A MIDDLE-WESTERN MIRACLE
Imagine a young demigod, product of a union between Rodin's "Thinker"
and the Winged Victory of Samothrace, and you will have my symbol of
Chicago.
Chicago is stupefying. It knows no rules, and I know none by which to
judge it. It stands apart from all the cities in the world, isolated by
its own individuality, an Olympian freak, a fable, an allegory, an
incomprehensible phenomenon, a prodigious paradox in which youth and
maturity, brute strength and soaring spirit, are harmoniously confused.
Call Chicago mighty, monstrous, multifarious, vital, lusty, stupendous,
indomitable, intense, unnatural, aspiring, puissant, preposterous,
transcendent--call it what you like--throw the dictionary at it! It is
all that you can do, except to shoot it with statistics. And even the
statistics of Chicago are not deadly, as most statistics are.
First, you must realize that Chicago stands fourth in population among
the cities of the world, and second among those of the Western
Hemisphere. Next you must realize that there are people still alive who
were alive when Chicago did not exist, even as a fort in a swamp at the
mouth of the Chicago River--the river from which, by the way, the city
took its name, and which in turn took its own name from an Indian word
meaning "skunk."
I do not claim that there are many people still alive who were alive
when Chicago wasn't there at all, or that such people are feeling very
active, or that they remember much about it, for in 102 years a man
forgets a lot of little things. Nevertheless, there _are_ living men
older than Chicago.
Just one hundred years ago Fort Dearborn, at the mouth of the river, was
being rebuilt, after a massacre by the Indians. Eighty-five years ago
Chicago was a village of one hundred people. Sixty-five years ago this
village had grown into a city of approximately the present size of
Evanston--a suburb of Chicago, with less than thirty thousand people.
Fifty-five years ago Chicago had something over one hundred thousand
inhabitants. Forty-five years ago, at the time of the Chicago fire, the
city was as large as Washington is now--over three hundred thousand. In
the ten years which followed the disaster, Chicago was not only entirely
rebuilt, and very much improved, but also it increased in population to
half a million, or about the size of Detroit. In the next decade it
actually doubled in size, so that, twenty-five years ago, it passed the
million mark. Soon after that it pushed Philadelphia from second place
among American cities. So it has gone on, until to-day it has a
population of two million, plus a city of about the size of San
Francisco for full measure.
There are the statistics in a capsule paragraph. I hope you will feel
better in the morning. And just to take the taste away, here's another
item which you may like because of its curious flavor: Chicago has more
Poles than any other city except Warsaw.
* * * * *
One knows in advance what a visitor from Europe will say about New York,
just as one knows what an American humorist will say about Europe. But
one never knows what any visitor will say about Chicago. I have heard
people damn Chicago--"up hill and down" I was about to say, but I
withdraw that, for the highest hill I remember in Chicago is that
ungainly little bump, on the lake front, which is surmounted by Saint
Gaudens' statue of General Logan.
As I was saying, I have heard people rave against Chicago and about it.
Being itself a city of extremes, it seems to draw extremes of feeling
and expression from outsiders. For instance, Canon Hannay, who writes
novels and plays under the name of George A. Birmingham, was quoted, at
the time of his recent visit to this country, as saying: "In a little
while Chicago will be a world center of literature, music, and art.
British writers will be more anxious for her verdict than for that of
London. The music of the future will be hammered out on the shores of
Lake Michigan. The Paris Salon will be a second-rate affair."
Remembering that the Canon is an Irishman and a humorist--which is
tautology--we may perhaps discount his statement a little bit for
blarney and a little more for fun. His "prophecy" about the Salon seems
to stamp the interview with waggery, for certainly it is not hard to
prophesy what is already true--and, as everybody ought to know by now,
the Salon has for years been second-rate.
The Chicago Art Institute has by all odds the most important art
collection I visited upon my travels. The pictures are varied and
interesting, and American painters are well represented. The presence in
the institute of a good deal of that rather "tight" and "sugary"
painting which came to Chicago at the time of the World's Fair, is to be
regretted--a fact which is, I have no doubt, quite as well known to
those in charge of the museum as to anybody else. But as I remarked in a
previous chapter, most museums are hampered, in their early days, by the
gifts of their rich friends. It takes a strong museum indeed to risk
offending a rich man by kicking out bad paintings which he offers. Even
the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has not always been so brave
as to do that.
"Who's Who" (which, by the way, is published in Chicago) mentions
perhaps a score of Chicago painters and sculptors, among the former
Lawton S. Parker and Oliver Dennett Grover, and among the latter Lorado
Taft.
There are, however, many others, not in "Who's Who," who attempt to
paint--enough of them to give a fairly large and very mediocre
exhibition which I saw. One thing is, however, certain: the Art
Institute has not the deserted look of most other art museums one
visits. It is used. This may be partly accounted for by its admirable
location at the center of the city--a location more accessible than that
of any other museum I think of, in the country. But whatever the reason,
as you watch the crowds, you realize more than ever that Chicago is
alive to everything--even to art.
Years ago Chicago was musical enough to support the late Theodore Thomas
and his orchestra--one of the most distinguished organizations of the
kind ever assembled in this country. Thomas did great things for
Chicago, musically. He started her, and she has kept on. Besides
innumerable and varied concerts which occur throughout the season, the
city is one of four in the country strong enough to support a first-rate
grand opera company of its own.
About twenty-five musicians of one sort and another are credited to
Chicago by "Who's Who," the most distinguished of them, perhaps, being
Fannie Bloomfield Zeisler, the concert pianist. But it is the writers of
Chicago who come out strongest in the fat red volume, among followers of
the arts. With sinking heart I counted about seventy of these, and I
may be merely revealing my own ignorance when I add that the names of a
good two-thirds of them were new to me. But this is dangerous ground.
Without further comment let me say that among the seventy I found such
names as Robert Herrick, Henry B. Fuller, Hamlin Garland, Emerson Hough,
Henry Kitchell Webster, Maud Radford Warren, Opie Read, and Clara Louise
Burnham--a hatful of them which you may sort and classify according to
your taste.
* * * * *
Canon Hannay said he felt at home in Chicago. So did Arnold Bennett.
Canon Hannay said Chicago reminded him of Belfast. Arnold Bennett said
Chicago reminded him of the "Five Towns," made famous in his novels.
Even Baedeker breaks away from his usual nonpartizan attitude long
enough to say with what, for Baedeker, is nothing less than an outburst
of passion: "Great injustice is done to Chicago by those who represent
it as wholly given over to the worship of Mammon, as it compares
favorably with a great many American cities in the efforts it has made
to beautify itself by the creation of parks and boulevards and in its
encouragement of education and the liberal arts."
[Illustration: Rodin's "Thinker"]
Baedeker is quite right about that. He might also have added that the
"Windy City" is not so windy as New York, and that the old legend, now
almost forgotten, to the effect that Chicago girls have big feet is
equally untrue. There is still some wind in Chicago; thanks to it and to
the present mode in dress, I was able to assure myself quite definitely
upon the size of Chicago feet. I not only saw them upon the streets; I
saw them also at dances: twinkling, slippered feet as small as any in
the land; and, again owing to the present mode, I saw not only pretty
feet, but also--However, I am digressing. That is enough about feet. I
fear I have already let them run away with me.
* * * * *
A friend of mine who visited Chicago for the first time, a year ago,
came back appreciative of her wonders, but declaring her provincial.
"Why do you say provincial?" I asked.
"Because you can't pick up a taxi in the street," he said.
And it is true. I was chagrined at his discovery--not so much because of
its truth, however, as because it was the discovery of a New Yorker. I
always defend Chicago against New Yorkers, for I love the place, partly
for itself and partly because I was born and spent my boyhood there.
I know a great many other ex-Chicagoans who now live in New York, as I
do, and I have noticed with amusement that the side we take depends upon
the society in which we are. If we are with Chicagoans, we defend New
York; if with New Yorkers, we defend Chicago. We are like those people
in the circus who stand upon the backs of two horses at once. Only
among ourselves do we go in for candor.
The other day I met a man and his wife, transplanted Chicagoans, on the
street in New York.
"How long have you been here?" I asked.
"Three years," said the husband.
"Why did you come?"
"For business reasons."
"How do you like the change?"
The husband hesitated. "Well, I've done a great deal better here than I
ever did in Chicago," he said.
"How do you like it?" I asked the wife.
"New York gives us more advantages," she said, "but I prefer Chicago
people."
"Would you like to go back?"
The wife hesitated, but the husband shook his head.
"No," he replied, "there's something about New York that gets into your
blood. To go back to Chicago would seem like retrograding."
* * * * *
Among my notes I find the record of a conversation with a New York girl
who married a Chicago man and went out there to live.
"I was very lonely at first," she said. "One day a man came around
selling pencils. I happened to see him at the door. He said: 'I'm an
actor, and I'm trying to raise money to get back to New York.' As I was
feeling then I'd have given him anything in the house just because that
was where he wanted to go. I gave him some money. 'Here,' I said, 'you
take this and go on back to New York.' 'Why,' he inquired, 'are you from
New York, too?' I said I was. Then he asked me: 'What are you doing away
out here?' 'Oh,' I told him, 'this is my home now. I live here.' He
thanked me, and as he put the money in his pocket he shook his head and
said: 'Too bad! Too bad!'
"That will show you how I felt at first. But when I came to know Chicago
people I liked them. And now I wouldn't go back for anything."
There is testimony from both sides.
With the literary man the situation is, perhaps, a little different. New
York is practically his one big market place. I was speaking about that
the other day with an author who used to live in Chicago.
"The atmosphere out there is not nearly so stimulating for a writer," he
assured me. "Here, in New York, even a pretty big writer is lost in the
shuffle. There, he is a shining mark. The Chicago writers are likely to
be a little bit self-conscious and naive. They have their own local
literary gods, and they're rather inclined to sit around and talk
solemnly about 'Art with a capital A.'"
* * * * *
Necessarily, when the adherents of two cities start an argument, they
are confined to concrete points. They talk about opera and theaters and
buildings and hotels and stores, and seldom touch upon such subtle
things as city spirit. For spirit is a hard thing to deal with and a
harder thing to prove. Yet "greatness knows itself." Chicago
unquestionably knows that it is great, and that its greatness is of the
spirit. But the Chicagoan, debating in favor of his city, is unable to
"get that over," and is therefore obliged to fall back upon two last,
invariable defenses: the department store of Marshall Field & Co. and
the Blackstone Hotel.
The Blackstone he will tell you, with an eye lit by fanatical belief, is
positively the finest hotel in the whole United States. Mention the
Ritz, the Plaza, the St. Regis, the Biltmore, or any other hotel to him,
and it makes no difference; the Blackstone is the best. As to Marshall
Field's, he is no less positive: It is not merely the largest but also
the very finest store in the whole world.
I have never stopped at any of those hotels with which the New Yorker
would attempt to defeat the Blackstone. But I have stopped at the
Blackstone, and it is undeniably a very good hotel. One of the most
agreeable things about it is the air of willing service which one senses
in its staff. It is an excellent manager who can instil into his
servants that spirit which causes them to seem to be eternally on
tiptoe--not for a tip but for a chance to serve. Further, the Blackstone
occupies a position, with regard to the fashionable life of Chicago,
which is not paralleled by any single hotel in New York. Socially it is
preeminently the place.
General dancing in such public restaurants as Rector's--the original
Rector's is in Chicago, you know--and in the dining rooms of some
hotels, was started in Chicago, but was soon stopped by municipal
regulation. Since that time other schemes have been devised. Dances are
held regularly in the ballrooms of most of the hotels, but are managed
as clubs or semi-private gatherings. This arrangement has its
advantages. It would have its advantages, indeed, if it did nothing more
than put the brakes on the dancing craze--as any one can testify who has
seen his friends offering up their business and their brains as a
sacrifice to Terpsichore. But that is not what I started to say. The
advantage of the system which was in vogue at the Blackstone, when I was
there, is that, to get into the ballroom people must be known; wherefore
ladies who still have doubts as to the propriety of dancing in a public
restaurant need not, and do not, hesitate to go there and dance to their
toes' content.