DENVER THE BEAUTIFUL
"_I will make me a city of gliding and wide-wayed silence,
With a highway of glass and of gold;
With life of a colored peace, and a lucid leisure,
Of smooth electrical ease,
Of sweet excursion of noiseless and brilliant travel,
With room in your streets for the soul._"
STEPHEN PHILLIPS
Denver the Beautiful is the dynamo of Western civilization, and the
keynote to the entire scale of life in Colorado. The atmosphere seems
charged with high destiny. "I worship with wonder the great Fortune,"
said Emerson, using the term in the universal sense, "and find it
none too large for use. My receptivity matches its greatness." The
receptivity of the dwellers in this splendid environment seems to match
its greatness, and expand with the increase of its vast resources. As
Paris is France, so Denver is Colorado. Hardly any other commonwealth
and its capital are in such close relation, unless it be that of
Massachusetts and Boston. Colorado is a second Italy, rather than
Switzerland, as it has been called. Over it bends the Italian sky; its
luminous atmosphere is that of Dante's country; at night the stars hang
low as they hang over the heights of San Miniato in fair Florence;
the mountain coloring, when one has distance enough, has the soft
melting purple and amethyst lights of the Apennines, and the courtesy
of the people is not less marked than in the land of the olive and the
myrtle. Then, too, the light--the resplendent and luminous effect of
the atmosphere--is like that of no other state. The East is dark by
comparison with this transparency of golden light.
As the metropolis of the great West between Chicago and the Pacific
Coast, Denver has a continual procession of visitors from all
countries, who pause in the overland journey to study the outlook of
the most wonderful state in the Union,--that of the richest and most
varied resources. To find within the limits of one state resources
that include gold, silver, copper, lead, zinc, coal, and tin mines;
agriculture, horticulture, stock raising, manufactures, and oil wells,
sounds like a fiction; yet this is literally true. Add to these some of
the most beautiful and sublime scenery in the world, the best modern
appliances, and the most intelligent and finely aspiring class of
people, and one has an outline of the possibilities of the Centennial
State.
Denver is, geographically, the central city of the country, equally
accessible from both the Atlantic and the Pacific coasts, from the
North and the South. It has the finest climate of the continent; its
winters are all sunshine and exhilaration, with few cloudy or stormy
days; its summers are those in which oppressive heat is hardly known,
and the nights are invariably cool. It is a great railroad centre; it
has infinite space in which to extend itself in any direction; it has
unsurpassed beauty of location. No city west of Chicago concentrates so
many desirable features, for all this wealth of resource and loveliness
of scenic setting is the theatre of noble energy and high achievement.
Denver is only twenty-six hours from Chicago; it is but forty-five
hours from New York. Although apparently a city of the plains, it is
a mile above sea level, and is surrounded with more than two hundred
miles of mountain ranges, whose changeful color, in royal purple, deep
rose, amber, pale blue, gleams through the transparent air against the
horizon. The business and hotel part of Denver lies on a lower level,
while the Capitol, a superb building of Colorado marble, and all the
best residential region, is on a higher plateau. The Capitol has the
novel decoration of an electric flag, so arranged that through colored
glass of red, white, and blue the intense light shines.
The Denver residential region is something unusual within general
municipal possibilities, as it has unbounded territory over which to
expand, thus permitting each home to have its own grounds, nearly all
of which are spacious; and these, with the broad streets lined with
trees, give to this part of the city the appearance of an enormous
park. For miles these avenues and streets extend, all traversed by
swift electric cars that so annihilate time and space that a man may
live five, ten, or a dozen miles from his place of business and call
it all joy. He insures himself pure air, beautiful views, and an
abundance of ground. If the family desires to go into the city for
evening lectures, concerts, or the theatre, the transit is swift and
enjoyable. They control every convenience. These individual villas are
all fire-proof. The municipal law requires the buildings to be of brick
or stone, thus making Denver a practically fireproof city. Both the
business blocks and the homes share the benefit of the improved modern
taste in architecture. The city of Denver covers an area of eighty-nine
square miles, and these limits are soon to be extended.
The Capitol has an enchanting mountain view; it also contains a fine
museum of historic relics found in Colorado from cliff-dwellings and
other points. A million dollars has been offered--and refused--for
this state collection. The City Park, covering nearly four hundred
acres, with its two lakes, its beds of flowers and groups of shrubbery;
its casino, where an orchestra plays every afternoon in the summer,
while dozens of carriages and motor cars with their tastefully dressed
occupants draw up and listen to the music, is a centre of attraction to
both residents and visitors. This park is to Denver as is the Pincian
Hill to Rome, or as Hyde Park to London,--the fashionable drive and
rendezvous. Great beds of scarlet geraniums contrast with the emerald
green of the grass, while here and there a fountain throws its spray
into the air. Far away on the horizon are the encircling mountains in
view for over two hundred miles, the ranges taking on all the colors
of fairyland, while a deep turquoise sky, soft and beautiful, bends
over the entire panorama. From this plateau four great peaks are in
view: Pike's Peak, seventy-five miles to the south; Long's, Gray's, and
James's peaks, all distinctly silhouetted against the sky, rising from
the serrated range which connects them. During these open-air concerts
in the park there is a midsummer holiday air over the scene as if all
the city were _en fête_.
The architectural scheme of Denver's residential region harmonizes with
the landscape. The houses are not the palaces of upper Fifth Avenue
and Riverside drive, or of Massachusetts or Connecticut avenues in
Washington; but there is hardly an individual residence that has not
legitimate claim to beauty. The tower, the oriel window, and the broad
balcony are much in evidence; and the piazza, with its swinging seat,
its easy chairs, and table disposed on a bright rug, suggest a charm
of _vie intime_ that appeals to the passer-by. Books, papers, and
magazines are scattered over the table: the home has the unmistakable
air of being lived in and enjoyed; of being the centre of a happy,
intelligent life, buoyant with enterprise and energy, and identified
with the social progress of the day. On the greenest of lawn a jet
of water or, in many cases, a fountain plays, the advantage of an
irrigated country being that the householder creates and controls
his own climatic conditions. The rain,--it raineth every day when
irrigation determines the shower; roses grow in riotous profusion on
the lawn, and the crimson "rambler" climbs the portico; lilies nod in
the luminous gold of the sunshine, and all kinds of foliage plants
lend their rich color to these beautiful grounds that surround every
home. To the children growing up in Denver the spectacle of dreary
streets would be as much of a novelty as the ruins of Karnak. The line
that divides the past from the present is not only very definite, but
also very recent, as is indicated by the question of a five-year-old
lad who wonderingly asked: "Mamma, did they ever have horses draw the
trolley cars?" The mastodon is not more remote in antiquity to the
man or woman of to-day than was the idea of horses drawing a car to
this child. Between the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries the
gulf of demarcation is almost as wide as between the fifteenth and the
nineteenth.
The streets of Denver are very broad, usually planted with trees, and
the smooth roads offer an earthly paradise to the motor-car transit
that abounds in Denver. One of the happy excursions is that of
motoring to Colorado Springs, seventy-five miles distant, a constant
entertainment. With the splendid electric-transit system, annihilating
distance; with the broad streets paved after the best modern methods;
with the wide and smooth sidewalks of Colorado stone and the almost
celestial charm of the view, city life is transformed. Telephonic
service is practically universal; electric lighting and an admirable
water system are among the easy conveniences of this section, which is
not yet suburban because of its complete identification with all other
parts of the city.
The universality of telephonic intercourse in Colorado would go far to
support the theory of Dr. Edward Everett Hale that the time will come
when writing will be a lost art, and will be considered, at best, as
a clumsy and laborious means of communication in much the same manner
that the late centuries regard the production of the manuscript book
before the invention of the art of printing. In few cities is the
telephone service carried out to such constant colloquial use as in
Denver. The traveller finds in his room a telephone as a matter of
course, and there are very few quarters of an hour when the bell does
not summon him to chat with a friend, from one on the same floor of the
hotel to one who is miles away in the city, or even fifty or a hundred
miles distant, as at Greeley, Colorado Springs, or Pueblo.
"How are you to-day?" questions the friendly voice. "Did you see
so-and-so in the morning papers? And what do you think about it? and
can you be ready at eleven to go to hear Mrs. ---- lecture? and at
one will you lunch with Mrs. ----? the entire conversation to be in
Italian? and could you go at about four this afternoon to a tea to
meet an Oriental Princess who will discuss the laws of reincarnation?
and will you also dine with us at seven, and go later to the Woman's
Municipal Club that holds a conference to-night?" All those lovely
things fall upon one with apparently no thought of its being an unusual
day--this is Denver! This is twentieth-century life. This is an
illustration of what can be done when the non-essential is eliminated
from the days and that which is essential is felicitously pursued.
When the Denver woman remarked to the Eastern woman sojourner within
the gates that she was unable to be away that autumn on any extended
absence, as the campaign was to be more than usually important, the
wanderer from the Atlantic shore irreverently laughed. Her hostess
endeavored (unsuccessfully) not to seem shocked by this levity
regarding serious subjects. She remembered that there were extenuating
circumstances, and that the Eastern women had really never had a fair
chance in life. Their part, she reflected, consisted in obeying laws
and abiding by whatever was decreed, with no voice allowed to express
their own preferences or convictions. She remembered that a proportion
of the feminine New England intellect consecrates its powers and
its time to extended researches in the Boston Public Library and in
the venerable records of the Massachusetts Historical Society, in
a perpetual quest of information regarding its ancestors, who are
worshipped with the zeal and fervor of the Japanese. The Boston woman,
indeed, may have only the most vague ideas regarding the rate bill, the
problem of the Philippines, the Panama Canal, or the next Governor of
Massachusetts; but she is thoroughly conversant with all the details
of the Mayflower and her own ancestral dignities. Recognizing the New
England passion for its ancestry, a leading Boston journal offers a
page, weekly, to open correspondence on the momentous question as
to whether Winthrop Bellingham married Priscilla Patience Mather in
1699 or in 1700, and a multitude of similar questions concerning
the vanished centuries. The Denver woman realized all this and was
discreetly charitable in her judgment of her friend's failure to
recognize the significant side of the political enfranchisement of
women in Colorado. For despite some actual disadvantages and defects
of woman suffrage in the centennial state, and a vast amount of
exaggerated criticism on these defects, it is yet a benefit to the four
states that enjoy it,--Colorado, Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming.
In a majority of the states of the entire nation there is a conviction
(and one not without its claims) that women are adequately represented
and protected in all their rights, as things are, and that it is
superfluous to increase the vote.
The anti-suffrage argument suggests many reflections whose truth must
be admitted, and this side of the controversy is espoused and led by
some proportion of men and women whose names inspire profound respect,
if not conviction, with their belief. Still, the fact remains that
when woman suffrage is subjected to the practical test of experience,
the advantages are so obvious, its efficacy for good so momentous,
that their realization fairly compels acceptance. In the entire nation
there has never been a man or a woman whose clearness and profundity
of intellect, moral greatness, and sympathetic insight into the very
springs of national and individual life exceeded those of Lucy Stone,
the remarkable pioneer in the political emancipation of women, whose
logical eloquence and winning, beautiful personality was the early
focus of this movement. Mrs. Stone surrounded herself with a noble
group,--Mary A. Livermore, Julia Ward Howe, Thomas Wentworth Higginson,
and others whose names readily suggest themselves, and with whom, in
the complete companionship and sympathy of her husband, Dr. Henry B.
Blackwell, she successfully worked, even though the final success has
not yet been achieved. Other great and noble women--Susan B. Anthony,
Elizabeth Cady Stanton--consecrated their entire lives and remarkable
powers to the early championship of woman suffrage. The present ranks
of women workers--the younger women--are so numerous, and they include
so large a proportion of the most notable women of both the East and
the West, that volumes would not afford sufficient room for adequate
allusion. In Denver the leading people are fully convinced of the
responsibility of women in politics. Although the ballot has not been
generally granted to women, the very movement toward it has resulted
in their higher education and their larger freedom in all ways. The
situation reminds one of the "subtle ways" of Emerson's Brahma:
"If the red slayer think he slays,
Or if the slain think he is slain,
They know not well the subtle ways
I keep, and pass, and turn again.
"Far or forgot to me is near;
Shadow and sunlight are the same;
The vanished gods to me appear;
And one to me are shame and fame.
"They reckon ill who leave me out;
When me they fly, I am the wings;
I am the doubter and the doubt,
And I the hymn the Brahmin sings."
* * * * *
Apparently, the principle of woman suffrage has "subtle ways" in which
"to pass and turn again." It has recently turned in a manner to compel
a new and more profound revision of all opinion and argument.
Colorado presents a most interesting field for the study of woman
suffrage, and from any fair and adequate review of its workings and
results there could hardly fail to be but one conclusion,--that of its
signal value and importance as a factor in human progress. One of its
special claims is of a nature not down on the bills,--the fact of the
great intellectual enlargement and stimulus,--aside from its results,
which the very exercise of political power gives to the women of the
state. It is seen in the higher quality of conversational tone and
the tendency to eliminate the inconsequential and the inane because
great matters of universal interest were thus brought home to women in
connection with their power to decide on these matters. This result
is perhaps equally seen among the women who rejoice and the women who
regret the fact of their political enfranchisement. For in Colorado,
as well as in other states, there is a proportion of women who do
not believe in the desirability of the ballot for themselves. They
sincerely regret that it has been "forced," as they say, upon them.
This proportion in Colorado is not a large one, but it includes some
of the most intelligent and cultured women, just as an enthusiastic
acceptance of the ballot includes a much larger proportion of this
higher order of women. However, welcome or unwelcome, desired or not
desired, the ballot is there, and so the women who regret this fact yet
realize its responsibility and feel it a moral duty to use it wisely as
well. And so they, too, study great questions, and discuss them, and
fit themselves to use the power that is conferred upon them. All this
reacts on the general tone of society, and the quality of conversation
at ladies' lunches, at teas, and at clubs, is of a far higher order
than is often found in other states among the more purely feminine
gatherings.
Among the women who have successfully administered public office in
Colorado was the late Mrs. Helen Grenfell, whose record as State
Superintendent of Public Instruction was so remarkable that both
political parties supported her. A Denver journal said of her:
"Mrs. Grenfell's term has lasted six years, the last two years
having been under a Republican administration, although Mrs.
Grenfell is a Democrat. Her most notable achievement has been in
her conduct of the school lands of the state, making them valuable
sources of revenue. Her policy from the first was against the sale
of the school lands, which comprise some three million acres. The
income from such sales had been limited, as the investments were
prescribed, and the interest rate rather low, as Western interest
goes. The leasing system was inaugurated under Mrs. Grenfell's
direction, and the result was an increase of school revenues of
nearly two hundred thousand dollars a year, with no decrease in
the capital. The Land Department of the state shares the credit
with the state superintendent of public instruction, as they have
administered her policy wisely, but the policy was hers alone."
Judge Lindsay of Denver, giving an official opinion as to the
desirability of woman suffrage for Colorado, said:
"Woman suffrage in Colorado for over ten years has more than
demonstrated its justice. No one would dare to propose its repeal;
and, if left to the men of the state, any proposition to revoke the
right bestowed upon women would be overwhelmingly defeated.
"Many good laws have been obtained in Colorado which would not have
been secured but for the power and influence of women.
"At some of the elections in Denver frauds have been committed.
Ninety-nine per cent of these frauds were committed by men, without
any connivance or assistance, direct or indirect, from women; but
because one per cent were committed by women, there are ignorant
or careless-minded people in other states who actually argue that
this is a reason for denying women the right to vote. If it were a
just reason for denying suffrage to women, it would be a ten times
greater reason for denying it to men.
"In Colorado it has never made women any the less womanly or any
the less motherly, or interfered with their duties in the home,
that they have been given the right to participate in the affairs
of state.
"Many a time I have heard the 'boss' in the political caucus object
to the nomination of some candidate because of his bad moral
character, with the mere explanation that if the women found him
out it might hurt the whole ticket. While many bad men have been
nominated and elected to office in spite of woman suffrage, they
have not been nominated and elected because of woman suffrage. If
the women alone had a right to vote, it would result in a class
of men in public office whose character for morality, honesty, and
courage would be of a much higher order....
"People have no right to judge woman suffrage in Colorado by
the election frauds in a few precincts. The election frauds in
Philadelphia, where women do not vote, were never used as a reason
why suffrage should be denied to men....
"With women, as with men, it requires more or less public sentiment
to arouse them to their civic duties; but when aroused, as they
frequently are, their power for good cannot be overestimated.
Again, the very fact that the women have such a power is a
wonderful reserve force in the cause of righteousness in Colorado,
and has been a powerful deterrent in anticipating and opposing the
forces of evil.
"It does not take any mother from her home duties or cares to spend
ten minutes in going to the polling place and casting her vote and
returning to the bosom of her home; but in that ten minutes she
wields a power that is doing more to protect that home now, and
will do more to protect it in the future, and to protect all other
homes, than any power or influence in Colorado.
"I know that the great majority of people in Colorado favor woman
suffrage, after more than a decade of practical experience,--first,
because it is fair, just, and decent; and secondly, because its
influence has been good rather than evil in our political affairs."
Judge Lindsay's words represent the general attitude of the
representative people of the state.
The Hon. Henry M. Teller, senior senator of Colorado, is one of the
most interesting men in the Centennial State, and the traveller who may
meet and talk with him is impressed with his quiet sincerity, with the
sense of reserved power with which he seems endowed, and the refinement
and directness of his methods. He is by birth an Eastern man, and a
graduate of Harvard; but his mature life has been passed in Colorado.
As a lawyer his law office claims much of his time and thought,
even with all the great tide of national interests with which he is
identified. He is a thorough and, indeed, an astute politician; not
in the "machine" sense, but with a very clear and comprehensive grasp
of the situation and a large infusion of practical sagacity. Senator
Teller is in no sense an enthusiast. He is responsive to high aims and
high ideals; he knows what they are, so to speak; he recognizes them on
sight; he never falls into the error of under-valuing them; but he is
not a man to be carried away by an ecstatic vision, and he would have
no use for wings at all where he had feet. He would regard the solid
earth as a better foundation, on the whole, than the air, and one more
suited to existing conditions.
Senator Teller has had more than a quarter of a century's experience in
political life and in statesmanship. For two years he was a member of
the Cabinet. For twenty-seven years he has been in the Senate, where,
with Senator Hoar of Massachusetts, he shared the highest honor,
and the most absolute confidence, in both his flawless integrity and
conspicuous ability, that the Senate, and the nation as well, can give
to him.
Senator Patterson, the junior senator from Colorado, is a man whom, if
he encounters an obstacle does not grant it the dignity of recognition.
He instantly discovers the end,--the desired result,--and declares, per
saltum, "It is right; it should be done,--it shall be done." Senator
Patterson is a man of very keen perceptions and one with whom it is
easy to come into touch instantly; he is responsive, sympathetic,
full of faith that the thing that ought to be accomplished can be
accomplished, and therefore that it shall be. Senator Patterson has the
typical American experience of successful men lying behind him. He was
on familiar terms with the intricacies of a newspaper office in his
youth; he studied in an Indiana college without an annual expenditure
of that twenty thousand dollars which some of the latter-day Harvard
undergraduates find indispensable to the process of securing their "B.
A.," and tradition records, indeed, that the junior Colorado senator,
in the prehistoric days of his youth, set out for the fountain of
learning with a capital of forty dollars; that he frugally walked
from Crawfordsville to Indianapolis that he might not deplete his
financial estate which was destined to buy a scholarship, and that in
this unrecorded tour in the too, too truly rural region of his early
life, he cleaned two clocks on the way in payment for lodging, and
that he cleaned them uncommonly well. Of all this traditionary history
who shall say? Senator Patterson is a man who would always keep faith
with his aims and convictions. He is sunny and full of wit, and full of
faith in the ultimate triumph of good things in general, and is, all in
all, one of the most genial and delightful of men--and senators.
It is related that Senator Patterson first dawned upon Denver in its
primeval period of 1872, when its municipal affairs were conducted by
two prominent--if not eminent--gentlemen, one of whom was the champion
gambler, and the other the champion brewer of the metropolis. There
were eleven thousand nine hundred and ninety-eight other citizens
in this municipality besides the brewer and the gambler (and the
population was said to have been twelve thousand in all), and the
eleven thousand nine hundred and ninety-eight, like "The Ten" of early
Florentine history, decided that would "reform the town." Their united
effort was to elect Mr. Patterson as Mayor. And a good one he proved;
and he has gone on and on, in the minds as well as in the hearts of his
fellow-citizens, until now he is the colleague of Senator Teller, and
he offers another typical illustration of true American integrity and
honorable ambition and success. Personally, Senator Patterson is one of
the most winning men in the world, and one delights in his success and
the high estimation in which he is held.
The development of Colorado and other parts of the great Southwest
during the past half-century has created a new order of employment in
that of the government expert,--the specialist in upland or hydraulic
irrigation, in engineering and mining problems. The government
surveying work has also increased largely, both in extent and in the
greater number of specialties now required. The Geological Survey and
the Agricultural Department, both included under the Department of
the Interior, are rapidly multiplying branches of work that require
both the skilled training and ability for original research and
accomplishment. These positions, which command government salaries
at from some eighteen to twenty-five hundred dollars a year, afford
such opportunity for the expert to reveal his value that private
corporations and business houses continually draw on the ranks of
the government employees. Of late years the demand for the expert
irrigation engineer has been so great in Colorado as to seriously
embarrass the government forces by drawing some of the best men for
private service. Denver is an especial centre for these enterprises,
as being the natural metropolis for the vast inter-mountain region and
the plains country of the Missouri River. This vast territory will
support many millions more of population. In fact, the dwellers within
this described territory at this day are but pioneers on the frontier
to what the future will develop, although they already enjoy all the
benefits of the older states, with countless advantages beside which
they cannot enjoy.
The smelteries in Denver, of which the Grant is the largest, treat
millions of pounds of copper and lead, and great quantities of silver
and gold, while there are also extensive ones in Pueblo, Leadville,
Durango, and other places. There is also a good proportion of Colorado
ore which is not treated at all at smelteries, but is of a free-milling
order. The revenue from mining has exceeded fifty millions of dollars
annually of late years, but the revenue from agriculture exceeds
that of the mines, and to these must be added some twenty millions
a year from live stock during the past two or three years. In the
aggregate, Colorado has an internal revenue of hardly less than one
hundred millions a year, and this largely passes through Denver as the
distributing point, constituting the Capital one of the most prosperous
of young cities. Denver stands alone in a rich region. One thousand
miles from Chicago, six hundred miles from Kansas City, and four
hundred miles from Salt Lake City, Denver holds its place without any
rival.
The ideal conditions of living have never been entirely combined in any
one locality on this sublunary planet, so far as human history reveals;
and with all the scenic charm, the rich and varied resources, and the
phenomenal development of Colorado, no one could truthfully describe
it as Utopia. There is no royal road to high achievement in any line.
Difficulties and obstacles are "a part of the play," and he alone is
wise who, by his own determination, faith, and persistence of energy,
transforms his very obstacles into stepping-stones and thus gains the
strength of that which he overcomes.
Northern Colorado has great resources even beyond the coal fields
that will make it the power centre; with its prestige of Denver, and
such surrounding towns as Greeley, Boulder, Fort Collins, Golden, and
others, all of which fall within a group of social and commercial
centres that will soon be interconnected by a network of electric
trolley lines. For the electric road between Greeley and Denver Mr. J.
D. Houseman has secured a right of way one hundred and fifty feet wide,
the rails being midway between the Union Pacific and the Burlington
lines. Mr. Houseman is one of the noted financiers of the East who came
to Denver to incorporate and build this road, and his is only one of
three companies that are now in consultation with the power company
negotiating for the supplies which will enable them to build the
proposed new roads.
The Seeman Tunnel, which is to be constructed near Idaho Springs, at a
distance of fifty miles from Denver, and which is to be twelve miles
in length, although at an elevation of eighty-five hundred feet, is
yet to extend under Fall River and the Yankee, Alice, and the Lombard
mining districts. It will be one of the marvels of the state, and
will penetrate a thousand mining veins. The Continental Mines, Power
and Reduction Company, recently incorporated with a capital of three
millions, of which Captain Seeman is the president, owns many of the
mining veins which will be touched by this tunnel. Many of the veins
to which this tunnel will afford approach have not been accessible
heretofore for more than four or five months in the year. For the
remaining six or seven months travel is practically impossible in these
mountains; the "claims" cannot be reached, as they lie in the region of
perpetual snow. When the Seeman Tunnel is completed the owner of any
claim that is tapped by it can, by paying a certain royalty per ton
for each ton of ore mined, obtain the right to work it in the tunnel,
thus being able to proceed through the entire year and at a far less
cost in production than at present. Regarding this gigantic enterprise,
Captain Seeman said, in June of 1906, that the work would be pushed as
rapidly as men, money, and machinery could advance it, and, he added:
"I consider it one of the greatest tunnels ever attempted, and one
that will hold the record for mining tunnels. I am confident that we
will strike enough ore within the first two or three miles to keep
us busy for years." The Leviathan is one of the first veins that the
tunnel is expected to tap,--a vein three hundred feet wide on the
surface,--and while already traced for more than three miles, it holds
every promise for as yet uncalculated extension. The Lombard is another
vein of leading importance which promises to be a bonanza. Gold is the
principal mineral that appears in these veins, although silver, lead,
and copper are found. Another ore, tungsten, used for hardening in
armor plates, large guns, and the best mechanical implements,--an ore
valued at six hundred dollars per ton,--has been discovered in these
veins. The Seeman Tunnel is located directly under James's Peak.
Another of the remarkable engineering marvels that mark the progress of
Colorado is the Moffat road, the new railroad between Denver and Salt
Lake City, now open as far as Kremling, which initiated its passenger
service in the late June of 1906 with daily excursions, in solid
vestibuled trains, making the round trip between Denver and Tolland,
Corona (the region of perpetual snow) and Arrow, on the Pacific slope
of the Continental Divide, in one day. This vast enterprise is due to
the genius and the prophetic vision of President David H. Moffat of the
First National Bank in Denver, one of the leaders in all that makes for
the best interests and the advancement of the Centennial State, and of
the future of Denver the Beautiful. Mr. Moffat says:
"Denver's population is growing steadily and naturally. Some time
ago I made the prediction that Denver would have three hundred
thousand inhabitants within five years. I see no reason for
changing my estimate. Rather, I might increase it, but I will be
conservative.
"The things that build up a city's wealth and population are 'round
about Denver in prodigal quantities. If Denver had only the state
of Colorado from which to draw, her future would be absolutely
assured. But consider the vast territory that is tributary to this
city. It stretches away to the east, west, north, and south, an
area quite one-third of the whole country, and quite the richest
in all natural resources. Denver is the geographical hub of this
territory."
The Moffat road will climb the ramparts formed by the main range of
the Rocky Mountains west of Denver and run directly westward, passing
through one of the most fertile sections of the state. The road ascends
to an altitude of eleven thousand six hundred feet, running through a
region rich in minerals, and especially in coal. The sublime scenery
along the route has already made it most popular for excursions, which
draw a vast tourist travel continually. President Moffat's road has
brought Routt County into such prominence that investors from the East
are being attracted to this region, a notable one among these being the
Eastern capitalist, C. B. Knox, who proposes to invest in copper, coal,
and iron in Routt County, which he regards as the richest section in
Colorado. Mr. Knox engaged the services of several experts to examine
and report to him upon this region. To a press correspondent who
inquired of Mr. Knox his views regarding Colorado, he said:
"I believe that there is wealth unmeasured in Routt County, and I
am out here to put some money in there. I am sure that this section
of the state is one of the richest territories in the country.
How I became interested is a long story,--too long to tell. But
it is sufficient to say that I have heard of Routt County for so
long, and from so many different people in whose judgment I have
the utmost faith, that I have come out here to invest some money.
I believe thoroughly that money put into Routt County will within
a few years bring handsome returns. If I did not believe that I
should not be here looking for a place in which to invest money.
"I have been to Steamboat Springs myself, and I am thoroughly of
the opinion that it is going to be one of the big towns of your
state. The fact is, I have never seen a better looking proposition
in my life than investing money in Routt County. Already I have
purchased some land, and I am going to get more. It is this iron
proposition that I am having investigated the most completely. The
iron to be found in Routt County looks awfully good to me, and
there is no question in my mind that Routt County is the place to
put capital.
"I cannot, of course, at this time say just what properties I
have in view,--that would not be good business; but I have under
investigation locations of mineral property near Steamboat and
north and south of there. I have decided on nothing definite;
that is, as to just what ores I will endeavor to exploit, for the
whole proposition looks so good to me that I am going to purchase
probably several different kinds of propositions. As I say,
though, I am most interested in the iron ore, as that seems to
present the greatest opportunities."
These views are significant not only as those of an experienced
financier who has unbounded faith in the future of Colorado, but
also as typical of the wide range of vision which is open to the
trained eye of the capitalist and the organizer of great enterprises.
The spellbinder may work his will in Colorado. It is the land of
infinite opportunity. It offers resources totally unsurpassed in the
entire world for unlimited development, and these resources await the
recognition of those whose vision is sufficiently true to discern the
psychological moment.
The first railroad reached Denver thirty-six years ago, and the city
has now sixteen railroad lines. It has a population of over two hundred
and twenty-five thousand. It is a geographical centre, which assures
its permanent importance as a distributing point. With two hundred and
twenty-five miles of street railway, with seventy-five miles of paved
streets, and a taxable property estimated at one hundred and two and a
third millions, Denver holds unquestionable commercial importance.
When, on the evening of July Fourth, 1906, the splendid electric flag,
with the national colors intensified a thousand fold in brilliancy by
the electrical lights, floated in the air from the dome of the Capitol
on its commanding eminence, and the new city Arch, a veritable _Arc
de Triomphe_, flashed its "Welcome" in electrical light to eager
throngs, the moment was one which might well have been fixed on the
sensitive plate of the camera of the future as typical of the entire
horoscope of Denver the Beautiful. On that day had been unveiled this
triumphal arch, placed at the Seventeenth Street entrance to the city
from the Union Depot, which, in its sixteen hundred electric lights,
flashes its legend upon the vision of every one entering Denver. This
arch, weighing seventy tons, eighty feet in length, and with a central
height of fifty-nine feet, is constructed from a combination of metals
so united as to give the best results in strength, durability, and
beauty, and thus to stand as a symbol of the composite life of the
nation. Over the entire surface has been placed a plating of bronze
finished with _verde antique_, to thus give it the aspect of ancient
bronze. It is built at a cost of twenty-two thousand dollars, and the
originator of the idea, Mr. William Maher of Denver, received the
entire subscriptions for it within one day. The design is that of a
Denver girl, Miss Marie Woodson, whose name must always be immortalized
in connection with this beautiful achievement which typifies the spirit
of the city. Constructed by one of the city manufactories, the design
and the execution are thus exclusively of Denver. In his address at the
unveiling of the arch, Chancellor Buchtel said:
"To all men who stand for honesty, for industry, for justice, for
reverence for law, for reverence for life, for education, for
self-reliance, for individual initiative, for independence, and
for sound character, the city of Denver speaks only one word, and
the state of Colorado speaks only one word, and that word we have
emblazoned on this glorious Arch,--the word 'Welcome.'"
Dean Hart, offering the Invocation, referred to the scriptural fact
that God had instructed his leaders to build monuments that they might
bear witness to some act or covenant, and it was right that the people
of Denver should raise this similar monument to their ideals of peace
and happiness and truth and justice. Mayor Speer, accepting the gift on
behalf of the city, emphasized the fact that the arch was to stand in
its place for ages as the expression of the attitude of the citizens
to the strangers who enter their gates. "It is intended to reflect our
hospitality," said Mayor Speer, "on a traveller's arrival and on his
departure. It is more than a thing of beauty; it is the type of the
new spirit in Denver, an awakening of civic pride that is sure to be
followed by much that is artistic and beautiful in our beloved city."
The spirit of Denver the Beautiful is finely interpreted in these words
by representative citizens. It is the spirit of generous and cordial
hospitality to all who are prepared to enter into and to contribute to
its high standards of life. It is the spirit of continually forging
ahead to accomplish things; of that irresistible energy, combined with
the eternal vigilance, which is not only the price of liberty, but
the price of almost everything worth having. With this zeal for the
great achievements,--carrying railroads through the mountains, opening
the inexhaustible treasures of mines, bringing the snow of mountain
peaks to irrigate the arid plains, establishing electric transit for
fifty miles about, and telephonic connection that brings an area of
hundreds of miles into instant speaking range with Denver,--with all
the zeal for these executive accomplishments, the spirit of Denver is
focussed on that social progress which is aided and fostered by all
modern mechanical facilities. Education, culture, and religion are
nowhere more held as the essentials of social progress than in Denver.
Something of the nature of the problems of civilization that confronted
the early pathfinders in Colorado may be inferred from the words of
Major Long,--whose name is now perpetuated by the mountain peak that
bears it,--when, in 1862, he stated, in an official report to the
government:
"This region, according to the best intelligence that can be had,
is thoroughly uninhabitable by a people depending on agriculture
for their subsistence, but, viewed as a frontier, may prove of
infinite importance to the United States, inasmuch as it is
calculated to serve as a barrier to prevent too great an extension
of our population westward and secure us against the machinations
or incursions of an enemy that might otherwise be disposed to annoy
us in that quarter."
Less than sixty-five years have passed since the region of which Denver
is the great centre was thus pronounced useless except as a frontier
to serve as protection from an enemy, and this judgment reminds one
of a keen insight into the evolutionary progress of life expressed by
Mrs. Julia Ward Howe when she remarked that "Every generation makes a
fool of the one that went before it." Colorado, pronounced "thoroughly
uninhabitable" in 1842, was organized as a territory in 1861 and in
1876 admitted as a state.
Darwin, who regarded "climate and the affections" as the only absolute
necessities of terrestrial existence, should have lived in Denver,
for of all the beautiful climates is that in which revels the capital
of Colorado. The air is all liquid gold from sunrise till sunset; the
mountains swim in a sea of azure blue; the ground is bare and dry in
winter, affording the best of walking, and there are few cities where
the general municipal management exceeds or is, perhaps, even as good
as that of Denver. The electric street-car service is on schedule time,
and the two hundred and twenty-five miles of its extent already, with
increase in the near future, is certainly an achievement for a young
city. Nature is a potent factor in this excellent service, as there is
no blocking by heavy snowstorms and blizzards, as in the Middle West
and the East.
The gazer in the magic mirror of the future requires little aid from
the imagination to see, in the growth and development of Denver, an
impressive illustration of the significance of the name of the state
of which it is the capital and the keynote. With what felicitous
destiny is the name invested in the old Castilian phrase, "_A Dios con
le Colorado_" (Go thou merrily with God),--a parting salutation and
benediction. Denver is, indeed, more than a state capital; it is the
epitome of the great onward march of civilization, and it must always
be considered in its wide relations to all the great Southwest as well
as in respect to its own municipal individuality.
No citizen of Denver has contributed more to the moral and intellectual
quality of the city as one of the conductors of great enterprises held
amenable to the higher ideals of citizenship, than has Mr. S. K. Hooper
of the Denver and Rio Grande, which is one of the marvels of the West
in scenic glory. From May till October pleasure tourists throng this
marvellous route through the Royal Gorge, through mysterious cañons
and across the Divide. For it must always be remembered that Denver
is a great city for tourists and season visitors, and the floating
population exceeds a hundred thousand annually. Beautiful as it is in
the winter, Denver is also essentially a summer city. There is not a
night in the summer when the wind, cool, refreshing, exhilarating, does
not blow from the great rampart of the snow-clad, encircling mountains.
There is not a morning when the wind does not come again, sending
the blood leaping through the veins, while the sun rides across the
heavens in a glory of brilliancy, and the great range rears its white
head to the cloudless blue sky.
The Denver Art League is a flourishing association that has under its
auspices classes in drawing, water colors, and sculpture. Already many
artists of Colorado are winning a name. A new Public Library is now in
process of erection, and the Chamber of Commerce also maintains a free
library of some twenty-five thousand volumes, the reading-room open
every day in the year. The city appropriates six thousand dollars a
year for the expenses of this institution.
The educational standards of Denver are high. Drawing, music, and
German are included among the studies of the grammar schools, and
physical culture is introduced in each grade. The high school building
cost a quarter of a million dollars, and stands second in the entire
country in point of architectural beauty and admirable arrangements.
Besides the splendid public-school system there is the University of
Denver, a few miles from the city; St. Mary's (Catholic) Academy, and
two large (Episcopal) schools for girls and boys, respectively,--"Wolfe
Hall" and St. John's College. The Woman's College and Westminster
University complete this large group of educational institutions
which centre in Denver. There is also the University of Colorado at
Boulder, which has established a record for success under the able
administration of Dr. James H. Baker, who, in January of 1892, was
called to the presidency after having served as principal of the
Denver High School for seventeen years. President Baker is well known
in educational circles in the United States as a scholarly man and a
capable college president. He has been offered the presidency of other
State universities from time to time, but has preferred to remain in
Boulder and to concentrate his efforts toward making this institution
one of the largest and best of the state universities. He has always
been active in the State Teachers' Association and the National Council
of Education.
For three years past the University of Colorado has held a summer
school with a large attendance of teachers and college students. In
this past season of 1906, Professor Paul Hanus of Harvard University
gave a valuable course of lectures on education, and Professor Hart,
also of Harvard, conducted a course in history.
Over a hundred and fifteen thousand pupils are enrolled in the public
schools of Denver, including all grades, from the primary to the high
school. The latter offers the full equivalent of a college education
freely to all.
The churches of Denver are numerous, and include many fine edifices
besides the large granite Methodist Church that cost over a quarter of
a million dollars. It is not, however, only the church structures that
are noble and impressive, but the preaching in them is of an unusually
high order of both intellectual power and spiritual aspiration. The
keen, critical life of Colorado's capital demands the best thought of
the day. The wonderful exhilaration of the atmosphere seems to exert
its influence on all life as a universal inspiration.
The new building for the Denver Public Library is under process of
construction, an appropriation of a quarter of a million dollars having
been made for the edifice, which will stand in a small triangular
park, insuring air and light, and giving to its approach a stately and
beautiful dignity.
The Colorado capital is tending to fulfil the poet's ideal of affording
"room in the streets for the soul."
The life is most delightful. Without any undue and commonplace
formalities, yet always within that fine etiquette which is the
unconscious result of good breeding, the meeting and mingling has a
cordial and sincere basis that lends significance to social life. The
numerous clubs, and the associations for art and music, for Italian,
French, and German readings, are all vital and prominent in the city,
and the political equality of woman imparts to conversation a tone of
wider thought and higher importance than is elsewhere invariably found.
Denver, which should be the capital city of the United States, is
pre-eminently the convention city. Even with all the beauty of
Washington and the vast sums that have been expended within the
past fifteen years in the incomparable structure for the Library of
Congress, and in other fine public buildings, and the splendor of
the private residence region,--even with all this, and the fact that
the Capitol itself is one of the notable architectural creations of
the world, the nation is great enough and rich enough to found a
new capital which should far surpass the present one, however fine
that present one may be. However great are the treasures of art and
architecture in Washington, the change could be, even now, made with
the greatest advantage for the future. Within a quarter of a century
all that invests Washington with such charm in architectural beauty and
in art could be more than duplicated in Denver. The nation has wealth
enough, and the most modern ideas and inspirations in these lines
surpass those of any previous age or decade. The present is "the heir
of all the ages."
No one need marvel that Denver ranks as the western metropolis of the
Union, with its delightful climate, its infinite interests, its centre
as a point for charming excursions, and its sixteen railroad lines.
In this atmosphere of opportunity and privilege there is, indeed,
"room for the soul" and all that the poet's phrase suggests. There
is room for all noble and generous development; for the expansion of
the spirit to express itself in all loveliness of life, all splendid
energy of achievement; and in all that makes for the supreme aim of a
nation,--that of a Christian civilization,--no city can offer greater
scope than does Denver the Beautiful.