shakers +instanter--a thousand or is it ten thousand revolutions to the minute? +He would brag of his electric shakers and the New Orleans gin-fizz would +be dead--forever. Romance and an electric shaker cannot go hand in hand. + +"The ingredients?" you breathlessly interrupt. "The manner of the +mixing?" + +Bless your heart, if the Gin Fizz House published its close-held secret +to the world, it would lose its chief excuse for existence and then +become an ordinary drinking-place. As it is, it holds its head above the +real variety of saloons, even above the polished mahogany bar of the +aristocratic hotel across the narrow street. For its product, if +delightful, is still gentle, although insidious, perhaps. It is largely +milk and barely gin. You can drink it by the barrel without the +slightest jarring of your faculties. And it is rumored that some of the +men of New Orleans use it as a breakfast-food. + +From the Gin Fizz House to the Absinthe House is a long way,--in more +meanings than one. The Absinthe House is hardly less famed, but in these +days when drinking has largely gone out of fashion and wormwood is under +the particular ban of the United States statutes, it is largely a relic +of the past. It stands in the heart of the old French town and before we +come to its broad portal, let us study the fascinating quarter in which +we are to find it. + +We have already spoken of Canal street, so broad in contradistinction to +the very narrow streets of the rest of the older parts of the town, that +one can almost see the narrow water-filled ditch that once traversed it, +as the dividing line of the city. South of Canal street, the so-called +American portion of the city, with many affectations of modernity--north +of that thoroughfare--curiously enough the down-stream side--the French +quarter, architecturally and romantically the most fascinating section +of any large city of the United States. The very names of its +streets--Chartres, Royal, Bourbon, Burgundy, Dauphine, St. +Louis--quicken anticipation. And anticipation is not dulled when one +comes to see the great somber houses with their mysterious and +moth-eaten courtyards and the interesting folk who dwell within them. + +We choose Royal street, heading straight away from Canal street as if in +shrinking horror of electric signs and moving-picture theaters. In a +single square they are behind and forgotten and, if it were not for the +trolley cars and the smartly dressed French girls, we might be walking +in Yesterday. The side streets groan under the same ugly, heavy patterns +of Belgian block pavement that have done service for nearly a century. +Originally the blocks--brought long years ago as ballast in the ships +from Europe--were in a pretty pattern, laid diagonally. But heavy +traffic and the soft sub-strata of the river-bank town have long since +worked sad havoc with the old pavements. And a new city administration +has finally begun to replace them with the very comfortable but utterly +unsentimental asphalt. + +Here is the Absinthe House, worth but a single glance, for it has +descended to the estate of an ordinary corner saloon. Only ordinary +corner saloons are not ordinarily housed in structures of this sort. You +can see houses like this in the south of France and in Spain--so I am +told. For below Canal street is both French and Spanish. Remember, if +you please, that the French of the Southland shared the same hard fate +of their countrymen in that far northern valley of the great St. +Lawrence--neglect. The French are the most loyal people on earth. Their +fidelity to their language and their customs for nearly two centuries +proves that. That faith, steadfast through the tragedy of the +indifference and neglect of their mother country, doubly proves it. And +the only difference between the Frenchman of Quebec and the Frenchman of +New Orleans was that in the South the Spaniard was injected into the +problem. But the Frenchman in the South was not less loyal than his +fellow-countryman of the North. A dissolute king sitting in the wreck of +his great family in the suburbs of Paris might barter away the title of +his lands, but no Louis could ever trade away the loyalty of the older +French of New Orleans to their land and its institutions. In such a +faith was the French quarter of the city born. In such faith has it +survived, these many years. And perhaps the very greatest episodes in +the history of the city were in those twenty days of November, 1803, +when the French flag displaced the Spanish in the old Place d'Armes, to +be replaced only by the strange banner of a newborn nation which was +given the opportunity of working out the destiny of the new France. + +So it was the Spaniard who took his part in the shaping of the French +quarter of New Orleans. You can see the impress of his architects in the +stout old houses that were built after two disastrous and wide-spread +fires in the closing years of the eighteenth century--even in the great +lion of the town; the Cabildo which rises from what was formerly the +Place d'Armes and is today Jackson square. And the old Absinthe House, +with its curiously wrought and half-covered courtyard is one of these +old-time Spanish houses. + +Now forget about the absinthe--as the rest of the French folk of the +land are beginning to forget it--and turn your attention to the +courtyards. In another old Southern city--Charleston--the oldest houses +shut the glories of their lovely-aging gardens from the sight of vulgar +passers-by upon the street by means of uncompromising high fences. The +old houses of New Orleans do more. Their gardens are shielded from the +crowded, noisy, horrid streets by the houses themselves. And he who runs +through those crowded, noisy, horrid streets, must really walk, for only +so will he catch brief glimpses of the glories of those fading courtyard +gardens. + +Sometimes, if you have the courage of your convictions and the proper +fashion of seizing opportunity by the throat you may wander into one of +the tunnel-like gateways of one of these very old houses. No one will +halt you. + +Here it is--old France in new America. The tunnel-like way from the +street is shady and cool. From it leads a stair to the right and the +upper floor of the house, a stair up which a regiment might have walked, +and down which the old figure of a Balzac might descend this moment +without ever a single jarring upon your soul. The stair ends in a great +oval hall, whose scarlet paper has long since faded but still remains a +memory of the glories of the days that were. The carved entablatures +over the doors, the bravado of cornice and rosette where the plaster has +not finally fallen, proclaim the former grandeur of this apartment. And +in some former day a great chandelier must have hung from the center of +its graceful ceiling. Today--some one of the neighboring antique stores +has reaped its reward, and a candle set in a wall-lantern is its sole +illumination. A shabby room will not bear the glories of a gay +chandelier. And the old Frenchman and his wife who live in the place +have all but forgotten. They have a parrot and a sewing-machine and what +are the glories of the past to them? + +Of course, such a house must have its courtyard. And if the huge +copper-bound tank is dry, and the water has not forced its way through +the battered fountain these many years, if the old exquisite tiles of +the house long since went to form the roof of the new garage of some +smart new American place up the river--the magnolia still blossoms +magnificently among the decay, and Madame's skill with her jessamine and +her geraniums would confound the imported tricks of those English +gardeners in the elaborate new places. + +Here then is the old France in the new land--the priceless treasure that +New Orleans wears at her very heart. And here in the very heart of that +heart is an ugly old building boarded up by offensively brilliant +advertising signs. + +[Illustration: You still see white steamboats at the New Orleans levee] + +An ugly old building did we say, with rough glance at its rusty façades? +Can one be young and beautiful forever? Rusty and beautiful--oh no, do +not scorn the old St. Louis Hotel for following the most normal of all +the laws of Nature. For within this moldering and once magnificent +tavern history was made. In one of its ancient rooms a President of the +United States was unmade, while in another chamber human life was +bought and sold with no more concern than the old Creole lady on the far +corner shows when she sells you the little statues of the Blessed +Virgin. + +These wonders are still to be seen--for the asking. The _concierge_ of +the old hotel is a courteous lady who with her servant dwells in the two +most habitable of its remaining rooms. There is no use knocking at the +hotel door for she is very, very deaf indeed, poor lady. But if you will +brave a stern "No Admittance" sign and ascend the graceful winding stair +for a single flight--such a stair as has rarely come to our sight--you +will find her--ready and willing. One by one she shows you the rooms, +faded and disreputable, for the hotel is in a fearful state of +disrepair. The plaster is falling here and there, and where it still +adheres to the lath the old-time paper hangs in long shreds, like giant +stalactites, from the ceiling. Once, for a decade in the "late +eighties," an effort was made to revive the hotel and its former +glories--a desperate and a hopeless effort--and the pitiful +"innovations" of that régime still show. But when you close your eyes +you do not see the St. Louis Hotel of that decade, but rather in those +wonderful twenty years before the coming of the cruel war. In those days +New Orleans was the gayest city in the new world, uptilting its saucy +nose at such heavy eastern towns as New York or Boston. Its wharves were +crowded with the ships of the world, the river-boat captains fought for +the opportunity of bringing the mere noses of their craft against the +overcrowded levee. Cotton--it was the greatest thing of the world. New +Orleans was cotton and cotton was the king of the world. + +No wonder then that the St. Louis Hotel could say when it was new, that +it had the finest ballrooms in the world. They still show them to you, +in piecemeal, for they were long since cut up into separate rooms. The +great rotunda was ruined by a temporary floor at the time the state of +Louisiana bought the old hotel for a capitol, and used the rotunda for +its fiery Senate sessions. + +All these things the _concierge_ will relate to you--and more. Then she +takes you down the old main-stair, gently lest its rotting treads and +risers should crumble under too stout foot-falls. Into the cavernous +bottom of the rotunda she leads you. It is encumbered with the +steam-pipes of that after era, blocked with rubbish, very dark withal. +The _concierge_, with a fine sense of the dramatic, catches up a bit of +newspaper, lights it, thrusts it ahead as a lighted torch. + +"The old slave mart," she says, in a well-trained stage whisper, and +thrusts the blazing paper up at full arm's length. As the torch goes +higher, her voice goes lower: "Beyond the auction block, the slaves' +prison." + +As a matter of real fact, the "slaves' prison" is probably nothing more +or less than the negro quarters that every oldtime southern hotel used +to provide for the slaves of its planter patrons. But the _concierge_ +does not overlook dramatic possibilities. And she is both too deaf and +too much a lady to be contradicted. She has given you full value for the +handful of pennies she expects from you. And as for you--a feeling of +something like indignation wells within you that the city of New Orleans +has permitted the stoutly built old hotel to fall into such ruin. In an +era which is doing much to preserve the monuments of the earlier +America, it has been overlooked. + +Such resentment softens a little further down. You are in Jackson square +now--the Place d'Armes of the old French days--and facing there the +three great lions that have stood confronting that open space since +almost the beginning of New Orleans. The great cathedral flanked by the +Cabilda and the Presbytery is not, of itself, particularly beautiful or +impressive. But it is interesting to remember that within it on a +memorable occasion Andrew Jackson sat at mass--interesting because he +had just fought the battle of New Orleans and ended the Second War with +England. And the _Te Deum_ that went up at that time was truly a +thankful one. The Cabilda and the Presbytery, invested as they are with +rare historical interest, are more worth while. + +But to our mind the chief delight of Jackson square are the two long +red-brick buildings that completely fill the north and south sides of +that delectable retreat. In themselves these old fellows are not +architecturally important, although by close inspection you may find in +the traceries of their gallery rails the initials of the wife of the +Spanish grandee--Madama de Pontalba--historically they are not +distinguished, unless count the fact that in one of them dwelt Jenny +Lind upon the occasion of a not-to-be-forgotten engagement in New +Orleans--but as the sides of what is perhaps the most delightful square +in the entire Southland they are most satisfying. Jackson square has +fallen from its high estate. Its gardens were once set out in formal +fashion for the elect of New Orleans, nowadays they are visited by +swarms of the cheaper French and Italian lodgers of the neighborhood, +and scrawny felines from the old Pontalba buildings use it as a +congregating place. But, even in decadent days, its fascination is none +the less. + +Beyond Jackson square rests the French market, the very index to all +that New Orleans' love of good eating that has become so closely linked +with the city. The market-scheme of the city as this is being written is +being greatly revised. Up to the present time the market-men have been +autocrats. The grocers of the city have been forbidden to sell fresh +fruits or vegetables; if a retailer be audacious enough to wish to set +out with a private market, he must be a certain considerable number of +squares distant from a public institution--and pay to the city a heavy +license fee as penalty for his audacity. Nor is that all. The consumer +is forbidden to purchase direct from the producer, even though the +producer's wagon be backed up against the market curb in most inviting +fashion. New Orleans recognizes the middleman and protects him--or has +protected him until the present time. Even peddlers have been barred +from hawking their wares through her streets until noon--when the public +markets close and the housewives have practically completed their +purchases for the day. + +But--banish the thoughts of the markets as economic problems, cease +puzzling your blessed brains with that eternal problem of the +cost-of-living. Consider the French market as a truly delectable spot. +Go to it early in the morning, when the sun is beginning to poke his way +down into the narrow streets and the shadows are heavy under the +galleries. Breakfast at the hotel? Not a bit of it. + +You take your coffee and doughnuts alongside the market-men--at long and +immaculate counters in the market-house. And when you are done you will +take your oath that you have never before tasted coffee. The coffee-man +bends over you--he is a coffee-man descended from coffee-men, for these +stalls of the famous old markets are almost priceless heritages that +descend from generation to generation. In these days they never go out +of a single family. + +"_Café lait?_" says the coffee-man. + +You nod assent. + +Two long-spouted cans descend upon your cup. From one the coffee, from +the other creamy milk come simultaneously, with a skill that comes of +long years of practice on the part of the coffee-man. + +That is all--_café lait_ and doughnuts. They make just as good doughnuts +in Boston, but New England has never known the joys of _café lait_. If +it had, it would never return to its oldtime coffee habits. And the +older markets of Boston do not see the fine ladies of the town coming to +them on Sunday morning, after mass, negro servants behind, to do their +marketing, themselves. + +Hours of joy in this market--the food capital of a rich land of milk and +honey. After those hours of joy--breakfast at the Madame's. + +The Madame began--no one knows just how many years ago--by serving an +eleven o'clock breakfast to the market-men, skilled in food as purveyors +as most critical of the food they eat. The Madame realized that +problem--and met it. So well did she meet it that the fame of her +cookery spread outside the confines of the market-houses, and city folk +and tourists began drifting to her table. In a few years she had +established an institution. And today her breakfast is as much a part of +New Orleans as the old City Hall or the new Court House. + +She has been dead several years--dear old gastronomic French lady--but +her institution, after the fashion of some institutions, lives after +her. It still stands at the edge of the market and it still serves one +meal each day--the traditional breakfast. It is sad to relate that it +has become a little commercialized--they sell souvenir spoons and +cook-books--but you can shut your eyes to these and still see the place +in all of its glories. + +A long, low room at the back of and above a little saloon, reached from +the side-door of the saloon by a turning and rickety stair. A meagerly +equipped table in the long, low room, from which a few steps lead up to +a smoky but immensely clean kitchen. From that kitchen--odors. Odors? +What a name for incense, the promise of preparation. You sometimes catch +glimpses of busy women, fat and uncorseted. Cooks? Perish the words. +These are artists, if artists have ever really been. + +Finally--and upon the stroke of eleven--the breakfast. It shall not be +described here in intimate detail for you, dear reader, will not be +sitting at the Madame's hospitable table as you read these lines. It is +enough for you to know that the liver is unsurpassable and the +coffee--the coffee gets its flavor from an adroit sweetening of cognac +and of sugar. What matter the souvenirs now? The breakfast has lost none +of its savor through the passing of the years. + +For here is New Orleans where it seems impossible to get a poor meal. +There is many and many an interior city of size and pretentious +marbleized and flunkeyized hotels of which that may not be said. But in +New Orleans an appreciation of good cookery is an appreciation of the +art of a real profession. And of her restaurants there is an infinite +variety--La Louisiane, Galatoire's, Antoine's, Begue's, Brasco's--the +list runs far too long to be printed here. Nor does the space of this +page permit a recountal of the dishes themselves--the world-famed +_gumbos_, the crawfish _bisque_, the red-snapper stuffed with oysters, +the crabs and the shrimps. And lest we should be fairly suspected of +trying to emulate a cook-book, turn your back upon the fine little +restaurants, where noisy orchestras and unspeakable _cabarets_ have not +yet dared to enter, and see still a little more of the streets of the +old French quarter. + +More courtyards, more old houses, a venerable hall now occupied by a +sisterhood of the Roman church but formerly gay with the "quadroon +balls" which gave spicy romance to all this quarter. And here, rising +high above the narrow thrust of Bourbon street, the French Opera, for be +it remembered that New Orleans had her opera house firmly established +when New York still regarded hers as a dubious experiment. To come into +the old opera house, builded after the impressive fashion of architects +of another time, with its real horseshoe and its five great tiers rising +within it--is again to see the old New Orleans living in the new. It is +to see the exclusive Creoles--perhaps the most exclusive folk in all +America--half showing themselves in the shadowy recesses of their boxes. +And to be in that venerable structure upon the night of Mardi Gras is to +stand upon the threshold of a fairy world. + + * * * * * + +It is not meet that the details of the greatest annual carnival that +America has ever known should be fully described here. It is enough here +and now to say that New Orleans merely exists between these great +parties at the eve of each Lent; that nearly a twelvemonth is given to +preparations for the Mardi Gras. One _festa_ is hardly done before plans +are being made for the next--rumor runs slyly up and down the narrow +streets, _costumiers_ are being pledged to inviolate secrecy, strange +preparatory sounds emerge from supposedly abandoned sheds and houses, +rumors multiply, the air is surcharged with secrecy. Finally _the_ night +of nights. Canal street, which every loyal resident of New Orleans +believes to be the finest parade street in all the world, is ablaze with +the incandescence of electricity, a-jam with humanity. For a week the +trains have been bringing the folk in from half-a-dozen neighboring +states by the tens of thousands. There is not a single parish of +venerable Louisiana without representation; and more than a fair +sprinkling of tourists from the North and from overseas. + +Finally--after Expectancy has almost given the right hand to Doubt, the +fanfare of trumpets, the outriders of Parade. From somewhere has come +Rex and The Queen and all the Great and all the Hilariously Funny and +the rest besides. From the supposedly abandoned sheds and houses, from +the _costumiers_? Do not dare to venture that, oh uncanny and worldly +minded soul! + +Fairyland never emerged from old sheds, a King may not even dream of a +_costumier_. From thin air, from the seventh sense, the land of the +Mysterious, this King and Queen and all their cavalcade. Then, too, the +Royal Palace--the historic French Opera House floored and transformed +for a night. More lights, more color, the culinary products of the best +chefs of all the land working under a stupendous energy, music, dancing, +white shirts, white shoulders, gayety, beauty--for tomorrow is Ash +Wednesday, and Catholic New Orleans takes its Lent as seriously as it +gaily takes the joyousness of its carnivals. + + * * * * * + +For three-quarters of a century these carnivals have been the outspoken +frivols of the old French lady by the bend of the yellow river. In all +that time the carnival has progressed until it today is the outward +expression of the joyousness of a joyous city. In all that time did we +say? There was an interregnum--the Four Years. In the Four Years the +little French restaurants were closed, the lights at the Opera +extinguished--there could be no Carnival, for Tragedy sat upon the +Southland. And in a great house in Lafayette square there sat a man from +Massachusetts who ruled with more zeal than kindness. And that man New +Orleans has not forgotten--not even in the half-century that has all but +healed the sores of the Four Years. + +"It is funny," you begin, "that New Orleans should make so much of the +Boston Club, when Butler came from--" + +It is not funny. You saw the Boston Club which vies for social supremacy +in the old French city with the Pickwick Club, there in Canal street, at +least you saw its fine old white house in that broad thoroughfare. It +is not funny. Your New Orleans man tells you--courteously but clearly. + +"We named our club from that game," he says. + +"Boston was a fine game, sir," he adds. "And that without ever a thought +of that town up in Massachusetts." + + * * * * * + +From a carnival to a graveyard is a far cry indeed, and yet the +cemeteries of New Orleans are as distinctive of her as her Mardi Gras +festivities. We have spoken of the river and the great part it has +played in the history of the city that rests so close to its treacherous +shore. And it is that very treacherous shore that makes it so +exceedingly difficult to arrange a cemetery in the soft and marshy soil +on which the city is built. + +So it is that the New Orleans' cemeteries are veritable cities of the +dead. For the bodies that are buried within them are placed above the +ground, not under them. Tombs and mausoleums are the rule, not the +exception, and where a family is not prosperous enough to own even the +simplest of tombs, it will probably join with other families or with +some association in the ownership of a house in the city of the dead. +And for those who have not even this opportunity there are the ovens. + +The ovens are built in the great walls that encompass the older +cemeteries and make them seem like crumbling fortresses. Four tiers +high, each oven large enough to accommodate a coffin--the sealed fronts +bear the epitaphs of those who have known the New Orleans of other days. +A motley company they are--poets, pirates, judges, planters, soldiers, +priests--around them the scarred regiments of those who lived their +lives without the haunting touch of Fame upon the shoulder--no one will +even venture a guess as to the number that have been laid away within a +single one of these cities. + +And when you are done with seeing the graves of Jean Lafitte or +Dominique You--why is it that the average mind pricks up with a more +quickened interest at the tomb of a pirate than at a preacher--the +Portuguese sexton begins plucking at the loosely laid bricks of one of +these abandoned ovens. Abandoned? He lifts out a skull, this twentieth +century Yorick and bids you peep through the aperture. Like the +_concierge_ of the old hotel, looking is made more easy from a blazing +folding copy of the morning _Picayune_. In the place are seemingly +countless skulls, with lesser bones. + +"He had good teeth, this fellow," coughs the Portuguese. + +You do not answer. Finally-- + +"Do they bury all of them this way?" + +Not at first, you find. The strict burial laws of New Orleans demand +that the body shall be carefully sealed and kept within the oven for at +least a year. After that the sexton may open the place, burn the coffin +and thrust the bones into the rear of the place. And New Orleans can see +nothing unusual in the custom. + + * * * * * + +"New Orleans is more like the old San Francisco than any other community +I have ever seen," says the Californian. Not in any architectural sense +and of course two cities could hardly be further apart in location than +the city in the flat marshlands whose trees are below the level of the +yellow river at flood-tide, and the new city that rises on mountainous +slopes from the clear waters of the Golden Gate. But there is an +intangible likeness about New Orleans and his city that was but never +again can be, that strikes to the soul of the Californian. Perhaps he +has come to know something of the real life of the Creoles--of those +strange folk who even today can say that they have lived long lives in +New Orleans and never gone south of Canal street. Perhaps he has met +some of that little company of old French gentlemen who keep their +faded black suits in as trim condition as their own good manners, and +who scrimp and save through years and months that they may visit--not +Chicago or New York--but Paris, Paris the unutterable and the +unforgettable. + +"New Orleans is more like the old San Francisco than any other community +that I have ever seen," reiterates the Californian. "It is more like the +old than the new San Francisco can ever become." + +And there is a moral in that which the San Franciscan speaks. In the +twinkling of an eye the old San Francisco disappeared--forever. Slowly, +but surely, the old New Orleans is beginning to fade away. There are +indubitable signs of this already. When it shall have gone, our last +stronghold of old French customs and manners shall have gone. One of the +most fascinating chapters in the story of our Southland will have been +closed. + + + + +16 + +THE CITY OF THE LITTLE SQUARES + + +In after years, you will like to think of it as the City of the Little +Squares. After all the other memories of San Antonio are gone--the +narrow streets twisting and turning their tortuous ways through the very +heart of the old town, the missions strung out along the Concepcion road +like faded and broken bits of bric-a-brac, the brave and militant show +of arsenal and fort--then shall the fragrance of those open plazas long +remain. The Military Plaza, with its great bulk of a City Hall facing +it, the Main Plaza, where the grave towers of the little cathedral look +down upon the palm-trees and the beggars, the newer, open +squares--always plazas in San Antonio--and then, best of all, the Alamo +Plaza, with that squat namesake structure facing it--_the_ lion of a +town of many lions. These open places are the distinctive features of +the oldest and the best of the Texas towns. They lend to it the Latin +air that renders it different from most other cities in America. They +help to make San Antonio seem far more like Europe than America. + +[Illustration: One of the little squares--and the big cathedral--San +Antonio] + +To this old town come the Texans, always in great numbers for it +is their great magnet--the focusing point that has drawn them +and before them, their fathers, their grandfathers and their +great-grandfathers--far reaching generations of Texans who have +gone before. For here is the distinct play-ground of the Lone Star +State. Its other cities are attractive enough in their several ways, +but at the best their fame is distinctly commercial--Fort Worth as a +packing-house town, Dallas as a distributing point for great wholesale +enterprises, Houston as a banking center, Galveston as the great +water-gate of Texas and the second greatest ocean port of the whole +land. San Antonio is none of these things. While the last census showed +her to be the largest of all Texas cities in point of population, it is +said by her jealous rivals and it probably is true, that nearly half of +that population is composed of Mexicans; and here is a part of our +blessed land where the Mexican, like his dollar, must be accepted at far +less than his nominal value. + +But if it were not for these Mexicans--that delicate strain of the fine +old Spanish blood that still runs in her veins--San Antonio would have +lost much of her naïve charm many years ago. The touch of the old +grandees is everywhere laid upon the city. In the narrow streets, the +architecture of the solid stone structures that crowd in upon them in a +tremendously neighborly fashion shows the touch of the Spaniard in every +corner; it appears again and again--in the iron traceries of some +high-sprung fence or second-story balcony rail, or perhaps in the +lineaments of some snug little church, half hidden in a quiet place. The +Cathedral of San Fernando, standing there in the Main Plaza, looks as if +it might have been stolen from the old city of Mexico and moved bodily +north without ever having even disturbed its fortress-like walls or the +crude frescoes of its sanctuary. The four missions out along the +Concepcion road are direct fruit of Spanish days--and remember that each +of the little squares of San Antonio is a plaza, so dear to the heart of +a Latin when he comes to build a real city. + +But the impress of those troublous years when Spain, far-seeing and in +her golden age, was dreaming of Texas as a mighty principality, is not +alone in the wood and the stone of San Antonio, not even in the +delirious riot of narrow streets and little squares. The impress of a +Latin nation still not three hundred miles distant, is in the bronzed +faces of the Mexicans who fill her streets. Some of them are the old men +who sit emotionless hours in the hot sun in the narrow highways, and +vend their unspeakable sweets, or who come to affluence perhaps and +maintain the marketing of _tamales_ and _chile con carne_ at one of the +many little outdoor stands that line the business streets of San +Antonio, and make it possible for a stranger to eat a full-course +dinner, if he will, without passing indoors. These are the Mexicans of +San Antonio who are most in evidence--the men still affecting in +careless grandeur their steeple-crowned, broad-brimmed hats, even if the +rest of their clothing remain in the docile humility of blue jeans; the +women scorning such humility and running to the brilliancy of red and +yellow velvets, although of late years the glories of the American-made +hat have begun to tell sadly upon the preëminence of the mantilla. These +are the Mexicans who dominate the streets of the older part of the +town--they are something more than dominant factors in the West end of +the city, long ago known as the Chihuahua quarter. + +But there is another sort--less often seen upon the streets of San +Antonio. This sort is the Mexican of class, who has come within recent +years in increasing numbers to dwell in a city where unassuming soldiery +afford more real protection for him and for his than do all of the +brilliantly uniformed regiments with which Diaz once illuminated his gay +capital. Since our neighbor to the south entered fully upon its +troublous season these refugees have multiplied. You could see for +yourself any time within the past two years sleeping cars come up from +Laredo filled with nervous women and puzzled children. These were the +families of prosperous citizens from the south of Mexico, who in their +hearts showed no contempt for the comfortable protection of the American +flag. + + * * * * * + +A man plucks you by the sleeve as you are passing through the corridors +of one of the great modern hotels of San Antonio, hotels which, by the +way, have been builded with the profits of the cattle-trade in Texas. + +"That _hombre_," he says, "he is the uncle of Madero." + +But a mere uncle of the former Mexican President hardly counts in a town +which has the reputation of fairly breeding revolutions for the sister +land to the south; whose streets seem to whisper of rumors and +counter-rumors, the vague details of plot and counterplot. There is a +whole street down in the southwestern corner of San Antonio lined with +neat white houses, and the town will know it for many years as +"Revolutionary Row." For in the first of these houses General Bernardo +Reyes lived, and in the second of them this former governor of Nuevo +Leon planned his _coup d'etat_ by which he was to march into Mexico City +with all the glory of the Latin, bands playing, flags flying, a display +of showy regimentals. Reyes had read English history, and he remembered +that one Prince Charlie had attempted something of the very sort. In the +long run the difference was merely that Prince Charlie succeeded while +Reyes landed in a dirty prison in Mexico City. + +Here then is the very incubator of Mexican revolution. There is not an +hour in San Antonio when the secret agents of the United States and all +the governments and near-governments of our southern neighbor are not +fairly swarming in the town and alive to their responsibilities. The +border is again passing through historic days--and it fully realizes +that. It is twenty-four hours of steady riding from San Antonio over to +El Paso--the queer little city under the shadows of the mountains and +perched hard against the "silver Rio Grande," this last often so +indistinguishable that a young American lieutenant marched his men right +over and into Mexican soil one day without knowing the difference--until +he was confronted by the angry citizens of Ciudad Juarez and an _affaire +nationale_ almost created. Every mile of that tedious trip trouble is in +the air. + +And yet El Paso does not often take the situation very seriously. It is +almost an old story, and if the revolutionists will only be kind enough +to point their guns away from the U.S.A. they can blaze away as long as +they like and the ammunition lasts. In fact El Paso feels that as long +as the Mexican frontier battles have proper stage management they are +first-rate advertising attractions for the town--quite discounting mere +Mardi Gras or Portola or flower celebrations, Frontier or Round-up Days, +as well as its own simpler joys of horse-racing and bull-fighting. On +battle-days El Paso can ascend to its house-tops and get a rare thrill. +But when the atrocious marksmanship of ill-trained Mexicans does its +worst, and a few stray bullets go whistling straight across upon +American soil, El Paso grows angry. It demands of Washington if it +realizes that the U.S.A. is being bombarded--the fun of fighting dies +out in a moment. + +San Antonio is a safer breeding ground for insurrection than is El Paso. +For one thing it is out of careless rifle-shot, and for another--well at +El Paso some Mexican troopers might come right across the silver Rio +Grande in a dry season, never wetting their feet or dreaming that they +were crossing the majestic river boundary, and pick up a few erring +citizens without much effort. There is a risk at El Paso that is not +present in San Antonio. Hence the bigger town--in its very atmosphere +emitting a friendly comfort toward plottings and plannings--is chosen. + +You wish to come closer to the inner heart of the town. Very well then, +your guide leads you to the International Club which perches between the +narrow and important thoroughfare of Commerce street and one of the +interminable windings of the gentle San Antonio river. It was on the +roof of the International Club that Secretary Root was once given a +famous dinner. It is an institution frankly given "to the encouragement +of a friendly feeling between Mexico and the United States." It is +something more than that, however. It is a refuge and sort of harbor for +storm-tossed hearts and weary minds that perforce must do their thinking +in a tongue that, to us, is alien. Most of the time the newspaper men of +the town sit in the rear room of the club and look down across the tiny +river on to the quiet grounds of an oldtime monastery. They play their +pool and dominoes--two arts that seem hopelessly wedded throughout all +Texas. The International Club nods. + +Suddenly a tall bronzed man, with _mustachios_, perhaps a little group +of Mexicans will come into the place. The pool and the dominoes stop +short. There are whisperings, flashy papers from Mexico city are +suddenly produced, maps are studied. One man has "inside information" +from Washington, another lays claim to mysterious knowledge up from the +President's palace of the southern capital, perhaps from the +constitutionalists along the frontier. There is a great deal of talk, +much mystery--after all, not much real information. + +But when some real situation does develop, San Antonio has glorious +little thrills. To be the incubator of revolution is almost as exciting +as to have bull-fights or a suburban battle-field, the treasures for +which San Antonio cannot easily forgive her rival, El Paso. Each new +plot-hatching of this sort gives the big Texas town fresh thrills. +Gossip is revived in the hotel lobbies and restaurants, the cool and +lofty rooms of the International Club are filled with whisperers in an +alien tongue, out at Fort Sam Houston the cavalrymen rise in their +stirrups at the prospect of some real excitement. San Antonio does not +want war--of course not--but if it must have war--well it is already +prepared for the shock. And it talks of little else. + +"Within ten years the United States will have annexed Mexico and San +Antonio will have become a second Chicago," says one citizen in his +enthusiasm. "And what a Chicago--railroads, manufactories and the best +climate of any great city in the world." + +Even in war-times your true San Antonian cannot forget one of the chief +assets of his lovely town. + +The others say little. One is a junior officer from out at the post. He +can say nothing. But he is hoping. There is not much for an army man in +inaction and the best of drills are not like the real thing. For him +again--the old slogan--"a fight or a frolic." + + * * * * * + +Not all of San Antonio is Spanish--although very little of it is negro. +An astonishing proportion of its population is of German descent. These +are largely gathered in the east end of the town, that which was +formerly called the Alamo quarter, and like all Germans they like their +beer. The brewing industry is one of the great businesses of San +Antonio--and the most famous of all these breweries is the smallest of +them. On our first trip to "San Antone" we heard about that beer; all +the way down through Texas--"the most wonderful brew in the entire +land." + +[Illustration: San Juan Mission--a bid of faded bric-a-brac outside of +San Antonio] + +The active force of this particular Los Angeles brewery consisted of but +one man, the old German who carried his recipe with him in the top of +his head, and who had carefully kept it there throughout the years. In +the cellar of the little brewery he made the beer, upstairs and in the +garden he served it. In the mornings he worked at his cellar kettles, +in the late afternoon and the early evening he stood behind his bar +awaiting his patrons. If they wished to sit out in the shady garden they +must serve themselves. There were no waiters in the place. If a man +could not walk straight up to the bar and get his beer he was in no +condition for it. The old German was as proud of the respectability of +his place as he was of the secret recipe for the beer, which had been +handed down in his family from generation to generation. + +Only once was that secret given--and then after much tribulation and in +great confidence to an agent of the government. But he had his reward. +For the government at Washington in its turn pronounced his the purest +beer in all the land. Men then came to him with proposals that he place +it upon the market. They talked to him in a tempting way about the +profits in the business, but he shook his head. His beer was never to be +taken from the brewery. It was a rule from which San Antonians and +tourists alike had tried to swerve him, to no purpose. Of course, every +rule has its exceptions but there was only a single exception to this. +Each Saturday night Mr. Degen used to send a small keg over with his +compliments to a boyhood friend--he believed that friendship of a +certain sort can break all rules and precedents. + +All the way down through dry Texas we smacked our lips at the thought of +Degen's beer. Before we had been in San Antonio a dozen hours we found +our way to the brewery; in a quiet side street down back of the historic +Alamo. But we had no beer. + +The brewer was dead. In a neighboring street his friends were quietly +gathering for his funeral, and rumor was rife as to whether or no he had +confided his recipe to his sons. It was a great funeral, according to +the local newspapers, the greatest in the recent history of San +Antonio. It was a tribute from the chief citizens of a town to a simple +man who had lived his life simply and honestly--who in his quiet way had +builded up one of the most distinctive institutions of the place. + +Rumor was soon satisfied. The secret of the recipe of the beer had not +died. In a few days the brisk little brewery in the side street was in +action once again. The stout Germans in their shirt-sleeves were again +tramping with their paddles round and round the great vat while their +foaming product was being handed to patrons in the adjoining room. But, +alas, the traditions of the founder are gone. The beer is now bottled +and sold on the market--in a little while is will be emblazoned in +electric lights along the main streets of New York and Chicago. We are +in a commercial and a material age. Even in San Antonio they are +threatening to widen Commerce street--that narrow but immensely +distinctive thoroughfare that cuts through the heart of the +town--threatening, also, to tear down the old convent walls next the +Alamo and there erect a modern park and monument. By the time these +things are done and San Antonio is thoroughly "modernized" she will be +ready for an awakening--she is apt to find with her naïve charm gone the +golden flood of tourists has ceased to stop within her walls. Truly she +will have killed the goose that laid the golden egg. + + * * * * * + +You will like to think of it as the City of the Little Squares. After +all the other memories of San Antonio are gone you will revert to +these--gay open places, filled with palms and other tropical growths, +and flanked by the crumbling architecture of yesterday elbowing the +newer constructions of today. You will like to think of those squares in +the sunny daytime with the deep shadows running aslant across the faces, +there is delight in the memory of them at eventide, when the cluster +lights burn brightly and the narrow sidewalks are filled with gaily +dressed crowds, typical Mexicans, tall Texans down from the ranches for +a really good time in "old San Antone," natives of the cosmopolitan +town, tourists of every sort and description. Then comes the hour when +the crowds are gone, the town asleep, its noisy clocks speaking midnight +hours to mere emptiness--San Antonio breathes heavily, dreams of the +days when she was a Spanish town of no slight importance, and then looks +forward to the morrow. She believes that her golden age is not yet come. +Her plans for the future are ambitious, her opportunity is yet to come. +In so far as those dreams involve the passing of the old in San Antonio +and the coming of the new, God grant that they will never come true. + + + + +17 + +THE AMERICAN PARIS + + +A great bronze arch spans Seventeenth street and bids you welcome to +Denver. For the capital of Colorado seems only second to the Federal +capital as a mecca for American tourists. She has advertised her charms, +her climate, her super-marvelous scenery cleverly and generously. The +response must be all that she could possibly wish. All summer and late +into the autumn her long stone station is crowded with travelers--she is +the focal point of those who come to Colorado and who find it the ideal +summer playground of America. + +To that great section known as the Middle West, beginning at an +imaginary line drawn from Chicago south through St. Louis and so to the +Gulf, there is hardly a resort that can even rival Colorado in popular +favor. Take Kansas, for a single instance. Kansas comes scurrying up +into the Colorado mountains every blessed summer. It grows fretfully hot +down in the Missouri bottoms by the latter part of July, and the Kansans +begin to take advantage of the low rates up to Denver and Colorado +Springs and Pueblo. And with the Kansans come a pretty good smattering +of the folk of the rest of the Middle West. They crowd the trains out of +Omaha and Kansas City night after night; at dawn they come trooping out +through the portal of the Denver Union station and pass underneath that +bronze arch of welcome. + +They find a clean and altogether fascinating city awaiting them, a city +solidly and substantially built. Eighteen years ago Denver decided that +she must discontinue the use of wooden buildings within her limits. She +came to an expensive and full realization of that. For Colorado is an +arid country nominally, and water is a precious commodity within her +boundaries. The irrigation ditches are familiar parts of the landscapes +and ever present needs of her cities. To put out fire takes water, and +Denver sensibly begins her water economy by demanding that every +structure that is within her be built of brick or stone or concrete. And +yet her parks are a constant reproach to towns within the regions of +bountiful water. They are wonderfully green, belying that arid country, +and the water that goes to make them green comes from the fastnesses of +the wonderful Rockies, a full hundred miles away. + +The brick buildings make for a substantial city, but Denver herself has +a solidity that you do not often see in a Western city. Giant office +buildings in her chief streets do not often shoulder against ill-kempt +open lots, have as unbidden neighbors mere shanties or hovels. Moreover, +she is not a "one-street town." Sixteenth and Seventeenth streets vie +for supremacy--the one with the great retail establishments, the other +with the hotels, banks and railroad offices. There are other streets of +business importance--no one street not even as a _via sacre_ of this +bustling town for the best of her homes. + + * * * * * + +The Paris of America, is what she likes to call herself and when you +come to know her, the comparison is not bad. But Paris, with all of her +charms, has not the location of Denver--upon the crest of a rolling, +treeless plain, with the Rocky Mountains, jagged and snow-capped, to +serve as a garden-wall. Belasco might have staged Denver--and then been +proud of his work. But hers is a solitary grandeur and a very great +isolation. She is isolated agriculturally and industrially, and before +long we shall see how difficult all this makes it for her commercial +interests. It makes things difficult in her social life, and Denver +must, and does, have a keen social life. + +The isolation and the altitude, constantly tending to make humans +nervous and unstrung, demands amusement, self-created amusement of +necessity. If Denver is not amused she quarrels; you can see that in her +unsettled and troubled politics, and her endless battles with the +railroads. So she is wiser when she laughs and it is that faculty of +much laughing, much fun, expressed in a variety of amusements that have +led magazine writers to call the town, the Paris of America, although +there is little about her, save the broad streets and her many open +squares and parks to suggest the real Paris. But, on the other hand, the +Seine is hardly to be compared to the majesty of the backbone of the +continent, Denver's greatest glory. + +In winter Denver society has a fixed program. On Monday night it +religiously attends the Broadway Theater, a playhouse which on at least +one night of the week blossoms out as gayly as the Metropolitan Opera +House. Denver assumes to prove herself the Paris of America by the +gayness of its gowns and its hats and a Denver restaurant on Monday +night after the play only seems like a bit of upper Broadway, Manhattan, +transplanted. On Tuesday afternoon society attends the vaudeville at the +Orpheum and perhaps the Auditorium or one of the lesser theaters that +night. By Wednesday evening at the latest the somewhat meager theater +possibilities of the place are exhausted and one wealthy man from New +York who went out there used to go to bed on Wednesday until Monday, +when the dramatic program began anew. For him it was either bed or the +"movies," and he seemed to prefer bed. + +In summer the Broadway is closed, and Elitch's Gardens, one of the +distinctive features of the town, takes its place as a Monday +rendezvous. It is a gay place, Elitch's, with a quaint foreign touch. A +cozy theater stands in the middle of an apple orchard--part of the +one-time farm of the proprietress' father. Good taste and the delicate +skill of architect and landscape gardener have gone hand in hand for its +charm. You go out there and dine leisurely, and then you cross the long +shady paths under the apples to the theater. And even if the play in +that tiny playhouse were not all that might be expected--although the +best of actors play upon its stage--one would be in a broadly generous +mood, at having dined and spent the evening in so completely charming a +spot. + +But the Parisians of Colorado are not blind to the summer joys of the +wonderful country that lies aroundabout them. They quickly become +mountaineers, in the full sense of the word. They can ride--and read +riding not as merely cantering in the park but as sitting all day in the +saddle of some cranky broncho--they can build fires, cook and live in +the open. A Denver society woman is as particular about her _khakias_ as +about her evening frocks. When these folk, experienced and +well-schooled, go off up into the great hills, they are the envy of all +the tourists. + +Do not forget that we started by showing Denver as a mecca for these +folk. When you come to see how very well the Paris of America takes care +of them you do not wonder that they return to her--many times; that they +are with her more or less the entire year round. Her hotels are big and +they are exceedingly well run. There are more side trips than a tourist +can take, using the city as a base of operations, than a man might +physically use in a month. The most of these run off into the mountains +that have been standing sentinel over Denver since first she was born. +In a day you can leave the bustling capital town, pass the foothills of +the Rockies and climb fourteen thousand feet aloft to the very backbone +of the continent. Indeed, it seems to be the very roof of the world when +you stand on a sentinel peak and look upon timber line two thousand feet +below, where the trees in another of Nature's great tragedies finally +cease their vain attempts to climb the mountain tops. + +A man recommended one of the mountain trips over a wonderfully +constructed railroad, poetically called the "Switzerland Trail." + +"You'll like that trip," he said, with the enthusiasm of the real +Denverite. "It's wonderful, and such a railroad! Why, there are +thirty-two tunnels between here and the divide." + +The tourist to whom this suggestion was made looked up--great scorn upon +his countenance. + +"That doesn't hit me," he growled, "not even a little bit. I live in New +York--live in Harlem, to be more like it, and work down in Wall +street--use the subway twelve times a week. I don't have to come to +Colorado to ride in tunnels." + +[Illustration: A broad arch spans Seventeenth Street and bids you +welcome to Denver] + +Tourists form no small portion of Denver industry. She has restaurants +and souvenir shops, three to a block; seemingly enough high-class hotels +for a town three times her size. Yet the restaurants and the hotels are +always filled, the little shops smile in the sunshine of brisk +prosperity. And as for "rubberneck wagons," Denver has as many as New +York or Washington. They are omnipresent. The drivers take you to the +top of the park system, to the Cheesman Memorial, to see the view. +All the time you are letting your eyes revel in the glories of those +great treeless mountains, the megaphone man is dinning into your ears +the excellence of his company's trips in Colorado Springs, in Manitou, +in Salt Lake City. He assumes that you are a tourist and that you will +have never had enough. + +Tourists become a prosperous industry in a town that has no particular +manufacturing importance. Great idle plants, the busy smelters of other +days, bespeak the truth of that statement. Denver, as far as she has any +commercial importance, is a distributing center. Her retail shops are +excellent and her wholesale trade extends over a dozen great western +states. Her banks are powers, her influence long reaching. But she is +not an industrial city. + +That has worried her very much, is still a matter of grave concern to +her business men. Their quarrels with the railroads have been many and +varied. Denver realizes, although she rarely confesses it, that she has +disadvantages of location. These same mountains that the tourist comes +to love from the bottom of his heart, just as the Coloradians have loved +them all these years, are a real wall hemming her in, barriers to the +growth of their capital. When the Union Pacific--the first of all the +transcontinental railroads--was built through to the coast it was +forced, by the mountains, to carry its line far to the north--a bitter +pill to the ambitious town that was just then beginning to come into its +own. Denver sought reprisals by building the narrow-gauge Denver & Rio +Grande, a most remarkable feat of railroad engineering; bending far to +the south and then to the north and west through the narrow niches of +the high mountains. But hardly had the Denver & Rio Grande assumed any +real importance in a commercial fashion and the mistake of its first +narrow-gauge tracks corrected, before it was joined at Pueblo by direct +routes to the east and Denver was again isolated from through +transcontinental traffic. She was then and still is reached by +side-lines. + +This was a source of constant aggravation to the man who was until his +death two or three years ago, Denver's first citizen--David H. Moffat. +Mr. Moffat's interest and pride in the town were surpassing. He had +grown up with it--in the later years of his life he used to boast that +he once had promoted its literature, for he had come to Denver when it +was a mere struggling mining-camp as a peddler, selling to the miners +who wanted to write home a piece of paper and a stamped envelope, for +five cents. + +Moffat saw that a number of important lines were making Denver their +western terminal--particularly the Burlington and the Kansas stems of +the Union Pacific and the Rock Island. He felt that he might pick up +traffic from these roads and carry it straight over the mountains to +Salt Lake City, a railroad center suffering the same disadvantages as +Denver. He sent surveyors up into the deep canyons and the _impasses_ of +the Rockies. When they brought back the reports of their +_reconnoissances_, practical railroad men laughed at Mr. Moffat. + +The big bankers of the East also laughed at him when he came to them +with the scheme, but the man was of the sort who is never daunted by +ridicule. He had a sublime faith in his project, and when men told him +that the summit of 10,000 feet above the sea level where he proposed to +cross the divide was an impossibility, he would retort about the number +of long miles he was going to save between the capital of Colorado and +the capital of Utah and he would tell of the single Routt county +stretch, a territory approximating the size of the state of +Massachusetts and estimated to hold enough coal to feed the furnace +fires of the United States for three hundred years. When he was refused +money in New York and Chicago he would return to Denver and somehow +manage to raise some there. The Moffat road was begun, despite the +scoffers. Its promoter made repeated trips across the continent to +secure money, and each time when he was home again he would raise the +dollars in his own beloved Denver and move the terminal of his road west +a few miles. He was at it until the day of his death and he lived long +enough to see his railroad within short striking reach of the treasures +of Routt county. + +At his death it passed into the hands of a receiver, and Denver seemed +to have awakened from its dream of being upon the trunk-line of a +transcontinental railroad. But there were hands to take up the lines +where Moffat had dropped them. Times might have been hard and loan money +scarce around Colorado, but the men who were taking up what seemed to be +the deathless project of Denver's own railroad were hardly daunted. +Instead, they boldly revised Moffat's profile and prepared to cut two +thousand feet off the backbone of the continent and shorten their line +many miles by digging a tunnel six miles long and costing some four +millions of dollars. Now a tunnel six miles long and costing $4,000,000 +is quite an enterprise, even to a road which has boasted thirty-two of +them in a single day's trip up to the divide; a particularly difficult +enterprise to a road still in the shadows of bankruptcy. But the men who +were directing the fortunes of the Denver & Salt Lake--as the Moffat +road is now known--had a plan. Would not the city of Denver lend its +credit to an enterprise so fraught with commercial possibilities for it? +Would not the city of Denver arrange a bond issue for the digging of +that tunnel--incidentally finding therein a good investment for its +spare dollars? + +Would Denver do that? Ask this man over there. He is well acquainted +with the Paris of America. + +"Of course it would," he answers. "If some one was to come along with a +scheme to expend five million dollars in building a statue to Jupiter +atop of Pikes Peak, he would find plenty of supporters and enthusiasm in +Denver. The only scheme that does not succeed out there is the one that +is practical." + +The gentleman is sarcastic--and yet not very far from the truth. For +last year when the bond issue for the railroad tunnel went to a vote it +was carried--with enthusiasm. Thereafter Denver was upon the trunk-line +railroad map. The mere facts that the nine miles of tunnel were yet to +be bored and many additional miles of the most difficult railroad +construction of the land builded to its portals were mere details. The +thin air of the Mile-High city lifts its citizens well over details. And +they are far too broad, far too generous to trouble with such minute +things. + +For in them dwells the real spirit of the West--by this time no mere +gateway--and it is a rare spirit, indeed. The town, as we have already +intimated, has a strong social tendency. She has sent her men and women, +her sons and her daughters to the East and they have won for themselves +on their own merits. The Atlantic seaboard has paid full tribute to the +measure of her training--and why not? Her schools are as good as the +best, her fine homes and her little homes together would be a credit to +any town in the land, her big clubs would grace Fifth avenue. Her whole +social organism from bottom to top is well fibered. It is charmingly +exclusive in one way, warmly democratic in many others. + +A girl tourist from Cleveland, a recent summer, essayed to make the +ascent of the capitol dome between two connecting trains. She +miscalculated distances during the hour and a half that was at her +disposal and almost missed her outbound train. She surely would have +missed it, if it had not been for the courtesy of a well-dressed Denver +woman. The girl stood at the corner of Seventeenth street and Broadway, +where a group of large hotels center, waiting for a trolley car to take +her to the station. She could see its sightly tower a long way down +Seventeenth street, but there were no cars in sight at that instant. She +spoke to the woman, who was coming out of a drug store, and asked about +the car service to the station. In the East she might have had a +perfunctory answer, if she received an answer at all. The Denver woman +began explaining, then she checked herself: + +"Better yet," she smiled, "I have my automobile here and I'll take you +down there while we are talking about it." + +The car was a big imported fellow and the girl made her train. Some time +after, she discovered that the woman who had been of such courteous +attention was one of the very biggest of Denver society leaders. +Imagine, if you can, such a thing coming to pass upon the Atlantic +seaboard--in New York, in Boston, in Philadelphia--or in Charleston! + + * * * * * + +There is still another phase of life in Denver--and that is the fact +that most of her residents, for one reason or another, have drifted out +to her from the East. Once in a long while, if you loaf over your +morning newspaper on a shady bench in the Capitol grounds, you will +become acquainted with some whiskered old fellow who will tell you that +he chased antelope where the big and showy City Park today stands, that +he remembers clearly when a nearby street was the Santa Fé Trail and +then a country road, and that two generations after him are living in +Denver; or sometimes if you go down into Larimer street, which is old +Denver, you can find a veteran who likes to prate of other days--of the +time when he used to pack down to the capital from his mountain claim, +one hundred and twenty-five miles over the mountain snows, for his +winter's bacon. But the majority of these Denverites have come from the +East. There is some old town in New England with avenues of giant trees +that is still home to them, and yet they all have a heap of affection +for the city of their adoption. + +Some of them have gone to Denver against their will, and that is the +tragic shadow of Colorado. They are expatriates--exiles, if you +please--for Colorado is the American Siberia. This dread thing, this +thing that is impartial to all low altitudes--the white plague--marks +the victims, who go shuffling their way to die among the hills--in the +gay Paris of North America. It is the gaunt tragedy of Denver, and even +though the Denverites speak lightheartedly of the "T. B.'s" who have +come to dwell among them, they themselves know best the bitter tragedy +of it all. + +Here were two girls, sisters, who worked in a restaurant. A customer +held his home newspaper spread as he supped alone. Its title, after the +fashion of country weeklies, was emblazoned that all might read; the +widespread eagle has been its feature for three-quarters of a century +now. One of the waitresses made bold to speak. + +"So you are from near Syracuse?" she said. + +It was affirmed. She beckoned to her sister to come over. The little +restaurant--Denver fashion, it made specialities of "short orders," +cream waffles and T-bone steaks--was almost deserted. She spoke to her +sister. + +"He's from Syracuse," she said. The sister was a delicate, colorless +little thing, but the blood flushed up into her pale cheeks for an +instant. + +"We're from Syracuse," she said proudly. "We used to live up on the +hill, just around the corner from the college. It was great fun to see +the students go climbing up around Mount Olympus there. It was twice as +great fun in winter, when the north wind was blowing the snow right up +into our faces." + +Exiles these. They had left their nice, comfortable home there in the +snug, New York state city to make the long dreary trek to Denver. They +were clever girls, and it seemed certain that they might find work in +some nice office in the big and growing Colorado city. They were fairly +competent stenographers, and it seemed to them that they might live in +peace and comfort in the new home. It was a change from their big +Syracuse house to a narrow hallroom in a Denver boarding house. Then +upon that came the fruitless search for a "nice place." Hundreds of +other girl stenographers, driven on the long trip West, were pressing +against them. The two Syracusans held their heads high--for a time. Then +they were glad to get the menial places as waitresses. + +The man who checks trunks at one of the biggest transfer companies +confessed that he was an exile, too. + +"Came out here a dozen years ago with a busted lung," he admitted with a +quizzical smile. "Guess I'll stay for a while longer. But I want to go +back to Baltimore. Before I am done with it I am going back to +Baltimore. I'm going to walk down Charles street once again and breathe +the fragrance of the flowers in the gardens, if it kills me." + +A girl in a boarding house leaned up against the wall of the broad and +shady piazza and said she liked Denver "really, truly, immensely." + +"Do you honestly?" + +"Honestly," she drawled gravely. "God knows, I've got to. I'm a lunger, +although they don't know it here. I've only got one lung, but it's a +good lung," she ended with a little hysterical laugh. + +Another exile. The American Siberia, in truth, save that this Siberia is +a near Paradise--a kingdom for exiles where the grass is as green as it +is back in the old East, where the trees cast welcome shade and the +strange new flowers blossom out smiles of hope. But a Siberia none the +less. The big sanitariums all about the city tell that. The keeper of +the Denver Morgue will tell it, too. The suicide rate in Denver runs +high. Desperate folk go out to Colorado to shut the door in the face of +death--and go too late. They are far from home, alone, friendless, +penniless in despair--the figures of the statisticians cannot lie. + +The East has this as a debt to pay Denver, and generally she pays it +royally. Denver does not forget the times when the Atlantic seaboard has +come to her assistance--despite the troubles of David H. Moffat in +raising capital for his railroad. Once in a business council there while +the East was getting some rather hard knocks for its "fool +conservatism"--perhaps it had been refusing to buy the bonds of the +mountain-climbing railroad--a big Denver banker got the floor. He was a +man who could demand attention--and receive it. + +"I want you to remember one thing," he said; "fifteen years ago we were +laying out and selling town-lots for a dozen miles east of Denver; we +were selling them to Easterners--for their good money. When they came +out and looked for their land what did they see? They saw plains--mile +after mile of plains--peopled by what? They were peopled by jackrabbits, +and the jackrabbits were bald from bumping their heads against the +surveyors' stakes. Until we have redeemed those lots and built our city +out to them and upon them, gentlemen, we have not redeemed our promise +to the East." + +And no one who knows Denver doubts that the time will yet come when she +will redeem that promise. Her railroad may or may not come to be a +transcontinental route of importance, manufacturing may or may not +descend upon her with its grime and industry and wealth, but her +magnificent situation there at the base of the Rockies will continue to +make her at least a social factor in the gradually lengthening roll of +really vital American cities. + + + + +18 + +TWO RIVALS OF THE NORTH PACIFIC--AND A THIRD + + +"When you get to Portland you will see New England transplanted. You +will see the most American town on the continent, bar only +Philadelphia." + +The man on the train shrieking westward down through the marvelous +valley of the Columbia spoke like an oracle. He had a little group of +oddly contorted valises that bespoke him as a traveling salesman, and +hence a person of some discrimination and judgment. He was ready to talk +politics, war to the death on railroads, musical comedy and the +condition of the markets with an equally uncertain knowledge, a fund of +priceless information that never permitted itself to undergo even the +slightest correction. + +But he was right, absolutely right, about Portland. From the cleanest +railroad station that we have ever seen, even though the building is +more than twenty years old, to the very crests of the fir-lined hills +that wall her in, here is a town that is so absolutely American, that it +seems as if she might even boast one of the innumerable George +Washington headquarters somewhere on her older streets. Her downtown +streets are conservatively narrow, her staunch Post Office suggests a +public building in one of the older cities on the Atlantic coast, and +her shops are a medley of delights, with apparently about thirty percent +of them given over to the retail vending of chocolate. Our Portland +guide was grieved when we made mention of this last fact. + +"I once went to Boston," said he, "and found it an almost continuous +piano store." + +Which was, of course, a mere evasion of the truth of our suggestion as +to the chocolate propensities of the maids of Portland. They are very +much like the girls in Hartford or Indianapolis or St. Paul or any other +bustling town across this land, attending the Saturday matinées with an +almost festal regularity; rollicking, flirting girls, grave and gay, +girls dancing and girls driving their big six-cylinder automobiles with +almost unerring accuracy up the tremendous hills of the town. + +Hills they really are and well worth the tall climb to Council Crest, +the showiest of them all. If your host does not mind tire expense and +the wear and tear on his engine, he may take you up there in his +automobile. The street car makes the same ascent, and the managers of +the local traction system who have to pay for all the repairs and +renewals to the cars do not hesitate to say that it is the least +profitable line in creation. But the final result at Council Crest is +worth a set of tires, or a six-months' ageing of a trolley car. + +You have climbed up from the heart of the busy town, past the business +section, spreading itself out as business sections of all successful +towns must continue to do, past the trim snug little white Colonial +houses--that must have been stolen from old Salem or Newburyport--all +set among the dark greens of the cedars and the firs, and belying the +Northland tales of the tree foliage by the great rose-bushes that bloom +all the year round, up on to the place where tradition says the silent +chiefs of red men used to gather.... Below you from Council Crest the +town--the town, at dusk, if you please. The arcs are showing the regular +pattern of trim streets, the shops and the big office buildings are +aglow for the night with the brilliancy of artificial illumination. It +is dark down in the town--night has closed in upon it. + +Now lift your eyes and let them carry past the town and the black gloom +of the river, over the nearest encirclings of the fir-clad hills and see +the day die in the most high place. You see it now--a peculiar pink +cloud, which is not a cloud at all, but a snow-capped cone-shaped peak +rising into the darkening heavens. Mount Hood is an asset for Portland, +because for any habitation of man it would be an inspiration. And beyond +Mount Hood--fifty miles distant--but further to the north are Mount +Adams, Mount St. Helen's and sometimes on a fine clear evening Rainier +bidding alike brilliant farewells to the dying day. + +[Illustration: Belasco might have staged Seattle] + +This then is the city into which a traveler may enter on an autumn day +to find the innumerable cedars and firs, the changing brilliancy of the +maple leaves proclaiming it North, with the gaily blossoming rose-bushes +and the home-grown strawberries of October telling a paradoxical story +and locating the Oregon metropolis to the South. The publicity experts +of the town can--and do--sound its praises in no faint terms. They will +tell you of a single day when twenty-two wheat vessels were at Portland +docks gathering the food-stuffs for a hungry Orient, they will reel off +statistics as to the shipping powers of the great lumber port in all the +world and then, without a lessening of the pride, will go further and +explain Portland's hopes for the further inland navigation of the +streams that make her an important ocean port although fifty miles +distant from the sight of the sea. The Columbia river is already +navigable for four hundred miles inland and Portland is today +coöperating with the Canadian authorities in British Columbia for +extending the waterway's availability as a carrier for another four +hundred miles. A great work has been performed in pulling the teeth of +the mighty Columbia where it meets the sea--in building jetties at the +mouth of the river. The government with unusual energy is making new +locks at the impressive Cascades. Portland has good reason for her faith +in the future. Her railroad systems are in their infancy; a part of +Central Oregon as large as the state of Ohio is just now being reached +by through routes from Portland. What future they shall bring her no man +dares to predict. + +But we, for ourselves, shall like to continue to think of Portland as a +gentle American town set between guardian fir-clad hills and sentineled +by snow-capped peaks; we shall enjoy remembering the yellow and red +leaves of Autumn, the luxuriant roses, the strawberries and the crisp +October nights in one delightful paradoxical jumble. + + * * * * * + +To make a great seaport city out of a high-springing ridge of volcanic +origin was a truly herculean task, but Seattle sprang to it with all the +enthusiasm of her youth. "Re-grading" is what she has called it, and +because even armies of men with pick and with shovel could not work fast +enough for her own satisfaction, she borrowed a trick from the old-time +gold miners and put hose-men at work. Hydraulic science supplanted men +and teams and picks and even the big steam shovels. The splashing hose +wore down the crest of the great hills until sturdy buildings teetered +on their foundations and late moving tenants had to come and go up and +down long ladders. + +In 1881 President Hayes came to this strange little lumbering town and +spoke from the platform of the two-storied Occidental Hotel in the +center of the village to its entire population--some five hundred +persons. The Occidental Hotel was gone within ten years, to be replaced +by a hostelry that in 1890 was big and showy for any town and that in +1912, Seattle regarded almost as a relic of past ages. And stranger +still, the hills--the eternal hills, if you please--that looked upon the +Occidental Hotel only yesterday, have gone. Not that Seattle will not +always be a side-hill town, that the cable cars will not continue to +climb up Madison street from the waterfront like flies upon a +window-glass, but that a tremendous reformation has been wrought, with +the aid of engineers' skill and the famous "hard money" of the Pacific +coast. + +For here was a town that decided almost overnight to be a seaport of +world-wide reputation. She looked at her high hills ruefully. Then she +called for the hose-men. The hills were doomed. + +There was Denny hill, with a park of five acres capping it. The +surveyors set their rival stakes five hundred feet below the lowest +level of the little park and a matter of almost a million cubic yards of +earth went sploshing down the long hydraulic sluices to make the +tide-water flats at the bottom of the hills into solid footing for +future factories and warehouses. And when the "regraders" were done the +architects and the builders were upon their heels. + +Denny hill had boasted a hotel upon its summit, which in the late +eighties Seattle regarded as an architectural triumph, a wooden thing of +angles and shingles and queer Queen Anne turrets and dormers. The name +of the old hotel went to a new one which supplanted it at a proper +altitude for a city that was determined to be metropolitan--and the new +hotel was a dignified structure worthy of the best town in all this +land. + +"We had to do it," the Seattle man will tell you, without smiling. "We +have got to be ready for a population of a million or more. Our house +has got to be in order." + +It is not every day that one can see an American metropolitan city in +the making. + + * * * * * + +Back of the high-crested hills that have been suffered to remain as a +part of the topography of this remarkable town--for its residents still +like to perch their smart new houses where they may command a view of +Puget Sound or the snow-capped Rainier--is as lovely a chain of lakes as +was ever given to an American city. Boston would have made the edges of +these the finest suburbs in the land; she is trying some sort of an +experiment of that kind with her dirty old Charles river. Seattle saw in +the great bowl of Lake Washington something more. + +"We can crowd into Portland a little more," said the shrewdest of her +citizens, "by making this lake into a fresh-water harbor." + +Just what the advantages of a fresh-water harbor may be to Seattle which +already possesses one of the finest deep-water harbors on the North +Pacific, may be obscure to you for the moment. Then the Seattle man +informs you that Portland has a fresh-water harbor, that the masters of +ships, still thirty days' sailing from port, make for its haven, knowing +that in fresh water the barnacles that make so great a drag upon a +vessel's progress will fall away from the hull. A fresh-water bath for a +salt-water hull is better than a drain-off in a dry dock--and a great +sight cheaper. + +Here, then, is a masterful new town seeking new points of advantage over +its rivals, piercing canals through to its backyard lakes so that it may +eventually be as completely surrounded by docks and shipping as are New +York and Boston. It is impossible to think of Seattle ever hesitating. +Seattle proceeds to accomplish. Before she has a real opportunity to +count the cost, the improvements which she has undertaken are rolling in +revenue to her coffers. + + * * * * * + +Tacoma is smaller than either Seattle or Portland--and not one whit less +vigorous than either of them. She has not undergone the wholesale +transformations of her sister to the north and still retains all the +aspects of a busy port of the Far North--long reaching wharves, busy, +dirty railroad yards reaching and serving them, fir-clad hills rising +from the water, the smell and industry of lumber--and back of all these +her mountain. It is her mountain--"The Mountain that was God" as the +Indians used to say--and if for long weeks it may stay modestly hidden +behind fog-banks, there do come days when its great snow-capped peak +gazes serenely down upon the little city. + +Do not dare to come into this town and call her mountain Rainier, after +the fashion of government "map sharps" and railroad advertisements. It +is Mount Tacoma, if you please, and woe be to any man who calls it +anything else. Former President Taft once shouldered the question upon +reaching the northwestern corner of the land like a true diplomat. At +the dinners in both Seattle and Tacoma he referred to the great guardian +peak of Washington as "the mountain" thereby offending no one and +leaving a pleasant "lady or the tiger" mystery as to which of the two +names he would use in private conversation. + +But whether the mountain be Rainier or Tacoma, it is going to be one of +the great playgrounds of the nation--and that within very few years. +Think of starting out from a brisk American city of a hundred thousand +population and within two hours standing at the foot of a giant glacier +grinding down from the heavens, a cold, dead, icy thing but still imbued +with the stubborn sort of life that stunted vegetable growths possess, a +life that makes the frozen river travel toward the sea every day of the +year. A man living in Tacoma, or Seattle, or Portland, for that matter, +can have both the dangers and the joys of Swiss mountain climbing but a +few hours distant. It takes knowledge and courage to make the ascent of +Rainier--a tedious trip which starts through the three summer months in +which it is possible at five o'clock in the morning so as to reach the +summit before the snows begin to melt to the danger point. And yet, in +the hands of skilled guides, so many women cross the crevices and climb +the steep upward trails, that the record of their ascents is no longer +kept. + +This great Swiss mountain--higher than Blanc, and vastly more impressive +from the fact that its fourteen thousand foot summit rises almost +directly from the sea--is the central feature of the newest of all the +government parks. It is in the stages of early development and already +the tourists are coming to it in increasing numbers. Given a few years +and Rainier will vie in popularity with the Yellowstone, the Yosemite +and the Grand Canyon of the Colorado. In scenic beauty of its own +inimitable sort it already ranks with these. + +The man who makes the ascent of Rainier--if poetry and imagination rest +within his soul--may truly feel that he has come near to God. He can +feel the ardor and the inspiration of the red men who gave the mountain +its mystic symbolism. He can look up into the clouds and feel that he is +at the dome of the world. He can look down, down past the timber line +off across miles of timber land and catch the silver of Puget Sound and +the distant horizon flash of the Pacific. He can see smoke to the +south--Portland--smoke to the north and west--Seattle--and nearer than +these--the brisk Tacoma that hugs this mountain to herself. + +If imagination rest within him he can now know that these cities, at the +northwest corner of America, are barely adult, just beginning to come +into their own. A great measure of growth and strength is yet to be +given to them. + + + + +19 + +SAN FRANCISCO--THE NEWEST PHOENIX + + +We came upon it in the still of an early Sunday evening--the wonderful +city of Saint Francis. Throughout that cloudless Sabbath we had +journeyed southward through California. At dawn the porter of the +sleeping car had informed us that we were in the Golden State, not to be +distinguished in its northern reaches from Oregon. Men were talking of +the wonders of the Klamath country into which the civilizing rails of +steel are being steadily pushed, the breath of tomorrow was upon the +lips of every one who boarded the train, but the land itself was wild, +half-timbered, rugged to the last degree. Through the morning grays the +volcanic cone of Shasta was showing ever and ever so faintly, and if an +acquaintance of two hours with the peak that Joaquin Miller has made so +famous did not enthuse the man behind the car-window, it must have been +that he was still a bit dazed, not surfeited, with the wonders of +Rainier. + +At the foot of Shasta our train stood for a bare ten minutes while +travelers descended and partook of the vilest tasting waters that nature +might boast in all California. Shasta spring water is supposed to be +mightily beneficial and that is probably true, for our experience with +spring waters has been that their benefits have existed in an inverse +ratio to their pleasantness of taste. But if Nature had given her +benefactions to Shasta a sort of Spartan touch, she has more than +compensated for the severity of her gifts by the beauty of their +setting. You literally descend directly upon the springs. The railroad +performs earthly miracles to land a passenger in front of them. It +descends a vast number of feet in an incredibly short length of +track--the conductor will reduce these to cold statistics--and your idea +is a quick drop on a gigantic hair-pin. At the base of the lowest leg of +this hair-pin is the spring, set in a deep glen, the mossy banks of +which are constantly adrip and seemingly one great slow-moving +waterfall, even throughout the fearfully dry seasons of California. The +whole thing is distinctly European, distinctly different--a bit of Swiss +scenery root-dug and brought to the West Coast of the United States. + +After Shasta and the springs, another of the desolate, fascinating +canyons to be threaded for many miles besides the twistings of a +melancholy river, then--of a sudden--open country, farmers growing green +things, ranch-houses, dusty county-roads, with automobiles plowing them +dustier still, little towns, more ranches--everything in California from +two to two million acres is a ranch--then a grinding of air-brakes and +your neighbor across the aisle is fumbling with his red-covered +time-table to locate the station upon it. As for you, you don't care +about what station it really may be. It is a station. You are sure of +that. There is the familiar light yellow depot, but in the well-kept +lawn that abuts it grows a giant tree. That tree is a palm, and the +palm-tree typifies California to every tingling sense of your mentality. + +This is the real California. The mountains have already become +accustomed things to you, the broad ranches were coming into their own +before you ever reached Denver, but the palm is exotic in your homeland, +a glass-protected thing. That it grows freely beside this little +unidentified railroad station proclaims to you that you are at last in a +land that bids defiance to that trinity of scourging giants--December, +January and February--and calls itself summer the whole year round. + +This palm has brought you to a sense of your location--to California. +The romance that has been spelled into you of a distant land, and of the +men who toiled that it become a great state peopled with great cities, +of Nature's lavish gifts and terrific blows laid alike upon it, came +into your heart and soul and body at the first glimpse of that tree. +Before the train is under way again your camera has been called into +action--mental processes are supplemented by a permanent record +chemically etched upon a film of celluloid. + +After that pioneer among palm-trees, more of these little yellow depots +and more of these rarely beautiful palms standing beside them. The +ranches multiply, this valley of Sacramento is a rarely fertile thing. +Growth stretches for miles, without ever a hint of undulation. +California is the flattest thing you have ever seen. And again and again +you will be declaring it the most mountainous of all our states. The +flat-lands carry you beyond daylight into dusk. The towns multiply, a +glow of arc reflection against the shadows of evening is Sacramento a +dozen miles distant. Then there is a rattle of switches, a halt at a +junction station, and mail is being gathered from the impromptu +literature makers on our train to go east. The main line is reached. And +a little later the Straits of Costa are crossed. Here is a broad arm of +the sea and if it were still lingering daylight you might declare that +Holland, not Switzerland, had been transplanted into California. The sea +laughs at bridges, and so from Benecia to Port Costa we go on a great +ferryboat, eleven Pullmans, a great ten-drivered passenger +locomotive--all of us together. For twenty minutes we slip across the +water, breathing fresh air once again and standing in the ferry's bow +looking toward the shadowy outline of a high, black hill carelessly +punctuated here and there by yellow points of light. A new land is +always mysterious and fascinating; by night doubly mysterious, doubly +fascinating. + +The ferry boat fast to its bridge, the locomotive is no longer an +impotent thing. We are making the last stage of a long trip across the +continent by rail. The little towns are multiplying. The subtle +prescience of a great city is upon us. We turn west, then south and the +suburban villages are shouldering one another all the more closely the +entire way. We skirt and barely miss Berkeley, hesitate at Oakland and +then come to a grinding final stop at the end of a pier that juts itself +far out beyond the shallow reaches of San Francisco bay. Again there is +a ferry boat--a capacious craft not unlike those craft upon which we +have ridden time and time again between Staten island and the tip of +Manhattan--and when its screws have ceased to turn we will finally be in +the real San Francisco, reached as a really great metropolis may be +reached, after an infinitude of time and trouble. It is still +October--the warmest month of the year in the city by the Golden +Gate--and the girls and their young men fill the long benches on the +open decks of the ferry. The wind blows soft from the Pacific, and +straight ahead is San Francisco--a mystery of yellow illumination rising +from the water's edge. + +As the ferry makes her course, the goal is less and less of a mystery. +Street lights begin to give some sort of half-coherent form to the high +hills that make the amphitheater site of San Francisco, they dip in even +lines to show the course of straight avenues. A great beer sign changes +and rechanges in spelling its lively message, there is a moon-faced +clock held aloft, you pinch your memory sharply, and then know that it +must be the tower of the great ferry-house, the conspicuous waterfront +land-mark of San Francisco. + +In another five minutes you are passing under that tower--a veritable +gate-keeper of the city--and facing up Market street; from the beginning +its undisputed chief thoroughfare. A taxicab is standing there. You +throw your hand-baggage into it, come tumbling after, yourself. There is +a confusion of street-lights, a momentary intimacy of a trolley car +running alongside--a little later the glare and confusion of a hotel +lobby, the fascinating fuss of getting yourself settled in a strange +town. There is a double witchery in approaching a great new city at +night. + +In the morning to tumble out of your hotel into that same strange town +in the clarity of early sunshine, to have this great street or that or +that--Market or Geary or Powell--stretching forth as if longing to +invite your explorations--here again is the fascination of travel. The +big trolley cars come rolling up Market street in quick succession, and +for an instant their appeal is strong. But over there is a car of +another sort, running on narrow-gauge tracks and with the roar of an +endless cable ever at work beneath the pavement. The little cars upon +those narrow tracks interest you. They are as gaily colored and as +bravely striped as any circus wagon of boyhood days, and when you pay +your fare you can take your choice--between the interior of a stuffy +little cabin amidships or open seats at either end arranged after the +time-honored fashion of Irish jaunting cars. San Franciscans do not +hesitate. They range themselves along the open seats of the dinky cars +and look proud as toads as the cars go clanking up the awful hills. + +The San Francisco cable car is in a transportation class by itself. It +clings tenaciously to early traditions. For in San Francisco the cable +railroad was born--and in San Francisco the cable railroad still +remains. One Andrew S. Halladie was its inventor--somewhere early in the +"seventies." Up Clay street hill, and to know and appreciate the slope +of Clay street hill one must have seen it once at least, Halladie's +first car struggled, while its passengers held their breaths just as +first-comers to San Francisco still hold their breaths as they ride up +and down the fearful hills. The telegraph told to the whole land how a +street railroad was running on a rope out in that little-known land of +marvels--California. But the telegraph could not tell what the railroad +on a rope meant to San Francisco--San Francisco encompassed and held in +by her high sand hills. The Clay street cable road had conquered one of +the meanest of these hills and they began to plan other roads of a +similar sort. Like a blossoming and growing vine the city spread, almost +overnight. Sand-dunes became building-lots of high value and a new +bonanza era was come to San Francisco. And, with the traditional +generosity of the coast, she gave her transportation idea to other +cities. In a little while St. Louis, Chicago, Washington and New York +were banishing the horse cars from their busiest streets. A new era in +city transit was begun. + +A few years later the broomstick trolley--cheaper and in many respects +far more efficient--displaced the cable-cars in many of these cities. +But San Francisco up to the present time has stuck loyally to her +old-time hill conquerors. And the nervous lever-clutch of the gripman as +he "gets the rope" is as distinctive of her as are the fantasies of her +marvelous wooden architecture. + +Some of the cable cars have disappeared--they began to go in those +wonderful years of reconstruction right after the fire, and they are +already obsolete in the city's chief thoroughfare, Market street. The +others remain. Over on Pacific avenue is a little line that the San +Franciscans dearly love, for it is particularly reminiscent of the trams +that used to clatter through Market street before the fire--a diminutive +summer-house in front and pulling an immaculate little horseless horse +car behind. Eventually all will go. One road's franchise has already +expired and upon it San Francisco is today maintaining the first +municipally operated street car line in any metropolitan city of +America. If the experiment in Geary street succeeds, and it is being +carefully operated with such a hope clearly in view, it will probably be +extended to the cable lines when their franchises expire and they revert +automatically to the city. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: Where the Pacific rolls up to San Francisco] + +The distinctive mannerisms of San Francisco are changing--slowly but +very surely indeed. Some of them still remain, however, in greater or +less force. At the restaurants, in the shops and in the hotels you +receive your change in "hard money"--gold and silver coin. Your real San +Franciscan will have nothing else. There is something about the +substantial feeling of a coin, something about the tinkling of a handful +of it that runs straight to the bottom of his heart. Since the +fire--which worked ever more fearful havoc with San Francisco comforts +than with the physical structure of the city--the use of paper money has +increased. But your true Californian will have none of it. When he goes +east and they give him paper money he fusses and fumes about +it--inwardly at least. He thinks that it may slip out of that pesky +inner pocket or vest or coat. He wants gold--a handful of it in his +trousers-pocket to jingle and to stay put. And as for pennies. You who +count yourself of the East will have to come east once again before you +pocket such copper trash--they will have none of them upon the West +Coast. Small change may be anything else but it is not Western. + +"Western," did we say? + +Hold on. San Francisco is not western. California is not western. To +call either western is to commit an abomination approaching the use of +the word "Frisco." + +"California is to all purposes, practical and social--a great island," +your San Franciscan will explain to you. "To the east of us lies +another dividing sea--the broad miles of desert and of mountains, and so +broad is it that Hong Kong or Manila or Yokohama seem nearer to us than +Chicago or St. Louis. We recognize nothing west of New York and +Washington. Between is that vast space--the real West--which fast trains +and good, bridge in a little more than four days. In there is your +West--Illinois, Mississippi, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado--all the rest of +that fine family of American states. + +"In Los Angeles, now, it is different. The lady that you take out upon +your arm there is probably from Davenport or Kokomo or Indianapolis, +whether she will admit it or not. Los Angeles is western. We are not. We +are 'the Coast' and be exceeding careful, young man, how you say it." + +He has spoken the truth. Your typical San Franciscan is quite as well +versed in the streets and shops and hotels of London, Paris and Vienna, +as your typical New Yorker or Bostonian. The four days bridging across +the North American continent is no more to him than the Hudson river +ferries to the commuter from New Jersey. His city is cosmopolitan--and +he is proud of it. Her streets are cosmopolitan and so are her shops and +her great hotels. To the stately Palace reared from the site of the old, +and with a new glass-covered court rivaling the glories of its +predecessor, still come princes and diplomats, globe-trotters of every +sort and bearing in their train wondrous luggage of every sort, +prosperous miners from the North, bankers from the East, Californians +from every corner of their great state, and look with curious interest +at the elect of San Francisco sipping their high tea there in the court +yard. + +And the cosmopolitanism of the streets is still more marked. Portuguese, +Italian, sour-doughs from Alaska, hundreds of the little brown Japs who +are giving California such a tremendous worry these days, Indians, +French Kanakas, Mexicans, Chinese--the list might be run almost +interminably. Of these none are more interesting than the Chinese. You +see them in all the downtown quarters of San Francisco--the men with +that inscrutable gravity and sagacity that long centuries of +civilization seem to have given them, the women and the little girls, of +high caste or low, invariably hatless and wearing loose coat and +trousers--in many cases of brilliant colors and rare Oriental silks. And +when you come to their own city within a city--San Francisco's famous +Chinatown--they are the dominant folk upon the street. Of course the new +Chinatown is not the old--with its subterranean labyrinths of +unspeakable vileness and dirt, with danger and crime lurking in each of +its dark corners. That passed completely in the fire. But it had begun +to pass even before that great calamity. It was being exploited. Paid +guides, with a keen sense of the theatrical, were beginning to work the +damage. The "rubberneck wagons" were multiplying. + +Today Chinatown is frankly commercial. It is clean and new and clever. +Architects have brought more of the Chinese spirit into its buildings +than the old ever had. It does not lack color--by day, the treasures of +its shops, the queer folk who walk its streets, even the bright red +placards upon the door-lintels; by night the close slow-moving throngs +through Grant avenue--its chief thoroughfare--the swinging lanterns +above their heads, the radiance that comes out from brilliantly lighted +and mysterious rooms along the way--the new Chinatown of San Francisco. +But it is now frankly commercial. The paid guides and the "rubberneck +wagons" have completed the ruin. If you are taken into an opium den, you +may be fairly sure that the entire performance has been staged for the +delectation of you and yours. For the real secrets even of the new +Chinatown are not shown to the unappreciative eyes of white folk. + +At the edge of Chinatown slopes Portsmouth square and here the +cosmopolitanism of San Francisco reaches its high apex. Around it +chatters the babel of all tongues, beyond it stretches the "Barbary +Coast,"[G] that collection of vile, if picturesque resorts that +possesses a tremendous fascination for some San Franciscans and some +tourists but which has no place within the covers of this book. To +Portsmouth square come the representatives of all these little colonies +of babbling foreigners, the men who sail the seven seas--the flotsam and +the jetsam not alone of the Orient but of the whole wide world as well. +There is a little man who sits on one side of the square and who for a +very small sum will execute cubist art upon your cuticle. Among +tattooers he acknowledges but two superiors--a one-legged veteran who +plies his trade near the wharves of the Mersey, and a Hindu artist at +Calcutta. The little shops that line Portsmouth square are the little +shops of many peoples. Over their counters you can buy many things +practical, and many, many more of the most impractical things in all the +world. And the new Hall of Justice rises above the square in the precise +site of the old. + + [G] As this goes to press a "vice crusade" has swept San + Francisco and the "Barbary Coast" has been forced to close + its doors. It is not unlikely that they may be opened once + again. E. H. + +Portsmouth square has played its part in the history of San Francisco. +From it the modern city dates. It was the plaza of the old Spanish town, +and within this plaza Commodore Montgomery of the American sloop-of-war +_Portsmouth_ first raised the Stars and Stripes--in the strenuous days +of the Mexican war. After that the stirring days of gold-times with the +vigilantes conducting hangings on the flat roofs of the neighboring +houses of adobe. Portsmouth square indeed has played its part in the +history of San Francisco. + +"Portsmouth square," you begin to say, "Portsmouth square--was it not +Portsmouth square that Stevenson--" + +Precisely so. There are still some of the shop-keepers about that +ancient plaza who can recall the thin figure of the poet and dreamer who +loafed lazy days in that open space--hobnobbing with sailors and the +strange dark-skinned vagabond folk from overseas. There is a single +monument in the square today--a smooth monolith upon whose top there +rests a ship, its sails full-bellied to the wind but which never reaches +a port. Upon the smooth surface of that stone you may read: + + TO REMEMBER + ROBERT LOUIS + STEVENSON + + To be honest To be + kind--To earn a lit- + tle To spend a lit- + tle less--to make + upon the whole a + family happier for + his presence--To re- + nounce when that shall + be necessary and not + be embittered--To + keep a few friends but + these without capitula- + tion--Above all on + the same grim condition + to keep friends + with himself--Here is + a task for all that a + man has of fortitude + and delicacy + +That is the lesson that Portsmouth square gives to the wanderers who +drag themselves today to its benches--the words that come as a sermon +from one who knew and who pitied wrecked humanity. + +There are other great squares of San Francisco--and filled with +interest--perhaps none other more so than Union square, in the heart of +the fine retail section with its theaters and hotels and clubs. Of these +last there is none more famous than the Bohemian. More showy clubs has +San Francisco. The Pacific Union in its great brown-stone house upon the +very crest of Nob Hill, where in other days the bonanza millionaires +were wont to build their high houses so that they might look across the +housetops and see the highways in from the sea, has a home unsurpassed +by any other in the whole land. But the Bohemian does not get its fame +from its fine town club-house. Its "jinks" held in August in a great +cluster of giant redwood trees off in the wonderful California hills are +world-renowned. In the old days all that was necessary for a man to be a +Bohemian, beyond the prime requisite of being a good fellow, was that he +be able to sing a song, to tell a story or to write a verse. In these +days the Bohemian Club, like many other institutions that were simple in +the beginning, has waxed prosperous. Some of its members have rather +elaborate cottages in among the redwoods and go back and forth in +automobiles. But much of the old spirit remains. It is the spirit which +the San Franciscan tells you gave first American recognition to such an +artist as Luisa Tetrazzini, which many years ago gave such a welcome to +the then famous Lotta that the generous actress in a burst of generous +enthusiasm returned with the gift to the city of the Lotta fountain--at +one of the most famous of the Market street corners. It is the spirit +which makes San Francisco give to art or literature the quickest +appreciation of any city in America. It is, in fact, the same spirit +that gives to San Francisco the reputation of having the gayest night +life of any city in the world--with the possible exception of Paris. + +Night life in a city means the intoxication of many lights, the creature +comfort of good restaurants. San Francisco does not lack either. When +the last glimmer of day has disappeared out over the Golden Gate, Market +street, Powell street, all the highways and the byways that lead into +them are ablaze with the incandescent glories of electricity. Commerce +and the city's lighting boards vie with one another in the splendor of +their offerings. + +And as for the restaurants--San Francisco boasts of twelve hundred +hotels, alone. Each hotel has presumably at least one restaurant. And +some of the finest of the eating-places of the city at the Golden Gate +are solely restaurants. As a matter of real fact, San Francisco is the +greatest restaurant city on the continent--in proportion to her +population even greater than New York. In New York and more recently in +Chicago the so-called "kitchenette apartment" has come into great vogue +among tiny folks--two or three rooms, a bath and a very slightly +enlarged clothes-press in which a small gas or electric stove, a sink +and a refrigerator suffices for the preparation of light breakfasts and +lunches. Dinners are taken out. In San Francisco the "kitchenettes" are +omitted in thousands of apartments. All the meals are eaten in public +dining-rooms and the restaurants thrive wonderfully. The soft climate +does much to make this possible. + +Living in these new apartments of San Francisco is a comparatively +simple matter. Your capital investment for house-keeping may be small. A +few chairs, a table or two, some linen--you are ready to begin. + +Beds? + +Bless your soul, the builder of the apartment house solved that problem +for you. Your bed is a masterpiece of architecture which lets down from +the wall, _à la Pullman_. By day it goes up against the wall again and +an ingenious arrangement of wall-shutters enables the bedding to air +throughout the entire day. In some cases the beds will let down either +within, or without, to a sleeping-porch, for your real San Franciscan +has a healthy sort of an animal love for living and sleeping in the +open. The glories of the open California country that lie within an hour +or two of the city tempt him into it each month of the year, and he is +impeccable in his horseback riding, his fishing and his shooting. + +To return to the restaurants--a decided contrast to that rough life in +the open which he really loves--here is one, quite typical of the city. +It is gay, almost garish with color and with light. Its cabaret almost +amounts to an operatic performance and its proprietor will tell you with +no little pride that he was presenting this form of restaurant +entertainment long months before the idea ever reached New York. He will +also tell you that he changes the entire scheme of decoration each three +months--the San Franciscan mind is as volatile as it is appreciative. + +Little Jap girls pass through the crowded tables bringing you hot tea +biscuits of a most delicious sort. Other girls, this time in Neapolitan +dress, are distributing flowers. The head-waiter bends over you and +suggests the salad with which you start your dinner, for it seems to be +the fashion in San Francisco restaurants to eat your salad before your +soup. The restaurant is a gay place, crowded. Late-comers must find +their way elsewhere. And the food is surprisingly good. + +But we best remember a little restaurant just back of the California +market in Pine street--into which we stumbled of a Saturday night just +about dinner-time. It was an unpretentious place, with two musicians +fiddling for dear life in a tiny balcony. But the _table d'hôte_--price +one dollar, with a bottle of California wine after the fashion of all +San Francisco _table d'hôtes_--was perfection, the special dishes which +the waiter suggested even finer. _Soupe l'oignon_ that might linger in +the mind for a long time, a marvelous combination salad, chicken _bonne +femme_--which translated meant a chicken pulled apart, then cooked with +artichokes in a _casserole_, the whole smothered with a wonderful brown +gravy--there was a dinner, absolute in its simplicity yet leaving +nothing whatsoever to be wished. And a long time later we read that +Maurice Baring, author and globe-trotter, had visited the place and +pronounced its cookery the finest that he had ever tasted. + +[Illustration: The Mission Dolores--San Francisco] + +There are dozens of such little places in San Francisco--named after the +fashion of its shops in grotesque or poetic fashion--and they are almost +all of them good. There is little excuse for anything else in a town +whose very cosmopolitanism proclaims real cooks in the making, whose +wharves are rubbed by smack and schooner bringing in the food treasures +of the sea, whose farms are vast truck gardens for the land, whose +markets run riot in the richest of edibles. Your San Franciscan is +nothing if not an epicure. It is hardly fair, however, to assume that he +is a glutton or that he merely lives to eat. For he is, in reality, so +very much more--optimistic, generous, brave--and how he does delight to +experiment. California is still in the throes of what seems to be a +social and political earthquake, with each shake growing a little more +rough than its predecessor. She has just overturned most of her +political ideals for the first fifty years of her life. She delights in +politics. She really lives. San Francisco, standing between those two +great schools of thought, the University of California at Berkeley, and +Leland Stanford University at Palo Alto, prides herself upon her growing +intellectuality. From the folk who dally with advanced thought of every +sort down to those who are merely puzzled and dissatisfied, the +population of this Californian metropolis demands a new order of things. +That as much as anything else explains the recent political revolutions. +Since the great fire, the plans for those revolutions have been under +progress. + +The mention of that fire--if you make any pretense to diplomacy you must +never call it an earthquake around the Golden Gate--brings us back to +the San Francisco of today. You look up and down Market street for +traces of that fire--and in vain. The city looks modern, after the +fashion of cities of the American west, but its buildings do not seem to +have arisen simultaneously after the scourge that leveled +them--simultaneously. But turn off from Market street, to the south +through Second or Third streets or north through any of the parallel +throughfares that lead out of that same main-stem of San Francisco. + +Now the fullness of that disaster--which was not more to you at the time +than the brilliancy of newspaper dispatches--comes home to you for the +first time. In the rear of your hotel is an open square of melancholy +ruins, below it a corner plat still waste, others beyond in rapid +succession. On the side streets, fragments of "party-walls," a bit of +crumbling arch, a stout standing chimney remind you of the San Francisco +that was and that can never be again. When you go out Market street, you +may see where stood the pretentious City Hall--today a stretch of +foundation-leveled ruins with a single surviving dome still devoted to +the business of the Hall of Records. Still, to get the fullness of the +disaster you must make your way into San Francisco's wonderful Golden +Gate Park, past the single standing marble doorway of the old Towne +house--a pathetic reminder of one of the great houses of the old San +Francisco--and straight up to the crest of the high lifted Strawberry +Hill. On that hill there stood until the eighteenth of April, 1906, a +solid two-storied stone observatory. It seemed to be placed there for +all time, but today it vaguely suggests the Coliseum of Rome--a half +circle of its double row of arches still standing but the weird ruin +bringing back the most tragic five minutes that an American city has +ever spent. Or if you will go a little farther, an hour on a +quick-moving suburban train will bring you to Palo Alto and the remains +of Leland Stanford University, that remarkable institution whose museum +formerly held whole cases of Mrs. Stanford's gowns and a _papier-mache_ +reproduction of a breakfast once eaten by a member of her family. + +It must be discouraging to try to bring order out of the chaos that was +wreaked there. The great library, which was wrecked within a month of +its completion, and the gymnasium have never been rebuilt, although the +dome of the latter is still held aloft on stout steel supports. The +chapel, which was Mrs. Stanford's great pride and for which she made so +many sacrifices still rears its crossing. Nave and transepts, to say +nothing of the marvelous mosaics, were leveled in the twinkling of that +April dawn. The long vistas of arched pergolas, the triumph of the +master, Richardson, still remain. And the ruin done in that catastrophe +to the high-sprung arch he placed over the main entrance to the +quadrangle has been in part eradicated. + +For Leland Stanford University today represents one of the bravest +attempts ever made in this land to repair an all but irreparable loss. +It has never lost either faith and hope, and so the visitor to its +campus today will see the beginnings toward a complete replacement of +the buildings of what was one of the "show universities" of the land. +With a patience that must have been infinite, the stones of the old +chapel have been sorted out of the ruin--even fragments of the intricate +mosaics have been carefully saved--numbered and placed in sequence for +re-erection. Already the steel frame of nave and transepts is up again +and the tedious work of erecting the masonry walls upon it begun. Leland +Stanford has, quite naturally, caught the spirit of San Francisco--the +city that would not be defeated. + +To analyze that spirit in a sweeping paragraph is all but impossible. +Incident upon incident will show it in all its phases. For instance, +there was in San Francisco on the morning of the earthquake a +sober-minded German citizen who had put his all into a new business--a +business that had just begun to prove the wisdom of his investment. When +Nature awoke from her long sleep and stretching began to rock the city +by the Golden Gate the German rushed upstairs to where his wife and +daughter slept. He found them in one another's arms and frantic with +terror. + +"Papa! Papa!" they shrieked. "We are going to die. It is the end of the +world--the business is gone. We are going to die!" + +He smiled quietly at them. + +"Well, what of it?" he asked quietly. "We die together--and in San +Francisco." + +A keen-witted business man once boasted that he could capitalize +sentiment, express the spirit of the human soul in mere dollars and +cents. What price could he give for a love and loyalty of that sort? +That was, and still is, the affection that every San Franciscan from the +ferry-house back to the farthest crest of the uppermost hill gives to +his city--it is the thing that makes her one of the few American towns +that possess distinctive personality. + +A young matron told us of her own experience on the morning of the fire. + +"Of course it was exciting," she said, "with the smoke rolling up upon +us from downtown, and the rumors repeating themselves that the disaster +was world-wide, that Chicago was in ruins and New York swallowed by a +tidal wave, but there was nothing unreal about a single bit of it. I +bundled my children together and hurried toward the Presidio--my +knowledge of army men assured me that there could be no danger there. I +took the little tent handed me and set up my crude house-keeping in it. +It still seemed very real and not so very difficult. + +"But when those odd little newspapers--that had been printed over in +Oakland--came, and I saw the first of their head-lines 'San Francisco in +Ruins' then it came upon me that our city, my city, was no more, and it +was all over. It was all the most unreal thing in the world and I cried +all that night, not for a single loss beyond that of the San Francisco +that I had loved. But the next morning they told me how they had +telegraphed East for all the architects in sight, and that morning I +began planning a new house just as if it had been a pet idea for months +and months and months...." + + * * * * * + +Out of such men and women a great city is ever builded. San Francisco +may be wild and harum-scarum, and a great deal of its wildness is +painfully exaggerated, but it is a mighty power in itself. Your San +Franciscan is rightly proud of the progress made since the great +disaster. More than $375,000,000--a sum approximating the cost of the +Panama canal--has already been spent in rebuilding the city, and now, +like a man who has spent his last dollar on a final substantial meal, +the western metropolis calls for cake and scrapes up an additional +$18,000,000 for a World's Fair "to beat everything that has gone +before." That takes financing--of a high order. It takes something more. +It has taken a real spirit--enthusiasm and love and courage--to build a +new San Francisco that shall gradually obliterate the poignant memories +of the city that was. + + + + +20 + +BELFAST IN AMERICA + + +Concerning Toronto it may be said that she combines in a somewhat +unusual fashion British conservatism and American enterprise. Her neat +streets are lined with solid and substantial buildings such as delight +the heart of the true Briton wherever he may find them; and yet she has +among these "the tallest skyscraper of the British Empire," although the +sixteen stories of its altitude would be laughed to scorn by many a +second-class American city. + +Still, many a first-class American city could hardly afford to laugh at +the growth of Toronto, particularly in recent years. She prides herself +that she had doubled her population each fifteen years of her history +and here is a geometrical problem of growth that becomes vastly more +difficult with each oncoming twelvemonth. At the close of the second war +of the United States with England, just a century ago, Toronto was a +mere hamlet. Beyond it was an unknown wilderness. The town was known as +York in those days, and although Governor Simcoe had already chosen the +place to be the capital of Upper Canada, it was a struggling little +place. Still, it must have struggled manfully, for in 1817 it was +granted self-government and in 1834, having garnered in some nine +thousand permanent residents, it was vested with a Mayor and the other +appurtenances of a real city. Since then it has grown apace, until today +in population and in financial resource it is very close upon the heels +of Montreal, for so many years the undisputed metropolis of the +Dominion. + +But perhaps the spur that has advanced Toronto has been the knowledge +that west of her is Winnipeg, and that Winnipeg has been doubling her +population each decade. And west of Winnipeg is Calgary, west of +Calgary, Vancouver; all growing apace until it is a rash man who today +can prophesy which will be the largest city of the Dominion of Canada, a +dozen years hence. The Canadian cities have certainly been growing in +the American fashion--to use that word in its broadest sense. + +And yet the strangest fact of all is that Toronto grows--not more +American, but more British year by year. Within the past twelve or +thirteen years this has become most marked. She has grown from a +Canadian town, with many marked American characteristics, into a town +markedly English in many, many ways. Now consider for a moment the whys +and the wherefores of this. + +We have already told of the rapid progress of Toronto, now what of the +folk who came to make it? In the beginning there were the +Loyalists--"Tories" we call them in our histories; "United Empire +Loyalists," as their Canadian descendants prefer to know them--who fled +from the Colonies at the time of the Revolution and who found it quite +impossible to return. In this way some of the old English names of +Virginia have been perpetuated in Toronto, and you may find in one of +the older residential sections, a great house known as Beverly, whose +doors, whose windows, whose fireplaces, whose every detail are exact +replicas of the Beverly House in Virginia which said good-by to its +proprietors a century and a half ago. + +Those Loyalists laid the foundations of Toronto of today. The +municipality of Toronto of today is, as you shall see, most progressive +in the very fibers of its being, ranking with such cities as Des Moines +and Cleveland and Boston as among the best governed upon the North +American continent. Such civic progress was not drawn from the cities +of England or of Scotland or of Ireland. And Toronto was a well +organized and governed municipality, while Glasgow and Manchester were +hardly yet emerging from an almost feudal servility. Because in Toronto +the old New England town-meeting idea worked to its logical triumph. The +Loyalists who had left their great houses of Salem and of Boston brought +more to the wildernesses of Upper Canada than merely fine clothes or +family plate. + +To this social foundation of the town came, as stock for her growth +through the remaining three-quarters of the nineteenth century, the folk +of the north of Ireland. The southern counties of the Emerald Island +gave to America and gave generously--to New York and to Boston; to New +Brunswick and to Lower Canada. The men from the north of Ireland went to +Toronto and the nearby cities of what is now the Province of Ontario. +And when Toronto became a real city they began to call her the Belfast +of America. For such she was. She was a very citadel of Protestantism. +Her folk transplanted, found that they would worship God in their +austere churches without having the reproachful phrase of "dissenter" +constantly whipped in their faces. Toronto meant toleration. So came the +Ulster men to their new Belfast. For more than sixty years they came--a +great migrating army. And if you would know the way they took root give +heed to a single illustration. + +One of these Irishmen had founded a retail store in the growing little +city of Toronto. It thrived--tremendously. News of its success went back +to the little north-of-Ireland village from whence its owner came. + +"Timothy Eaton's doin' well in America," was the word that passed +through his old county. Timothy Eaton and those who came after him took +good care of their kith and kin. For the Eaton business did prosper. +Today the firm has two great stores--one in Toronto and one in +Winnipeg--and they are not only among the largest in North America but +among the largest in the world. + +This is but one instance of the way that Toronto has grown. And when, +after sixty years of steady immigration there was little of kith and kin +left to come from Ireland, there began a migration from the other side +of the Irish channel, a new chapter in the growth of Toronto was opened. + +No one seems to know just how the tide of English emigration started, +but it is a fact that it had its beginning about the time of the end of +the Boer war. It is no less a fact that within ten or fifteen years it +has attained proportions comparable with the sixty years of Irish +immigration. The agents of the Canadian government and of her railroads +have shown that it pays to advertise. + +There is good reason for this immigration--of course. Canada, with no +little wisdom, has given great preference to the English as settlers. +She has not wished to change her religions, her language or her customs. +The English, in turn, have responded royally to the invitation to come +to her broad acres and her great cities. The steamship piers, at Quebec +and Montreal in the summer and at Halifax and St. Johns in the winter, +are steadily thronged with the newcomers, and they do not speak the +strange tongues that one hears at Ellis island in the city of New York. +They bring no strange customs or strange religions to the growing young +nation that prides herself upon her ability to combine conservatism and +progress. + +And just as Toronto once did her part in depopulating the north of +Ireland, so today is the Province of Ontario and the country to the west +of it draining old England. It is related that one little English +village--Dove Holes is its name and it is situate in Derbyshire--has +been sadly depleted in just this fashion. Eight years ago and it +boasted a population of 1250 persons. Today 500 of that number are in +America--a new village of their own right in the city of Toronto, if you +please--and Dove Holes awaits another Goldsmith to sing of its saddened +charms. One resident came, the others followed in his trail to a land +that spelled both opportunity and elbow-room. Your real Englishman of +so-called middle class, even gentlemen of the profession or service in +His Majesty's arms, seem to have one consuming passion. It is to cross +Canada and live and die in the little West Coast city of Victoria. +Victoria stands on Vancouver island and they have begun to call +Vancouver island, "Little England." In its warm, moist climate, almost +in its very conformation, it is a replica of the motherland of an +Englishman's ideal; a motherland with everything annoying, from +hooliganism to suffragettes, removed. + +But Victoria is across a broad continent as well as a broad sea, and so +your thrifty emigrant from an English town picks Toronto as the city of +his adoption. Winnipeg he deems too American; Montreal, with her +damnable French blood showing even in the street-signs and the +car-placards, quite out of the question. But Toronto does appeal to him +and so he comes straight to her. There are whole sections of the town +that are beginning to look as if they might have been stolen from +Birmingham or Manchester or Liverpool--even London itself. The little +red-brick houses with their neat, small windows are as distinctively +British as the capped and aproned house-maids upon the street. In the +States it takes a mighty battle to make a maid wear uniform upon the +street. In Toronto it is not even a question for argument. The negro +servant, so common to all of us, is unknown. The service of the better +grade of Toronto houses is today carefully fashioned upon the British +model--even to meal hours and the time-honored English dishes upon the +table. And in less aristocratic streets of the town one may see a +distinctively British institution, taken root and apparently come to +stay. It is known as a "fish and chip shop" and it retails fried fish +and potato chips, already cooked and greasy enough to be endearing to +the cockney heart. + + * * * * * + +Remember also that the city upon the north shore of Lake Ontario is an +industrial center of great importance. You cannot measure the tonnage of +Toronto harbor as you measured the harbor of Cleveland--alongside of the +greatest ports of the world--for Ontario is the lonely sister of the +five Lakes. No busy commercial fleet treks up and down her lanes. But +Toronto is a railroad center of increasing importance; they are still +multiplying the lines out from her terminals and, as we have just +intimated, she is a great and growing manufacturing community. Her +industrial enterprises have been hungry for skilled and intelligent men. +They have gradually drafted their ranks from the less-paid trades of the +town. Into these places have come the men from the English towns. The +street cars are manned by men of delightful cockney accent, they drive +the broad flat "lourries," as an Englishman likes to call a dray, they +fit well into every work that requires brawn and endurance rather than a +high degree of intellectual effort. + +Just how this invasion will affect the Toronto of tomorrow no one seems +willing to prophesy. The men from Glasgow and from Manchester are used +to municipal street railroads and such schemes and the New England +town-meeting ideas, which were the products of Anglo-Saxon spirit, come +home to rest in English hearts. The street railroad system of Toronto +may groan under its burden--it is paying over a million dollars this +year to the city and is constantly threatened with extinction as a +private corporation. But the Englishman of that city merely grunts at +the bargains it offers--six tickets for a quarter; eight in rush-hours, +ten for school children and seven for Sabbath riding, all at the same +price--and wonders "why the nawsty trams canna' do better by a codger +that's workin' like a navvie all the day?" + +Toronto will see that they do better--that is her vision into the +future. But just how the new blood is to infuse into some of the Puritan +ideas of the town--there is another question. Here is a single one of +the new puzzling points--the temperance problem. It was not so very long +ago that Canada's chief claim for fame rested in the excellence of her +whiskey--and that despite the fact that the Canadian climate is +ill-adapted to whiskey drinking. The twelfth of July--which you will +probably recall as the anniversary of the battle of the Boyne--used to +be marked by famous fights, which invariably had marine foundations in +Canadian rye. However, during the past quarter of a century, the +temperance movement has waxed strong throughout Ontario. Many cities +have become "dry" and it is possible that Toronto herself might have +been without saloons today--if it had not been for the English invasion. +For your Englishman regards his beer as food--"skittles and beer" is +something more than merely proverbial--and he must have it. He looks +complacently upon the stern Sabbath in Toronto--Sunday in an English +city is rarely a hilarious occasion--but he must have his beer. Up to +the present time he has had it. + +But these problems are slight compared with the problem of assimilation +of alien tongues and races, such as has come to New York within the past +two decades. The Englishman is but a cousin to the Canadian after all, +and he shows that by the enthusiasm with which he enters into her +politics. He entered into Mr. Taft's pet reciprocity plan with an +enthusiasm of a distinct sort. With all of his anti-American and +pro-British ideas he leaped upon it. And when he had accomplished his +own part in throttling that idea he exulted. Whether he will exult as +much a dozen years hence over the defeat of reciprocity is an open +question. But the part that the transplanted Englishman in Canada played +in that defeat is unquestioned, just as the part he is playing in +providing her with useless Dreadnoughts for the defense of other lands +is undisputed.[H] The Englishman is no small factor in Canadian +politics; he is a very great factor in the political situation in the +city of Toronto. + + [H] This plan is temporarily blocked in Canada, whose + enthusiasm for Dreadnoughts seems to be waning. E. H. + +Lest you should be bored by the politics of another land, turn your +attention to the way the Toronto people live. They have formal +entertainments a-plenty--dinners, balls, receptions--a great new castle +is being built on the edge of Rosedale for a gubernatorial residence and +presumably for the formal housing of royalty which often comes down from +Ottawa. There are theaters and good restaurants, and no matter what you +may say about her winters, the Canadian summers are delightful. For +those who must go, there are the Muskoka Lakes within easy reach, +Georgian bay and the untrod wildernesses beyond. But if we lived in +Toronto, we think we should stay at home and enjoy that wonderful lake. +There are yacht-clubs a-plenty alongside it, bathing beaches, sailing, +canoeing--the opportunity for variety of sport is wide. In the milder +seasons of the year there is golf and baseball, football, or even +cricket, and in the wintertime tobogganing and snowshoeing and +iceboating. No wonder that the cheeks of the Toronto girls are pink with +good health. + +In the autumn there is the big fair--officially the Canadian National +Exhibition--which has grown from a very modest beginning into a real +institution. Last year nearly a million persons entered its gates, +there were more than a hundred thousand admissions upon a single very +big day. Delegations of folk came from as far distant as +Australia--there were special excursion rates from all but three of the +United States. It is not only a big fair but a great fair, still growing +larger with each annual exhibition. Toronto folk are immensely proud of +it and give to it loyalty and support. And the Canadian government is +not above gaining a political opportunity from it. We remember one +autumn at Toronto three or four years ago seeing a great electric sign +poised upon one of the main buildings. It was a moving sign and the +genius of the electrician had made the semblance of a waving British +banner. Underneath in fixed and glowing letters you might read: + + ONE FLAG, ONE KING, ONE NATION + + * * * * * + +To see Toronto as a British city, however, you must go to her in May--at +the time of her spring races. The fair is very much like any of the +great fairs in the United States. The race-meet is distinctly different. +In the United States horse-racing has fallen into ill-repute, and most +of the famous tracks around our larger cities have been cut up into +building lots. The sport with us was commercialized, ruined, and then +practically forbidden. In Canada they have been wiser, although the +tendency to make the sport entirely professional and so not sport at all +has begun to show itself even over there. But in Toronto they go to +horse-races for the love of horse-racing, and not in the hopes of making +a living without working for it. + +The great spring race-meet is the gallop for the King's Guineas. It is +at the Woodbine and in addition to being the oldest racing fixture in +America it is also just such a day for Canada as Derby Day is for +England. If you go to Toronto for Plate Day--as they call that great +race-day--you will be wise to have your hotel accommodations engaged +well in advance. You will find Plate Day to be the Saturday before the +twenty-fourth of May. And, lest you should have forgotten the +significance of the twenty-fourth of May, permit us to remind you that +for sixty-four long years loyal Canada celebrated that day as the +Queen's birthday. And it is today, perhaps, the most tender tribute that +the Canadians can render Victoria--their adherence to her birthday as +the greatest of their national holidays. + +If you are wise and wish to see the English aspect of Toronto, you will +reserve your accommodations at a certain old hotel near the lakefront +which is the most intensely British thing that will open to a stranger +within the town. Within its dining-room the lion and the unicorn still +support the crown, and the old ladies who are ushered to their seats +wear white caps and gently pat their flowing black skirts. The accents +of the employés are wonderfully British, and if you ask for pens you +will surely get "nibs." The old house has an air, which the English +would spell "demeanour," and incidentally it has a wonderful faculty of +hospitality. + +From it you will drive out to the track, and if you elect you can find +seats upon a tally-ho, drawn by four or six horses, properly prancing, +just as they prance in old sporting-prints. Of course, there are +ungainly motor-cars, like those in which the country folk explore +Broadway, New York, but you will surely cling to the tally-ho. And if +your tally-ho be halted in the long and dusty procession to the track to +let a coach go flying by, if that coach be gay in gilt and color, +white-horsed, postilioned, if rumor whispers loudly, "It's the +Connaughts--the Governor-General, you know," you will forget for that +moment your socialistic and republican ideas, and strain your old eyes +for a single fleeting glimpse of bowing royalty. + +For royalty drives to Plate Day just as royalty drives to Ascot. Its +box, its manners and its footmen are hardly less impressive. And in the +train of royalty comes the best of Toronto, not the worst. Finely +dressed women, jurists, doctors, bankers--the list is a long, long one. +And in their train in turn the artisans. The plumber who tinkers with +the pipes in your hotel in the morning has a dollar up on the "plate," +so has the porter who handles your trunk, so have three-quarters of the +trolley-car men of the town--and yet they are not gamblers. The "tout" +who used to be a disagreeable and painfully evident feature of New York +racing is missing. So are the professional gamblers, the betting being +on the _pari-mutuel_ system. And the man who loses his dollar because he +failed to pick the winning horse feels that he has lost it in a +patriotic cause. It should be worth a miserable dollar to see royalty +come to the races in a coach. + + * * * * * + +From Toronto we will go to her staunch French rival, Montreal. If we are +in the midsummer season we may go upon a very comfortable steamer, down +the lonely Ontario and through the beauties of the Thousand Islands. And +at all seasons we will find the railroad ride from Toronto filled with +interest, with glimpses of lake and river, with the character of the +country gradually changing, the severe Protestant churches giving way to +great tin-roofed Roman churches, holding their crosses on high and +gathering around their gray-stone walls the houses of their little +flocks. + + + + +21 + +WHERE FRENCH AND ENGLISH MEET + + +Our hotel faces a little open square and in the springtime of the year, +when the trees are barely budding, we can still see the sober gray-stone +houses on the far side of the square, each with its brightly colored +green blinds. At one is the "Dentiste," at another the "Avocat," a third +has descended to a _pension_ with its "Chamber d'Louer." There are shiny +brass signs on the front of each of these three old houses, and every +morning at seven-thirty o'clock three trim little French Canadian maids +attack the signs vigorously with their wiping cloths. Then we know that +it is time to get up. By the same fashion we should be shaved and ready +for our marmalade and bacon and eggs as the regal carrier of the King's +mail trots down the steps of the French consulate and rings at the area +door of the neighboring "Conservatoire Musicale." In a very little time +that row of houses across the Place Viger Gardens has become a factor in +our very lives. It is the starting-point of our days. + +In the morning, when the marmalade and the bacon and eggs are finished, +we step out into the Gardens for the first breath of crisp fresh air of +the north. There is a line of wonderful cabs waiting at its edge, and a +prompt driver steps forward from each to solicit our patronage. The cab +system of Montreal is indeed wonderful--it first shows to the stranger +within that city's gates its remarkable continental character. For you +seemingly can ride and ride and ride--and then some more--and the cabby +tips his hat at a quarter or a half a dollar. He has an engaging way of +smiling at you at the end of the trip, and leaving it to you as to what +he gets. You can trust to the Montreal cabby's sense of fairness and he +seems to feel that he can trust to yours. But that is not all quite as +altruistic as it may seem at first glance. Back of the cabby's smile is +the unsmiling, sober sense of justice always existent in a British city, +and it is that which really keeps the Montreal cab service as efficient +as it really is, as cheap and as accessible. For at every one of the +almost innumerable open squares of the city, are the cab-stands, the +long line of patiently waiting carriages, and the little kiosk from +which they can be summoned. It is all quite simple and complete and an +ideal toward which metropolitan New York may be aspiring but has never +reached. + + * * * * * + +On sunny mornings we scorn the cabs and stroll across the Gardens. +Sometimes we drop for a moment on one of the clumsily comfortable +benches under the shade of the Canadian maples, and glance at the +morning paper--a ponderous sheet much given to the news of Ottawa and +London, discoursing upon the work of two Parliaments, but only granting +grudging paragraphs to the news of a home-land, scarce sixty miles +distant. That is British policy, the straining policy of trying to make +a unified nation of lands separated from one another by broad seas. That +England has done it so well is the marvel of strangers who enter her +dominions. Montreal is loyal to her mother land, despite some local +influences which we shall see in a moment. A surprising number of her +citizens go back and forth to the little island that governs her, once +or twice or three times a year. There are thousands of business men in +the metropolis of Canada who know Pall Mall or Piccadilly far more +intimately than either Wall street or Times square--and New York is +but a night's ride from Montreal. So much can carefully directed +sentiment accomplish. + +The paths that lead from the Gardens are varied and fascinating. One +stretches up a broad and sober street to Ste. Catherine's, the great +shopping promenade of the town, where the girls are all bound west +toward the big shops that stretch from Phillips to Dominion +squares--another at the opposite direction three blocks to the south and +the harbor-front, a wonderful place now in a chaos of transformation +that is going to make Montreal the most efficient port in the world. We +can remember the water-front of the old town as it first confronted us a +quarter of a century ago, after a long all-day trip down the rapids of +the upper St. Lawrence--back of the gay shipping a long stretch of sober +gray limestone buildings, accented by numerous domes, the joy of every +British architect, the long straight front of Bonsecours market, the +little spire of Bonsecours church, and the two great towers of Notre +Dame rising above it all. There was a curving wall of stone along the +quay street and it all seemed quite like the geography pictures of +Liverpool, or was it Marseilles? + +[Illustration: A church parade in the streets of Montreal] + +Nowadays that quiet prospect is gone. A great waterside elevator of +concrete rises almost two hundred and fifty feet into the air from the +quay street; there are other elevators nearly as large and nearly as +sky-scraping, a variety of grim and covered piers and the man from a +boat amidstream hardly catches even a glimpse of Notre Dame or +Bonsecours. And Montreal gave up her glimpses of the river that she +loves so passionately, not without a note of regret; the market-men +gently protested that they could no longer sit on the portico of the +Bonsecours and see the brisk activity of the harbor. But Montreal +realizes the importance of her harbor to her. She is a thousand miles +inland from "blue water" and for five months of the year her great +strength giving river is tightly frozen; despite these obstacles she has +come within the past year to be the most efficient port in the world, +and among twelve or fourteen of the greatest. And commercial power is a +laurel branch to any British city. + +There are other paths that lead from Place Viger Gardens--that lead on +and on and to no place in particular, but all of them are filled with +constant interest. The side streets of Montreal are fascinating. Their +newer architecture is apt to be fantastic, ofttimes incongruous, but +there are still many graystone houses in that simple British style that +is still found throughout the older Canada, all the way from Halifax to +the Detroit river. There are the inevitable maple trees along the curbs +that make Montreal more of a garden city than unobservant travelers are +apt to fancy it. And then there are the institutions, wide-spreading and +many-winged fellows, crowned with the inevitable domes and shielded from +the vulgarity of street traffic by high-capped walls. These walls are +distinctive of Montreal. Often uncompromising, save where some gentle +vine runs riot upon their lintels and laughs at their austerity, they +are broken here and there and again by tightly shut doors, doors that +open only to give forth on rare occasions; to let a somber file of nuns +or double one of cheaply uniformed children pass out into a sordid and +sin-filled world, and then close quickly once again lest some of its +contaminations might penetrate the gentle and unworldly place. And near +these great institutions are the inevitable churches, giant +affairs--parish churches still dominating the sky-line of a town which +is just now beginning to dabble in American skyscrapers, and standing +ever watchful, like a mother hen brooding and protecting her chicks. +These chance paths often lead to other squares than the Gardens of the +Place Viger--squares which in spring and in summer are bright green +carpets spread in little open places in the heart and length and +breadth of the city, and which are surrounded by more of the solid +graystone houses with the green blinds. When we go from Montreal we +shall remember it as a symphony of gray and green--remember it thus +forever and a day. + +But best of all we like the path that leads from the Place Viger west +through the very heart of the old city and then by strange zig-zags, +through the banking center, Victoria square, Beaver Hall Hill and smart +Ste. Catherine's to Dominion square and the inevitable afternoon tea of +the British end of the town. We turn from our hotel and the great new +railroad terminal that it shelters, twist through a narrow +street--picturesquely named the Champ d'Mars--and follow it to the plain +and big City Hall and Court House. They are uninteresting to us, but +across the busy way of Notre Dame street stands the Chateau de Ramezay, +a long, low, whitewashed building, which has had its part in the making +of Montreal. This stoutly built old house was built in 1705 by Claude de +Ramezay, Governor of Montreal, and was occupied by him for twenty years +while he planned his campaigns against both English and Indians. Then +for a time it was the headquarters of the India company's trade in furs, +and for a far longer time after 1759 the home of a succession of British +governors. Americans find their keenest interest in the Chateau de +Ramezay, in the fact that it was in its long rambling low-ceilinged +rooms that Benjamin Franklin set up his printing-press, away back during +the days of the first unpleasantness between England and this country. +After that, all was history, the Chateau was again the Government House +of the old Canada--until Ottawa and the new Dominion came into +existence. Nowadays, it faces one of the busiest streets of a busy +city--and is not of it. It is like a sleeping man by the roadside, who, +if he might awake once more, could spin at length the romances of other +days and other men. + +Beyond the Chateau de Ramezay is a broad and open market street that +stretches from the inevitable Nelson monument, that is part and pride of +every considerable British city, down to that same water-front, just now +in process of transformation. Sometimes on a Tuesday or a Friday morning +we have come to the place early enough to see the open-air market of +Montreal, one of the heritages of past to present that seems little +disturbed with the coming and the passing of the years. Shrewd shoppers +coming out of the solid stone mass of the Bonsecours pause beside the +wagons that are backed along the broad-flagged sidewalks. The country +roundabout Montreal must be filled with fat farms. One look at the +wagons tells of low moist acres that have not yet lost their fertility. +And sometimes the market women bring to the open square hats of their +own crude weaving, or little carved crosses, or even bunches of delicate +wild-flowers and sell them for the big round Canadian pennies. There is +hardly any barterable article too humble for this market-place, and with +it all the clatter of small sharp pleasant talk between a race of small, +sharp, pleasant folk. + +From the market-place leading out from before the ugly City Hall and the +uninteresting Court House, our best walk leads west through Notre Dame +street up to the nearby Place d'Armes. It is a very old street of a very +old city and even if the history of the town did not tell us that some +of the old houses, staunch fellows every one of them, high-roofed and +dormered, with their graystone walls four and five feet thick and as +rough and rugged as the times for which they were built, would convince +us, of themselves. They are fast going, these old fellows, for Montreal +has entered upon boom times with the multiplication of transcontinental +railroads across Canada. But it seems but yesterday that they could +point to us in the Place d'Armes the very house in which lived LaMothe +Cadillac, the founder of Detroit, nearby the house of Sieur Duluth. +Montreal seems almost to have been the mother of a continent. + + * * * * * + +It is in this Place d'Armes, this tiny crowded square in the center of +the modern city, hardly larger than the garden of a very modest house +indeed, that so many of the romantic memories of the old Montreal +cluster. With the great church that has thrust its giant shadow across +it for more than three quarters of a century, the Place d'Armes has been +the heart of Montreal since the days when it was a mere trading post, a +collection of huts at the foot of the lowest rapids of the mighty river. +Much of the old Montreal has gone, even the citadel at the west end of +the town gave way years ago to Dalhousie square, which in turn gave way +to the railroad yards of the Place Viger terminals. But the Place +d'Armes will remain as long as the city remains. + +At its northwest corner is the colonnaded front of the Bank of Montreal, +one of the finest banking-homes in Canada. + +"It is the great institution of this British Dominion," says a very old +Canadian, whom we sometimes meet in the little square. "It is the +greatest bank in North America." + +Offhand, we do not know as to the exact truth of that sweeping +statement, but it is a certain fact that the Bank of Montreal is the +greatest bank in all Canada, one of the greatest in the world, with its +branches and ramifications extending not only across a continent four +thousand miles in width but also over two broad seas. To Montreal it +stands as that famous "old lady of Threadneedle street" stands to +London. + +"And yet," our Canadian friend continues, "right across the Place +d'Armes here is an institution that could buy and sell the Bank of +Montreal--or better still, buy it and keep it." + +Our eyes follow his pointing hand--to a long, low building on the south +side of the little square. It is very old and exceeding quaint. Although +built of the graystone of Montreal, brought by the soot of many years to +almost a dead black, it seems of another land as well as of another +time. Its quaint belfry with delicate clock-face and out-set hands is +redolent of the south of France or Spain or even Italy. It does not seem +a part and parcel of Our Lady of the Snows--and yet it is. + +"You know--the Seminary of St. Sulpice," says our Canadian friend. "It +was the original owner of the rich island of Montreal. No one knows its +wealth today, even after it has parted with many of its fee-holds. It +still holds title to thousands of acres and no one save the Gentleman of +the Corporation of St. Sulpice, themselves, knows the wealth of the +institution. To say that it is the richest ecclesiastical institution of +the Americas is not enough, for here is an organization that for +coherency, wealth and strength surpasses Standard Oil and forms the +chief financial support of the strongest church in the world." + +And this time we feel that our acquaintance of the Place d'Armes is not +by any chance over-stepping the mark. In the quaint little Seminary that +stands in the half-day shadow of the second largest church on the +continent--a church that it easily builded in the first third of the +nineteenth century from its accumulated wealth--there centers much of +the mystery of Montreal, a mystery which to the stranger takes concrete +form in the high walls along the crowded streets, in whispered rumors of +this force or that working within the politics of the city, in the +so-called Nationalist movement, and flaunts itself in rival displays of +Union Jack and the historic Tricolor of France. There is little of +mystery in the outer form of the Seminary. The quiet folk who live +within those very, very old walls are hospitality itself--even though +their ascetic living is of the hardest, crudest sort. The only bed and +carpeted room within the building is reserved for the occasional visits +of bishop, or even higher church authority. But hidden from the street +by the earliest part of the Seminary--almost unchanged since its +erection in 1710--and enclosed by a quadrangle of the fortress-like +stone buildings of the institution, is a most delicious garden with +old-fashioned summer flowers and quaint statues of favored saints set in +its shaded place. We remember a garden of the same sort at the mission +of Santa Barbara, in California. These two are the most satisfactory +gardens that we have ever seen. And it is from the rose-bushes in the +Seminary of Montreal that one gets a full idea of the size and beauty of +the exterior of the parish church of Notre Dame. Like so many of the +cathedrals of Europe, it is so set as to have no satisfactory view-point +from the street. + +And yet Notre Dame is one of the most satisfying churches that we have +ever seen. It is not alone its size, not alone its wonderfully +appropriate location facing that historic Place d'Armes, not any one of +the interesting details of the great structure that comes to us, so much +as the thing which the parish church typifies--the intact keeping of the +customs, the language and the faith of a folk who were betrayed and +deserted by their motherland, more than a century and a half ago. One +rarely hears the word of English spoken in the shadowy and worshipful +aisles of Notre Dame. It is the babbling French that is the language of +three-quarters of the residents of Montreal. + +For there stands French, not only entrenched in the chief city of +England's chief possession, but a language that, in the opinion of +unprejudiced observers, gains rather than loses following each +twelvemonth. There are reasons back of all this, and many of them too +complicated and involved to be entered upon here. Suffice it to say here +and now that the city school taxes are divided pro rata between +Protestants and Roman Catholics for the conduct of their several schools +of every sort. And that in most of the Catholic schools French is +practically the only language taught, a half-hour a day being sometimes +given to English, whenever it is taught at all. The devotion of these +French Canadians to their language is only second to their religion, and +is closely intermingled with it. There is something pathetic and lovable +about it all that makes one understand why the _habitans_ of a little +town below Montreal tore down the English sign that the Dominion +government erected over their Post Office, a year or so ago. And the +Dominion government took the hint, made no fuss, but replaced its error +with a French sign. Remember that there are more Tricolors floating in +lower Canada than British Union Jacks. + +The signs of Montreal point the truth. Half of the street markers must +be in English, half in French, just as the city government that places +them divides its proceedings, half in one language, half in the other. +This even division runs to the street car transfers and notices, the +flaring bulletins on sign-boards and dead-walls, even so stolid a +British institution as the Harbor Commissioners giving the sides of its +brigade of dock locomotives evenly to the rival tongues. + +To attend high mass in Notre Dame is to make a memory well-nigh +ineffaceable. It is to bring back in future years recollections of a +great church, lifted from its week-day shadows by a wealth of dazzling +incandescents, to be ushered past silent, kneeling figures to a stout +pew, by a stout _Suisse_ in gaudy uniform; to look to a high altar that +stands afar and ablaze with candles, while priests and acolytes, by the +hundreds, pass before it chanting, and the Cardinal sits aloft on his +throne silent and in adoration; to hear not a word of English from that +high place or the folk who sit upon the great floor or in the two +encircling galleries, but to catch the refrain of chant and of "Te +Deum;" these are the things that seem to make religion common to every +man, no matter what his professed faith. And then, after it is all over, +to come out of the shadows of the parish church into the brilliant +sunshine of the Place d'Armes, the place where they once executed +murderers under the old French law by breaking their backs and then +their lesser bones, and to hear Gros Bourdon sing his chant over the +city from the belfry of Notre Dame--this is the old Montreal living in +the heart of the new. They do not swing the great bell any more--for +even Notre Dame grows old and its aged stones must be respected--but +they toll it rapidly, in a sort of sing-song chant. We have stood in the +west end of the town, three miles distant from the Place d'Armes, and +heard the rich, sweet tones of his deep throat come booming over the +crowded city--a warning to a half a million folk to turn from worldier +things to the thought of mighty God. + + * * * * * + +Our best path leads west again from the Place d'Armes, past the newly +reconstructed General Post Office, more stately banks here concentrating +the wealth of the strong, new Canada; smart British-looking shops and +restaurants. In these last you may drink fine ales, munch at rare +cheeses, of which Montreal is _connoisseur_, and eat rare roast beef +done to a turn, with Yorkshire pudding, six days in a week. But you will +look in vain for real French restaurants with their delectable +_cuisines_. We have looked in vain in our almost innumerable trips to +the city under the mountain. We have enlisted our friend Paul, who +avers that he knows Montreal as he knows the fingers on his hand. Paul +is a reporter on a French paper. He works not more than fourteen +consecutive hours on dull days, at a princely salary of nine dollars a +week, and the rest of the time he is our entertainment committee--and an +immense success at that. Paul has taught us a smattering of Montreal +French, and he has shown us many curious places about the old city, but +he has never found us a French restaurant that could even compare with +some we know in the vicinity of West Twenty-seventh street in the city +of New York. Sometimes he has come to us with mysterious hints of final +success and we have girded our loins quickly to go with him. But when we +have arrived it has been a place white-fronted like the dairy lunches +off from Broadway, and we have never seen one of them without the +listing of breakfast foods from Battle Creek, Michigan, mince-pie or +other typical dishes from the States. And at Paul's rarest find we +interviewed _Monsieur le proprietaire_, only to have the dashing news +that he had once served as second _chef_ in the old Burnet House, in +Cincinnati. There is, after all, a closer bond between two neighboring +nations than either Ottawa or London is willing to admit and even Paul, +loyal to his language and to his traditions, admits that. + +"Some day--some day," he dreams to us between cigarettes, "I am going +down to see the Easter parade on Fifth avenue. Last year twelve thousand +went from Montreal"--he chuckles--"and folks from Bordeaux ward looked +at the swells from Westmount and thought they were real New Yorkers." + +And a little while later, between another change of cigarettes, he adds: + +"And I may not come back on my ticket. I understand--that reporters get +fifteen or twenty dollars a week on the New York city papers." + +Paul's collar is impossible and his appetite for cigarettes fiendish, +but he has ambitions. Perhaps he shares the ambitions of the city which, +old in heart and traditions, is new in enterprise and hope, and looks +forward to being the mighty gateway of the greatest of all English great +possessions--a city filled with more than a million folk. + + * * * * * + +We pass through the splendors of Victoria square and up the steep turn +of Beaver Hall Hill into Phillips square and smart Ste. Catherine +street. In a general way, the French element have preëmpted the eastern +end of the city for themselves, while the English-speaking portion of +the population clings to the section north and west of Phillips square +and Ste. Catherine street right up to the first steep slopes of Mount +Royal. This part of the city looks like any smart, progressive British +town--with its fine Gothic Cathedral of the Church of England facing its +showy main street, its exclusive clubs and its great hotels. And +nowadays smart modern restaurants are also crowding upon Ste. Catherine +street, for modern Montreal will proudly tell you, and tell you again +and again, that it is more continental, far more continental than +London, which in turn is tightly bound down by the traditions of English +conservatism. Montreal is not very literary--Toronto surpassing it in +that regard--but it has a keen love of good paintings, good art of every +sort. It ranks itself next to New York and Boston and among North +American cities in this regard. + +"We are more proud of our public and private galleries," says the +citizen of the town who sips tea at five o'clock with you in the lounge +of the Windsor, "than we are of our New Yorkish restaurants that have +imported themselves across the line within the past year or two. We have +smiled at our daughters drifting in here for their tea on matinée +afternoons, but dinners and American cocktails--well there are some +sorts of reciprocity that we decidedly do not want." + +We understand. Montreal wants her personality, her rare and varied +personality, preserved inviolate and intact. That is one great reason +why she has cherished the pro-British habits of her press. New York is +well enough for a trip--Montreal delights in our metropolis, as she does +in our Atlantic City--as mere pleasure grounds, and the Easter hegira, +in which Paul is yet to join, grows each year. But New York is New York, +and Montreal must be Montreal. With her wealth of tradition, her +peculiarly unique conservatism of two languages and two great peoples +working out their problems in common sympathy, without conceding a +single heritage, one to the other, the city of the gray and green must +keep to her own path. + + + + +22 + +THE CITY THAT NEVER GROWS YOUNG + + +He stands, hat in hand, facing the city that honors his memory so +greatly. To Samuel de la Champlain Quebec has not merely given the glory +of what seems to us to be one of the handsomest monuments in America, +but here and there in her quiet streets she brings back to the stranger +within her walls recollections of the doughty Frenchman who braved an +unknown sea to find a site for the city, which for more than three +hundred years has stood as guardian to the north portal of America. +Other adventurous sea spirits of those early days went chiefly in the +quest of gold. Champlain had loftier ambitions within his heart. He +hoped to be a nation-builder. And not only Quebec, but the great +young-old nation that stands behind her, is his real monument. + +Still, the artist's creation of bronze and of marble is effective--not +alone, as we have already said, because of its own real beauty--but also +very largely because of its tremendously impressive setting at the rim +of the upper town--facing the tiny open square that as far back as two +hundred and fifty years ago was the center of its fashionable life. +Champlain in bronze looks at the tidy Place d'Armes--older residents of +Quebec still delight in calling it the Ring--with its neat pathways of +red brick and its low, splashing fountain, as if he longed to return to +flesh and blood and walk through the little square and from it down some +of the narrow streets that he may, himself, have planned in the days of +old. + +Or perhaps he would have chosen that once imposing main thoroughfare of +Upper Town, St. Louis street, which out beyond the city wall has the +even more distinctive French title of the Grande Allee. We have chosen +that main street many times ourselves, leading straight past the +castellated gateways of the Chateau, fashioned less than a score of +years ago by a master American architect--Mr. Bruce Price--and since +grown very much larger, quite like a lovely girl still in her teens. On +the other side of the street, close to the curb of the Place d'Armes, is +the ever-waiting row of Victorias and _caleches_, whose drivers rise +smilingly in their places even at the mere suggestion of a coming fare. +Beyond these patient Jehus stands the rather ordinary looking Court +House, somewhat out of harmony with the architectural traditions of the +town--and then we are plunged into the heart of as fascinating a street +as one may hope to see in North America. It is clean--immaculate, if you +please, after the fashion of all these _habitans_ of lower Canada--and +it is bordered ever and ever so tightly by a double row of clean-faced +stone houses, their single doors letting directly upon the sidewalk, +and, also after the fashion of all Quebec, surmounted by steep pitched +tin roofs and wonderfully fat chimneys, covered with tin in their turn. +Quebec seems to have a passion for tin. It is her almost universal +roofing, and in the bright sunshine, glittering with mirror-like +brilliancy of contrast against the age-darkened stone walls, it has a +charm that is quite its own. + +One of these old houses of St. Louis street sets well back from the +sidewalk in a seeming riotous waste of front lawn, and bears upon its +face a tablet denoting it as the one-time home of the Duke of Kent. This +distinguished gentleman lived in Quebec many years before he became +father of Queen Victoria. In fact, Quebec remembers him as a rather gay +young blade of a fellow who had innumerable mild affairs with the +fascinating French-Canadian girls of the town. These things have almost +become traditions among the older folk of the place. Those girls of +Quebec town seem always to have held keen attractions for young blades +from afar. When you turn down Mountain Hill and pass the General Post +Office with its quaint Golden Dog set in the _façade_, they will not +only make you re-read that fascinating romance of the old Quebec, but +they will tell you that years after the Philiberts and the Repentignys +were gone and the English were in full enjoyment of their rare American +prize, that same old inn, upon whose front the gnawing dog was so +securely set, was run by one Sergeant Miles Prentice, whose pretty +niece, Miss Simpson, so captivated Captain Horatio Nelson of His +Majesty's Ship _Albemarle_ that it became necessary for his friends to +spirit away the future hero of Trafalgar to prevent him from marrying +her. + +Beyond the old house of the Duke of Kent, St. Louis street is a narrow +path lined by severe little Canadian homes all the way to the city gate. +Many of these houses are fairly steeped in tradition. One tiny fellow +within which the ancient profession of the barber still works is the +house wherein Montcalm died. And to another, Benedict Arnold was taken +in that ill-starred American attack upon Quebec. A third was a gift two +centuries ago by the Intendant Bigot to the favored woman of his +acquaintance. Romance does creep up and down the little steps of these +little houses. They change hardly at all with the changing of the years. + +[Illustration: Lower Town, Quebec--from the Terrace] + +Here among them are the ruins of an old theater--its solid-stone façade +still holding high above the narrow run of pavement. It has been swept +within by fire--the evil enemy that has fallen upon Quebec again and +again and far more devastatingly than even the cannon that have +bombarded her from unfriendly hands. + +"Are they going to rebuild?" you may inquire, as you look at the stolid +shell of the old theater. + +"Bless you, no," exclaims your guide. "The Music Hall was burned more +than a dozen years ago. Quebec does not rebuild." + +But he is wrong. Quebec does rebuild, does progress. Quebec progresses +very slowly, but also very surely. To a man who returns after twenty +years' absence from her quiet streets, the changes are most apparent. +There are fewer _caleches_ upon the street--those quaint two-wheeled +vehicles which merge the joys of a Coney island whirly-coaster and the +benefits of Swedish massage--although the drivers of these distinctive +carriages still supply the American's keen demand for "local color" by +shouting "_marche donc_" to their stout and ugly little horses as they +go running up and down the steep side-hill streets. Nowadays most +tourists eschew the _caleche_ and turn towards trolley cars. That of +itself tells of the almost sinful modernization of Quebec. It is almost +a quarter of a century since the electric cars invaded the narrow +streets of the Upper Town, and in so doing caused the wanton demolition +of the last of the older gates--Porte St. Jean. The destruction of St. +Jean's gate was a mistake--to put the matter slightly. It came at a time +when the question was being gently raised of the replacement of the +older gates that had gone long before--Palace, Hope and Prescott. +Nowadays but two of these portals remain, the St. Louis and the Kent +gates, and these are not in architectural harmony with the solid British +fortifications. + +Indeed, that is one of the great crimes to be charged against the +modernization of Quebec. Other old towns in America have brought their +architects to a clever sense of the necessity of making their newer +buildings fit in absolute harmony with the older. They have clung +jealously to their architectural personality. Quebec has missed that +point. With the exception of the lovely Chateau which fits the +traditions of the town, as a solitaire fits a ring setting, the newer +buildings represent a strange hodge-podge of ideas. + +Quebec herself rather endures being quaint than enjoys it; for in this +day of Canadian development she has dreamed of the future after the +fashion of those insistent towns further to the west. It has not been +pleasant for her to drop from second place in Canadian commercial +importance to fourth or fifth. She has had to sit back and see such +cities as Winnipeg, for instance, come from an Indian trading-place to a +metropolitan center two or three times her size, while her own wharves +rot. It is a matter of keen humiliation to the town every time a big +ocean liner goes sailing up the river to Montreal--her river, if you are +to give ear to the protests of her citizens whom you meet along the +Terrace of a late afternoon--without halting at her wharves, perhaps +without even a respectful salute to the town which has been known these +many years as the Gibraltar of America. + +So she has given herself to the development of transcontinental railroad +projects. When one Canadian railroad decided to use her as the summer +terminal of its largest trans-Atlantic liners without sending those +great vessels further up to Montreal, Quebec saw quickly what that meant +to her in prestige and importance. When the railroads told her, as +politely as they might, that they could not develop her as a mighty +traffic center because of the broad arm of the St. Lawrence which +blocked rail access from the South, she put her wits together and set +out to bridge that arm with the greatest cantilever in the world. The +fall of the Quebec bridge five years ago with its toll of eighty lives, +was a great blow to the commercial hopes of the town. But they have +begun to arise once more. The wreckage of that tragedy is already out +of the way and the workmen are trying again, placing fresh foundations +for the slender, far-reaching span that is going to mean so very much to +the portal city of Canada. + + * * * * * + +But progress has not robbed Quebec of her charm. It seems quite unlikely +that such a brutal tragedy shall ever come. They may come as they did a +year or two ago and tear down the impressive Champlain market--one of +the very great lions of the Lower Town--but they do not understand the +_habitans_ from those back country villages around Quebec. Progress does +not come to those obscure communities--no, not even slowly. The women +still gather together at some mountain stream on wash-days and cleanse +their laundry by placing it over flat rocks by the waterside and +pounding it with wooden paddles, there are more barns roofed with thatch +than with shingles, to say nothing of farms where a horse is an unknown +luxury and men till the soil much as the soil was tilled in the days of +Christ. From those places came the _habitans_ to Champlain +market--within my memory some of them in two-wheeled carts drawn by +great Newfoundland dogs--and it was a gay place on at least two mornings +of the week. One might buy if one pleased--bartering is a fine art to +the French-Canadian and one dear to his soul--or one might pass to the +next stall. But one could never pass very many stalls, with their bright +offerings of food-stuffs or simple wearing apparels alike set in +garniture of the brilliant flowers of this land of the short warm +summer. + +And now that the sturdy Champlain market is no more--literally torn +apart, one stone from another--a few of these folk--typical of a North +American race that refuses to become assimilated even after whole +centuries of patient effort--still gather in the open square that used +to face the market-house. They do not understand. There are only a few +of them, and their little shows of wares are still individually brave, +still individually gay. But even these must see that the folk with money +no longer come to them. Perhaps they see and with stolid French-Canadian +indifference refuse to accept the fact. Such a thing would be but +characteristic of a folk, who, betrayed and forgotten by their home-land +for a little more than one hundred and fifty years, still cling not +merely to their religion, but to traditions and a language that is alien +to the land that shelters them. In Montreal the traveler from the States +first finds French all but universal, the hardy Tricolor of France +flying from more poles than boast British Union Jacks. In Quebec that +feeling is intensified. We hunted through the shops of the town for a +British standard, and in vain. But every one of the obliging +shop-keepers was quick to offer us the flag of France. And the +decorative _motif_ of the modern architecture of new Quebec lends itself +with astonishing frequency to the use of the lilies of old France. + +"It is that very sort of thing that makes Britain the really great +nation that she is," an old gentleman told us one afternoon on the +Terrace. We had been discussing this with him, and he had told us how +the city records of Quebec--a British seaport town--were kept in French, +how even the legislative proceedings in the great new parliament +building out on the Grande Allee beyond the city wall were in that same +prettily flavored tongue. "Yes, sir," he continued, "we may have a King +that is English in title and German in blood, sir, but here in Canada we +have one who through success and through defeat is more than King--Sir +Wilfred Laurier--our late premier, sir." + +We liked the old gentleman's spunk. He was typical of the old French +blood as it pulses within the new France. We liked the old gentleman, +too. To us he was as one who had just stepped from one of Honoré +Balzac's stories, with his mustaches, waxed and dyed into a drooping +perfection, his low-set soft hat, his vast envelope of a faded +greatcoat, his cane thrust under his arm, as Otis Skinner might have +done it. We had first met him one morning coming out of the arched +gateway of the very ancient whitewashed pile of the Seminary; again as +he stepped from his morning devotions out through the doorway of the +Basilica into the sunlight of what was once the market-square of the +Upper Town--after that many more times. Finally we had risked a little +smile of recognition, to be answered by the salute courtly. We had +conquered. We knew that romance personified was close to him. Perhaps +our old gentleman was an army man; he must have been able to sit on the +long porch of the Garrison Club, that delectable and afternoon-teable +place that looks out upon the trim grass-carpeted court-yard, and tell +stories at least as far back as the Crimea. + +"A Frenchman?" you begin, as if attacking the very substance of our +argument of romance, "fighting the battles of the English Queen?" + +Bless your heart, yes. The Frenchmen of lower Canada have never +hesitated at helping England fight her battles. Within sixteen years +after their own disastrous defeat before the walls of the citadel city +that they loved so dearly, they were fighting alongside of their +conquerors to hold her safe from the attacks of the tremendously brave, +and half-fed little American army which ventured north through the +fearful rigors of a Canadian winter, hopelessly to essay the impossible. + +But our old gentleman was not a soldier. He was a seller of cheeses in +St. Roch ward, who had retired in the sunset of his life. He knew the +Quebec of the days when the Parliament house stood perched at the +ramparts at the Prescott gate, and the old gateways themselves were +narrow _impasses_ at which the traffic of great carts and little +_caleches_ in summer, and dancing, splendid sleighs in winter, was +forever fearfully congested; he could tell many of the romances that +still linger up this street and down that, within the stout walls of +this house or in the sheltered garden of some nunnery or half-hidden +home. He could speak English well, which, for a Frenchman in Quebec, is +a mark of uncommon education. But, best of all, he knew his Quebec. He +was in a true sense the old Quebec living in the new. + +Even among the cosmopolitan folk of the Terrace in the shady late +afternoons, you could recognize him as such. He was apart from the +throng--a motley of bare-footed, brown-cloaked friars, full-skirted +priests, white nuns and gray and black, red-coated soldiers from the +Citadel to give a sharp note of color to the great promenade of Quebec, +millionaires real and would-be from New York, tourists of every sort +from all the rest of our land, funny looking English folk from the +yellow-funnelled _Empress_, which had just pulled in from Liverpool and +even now lay resting almost under the walls of old Quebec--he was +readily distinguished. To be with him was, of itself, a matter of +distinction. + +[Illustration: Four Brethren upon the Terrace] + +To walk the staid streets of the fascinating old town with him was a +privilege. Always the excursion led to new and unexpected turns; one day +up the narrow lane and through the impressive gates of the Citadel, +where a petty officer detained our American cameras and assigned us to a +mumbling rear private for perfunctory escort around the old place. It is +no longer tenanted by British troops. The last of these left forty years +ago. These red-coats are counterfeit; raw-boned boys from Canadian farms +being put through their military paces by a distant government which may +sometimes overlook, but not always. The Citadel as a military work is +tremendously out-of-date. Even as it now stands, it is almost a century +old, and that tells the story. The guns that have so wide a sweep and so +exquisite a view from the ramparts may look fear-inspiring, but the +ramparts are of stone and would be quickly vulnerable to modern naval +ordnance. + +The gun that is unfailingly shown to Americans is a small field-piece +which is said to have been captured from us at Bunker Hill. Whereupon +our tourists, with a rare gift of repartee, always exclaim: + +"Ah, you may have the gun, but we have the hill!" + +And the military training of the young Canadian militiaman is so perfect +that he smiles politely in response. As a matter of fact, there is no +record of the fact that the gun was ever taken from the Americans, +although each little while there is a request from the States for its +return, which is always met with derision and scorn by the Canadians. +Politics in Our Lady of the Snows is almost entirely beyond the +understanding of an American. + + * * * * * + +Sometimes our friend of old Quebec led us to the churches of the +town--many of them capped with roosters upon their steeples, instead of +the Roman cross which we had believed inevitable with the Catholic +church. Since then we have been informed that many of the Swiss churches +of the same faith have that high-perched cock upon the steeple-tops. We +paused once at a new church on the rim of the town, where the very old +habit of having a nun in constant adoration of the Host is perpetuated, +paused again at the ever fascinating Notre Dame des Victoiries in Lower +Town, with its battlemented altar and its patriotic legends in French, +which a British government has been indulgent enough to overlook, stood +again and again at the wonderful Van Dyke which hangs in the clear, +cool, white and gold Basilica. From the churches, we sometimes went to +the chapels; the modern structure of the Seminary, or the fascinating +holy places of the Ursulines, where the kind-hearted Mother Superior +turned our attention from the imprisoned nuns chanting their prayers +behind an altar screen, like the decorous and constant hum of +honey-bees, to the skull of Montcalm. Then we must see his burial place +in the very spot in the chapel wall cleft open by a rampant British +shell sent to harass his army. + +"Montcalm," said our gentleman of the old Quebec. "He was, sir, the +bravest soldier and the finest that France ever sent overseas." + +And we could only remember that other fine monument of Quebec, out on +the Grande Allee toward the point where Abraham Martius's cows, chewing +their cuds on an open plain, awoke one day to find one of the world's +great battles being fought--almost over their very heads. In that +creation of marble and of bronze, the great figure of Fame is perched +aloft, reaching down to place her laurel branch upon a real French +gentleman--Montcalm--at the very hour of his death. That memorial is +something more. In a fashion somewhat unusual to monuments, it fairly +vitalizes reality. + + * * * * * + +There must be a real reason why Quebec is such a Mecca for honeymoon +journeys. You can see the grooms and the brides out on the Terrace, +summernight after summernight. Romance hovers over that high-hung place. +It sometimes saunters there of a sunshiny morning--a couple here, or a +couple there in seemingly loving irresponsibility as to the fact that +ours is a workaday world, after all. It lingers at the afternoon tea, +along the Terrace promenade. It comes into its own, night after night, +when the boys and girls of the town promenade back and forth to the +rhythmical crash of a military band, or in the intervals stand at the +rail looking down at the rough pattern of street-lights in Lower Town, +the glistening string of electrics at Levis, or listening to the rattle +of ship's winches which give a hint that, after all, there is a world +beyond Quebec. + +When night comes upon the Terrace, one may see it at its very best. He +may watch the day die over the Laurentians, the western sky fill with +pink afterglow, and the very edge of those ancient peaks sharpen as if +outlined with an engraver's steel. For a moment, as the summer day +hesitates there on the threshold of twilight and good-by, he may trace +the country road that runs its course along the north bank of the St. +Lawrence by the tiny homes of the _habitans_ that line it, he may raise +his eyes again to the sharp blue profile of the mountains. He may hear, +as we heard, the old gentleman from St. Roch, whisper as he raises his +pointing cane: + +"I come here every night and look upon the amphitheater of the gods." + +So it is the night that is the most subtle thing about Quebec. It is +night when one may hear the bells of all the churches that have been +a-jangle since early morning ring out for vespers before the many +altars, the sharp report of the evening gun speaking out from the +ramparts of the Citadel. After that, silence--the silence of waiting. +There is a surcease of the chiming bells--the Terrace becomes deserted +of the army of pleasure-seekers who a little time before were making +meaningless rotation upon it, the bandmen fall asleep in their cell-like +casements of the Citadel, the lights of Lower Town and of Levis go +snuffing out one by one. Silence--the silence of waiting. Only the +sentinels who pace the ramparts of the crumbling fortifications, the +occasional policeman in the narrow street, the white-robed sister who +sits in perpetual adoration of the Sacrament, proclaim Quebec awake. +Quebec does not sleep. She lives, like an aged belle in memory of her +triumphs of the past, keeps patiently the vigil of the lonely years, and +awaits the coming of Christ. + + + THE END + + + * * * * * + + +TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES: + +Punctuation and spelling standardized. + +Frequent inconsistent hyphenation not changed. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Personality of American Cities, by +Edward Hungerford + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40884 *** |