“Shall not that Western Goth of whom we spoke,
So fiercely practical, so keen of eye,
Find out some day, that nothing pays but God?”
(_Cathedral._) LOWELL.
(Extract from the “Chicago Inter-Ocean.”)
GOOD CITIZENSHIP! HOW A BOSTON BEAUTY PROPOSES TO BRING IT ABOUT!
ANTIDOTE FOR ANARCHISM!
In the arrival in our city last week of the rich Miss Brewster of
Boston, society has naturally felt a warm interest. First, because she
is young and charming; secondly, because she is reputed fabulously
wealthy; and thirdly, because she adds to these attractions a decided
mind of her own, which has fortunately turned itself in the direction of
alleviating some of the woes of human-kind.
But the pertinacious reticence maintained by herself and the ladies and
gentlemen who are her traveling companions, and are understood to be _en
route_ for Alaska, has given our reporter more than one fruitless trip
to the Grand Pacific Hotel. It is currently rumored that more than one
EUROPEAN CORONET
has been laid at the feet of the bonny belle from Beacon Hill, but, like
the sensible little Puritan maiden that she is, she prefers to keep the
reins in her own hands a little longer, and her millions will not at
present pass to any of the bloated aristocracy of an effete despotism of
the Old World.
It was ascertained yesterday from the waiters that the great parlors of
the hotel had been engaged by Miss Brewster for a large reception to
some of our most eminent citizens, chiefly in the clerical walks of
life. So a reporter in a ministerial rig presented himself, was
admitted, and taking refuge in a camp-chair at the rear of perhaps two
hundred and fifty ladies and gentlemen, had a fair opportunity to report
proceedings.
He soon discovered that the reception was nothing more than a business
meeting convened for the purpose of listening to some address or
discussion, the guests being seated facing a slightly raised platform.
The assemblage seemed to be chiefly composed of gentlemen, and every
profession and sect was represented by some of its most eminent members.
At precisely eight o’clock Miss Brewster, conducted by Rev. Dr. T——,
entered at a side door. They proceeded to the platform and took seats in
two velvet armchairs which were placed in readiness.
Miss Brewster was simply dressed in white, with a corsage bouquet of
yellow roses and a yellow rose in her dark hair.
As Dr. T—— rose to speak, the chatter ceased, and he said:
“_Ladies and Gentlemen_:
“Each one of you present has received a note of invitation requesting
your presence here this evening for the consideration of a plan which
shall be of benefit to our city. This plan, as it will be unfolded to
you
BY ITS ORIGINATOR,
will, I think, command your heartiest sympathy and coöperation. I
consider it a peculiar privilege to present to you this evening one
whose noble father was my valued friend, and who in her earliest years
was well known to me; and now that she returns to what was for a few
months the home of her childhood, it is with great pleasure that at
her request I have summoned here to-night so many representatives of
the thought and the moral force of this great city to listen to what
she has to propose, and in return to give her the benefit of their
united wisdom.
“I have the honor to present to you Miss Mildred Brewster of Boston.”
Every eye was fixed in admiration on the slender, girlish form that had
something queenly in its bearing, and there was a rustle of expectancy
as Dr. T—— ceased and Miss Brewster rose to speak.
There was a slight tremor in her voice as with deepening color and
drooping eyes she uttered her first words.
“Good friends,” she said, “I have asked you here to-night for a specific
purpose.
“In the providence of God there has been placed in my hands within the
last few months the means to do much that for years I have felt ought to
be done, but have been powerless to do. And fearing lest my stewardship
be short, and I be called to give account and return with empty hands
and no fruit garnered, I have dared not delay, no, not for a day, except
to more seriously and wisely prepare for my task.”
Miss Brewster gained courage as she proceeded, and in a clear, unshaken
voice continued:
“In all lands on which the sun ever shone, probably there was never a
time when money wisely expended could set in play so many and such
powerful forces for good as it can do now and here. For here, in this
western land of unlimited possibilities, is the young giant born whose
savage strength may prove our nation’s weakness if we leave his infant
years to the guidance of his own wayward will.
“Here, then, is the sorest present need in our land to-day, for here in
our hands lies the power to mould the influences which shall shape the
destiny of millions yet unborn. One hundred dollars now may prevent the
evil which, a century hence, one hundred thousand dollars could not
undo.
“As I have driven about your magnificent boulevards and marked your
towers and palaces, I have been impressed even more than I expected to
be, and my expectations were great, with your wealth, and its solid,
satisfactory embodiment in enduring architecture and fine parks and
streets. But not only has your material advancement amazed me. I have
been most profoundly impressed with the seriousness of mind and the
depth of patriotic feeling that was shown in your notable celebration of
the centennial of the beginning of our constitutional government.
“Historic old Boston, that of all other cities should have appreciated
the significance of the occasion, gave hardly a thought to the day. New
York gave herself to ostentatious pageantry and a glorification of
Washington alone; but in this new city of the West, unlinked by historic
ties with the past, have I found in press and people a deeper sentiment
and
A MORE THOUGHTFUL READING
of the lessons of the century.
“I have been studying this wonderful city of yours that buys more of
Browning’s poems than any other city in the world, and is fast drawing
to itself not only the wealth and fashion of the land, but that culture
of which our older cities have fancied themselves the almost exclusive
possessors.
“I have been looking at your schools, your churches, your
philanthropies, and, above all, at your poor, and that class from which
your
ANARCHISTS AND CRIMINALS
are recruited.
“I have found, as I need not say, much to admire and much to deplore.
And it is to consider those tendencies which I deplore that I ask your
attention this evening.
“Of all the dangers that threaten us as a nation, I find but two
unrepresented in this city, namely, Mormonism, and the amalgamation of
the white and other races. But against intemperance, licentiousness,
political corruption, and all the evils incident to a vast foreign
population, this city, with its numbers increasing by gigantic strides,
presents a field for work scarcely exampled on the continent. Not that
Chicago is a sinner above all other cities. In some respects, notably
its comparative freedom from the close crowding in tenement houses which
exists in New York, it is fortunate.
“But, so far as I can learn, not another great city on the continent
contains so large a proportion of people of
FOREIGN PARENTAGE.
In driving through your beautiful avenues one can scarcely credit the
statement that only nine per cent. of your people are of strictly native
parentage; but in going through that section on the North side where
your Poles and Bohemians live—in seeing the Irish, Swedes, Germans, and
more recently the Italians, who are flocking to your city, one is made
to realize this in a measure. It is to this point that I chiefly wish to
call your attention.
“This city is growing prodigiously; it is destined to grow. More and
more, as means of communication and transportation are increased, as you
well know, are the people of this age flocking to the cities. One
hundred years ago one in thirty lived in a city; now one in four is the
number which the census gives us. Especially is it true that foreigners
prefer city life. In far greater numbers proportionately to the native
population do they congregate in the centre of wealth, influence, and
political power, and often for the purpose of obtaining that political
power which through the negligence and indifference of our better class
of men is readily yielded to their demands.
“Now that the municipal government in our great cities is largely in the
hands of the foreign-born, for which we have only ourselves to thank, we
are beginning to awaken to the fact, and the indignant cry ‘America for
Americans’ is heard. With this I cannot wholly sympathize. We have
opened our doors to the world, we have invited to our highest municipal
offices whoever could buy them, we have been eager to get rich, we have
had no time or interest in anything beyond satisfying our imperious
appetite for wealth and luxury and social position.
“We have put behind us simplicity and calmness, the plain living and
high thinking which engendered all that we count best in our history,
and now we cry with ever-increasing wail, ‘Let us eat our cake and have
it.’ ‘Let us spend our whole life in selfish indifference to the public
weal; let us turn over our most sacred trusts into the hands of
ignorance and incompetence, and then let us reap what we have not sowed
and garner where we have not planted.’
“No, not America for the Americans, if it be such Americans! Rather let
those who have been willing slaves
FEEL THE WHIP AND THE SHACKLES
until they learn that justice and peace and righteousness within our
borders are not to be, except as the fruit of their love, their labor,
and their eternal vigilance. [Applause.]
“No, not America for Americans, but America for American ideas and
institutions! And welcome be he, whether of our own land or any other,
who, seeing what God has destined this fair land to be as leader of the
nations, seeing it as its early Founders saw it, shall give heart and
brain and hand to purifying and redeeming it, lest indeed it be the land
of ‘Broken Promise.’
“I have nothing to say against foreigners as foreigners, but I look into
our criminal reports and find by a careful search that the proportion of
criminals to the foreign population is just about twice that to the
native. I learn that among our foreigners we find about two thirds of
our brewers, distillers, and liquor-sellers, and among these varied
nationalities, who have sustained the breaking up of old ties and
transplanting to utterly new conditions, a far greater tendency to
insanity than among the native stock. I see that the causes which tend
to immigration will in all probability continue, and the influx into our
great cities, especially your own favorably situated one, advance
indefinitely. Therefore, it has seemed to me that of all places in this
land Chicago was the best one in which to begin a concerted action for
the Americanization of its foreigners and for promoting the
GOOD CITIZENSHIP
of all its citizens whether native or foreign. It seems to me we must do
this in self-preservation.
“In Boston, as you know, where we have had to learn some sad lessons
from our careless indifference in regard to municipal matters, we have
begun to arouse ourselves and have established a Society for Promoting
Good Citizenship whose object is to further in all thinking people,
mothers, voters, teachers, and students, a higher ideal of citizenship
and an active, unpartisan effort for its realization.
“This work is done in various ways: by free lectures given by prominent
citizens, by suggestions for study in schools and colleges, and by the
encouragement of a deeper interest in the community in the study of
history, civil government, and political economy. The society is yet in
its infancy, and has thus far produced little perceptible effect; but,
in addition to the well-known Old South work in history, it shows a step
in the right direction.
“Long before it was started it had been
MY DREAM
to see something of a similar tendency established in every large city
in our land, and it is because I wish to suggest to you certain measures
which have in view the attainment of good citizenship in your midst that
I am here to-night.
“A Chicago gentleman recently said to me, ‘The fact is, we get careless
here. We are so busy about our own private affairs that we let our
voting go by for a year or two, till finally about once in seven years
things get so bad we can’t stand it, and then we all get mad and roll up
our sleeves and go in and have a general clearing out. After that,
things work well for a year or two, and then are as bad as ever.’
“I understand that at present you have a fairly good city government,
that your leading officials for the most part are not corrupt. But even
if this were sure of lasting, of what a thing to boast!
“In the minds of too many I find the idea seems to prevail that so long
as taxation is not raised, and there is a police force competent to
quell turbulent strikers, and no infamous scandal at the City Hall, so
long there is nothing else to be done in the line of good citizenship
than to cast one’s vote, pay one’s taxes, and keep one’s sidewalk clean.
“Now I hold that such a conception of the duties of citizenship is
unworthy a Christian and a patriot, and it is as Christians and patriots
that I am addressing you.
“I am not here to remind you of the unequaled folly and expense of bad
government, and to point out to you the material benefits accruing to a
city where there is a pure and economical city government and an
incorruptible court.
“I am not here to speak to you on the ground of mere utility and
expediency, though with a different audience such arguments might hold
the first place. But I speak to you as scholars, as men and women of
insight who need not to be reminded that the state, as one of the three
great human institutions by which civilized man has differentiated
himself from the savage, has higher functions than those which appeal
most forcibly to the ordinary man and woman of to-day.
“We live in a
MATERIALISTIC ATMOSPHERE,
where the things of the senses allure far more than the things of
thought, where a man of ideals is laughed at by the majority as an
unpractical theorist, and shrewdness is esteemed the highest virtue.
“I have been looking over your school reports and have been noting the
disproportionate number of girls who are graduated.
“Your boys and young men are impatient for business. Even those in
well-to-do families leave school very early. I find that _ninety-two per
cent. of your children leave school before they ever study any text-book
of history_, and that seventy-five per cent. leave before they reach the
grade where a little historic information is given through the aid of
biographical sketches and stories.
“Think of it! Seventy-five per cent., the majority of them our future
voters, who have never so much as heard of the Pilgrim Fathers or the
war of the Revolution, and who have far too feeble an educational
equipment to lead to much further study!
“But even of those who have some smattering of history we find thousands
appearing at the polls every year, having heard a little of the cant and
the bluster of partisan politics, and having nothing more to fit them
for their duties as citizens in a land whose national and state and city
governments they have never studied.
“Moreover, they have the wildest notions in regard to those great
questions of labor, wages, and reform which are agitating our country.
Such are the men who hold the ignoble conviction that every man is
selfish at heart, that to the victors belong the spoils, and that desire
for office is inevitably ambition for personal gain.
“You have learned in the past somewhat of the cost to this city and
state of the presence of anarchists within your midst. But what are you
doing to make good citizens of the thousands of men, women, and children
who are said to be enrolled in anarchist Sunday-schools here in this
city?
“What is being done to prevent the children of the mob that tears up
your horse-car tracks when you have a strike from following ten years
hence their fathers’ example?
“But I am not speaking merely of rumsellers or anarchists, or of
ignorant foreigners or men who sell their votes. I am speaking of the
banker’s sons as well as the blacksmith’s.
“There is among many of the hard-headed young business men of our time
whom I have met a
TERRIBLE SKEPTICISM.
They are skeptical of humanity, of virtue. There is a belief that every
man has his price, that politics is a machine, to be run for the benefit
of those who have it in charge. There is, even among honorable men, a
tendency to joke at public scandals, to sneer at Sunday-school politics
and womanish ideals.
“Now, to me, this hard and cold skepticism betokens a rottenness and a
corruption in the body politic scarcely less terrible to contemplate
than the open, high-handed peculation which occasionally startles the
community and forms a nine days’ wonder.
“For, as I need not say, a sick man is as sure to die from
blood-poisoning as from an open cancer. The latter may shock us more,
but the former is just as deadly. And the danger to this great city
to-day is not so much from the dynamite of the anarchist as from the
indifference and inactivity of the men and women who have your brains,
your wealth, your culture, and many of them your nominal Christianity.
“Pardon me if I seem to be addressing you, my elders and betters, as if
I were presuming to tell you anything new or anything which you could
not state quite as forcibly as I may do.
“It is not that I have anything new to say that I venture to speak thus,
but that I may clearly state my own position and grounds for action in
the matter which I shall soon present to you.
“You have observed that I have used the more comprehensive term
‘citizen’ instead of ‘voter,’ and it is for this reason that I have used
it. The duties of the citizen apply to every one who is a recipient of
the benefits of the state, and this includes that half of the community
whom their own indifference and the
PREJUDICES AND TRADITIONS
of the majority of voters still exclude from their rightful share in
this matter of public housekeeping which we call municipal government.
“It is the duty of the male citizen to vote, and not only to vote, but
to attend the caucuses which alone insure the possibility of having a
worthy candidate. It is also his duty to pay his taxes and keep his
sidewalk clean, but his duty does not end here. It is his imperative
duty as an honorable citizen to see that this subtle poison, which, bred
from germs of selfishness and ignorance, is creeping through the veins
of our people, shall be arrested ere a complete social upheaval teach us
the painful lesson that vigilance alone is the price of liberty.
“It seems to me that the duty of the citizen is coextensive with life
and opportunity. It is not a duty which the man or woman of conscience
can lay aside between election days. The good citizen must be always a
refuter of error, an initiator of reform, in short, a person whose
conscience gives him no rest until what ought to be has been substituted
for what is.
“The good citizen must, above all, have such a lofty conception of the
state and of statesmanship as shall lift it forever above the moral
plane where it has been allowed to rest by the average conscience dulled
to all the finer moral perceptions by the force of custom and
conventionality.
“There are such citizens. I see many of them before me as I speak, but
that there shall be a thousand where there is now but one, am I here
to-night to speak to you.
“And now, after this lengthy prelude, permit me to ask your attention to
the scheme which I suggest for helping to bring about in this city a
higher standard of good citizenship. Pardon a bit of personal
experience.
“Scarcely a day goes by in which I am not importuned by various worthy
beggars to give thousands and even millions to endow this and that
college, hospital, and asylum.
“The last project which was proposed to me was to put a million dollars
into a college to be devoted to fitting poor boys for the ministry free
of expense. And my importunate beggar was greatly offended when I said
that I should consider this one of the best means for promoting
hypocrisy and dependence, and that I thought a few scholarships wisely
distributed in colleges of repute would help the ministry more than a
million dollars expended chiefly on brick and mortar.
“‘But what are you going to do with your money? Don’t you think you
ought to give it to the
LORD’S POOR?’
I was asked with that delightful assumption of authority which certain
people who have the assurance of infallibly knowing the mind of the Lord
always adopt.
“‘Certainly,’ I answered; ‘but the Lord has commissioned me to spend
what is intrusted to me where it will effect the best results, and I
prefer to put the next money that I spend into brains rather than into
bricks.’
“Now I propose to devote one hundred and fifty thousand dollars during
the next ten years to stimulating thought in this city in the direction
of Good Citizenship. [Applause.]
“I shall ask a committee of twenty-five ladies and gentlemen, which you
shall choose from the number present, to select for me a man of ripe
experience, of scholarship, and disinterested devotion to the cause of
which I have spoken—a man of good presence and address, who can combine
the functions of business manager and orator, to whom I shall pay five
out of the fifteen thousand dollars which I propose to devote yearly for
the promotion of good citizenship in your city.
“By the advice and consent of this same committee, which shall
constitute itself a board of directors, he shall spend the remaining ten
thousand for the best interests of the work in hand.
“I put no restrictions on this expenditure and lay down no rules of
conduct beyond making the work of the organization absolutely unpartisan
and unsectarian. The superintendent elected by the directors shall be
free to use such methods as shall seem fit to him, being however held
responsible to the directors and removable at their option.
“Although I leave everything to the judgment of the directors, I wish to
make a few suggestions which they are quite free to accept or reject.
“First I suggest that for this work the city be divided into various
districts, and that each church constitute itself a centre for effective
work in some district, so that workers may be somewhat equally
distributed, and no part of the city neglected. These districts need not
be based necessarily upon the numbers of their inhabitants, but upon
their needs.
“I would urge every minister either in or out of the pulpit, as he may
prefer, to make clear to his congregation the purpose of this
organization which is to be formed, and himself lead his people into
hearty coöperation with it.
“I know that there are some well-meaning, religious people who might
object to this, dreading the preaching of politics from the pulpit and
the diversion of the attention of the young from strictly religious
work. They prefer to have everything pertaining to secular education
debarred from the church-building.
“To me such people seem
SADLY IRRELIGIOUS.
I wonder that they can read their Bibles and fail to learn from the
examples of the Hebrew prophets what God would have man say concerning
the government and wise ordering of a backsliding people. Those brave
men of old were not afraid of preaching politics; and how can one, the
follower of him who taught us to pray, ‘Thy kingdom come, Thy will be
done on earth as it is in heaven,’ dare to make this but mere
lip-service? Surely they will be the first to give the influence of
their Christian manhood to bring that kingdom here and now in this city
of Chicago. The clergyman who fails to teach his people that God as
truly leads this nation now as in the days of old is recreant to his
trust, is unworthy of his calling, as it seems to me.
“I would have our church vestries, which are closed and vacant a great
part of the week, thrown open at least one evening in a week for
discussions, lectures, debates, or small classes grouped together for
the study of subjects that will promote good citizenship.
“I suggest that all classes of people, whether church-goers or not, who
are willing to join in this work, be divided into four sections.
“First and largest of all would be the section containing those who know
little of American history, civil government, and political economy.
These would form themselves into bands for studying a well-selected
course of reading, beginning with elementary work, and proceeding from
such books as Mr. Dole’s ‘The Citizen and the Neighbor,’ to profound
works like Mulford’s ‘The Nation,’ or perhaps Hegel’s ‘Philosophy of
History.’
“I see no reason why with a proper system and the natural interest which
I think the subject will awaken there should not eventually result as
widespread and beneficent a work as that which the Chatauqua classes
have done.
“There should be a secretary for each little centre of study to whom
reports of work should be made, and certificates or diplomas should be
bestowed by the directors on those who have successfully passed through
different courses.
“I also suggest public debates and dissertations by members of both
sexes. It is not so difficult a matter as you may think to interest
young people in such work. I know of a teacher in Somerville,
Massachusetts, who for years has been the means of carrying on a
historical club of about seventy-five boys and girls under fifteen years
of age. These children meet regularly, conducting their meetings
themselves according to Cushing’s ‘Manual of Parliamentary Rules,’ and
girls as well as boys take part in a modest, fearless way. They get not
only much historical information on the subjects they discuss, but also
a very valuable discipline which renders them self-possessed in manner,
and discriminating in their thought, and is the best of training for
many duties of good citizenship.
“All these results take time and patience and tact in the planners of
the classes, lest rivalry and jealousy and short-sightedness defeat the
end in view. But when a
SCHEME IS ONCE THOUGHT OUT
in its main features it is comparatively easy to follow, especially when
it is as flexible as the one I present to you, and when the leaders are
disinterested men and women.
“The second of the four classes which I have suggested would contain a
much smaller number of persons, and would be those who have the time and
ability to teach. This would bring forth much latent talent for home
missionary work which does not find vent in our mission Sunday-schools.
“The work should be especially prosecuted among the foreign population.
“Let a course of say twenty-five weekly lectures be arranged to be
illustrated by the stereopticon, and treating in a simple way of the
growth of our nation from its beginning until the present time. I would
not have very much attention paid to the campaigns of the wars. It
matters little to the Bohemian who cannot read English or to the
Irishman who cannot write his name whether Braddock or King Philip
fought in the war of 1812 or not.
“But it does matter that he should understand something of the early
life of the colonists, something of the dangers from which they fled,
the causes of the Revolution, the growth of slavery, the meaning of our
republican institutions, our great industrial development, and the
significance of such names as Franklin, Washington, Lincoln, Grant.
“A cornet leading a chorus of school-children, who should sing national
airs, would add zest to such a lecture, the price of which should be
merely nominal. I think you will generally find it better to have a
price.
“In such matters people usually undervalue and are a little suspicious
of what is given them freely. If a ticket costs ten cents, or if it is
given as a reward of merit to the children at school, it will be vastly
more appreciated.
“These lectures would be given in English wherever possible, but in the
foreign districts of the city the same set could be given in
translations, the speaker being an intelligent man of the nationality of
the audience.
“I think you will find it better among foreigners to give these lectures
in a hall rather than in a church, so as not to awaken religious
prejudices. With different speakers the same lectures and pictures can
be used in different parts of the city every evening in the week, thus
having six or seven
SIMULTANEOUS COURSES
of the same lectures.
“After the completion of the first course much experience will have been
gained in the details of management, and other courses can be formed
illustrating the material resources, physical geography of our country,
and the biography and literature of our great men.
“With a little music, plenty of pictures, and a speaker with a hearty,
ringing voice, I think there can be no question of winning attention
among these foreigners. After that, classes and clubs for reading and
discussion would easily follow.
“I have spoken of two sections, the students and the teachers; the third
might comprise those who could give neither work nor study, but who
would give money. This money might go to any one of a dozen fields of
work which the organization would help support.
“Each donor could specify the purpose for which he gives his money,
whether it be temperance-reform work, free kindergartens, industrial
schools, payment for detection and prosecution of law-breakers, or
general running expenses. You can readily see that although there may be
much voluntary, unpaid service, there will be great need of more money
than I have promised to contribute.
“The fourth class would be one of the most important, comprising chiefly
the solid business men and practical, public-spirited women, such as I
have found here in your remarkably live Woman’s Club and other
organizations. These men and women would attend to such practical work
as is done by our Law and Order Leagues in the different states,
supplementing the often inefficient police service, and persistently
insisting that the existing laws _shall be enforced_.
“This branch of the work alone would require more than one paid agent.
Another line of work for this fourth class of good citizens would be an
organized and ever-increasing vigilance in regard to the work of the
city’s servants, and the creation of a strong public sentiment which
shall demand a purer, cleaner press and a suppression of the vile
literature which is poisoning the imagination of thousands of our youth.
“This class of workers would be the active agents of all reforms, and
unwavering in their efforts to make the primary meetings places where
the moral force and the intelligence of the city shall be most
powerfully felt.
“Let me illustrate what I mean in speaking of the kinds of work which
this fourth class of workers can do to promote good citizenship. The
successful courses of lectures on history to young people under the
auspices of the
COMMERCIAL CLUB
which have been carried on here is just the kind of work which needs to
be done. The prizes for essays on historical subjects offered to the
school-children by the ‘Daily News’ is another good thing. The courses
of lectures by workmen and capitalists under the auspices of the Ethical
Culture Society is just the kind of work which I should like to see
multiplied a hundredfold.
“All existing organizations for promoting the welfare of the community
can unite in this large organization without abandoning their own
methods and field of work.
“Perhaps this scheme as I have outlined it may seem to you somewhat
utopian; but you will remember that what I have said is simply
suggestion. The methods I leave entirely to your own excellent judgment.
But whatever these may be, they will be watched with keen interest by
other cities to whom I shall make the same proposition that I have made
to you, provided that the results of your efforts shall justify my
action in this matter.
“The little plan which I propose is
ABSOLUTELY FLEXIBLE.
One person or one circle may work in one way and one in another, each
according to his own tastes and opportunities. While any one of leisure
may belong to all four sections, no one need feel excluded from joining
in the general good work in some way, if he have but a dollar a year to
contribute, or but an hour a week for study or work.
“May I not hope that the life and youth and moral power of Chicago will
join hand in hand in making this vast city great, not only in dimensions
and numbers and wealth, but great in that kind of greatness which alone
shall exalt a nation and give it memory. For
‘The envious Powers of ill nor wink nor sleep:—
Be therefore timely wise,
Nor laugh when this one steals and that one lies,
As if your luck could cheat those sleepless spies,
Till the deaf Fury comes your house to sweep.’”
As Miss Brewster stood a moment with silently bowed head and then sank
into her chair there was a hush. Every one had been thrilled by the
clear, quiet, intense tones of her voice, and there was an instinctive
refrain from applause which marked the deep feeling which her words had
created.
Dr. T—— rose to speak, but at this juncture the writer, whose office had
been discovered, was politely requested by an usher to withdraw. It was
subsequently learned, however, that a committee consisting of seven
ladies and eighteen gentlemen was elected from those present, and they
are to meet next week for selection of a superintendent, and to
establish their organization.