Possession of the faith by which mountains are removed is, we are
inclined to think, the fundamental characteristic of the American
spirit. To the American all things are possible because the true
American takes it for granted that to him nothing is impossible. The
manifestation of this spirit has its unpleasant--oftentimes its
ridiculous--side, of course; yet the possession of it has made
possible the performance here in the New World of miracles as
astonishing as any set forth in holy writ.
By popular consent the metropolis of our inland seas has long since
come to be regarded as perhaps the most striking exponent, among
cities, of the characteristic American spirit. Throughout her history
the supreme confidence of her citizens in the city’s present greatness
and future development, together with the will to transmute the
prolific visions of her leaders into present realities, has
constituted her most valuable civic asset. We have seen no better
illustration of this characteristic Chicago (and American) spirit than
the one contained in a story which William J. Onahan, a Chicago
Irishman of sixty-four years’ standing relates. Meeting Mr. Armour on
a street corner at a time when, because of political turmoil in Italy
there was talk of the Pope’s seeking an asylum outside the peninsula,
the two stopped to talk for a moment, whereupon the captain of
industry calmly proposed that the papacy be brought to Chicago. Onahan
undertook to explain something of the magnitude of the Pope’s
responsibilities, and the impossibility of the proposed removal from
the Eternal to the Windy City, with the following result:
“Mr. Armour listened patiently to my harangue on the necessities of
the Pope, and then proposed another conundrum to me: ‘How much would
it take to provide all these buildings?’
“I did not know; could not guess. Would it take ten millions--twenty
millions?
“‘Look here,’ he added, ‘you undertake this affair. You know how to
manage these things. You get the Pope to agree to come to Chicago. We
can arrange and provide everything suitable for his needs.’
“‘Why, how on earth could you do these things?’ I asked in
bewilderment.
“‘I’ll tell you my idea,’ he said. ‘We will get a big tract of land
outside Chicago, ten or twenty thousand acres. We will build necessary
offices, a palace, a great Cathedral, whatever may be necessary. Half
that land set apart and turned over to the Pope, don’t you see that we
will make enough out of the other half to pay for the whole business?’
“I was dumfounded at the audacity of the idea, the ingenuity and
method of carrying it out, and the characteristic Chicago
aim--‘there’s money in it.’ When, many years afterwards I saw the
wonderful ‘White City’--the World’s Fair--its marvelous architectural
beauty, the vastness and symmetry of its buildings, the beauty of all
the arrangements, I said to myself, Chicago could indeed, if put to
it, build a new Eternal City.”
[134] Reprinted from the editorial column of the Madison
_Democrat_, January 22, 1918.
[135] Contributed by Prof. Frederic L. Paxson.