America may be defined as the country where there are no railway
porters. You begin a journey without ceremony; you end it without a
welcome. No zealot, eager to find you a corner seat and to dispose of
your luggage, meets you when you depart. You must carry your own bag
when you stumble unattended from the train. This enforced dependence
upon yourself is doubtless a result of democracy. The spirit of freedom,
which permits a stealthy nigger to brush your hat, does not allow
another to handle your luggage. To the enchained and servile mind of an
Englishman these distinctions axe difficult to understand. A training in
transatlantic liberty is necessary for their appreciation. However, no
great evil is inflicted on the traveller. The ritual of checking your
baggage may easily be learned, and the absence of porters has, by
a natural process, evolved the "grip." The "grip," in fact, is the
universal mark of America. It is as intimate a part of the citizen's
equipment as a hat or coat, and it is not without its advantages. It
is light to carry, it fills but a small space, and it ensures that the
traveller shall not be separated from all his luggage. A far greater
hardship than the carriage of a "grip" is the enforced publicity of an
American train. The Englishman loves to travel in seclusion. The end of
his ambition is a locked compartment to himself. Mr Pullman has ordained
that his clients shall endure the dust and heat of a long journey in
public; and when the voyager, wearied out by the rattle of the train,
seeks his uncomfortable couch, he is forced to seek it under the general
gaze.
These differences of custom are interesting, because they correspond
to differences of temperament. There is a far deeper difference in the
character of the country through which you travel. A journey in Europe
is like a page of history. You pass from one century to another. You
see a busy world through the window. As you sit in your corner a living
panorama is unfolded before your eyes. The country changes with the sky.
Town and mountain and cornfield follow one another in quick succession.
At every turn you see that wonderful symbol of romance, the white road
that winds over the hill, flecked perhaps by a solitary traveller. But
it is always the work of man, not the beauty of nature, that engrosses
you. You would, if you could, alight at every point to witness the last
act of comedy, which is just beginning. Men and women, to whom you are
an episode or an obstruction, flash by. Here is a group of boys bathing.
There peasants gaze at the train as something inhuman. At the level
crossing a horse chafes in his shafts. In an instant you are whizzed out
of sight, and he remains. Then, as night falls, the country-side leaves
its work; the eyes of the cottages gleam and flicker through the
trees. Round the corner you catch sight of a village festival. The
merry-go-rounds glint and clank under the shadow of a church. The
mountains approach and recede; streams grow into mighty rivers. The grey
sky is dark blue and inlaid with stars. And you sit still, tired and
travel-stained, having shared in a day the life of hundreds.
Such is a journey in Europe. How different the experience in America!
On the road to Chicago you pass through a wilderness. The towns are
infrequent; there are neither roads nor hedges; and the rapidly changing
drama of life escapes you. The many miles of scrub and underwood are
diversified chiefly by crude advertisements. Here you are asked to
purchase Duke's Mixture; there Castoria Toilet Powder is thrust
upon your unwilling notice. In the few cities which you approach the
frame-houses and plank-walks preserve the memory of the backwoods. In
vain you look for the village church, which in Europe is never far away.
In vain you look for the incidents which in our land lighten the tedium
of a day's journey. All is barren and bleak monotony. The thin line of
railway seems a hundred miles from the life of man. At one station I
caught sight of an "Exposition Car," which bore the legend, "Cuba on
Wheels," and I was surprised as at a miracle. Outside Niles, a little
country town, a battered leather-covered shay was waiting to take
wayfarers to the Michigan Inn; and the impression made by so simple a
spectacle is the best proof of the railroad's isolation. There is but
one interlude in the desolate expanse--Niagara.
Before he reaches the station called Niagara Falls, the tourist has a
foretaste of what is in store for him. He is assailed in the train by
touts, who would inveigle him into a hotel or let him a carriage, and
to touts he is an unwilling prey so long as he remains within sight or
hearing of the rapids. The trim little town which has grown up about the
falls, and may be said to hang upon the water, has a holiday aspect. The
sightseers, the little carriages, the summer-hotels, all wear the same
garb of gaiety and leisure. There is a look of contented curiosity on
the faces of all, who are not busy defacing the landscape with mills and
power-stations, as of those about to contemplate a supreme wonder. And
yet the sight of it brings the same sense of disappointment which the
colossal masterpieces of nature always inspire. Not to be amazed at
it would be absurd. To pretend to appreciate it is absurd also. "The
Thunder of the Waters" can neither be painted upon canvas nor described
in words. It is composed on a scale too large for human understanding. A
giant might find some amusement in its friendly contemplation. A man can
but stand aghast at its sound and size, as at some monstrous accident.
He may compare the Fall on the American side with the Horse-shoe on the
Canadian. He has no other standard of comparison, since Niagara not only
transcends all other phenomena of its kind, but also our human vision
and imagination. When you see the far-tossed spray lit up with a
flash of iridescence, you catch at something which makes a definite
impression; and you feel the same relief that a man may feel when he
finds a friend in a mob of strangers. To heap up epithets upon this
mysterious force is the idlest sport. Are you nearer to it when you
have called it x "deliberate, vast, and fascinating"? You might as well
measure its breadth and height, or estimate the number of gallons which
descend daily from the broad swirling river above. A distinguished
playwright once complained of Sophocles that he lacked human interest,
and the charge may be brought with less injustice against Niagara. It
is only through daring and danger that you can connect it with the human
race; and you find yourself wondering where it was that Captain Webb was
hurled to his death, or by what route the gallant little "Maid of the
Mist" shot the rapids to escape the curiosity of the excise officer.
Nothing is more curious in the history of taste than the changed view
which is taken to-day of natural scenery. Time was when the hand
and mind of man were deemed necessary for a beautiful effect, A wild
immensity of mountain or water was thought a mere form of ugliness; a
garden was a waste if it were not trimmed to formality; and a savage
moorland was fit only for the sheep to crop. The admiration of Father
Hennepin, the companion of La Salle, and the first white man who ever
gazed upon Niagara, was tempered by affright. "This wonderful Downfal,"
said he in 1678, "is compounded of Cross-streams of Water, and two
Falls, with an Isle sloping along the middle of it. The Waters which
fall from this horrible Precipice do foam and boyl after the most
hideous manner imaginable, making an Outrageous Noise, more terrible
than that of Thunder; for when the wind blows out of the South, their
dismal roaring may be heard more than Fifteen Leagues off." These
are the epithets of the seventeenth century,--"horrible," "hideous,"
"outrageous," "dismal." Now take the modern view, eloquently expressed
in 1879 by the United States Commissioners, whose noble object was to
preserve the Falls untouched for ever. "The value of Niagara to the
world," they wrote, "and that which has obtained for it the homage of
so many men whom the world reveres, lies in its power of appeal to the
higher emotional and imaginative faculties, and this power is drawn
from qualities and conditions too subtle to be known through verbal
description. To a proper apprehension of these, something more than
passing observation is necessary; to an enjoyment of them, something
more than an instantaneous act of will." It is the old dispute between
beauty and wonder, between classic and romantic. Who is in the right
of it, the old priest or the modern commissioners? Each man will answer
according to his temperament. For my part, I am on the side of Father
Hennepin.
Niagara is not an inappropriate introduction to Chicago. For Chicago
also is beyond the scale of human comprehension and endeavour. In mere
size both are monstrous; it is in size alone that they are comparable.
Long before he reaches "the grey city," as its inhabitants fondly call
it, the traveller is prepared for the worst. At Pullman a thick pall
already hangs over everything. The nearer the train approaches Chicago
the drearier becomes the aspect. You are hauled through mile after mile
of rubbish and scrap-heap. You receive an impression of sharp-edged
flints and broken bottles. When you pass the "City Limits" you believe
yourself at your journey's end. You have arrived only at the boundary of
Chicago's ambition, and Chicago is forty minutes' distant. The station,
which bears the name "102nd St.," is still in the prairies.
A little more patience and you catch a first glimpse of the lake--vast,
smooth, and grey in the morning light. A jolt, and you are descending,
grip in hand, upon the platform.
The first impression of Chicago, and the last, is of an unfinished
monstrosity. It might be a vast railway station, built for men and women
twenty feet high. The sky-scrapers, in which it cherishes an inordinate
pride, shut out the few rays of sunlight which penetrate its dusky
atmosphere. They have not the excuse of narrow space which their rivals
in New York may plead. They are built in mere wantonness, for within
the City Limits, whose distance from the centre is the best proof of
Chicago's hopefulness, are many miles of waste ground, covered only
with broken fences and battered shanties. And, as they raise their heads
through the murky fog, these sky-scrapers wear a morose and sullen
look. If they are not mere lumps, their ornament is hideously heavy and
protrusive. They never combine, as they combine in New York, into an
impressive whole. They clamour blatantly of their size, and that is
all. And if the city be hideously aggressive, what word of excuse can be
found for the outskirts, for the Italian and Chinese quarters, for the
crude, new districts which fasten like limpets upon the formless mass
of Chicago? These, to an enduring ugliness add a spice of cruelty and
debauch, which are separate and of themselves.
In its suggestion of horror Chicago is democratic. The rich and the poor
alike suffer from the prevailing lack of taste. The proud "residences"
on the Lake Shore are no pleasanter to gaze upon than the sulky
sky-scrapers. Some of them are prison-houses; others make a sad attempt
at gaiety; all are amazingly unlike the dwelling-houses of men and
women. Yet their owners are very wealthy. To them nothing is denied that
money can buy, and it is thus that they prefer to express themselves
and their ambitions. What, then, is tolerable in Chicago? Lincoln Park,
which the smoke and fog of the city have not obscured, and the grandiose
lake, whose fresh splendour no villainy of man can ever deface. And at
one moment of the day, when a dark cloud hung over the lake, and the sun
set in a red glory behind the sky-scrapers, each black, and blacker
for its encircling smoke, Chicago rose superior to herself and her
surroundings.
After ugliness, the worst foe of Chicago is dirt. A thick, black, sooty
dust lies upon everything. It is at the peril of hands begrimed that
you attempt to open a window. In the room that was allotted to me in
a gigantic hotel I found a pair of ancient side-spring boots, once
the property, no doubt, of a prominent citizen, and their apparition
intensified the impression of uncleanness. The streets are as untidy as
the houses; garbage is dumped in the unfinished roadways; and in or out
of your hotel you will seek comfort in vain. The citizens of Chicago
themselves are far too busy to think whether their city is spruce or
untidy. Money is their quest, and it matters not in what circumstances
they pursue it. The avid type is universal and insistent. The energy of
New York is said to be mere leisure compared to the hustling of Chicago.
Wherever you go you are conscious of the universal search after
gold. The vestibule of the hotel is packed with people chattering,
calculating, and telephoning. The clatter of the machine which registers
the latest quotations never ceases. In the street every one is hurrying
that he may not miss a lucrative bargain, until the industry and
ambition of Chicago culminate in the Board of Trade.
The dial of the Board of Trade, or the Pit as it is called, is the
magnet which attracts all the eyes of Chicago, for on its face is marked
the shifting, changing price of wheat. And there on the floor, below the
Strangers' Gallery, the gamblers of the West play for the fortunes and
lives of men. They stand between the farmers, whose waving cornfields
they have never seen, and the peasants of Europe, whose taste for bread
they do not share. It is more keenly exciting to bet upon the future
crop of wheat than upon the speed of a horse; and far larger sums may
be hazarded in the Pit than on a racecourse. And so the livelong day
the Bulls and Bears confront one another, gesticulating fiercely, and
shouting at the top of their raucous voices. If on the one hand they
ruin the farmer, or on the other starve the peasant, it matters not
to them. They have enjoyed the excitement, and made perchance a vast
fortune at another's expense. They are, indeed, the true parasites of
commerce; and in spite of their intense voices and rapid gestures, there
is an air of unreality about all their transactions. As I watched the
fury of the combatants, I found myself wondering why samples of corn
were thrown upon the floor. Perhaps they serve to feed the pigeons.
Materialism, then, is the frank end and aim of Chicago. Its citizens
desire to get rich as quickly and easily as possible. The means are
indifferent to them. It is the pace alone which is important. All they
want is "a business proposition" and "found money." And when they are
rich, they have no other desire than to grow richer. Their money is
useless to them, except to breed more money. The inevitable result is
a savagery of thought and habit. If we may believe the newspapers of
Chicago, peaceful men of business are "held up" at noon in crowded
streets. The revolver is still a potent instrument in this city of the
backwoods. But savagery is never without its reaction. There has
seldom been a community of barbarians which did not find relief in an
extravagant sentimentality, and Chicago, in its hours of ease, is an
enthusiastic patron of the higher life. As I have said, in culture it is
fast outstripping Boston itself. It boasts more societies whose object
is "the promotion of serious thought upon art, science, and literature"
than any other city in the world. The clubs which it has established
for the proper study of Ibsen and Browning are without number, It is as
eager for the enlightenment of women as for sending up or down the price
of corn. The craze, which is the mark of a crude society, will pass like
many others, and, though it may appear sincere while it lasts, it is not
characteristic. The one triumph of Chicago is its slang. It has invented
a lingo more various and fuller of fancy than any known to man, and if
it will forget Ibsen and exercise its invention after its own
fashion, why should it not invent a new literature? Mr George Ade, the
Shakespeare of Chicago, has already shown us what can be done with the
new speech in his masterly 'Fables in Slang,' to read which is almost as
good as a journey to the West; and there is no reason why he should not
found a school.
Yet with all its faults and absurdities upon its face, Chicago is the
happiest city in America. It is protected by the triple brass of pride
against all the assaults of its enemies. Never in history was so sublime
a vanity revealed; and it is hard for a stranger to understand upon what
it is based. Chicago is Chicago--that is what its citizens say, with a
flattered smile, which makes argument useless. Its dirt and dust do not
disconcert its self-esteem. The oversized ugliness of its buildings are
no disappointment to its candid soul, and if its peculiar virtue escape
your observation, so much the worse for you. "The marvellous city of the
West"--that is its own name, and it lives up to it without an effort.
Its history, as composed by its own citizens, is one long paean of
praise. One chronicler, to whose unconscious humour I am infinitely
indebted, dedicates his work to "the children of Chicago, who, if the
Lord spares them until they shall have attained the allotted span of
life, will see this city the greatest metropolis on the globe." That
is a modest estimate, and it makes us feel the inadequacy of our poor
speech to hymn the glories of Chicago. And if you suggest a fault, its
panegyrists are always ready with a counterstroke. Having no taste for
slaughter, I did not visit Packing Town, but, without admitting all the
grave charges brought against Chicago's grandest industry, one might
have supposed that the sudden translation of herds of cattle into potted
meat was not unattended with some inconvenience. This suspicion, you
are told, is an insult to the city. What might disgust the traveller
elsewhere has no terrors in Chicago. "This Packing-Town odor," we are
told by a zealot, "has been unjustly criticised. To any one accustomed
to it there is only a pleasant suggestion of rich, ruddy blood and long
rows of tempting 'sides' hung up to cool." I prefer not to be tempted.
I can only bow before the ingenuity of this eulogy. And if, more
seriously, you reproach the cynicism of the Pit, which on this side
or that may compel ruin, you are met with a very easy rejoinder. "The
Chicago Board of Trade"--it is the same apologist who speaks--"is a
world-renowned commercial organisation. It exercises a wider and a
more potential influence over the welfare of mankind than any other
institution of its kind in existence." This assurance leaves you dumb.
You might as well argue with a brass band as with a citizen of Chicago;
and doubtless you would wave the flag yourself if you stayed long enough
in the wonderful West.
But the panegyrist of the Pit, already quoted, helps us to explain
Chicago's vanity. "The fortunes made and lost within the walls of the
great building," says he proudly, "astonish the world." If Chicago can
only astonish the world, that is enough. Its citizens fondly hope that
everything they do is on the largest scale. Size, speed, and prominence
are the three gods of their idolatry. They are not content until
they--the citizens--are all prominent, and their buildings are all the
largest that cumber the earth. It is a great comfort to those who
gamble away their substance in the Board of Trade to reflect that the
weathercock that surmounts its tower is the biggest ever seen by human
eye. There is not one of them that will not tell you, with a satisfied
smile, that the slowest of their fire-engines can go from one end of the
city to the other in five seconds. There is not one of them who, in the
dark recesses of his mind, is not sure that New York is a "back number."
They are proud of the senseless height of their houses, and of the
rapidity with which they mount towards the sky. They are proud of the
shapeless towns which spring up about them like mushrooms in a single
night. In brief, they are proud of all the things of which they should
feel shame; and even when their buildings have been measured and their
pace has been recognised, their vanity is still a puzzle. For, when
all the world has been satisfactorily amazed, what boast is left to the
citizens of Chicago? They cannot take delight in the soil, since the
most of them do not belong to it. The patriotism of the cosmopolitan
horde which is huddled together amid their lofty Cliffs must perforce
be an artificial sentiment. They cannot look with satisfaction upon
the dishevelled suburbs in which they live. They need not suppose the
slaughtering of pigs and beeves is the highest duty of man. But wherever
they dwell and whatever they do, they are convinced of their own
superiority. Their pride is not merely revealed in print; it is evident
in a general familiarity of tone and manner. If your cabman wishes to
know your destination, he prefaces his question with the immortal words,
"Say, boys," and he thinks that he has put himself on amiable terms with
you at once. Indeed, the newly-arrived stranger is instantly asked to
understand that he belongs to a far meaner city than that in which he
sojourns; and, even with the evidence of misapplied wealth before his
eyes, he cannot believe it.
And what amiable visions do you carry away from Chicago besides the
majesty of the lake, ever changing in colour and aspect, and the beauty
of Lincoln Park? A single memory lingers in my mind. At sunset I saw a
black regiment marching along Michigan Avenue,--marching like soldiers;
and by its side on the pavement a laughing, shouting mob of negresses
danced a triumphant cake-walk. They grinned and sang and chattered in
perfect happiness and pride. They showed a frank pleasure in the prowess
of their brothers and their friends. But, animated as the spectacle was,
there was a sinister element in this joyous clatter. To an English eye
it seemed a tragic farce--a veritable _danse macabre_.
Unhappy is the city which has no history; and what has Chicago to offer
of history or tradition? What has it to tell the traveller? Once she was
consumed, though she was not purified, by fire, and she still lives in
the recollection. A visitor to a European city goes forth to admire a
castle, a cathedral, a gallery of pictures. In Chicago he is asked to
wonder at the shapeless residences of "prominent" citizens. And when
the present civilisation fades and dies, what will be Chicago's ruins?
Neither temple nor tower will be brought to the ground. There will be
nothing to show the wandering New Zealander but a broken city, which was
a scrap-heap before it was built; and the wandering New Zealander may be
forgiven if he proclaim the uselessness of size and progress, if he ask
how it has profited a city to buy and sell all the corn in the world,
and in its destruction to leave not a wrack of comeliness behind.