by want of Constitutional power to raise money for the schools. By the
Constitution, State taxes are limited to one per cent.; county taxes to
one-half of one per cent., with an addition of one-half of one per cent,
to pay debts existing when the Constitution was adopted in 1874;
city taxes the same as county; in addition, for the support of common
schools, the Assembly may lay a tax not to exceed two mills on the
dollar on the taxable property of the State, and an annual per capita
tax of one dollar on every male inhabitant over the age of twenty-one
years; and it may also authorize each school district to raise for
itself, by vote of its electors, a tax for school purposes not to exceed
five mills on the dollar. The towns generally vote this additional tax,
but in most of the country districts schools are not maintained for
more than three months in the year. The population of the State is about
1,000,000, in an area of 53,045 square miles. The scholastic population
enrolled has increased steadily for several years, and in 1886 was
164,757, of which 122,296 were white and 42,461 were colored. The total
population of school age (including the enrolled) was 358,006, of which
266,188 were white and 91,818 colored. The school fund available for
that year was $1,327,710. The increased revenue and enrolment are
encouraging, but it is admitted that the schools of the State (sparsely
settled as it is) cannot be what they should be without more money to
build decent school-houses, employ competent teachers, and have longer
sessions.
Little Rock has fourteen school-houses, only one or two of which are
commendable-The High-school, with 50 pupils and 2 teachers, is held in
a district building. The colored people have their fair proportion of
schools, with teachers of their own race. Little Rock is abundantly able
to tax itself for better schools, as it is for better pavements. In all
the schools most attention seems to be paid to mathematics, and it is
noticeable how proficient colored children under twelve are in figures.
The most important school in the State, which I did not see, is the
Industrial University at Fayetteville, which received the Congressional
land grant and is a State beneficiary; its property, including
endowments and the University farm, is reckoned at $300,000. The general
intention is to give a practical industrial education. The collegiate
department, a course of three years, has 77 pupils; in the preparatory
department are about 200; but the catalogue, including special students
in art and music, the medical department at Little Rock of 60, and the
Normal School at Pine Bluff of 215, foots up about 600 students. The
University is situated in a part of the State most attractive in its
scenery and most healthful, and offers a chance for every sort of mental
and manual training.
The most widely famous place in the State is the Hot Springs. I should
like to have seen it when it was in a state of nature; I should like to
see it when it gets the civilization of a European bath-place. It
has been a popular and even crowded resort for several years, and the
medical treatment which can be given there in connection with the use
of the waters is so nearly a specific for certain serious diseases, and
going there is so much a necessity for many invalids, that access to
it ought by this time to be easy. But it is not. It is fifty-five miles
south-west of Little Rock, but to reach it the traveller must leave
the Iron Mountain road at Malvern for a ride over a branch line of some
twenty miles. Unfortunately this is a narrow-gauge road, and however
ill a person may be, a change of cars must be made at Malvern. This is
a serious annoyance, and it is a wonder that the main railways and the
hotel and bath keepers have not united to rid themselves of the monopoly
of the narrow-gauge road.
The valley of the Springs is over seven hundred feet above the sea;
the country is rough and broken; the hills, clad with small pines and
hard-wood, which rise on either side of the valley to the height’ of two
or three hundred feet, make an agreeable impression of greenness;
and the place is capable, by reason of its irregularity, of becoming
beautiful as well as picturesque. It is still in the cheap cottage and
raw brick stage. The situation suggests Carlsbad, which is also jammed
into a narrow valley. The Hot Springs Mountain—that is, the mountain
from the side of which all the hot springs (about seventy) flow—is a
Government reservation. Nothing is permitted to be built on it except
the Government hospital for soldiers and sailors, the public bath-houses
along the foot, and one hotel, which holds over on the reserved land.
The Government has enclosed and piped the springs, built a couple of
cement reservoirs, and lets the bath privileges to private parties at
thirty dollars a tub, the number of tubs being limited. The rent money
the Government is supposed to devote to the improvement of the mountain.
This has now a private lookout tower on the summit, from which a most
extensive view is had over the well-wooded State, and it can be made
a lovely park. There is a good deal of criticism about favoritism in
letting the bath privileges, and the words “ring” and “syndicate”
are constantly heard. Before improvements were made, the hot water
discharged into a creek at the base of the hill. This creek is now
arched over and become a street, with the bath-houses on one side and
shops and shanties on the other. Difficulty about obtaining a good title
to land has until recently stood in the way of permanent improvements.
All claims have now been adjudicated upon, the Government is prepared to
give a perfect title to all its own land, except the mountain, forever
reserved, and purchasers can be sure of peaceful occupation.
Opposite the Hot Springs Mountain rises the long sharp ridge of West
Mountain, from which the Government does not permit the foliage to be
stripped. The city runs around and back of this mountain, follows the
winding valley to the north, climbs up all the irregular ridges in the
neighborhood, and spreads itself over the valley on the south, near the
Ouachita River. It is estimated that there are 10,000 residents in this
rapidly growing town. Houses stick on the sides of the hills, perch on
terraces, nestle in the ravines. Nothing is regular, nothing is as
might have been expected, but it is all interesting, and promising
of something pleasing and picturesque in the future. All the springs,
except one, on Hot Springs Mountain are hot, with a temperature ranging
from 93° to 157° Fahrenheit; there are plenty of springs in and among
the other hills, but they are all cold. It is estimated that the present
quantity of hot water, much of which runs to waste, would supply about
19,000 persons daily with 25 gallons each. The water is perfectly clear,
has no odor, and is very agreeable for bathing. That remarkable cures
are performed here the evidence does not permit one to doubt, nor can
one question the wonderfully rejuvenating effect upon the system of a
course of its waters.
It is necessary to suggest, however, that the value of the springs
to invalids and to all visitors would be greatly enhanced by such
regulations as those that govern Carlsbad and Marienbad in Bohemia. The
success of those great “cures” depends largely upon the regimen enforced
there, the impossibility of indulging in an improper diet, and the
prevailing regularity of habits as to diet, sleep, and exercise. There
is need at Hot Springs for more hotel accommodation of the sort that
will make comfortable invalids accustomed to luxury at home, and at
least one new and very large hotel is promised soon to supply this
demand; but what Hot Springs needs is the comforts of life, and not
means of indulgence at table or otherwise. Perhaps it is impossible
for the American public, even the sick part of it, to submit itself to
discipline, but we never will have the full benefit of our many curative
springs until it consents to do so. Patients, no doubt, try to follow
the varying regimen imposed by different doctors, but it is difficult
to do so amid all the temptations of a go-as-you-please bath-place.
A general regimen of diet applicable to all visitors is the only safe
rule. Under such enlightened rules as prevail at Marienbad, and with the
opportunity for mild entertainment in pretty shops, agreeable walks
and drives, with music and the hundred devices to make the time pass
pleasantly, Hot Springs would become one of the most important sanitary
resorts in the world. It is now in a very crude state; but it has the
water, the climate, the hills and woods; good saddle-horses are to be
had, and it is an interesting country to ride over; those who frequent
the place are attached to it; and time and taste and money will, no
doubt, transform it into a place of beauty.
Arkansas surprised the world by the exhibition it made of itself at
New Orleans, not only for its natural resources, but for the range and
variety of its productions. That it is second to no other State in
its adaptability to cotton-raising was known; that it had magnificent
forests and large coal-fields and valuable minerals in its mountains was
known; but that it raised fruit superior to any other in the South-west,
and quite equal to any in the North, was a revelation. The mountainous
part of the State, where some of the hills rise to the altitude of 2500
feet, gives as good apples, pears, and peaches as are raised in any
portion of the Union; indeed, this fruit has taken the first prize in
exhibitions from Massachusetts to Texas. It is as remarkable for flavor
and firmness as it is for size and beauty. This region is also a good
vineyard country. The State boasts more miles of navigable waters than
any other, it has variety of soil and of surface to fit it for every
crop in the temperate latitudes, and it has a very good climate.
The range of northern mountains protects it from “northers,” and its
elevated portions have cold enough for a tonie. Of course the low
and swampy lands are subject to malaria. The State has just begun to
appreciate itself, and has organized efforts to promote immigration.
It has employed a competent State geologist, who is doing excellent
service. The United States has still a large quantity of valuable land
in the State open to settlement under the homestead and preemption laws.
The State itself has over 2,000,000 acres of land, forfeited and granted
to it in various ways; of this, the land forfeited for taxes will be
given to actual settlers in tracts of 160 acres to each person, and the
rest can be purchased at a low price. I cannot go into all the details,
but the reader may be assured that the immigration committee make an
exceedingly good showing for settlers who wish to engage in farming,
fruit-raising, mining, or lumbering. The Constitution of the State
is very democratic, the statute laws are stringent in morality, the
limitations upon town and city indebtedness are severe, the rate of
taxation is very low, and the State debt is small. The State, in short,
is in a good condition for a vigorous development of its resources.
There is a popular notion that Arkansas is a “bowie-knife” State, a
lawless and an ignorant State. I shared this before I went there. I
cannot disprove the ignorance of the country districts. As I said, more
money is needed to make the public-school system effective. But in
its general aspect the State is as orderly and moral as any. The laws
against carrying concealed weapons are strict, and are enforced.. It is
a fairly temperate State. Under the high license and local option laws,
prohibition prevails in two-thirds of the State, and the popular vote
is strictly enforced. In forty-eight of the seventy-five counties no
license is granted, in other counties only a single town votes license,
and in many of the remaining counties many towns refuse it. In five
counties only is liquor perfectly free. A special law prohibits
liquor-selling within five miles of a college; within three miles of a
church or school, a majority of the adult inhabitants can prohibit it.
With regard to liquor-selling, woman suffrage practically exists. The
law says that on petition of a majority of the adult population in any
district the county judge must refuse license. The women, therefore,
without going into politics, sign the petitions and create prohibition.
The street-cars and railways make no discrimination as to color of
passengers. Everywhere I went I noticed that the intercourse between the
two races was friendly. There is much good land on the railway between
Little Rock and Arkansas City, heavily timbered, especially with the
clean-boled, stately gum-trees. At Pine Bluff, which has a population
of 5000, there is a good colored Normal School, and the town has many
prosperous negroes, who support a racetrack of their own, and keep up a
county fair. I was told that the most enterprising man in the place, the
largest street-railway owner, is black as a coal. Farther down the road
the country is not so good, the houses are mostly poor shanties, and
the population, largely colored, appears to be of a shiftless
character. Arkansas City itself, low-lying on the Mississippi, has a bad
reputation.
Little Rock, already a railway centre of importance, is prosperous and
rapidly improving. It has the settled, temperate, orderly society of
an Eastern town, but democratic in its habits, and with a cordial
hospitality which is more provincial than fashionable. I heard there a
good chamber concert of stringed instruments, one of a series which had
been kept up by subscription all winter, and would continue the coming
winter. The performers were young Bohemians. The gentleman at whose
pleasant, old-fashioned house I was entertained, a leading lawyer and
jurist in the South-west, was a good linguist, had travelled in most
parts of the civilized globe, had on his table the current literature of
France, England, Germany, and America, a daily Paris newspaper, one
New York journal (to give its name might impugn his good taste in
the judgment of every other New York journal), and a very large and
well-selected library, two-thirds of which was French, and nearly half
of the remainder German. This was one of the many things I found in
Arkansas which I did not expect to find.
XIV.—ST. LOUIS AND KANSAS CITY.
St. Louis is eighty years old. It was incorporated as a town in 1808,
thirteen years before the admission of Missouri into the Union as a
State. In 1764 a company of thirty Frenchmen made a settlement on its
site and gave it its distinguished name. For nearly half a century,
under French and Spanish jurisdiction alternately, it was little more
than a trading post, and at the beginning of this century it contained
only about a thousand inhabitants. This period, however, gave it a
romantic historic background, and as late as 1853, when its population
was a hundred thousand, it preserved French characteristics and a French
appearance—small brick houses and narrow streets crowded down by the
river. To the stranger it was the Planters’ Hotel and a shoal of big
steamboats moored along an extensive levee roaring with river traffic.
Crowded, ill-paved, dirty streets, a few country houses on elevated
sites, a population forced into a certain activity by trade, but
hindered in municipal improvement by French conservatism, and touched
with the rust of slavery—that was the St. Louis of thirty-five years
ago.
Now everything is changed as by some magic touch. The growth of the
city has always been solid, unspeculative, conservative in its business
methods, with some persistence of the old French influence, only
gradually parting from its ancient traditions, preserving always
something of the aristocratic flavor of “old families,” accounted “slow”
in the impatience of youth. But it has burst its old bounds, and grown
with a rapidity that would be marvellous in any other country. The levee
is comparatively deserted, although the trade on the lower river is
actually very large. The traveller who enters the city from the east
passes over the St. Louis Bridge, a magnificent structure and one of the
engineering wonders of the modern world, plunges into a tunnel under the
business portion of the old city, and emerges into a valley covered with
a net-work of railway-tracks, and occupied by apparently interminable
lines of passenger coaches and freight cars, out of the confusion of
which he makes his way with difficulty to a carriage, impressed at once
by the enormous railway traffic of the city. This is the site of
the proposed Union Depot, which waits upon the halting action of the
Missouri Pacific system. The eastern outlet for all this growing traffic
is over the two tracks of the bridge; these are entirely inadequate, and
during a portion of the year there is a serious blockade of freight.
A second bridge over the Mississippi is already a necessity to the
commerce of the city, and is certain to be built within a few years.
St. Louis, since the war, has spread westward over the gentle ridges
which parallel the river, and become a city vast in territory and most
attractive in appearance. While the business portion has expanded into
noble avenues with stately business and public edifices, the residence
parts have a beauty, in handsome streets and varied architecture, that
is a continual surprise to one who has not seen the city for twenty
years. I had set down the length of the city along the river-front
as thirteen miles, with a depth of about six miles; but the official
statistics are: length of river-front, 19.15 miles; length of western
limits, 21.27; extent north and south in an air line, 17; and length
east and west on an air line, 6.62. This gives an area of 61.37 square
miles, or 39,276 acres. This includes the public parks (containing 2095
acres), and is sufficient room for the population of 450,000, which
the city doubtless has in 1888. By the United States census of 1870 the
population was reported much larger than it was, the figures having no
doubt been manipulated for political purposes. Estimating the natural
increase from this false report, the city was led to claim a population
far beyond the actual number, and unjustly suffered a little ridicule
for a mistake for which it was not responsible. The United States census
of 1880 gave it 350,522. During the eight years from 1880 there were
erected 18,574 new dwelling-houses, at a cost of over fifty millions of
dollars.
The great territorial extension of the city in 1876 was for a time a
disadvantage, for it threw upon the city the care of enormous street
extensions, made a sporadic movement of population beyond Grand avenue,
which left hiatuses in improvement, and created a sort of furor of
fashion for getting away from what to me is still the most attractive
residence portion of the town, namely, the elevated ridges west of
Fourteenth Street, crossed by Lucas Place and adjoining avenues. In this
quarter, and east of Grand avenue, are fine high streets, with detached
houses and grounds, many of them both elegant and comfortable, and
this is the region of the Washington University, some of the finest
club-houses, and handsomest churches. The movements of eity populations,
however, are not to be accounted for. One of the finest parts of the
town, and one of the oldest of the better residence parts, that south of
the railways, containing broad, well-planted avenues, and very stately
old homes, and the exquisite Lafayette Park, is almost wholly occupied
now by Germans, who make up so large a proportion of the population.
One would have predicted at an early day that the sightly bluffs below
the eity would be the resort of fashion, and be occupied with fine
country houses. But the movement has been almost altogether westward and
away from the river. And this rolling, wooded region is most inviting,
elevated, open, cheerful. No other eity in the West has fairer suburbs
for expansion and adornment, and its noble avenues, dotted with
conspicuously fine residences, give promise of great beauty and
elegance. In its late architectural development, St. Louis, like
Chicago, is just in time to escape a very mediocre and merely imitative
period in American building. Beyond Grand avenue the stranger will be
shown Vandeventer Place, a semiprivate oblong park, surrounded by many
pretty and some notably fine residences. Two of them are by Richardson,
and the city has other specimens of his work. I cannot refrain from
again speaking of the effect that this original genius has had upon
American architecture, especially in the West, when money and enterprise
afforded him free scope. It is not too much to say that he created a new
era, and the influence of his ideas is seen everywhere in the work of
architects who have caught his spirit.
The city has addressed itself to the occupation and adornment of its
great territory and the improvement of its most travelled thoroughfares
with admirable public spirit. The rolling nature of the ground has been
taken advantage of to give it a nearly perfect system of drainage and
sewerage. The old pavements of soft limestone, which were dust in dry
weather and liquid mud in wet weather, are being replaced by granite in
the business parts and asphalt and wood blocks (laid on a concrete base)
in the residence portions. Up to the beginning of 1888 this new pavement
had cost nearly three and a half million dollars, and over thirty-three
miles of it were granite blocks. Street railways have also been pushed
all over the territory. The total of street lines is already over one
hundred and fifty-four miles, and over thirty miles of these give rapid
transit by cable. These facilities make the whole of the wide territory
available for business and residence, and give the poorest inhabitants
the means of reaching the parks.
The park system is on the most liberal scale, both public and private;
the parks are already famous for extent and beauty, but when the
projected connecting boulevards are made they will attain world-wide
notoriety. The most extensive of the private parks is that of the
combined Agricultural Fair Grounds and Zoological Gardens. Here is held
annually the St. Louis Fair, which is said to be the largest in the
United States. The enclosure is finely laid out and planted, and
contains an extensive park, exhibition buildings, cottages, a
race-track, an amphitheatre, which suggests in size and construction
some of the largest Spanish bull-rings, and picturesque houses for
wild animals. The zoological exhibition is a very good one. There are
eighteen public parks. One of the smaller (thirty acres) of these, and
one of the oldest, is Lafayette Park, on the south side. Its beauty
surprised me more than almost anything I saw in the city. It is a gem;
just that artificial control of nature which most pleases—forest-trees,
a pretty lake, fountains, flowers, walks planned to give everywhere
exquisite vistas. It contains a statue of Thomas II. Benton, which may
be a likeness, but utterly fails to give the character of the man. The
largest is Forest Park, on the west side, a tract of 1372 acres, mostly
forest, improved by excellent drives, and left as much as possible in
a natural condition. It has ten miles of good driving-roads. This park
cost the city about $850,000, and nearly as much more has been expended
on it since its purchase. The surface has great variety of slopes,
glens, elevations, lakes, and meadows. During the summer music is
furnished in a handsome pagoda, and the place is much resorted to.
Fronting the boulevard are statues of Governor Edward Bates and Frank P.
Blair, the latter very characteristic.