LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN IN MEMORY OF STEWART S. HOWE JOURNALISM CLASS OF 1928 STEWART S. HOWE FOUNDATION 917.731 H23c I.H.S. PROPERTY Of KENDALL i. LINGLE When Chicago "Dreams" The amazing beauty of the Court of Honor at the World's Fair is here vividly suggested by the famous landscape painter, Thomas Moran, whose color- ful portrayal of the scenic wonders of the Yellowstone and Colorado region secured him place in the Capitol at Washington. The splendid Administration Building, with the thrilling fountain at its feet, admonishes Chicago, as perhaps the Chicago Plan Commission would have it do, that the forthcoming civic center of this great city may find a model in the glories of the past. This picture, one of a series of color prints executed for the "Book of the Builders," is reproduced by courtesy of T. W. Foster. CHICAGO A HISTORY AND FORECAST Editor WM. HUDSON HARPER Contributors MILO MILTON QUAIFE MABEL McILVAINE Published by THE CHICAGO ASSOCIATION OF COMMERCE 1921 Chicago's municipal flag was officially adopted April 4, 1917. It was chosen after a competition by a special commission. The designer is Wallace Rice. Its stripes are blue and white. Its stars svmbolize the Great Fire and World's Fair. COPYRIGHT, 1921 THE CHICAGO ASSOCIATION OF COMMERCE PREFACE (7 This book is issued by The Chicago Association of Commerce, as a feature of service in organizing the cele- bration of fifty years of progress since this city passed through the Great Fire of October 9, 1871, and in ashes was reborn. It is dedicated to the founders, far-visioned and enduring; to their successors who have carried on and built the city; and to the hope of tomorrow, Chi- cago's splendid youth of all bloods and altars, but of one growing faith in this wonderful home of the world. It is believed that at this time many, who boast their citizenship and expectations here, will read with interest and renewal of civic purpose a brief recital of the acts of those who came and saw and conquered, and will wel- come information about activities of a restricted but pro- gressive community which aspires toward leadership in the spirit, in government, in business, in education and the arts. Accordingly, by the hands of competent specialists, is herewith offered certain historical narratives opportune to this hour, and by the editor is submitted as the for- ward-looking division of the book matter descriptive of existing or projected work which either has already had popular approval or now invites the judgment of the wise, that the next generation shall come into a practical inheritance and that the candle of today shall be the sun of tomorrow. The facts and opinions wrought into this series of statements, constituting something in the nature of a synopsis of the elements of a Chicago development pro- gram for the next quarter or half century, have been derived from authoritative sources, and care has been used to present the various issues without prejudice, partisanship or controversial pleading. The forces and facilities of progress command the imagination and will of a great people. To those in various places in Chicago life who have co- operated with the editor by provision of facts and opin- ions he offers sincere thanks, while to colleagues on the staff of The Chicago Association of Commerce, good fellows all who lend a ready hand, his thanks go out with equal fervor, and he expresses the hope of Mr. Joseph R. Noel, president of the Association; Mr. Robert B. Beach, its business manager, and Mr. Charles Herrick Hammond, chairman of the Semi-Centennial Committee, that this little volume may prove in a sort of way a textbook of progress, at least a partial schedule of principles for the methodical direction of Chicago's future. W. H. H. September 27, 1921 -ZEsop, the Greek slave of twenty-six cen- turies ago, who consorted with kings of thought and watched the ways of men men both wise and simple bequeathed certain im- mortal sayings to posterity. Fables they are and one, entitled "The Belly and the Mem- bers," counsels thiswise: "One day it occurred to the Members of the Body that they were doing all the work and the Belly was having all the food. So they held a meeting, and after long discussion de- cided to strike work till the Belly consented to take its proper share of the work. So for a day or two the Hands refused to take the food, the Mouth refused to receive it, and the Teeth had no work to do. But after a day or two the Members began to find that they themselves were not in a very active condi- tion; the Hands could hardly move, and the Mouth was all parched and dry, while the Legs were unable to support the rest. So thus they found that even the Belly in its dull, quiet way was doing necessary work for the Body, and that all must work together or the Body will go to pieces." TABLE OF CONTENTS Page From Marquette to the Great Fire 9 Fifty Years of New Chicago 33 Things Done and to Do 85 Citizenship 89 Woman and the New Chicago 93 Progressive Government 96 Chicago Needs Program of Religion 103 Social Welfare 113 Education and the Future 117 A Greater Chicago's Health 129 Public Safety 133 Chicago Weather , ! 136 Public Library 138 Chicago Historical Society 141 Chicago and the Arts 144 The Chicago Plan 153 Subways 176 Railway Terminals 180 Zoning New Chicago Task 185 Commerce and Industry 188 Chicago in Banking 196 Chicago as Cotton Market 204 New Industries 208 Industrial Relations 211 Chicago's Drainage 216 Chicago Needs Convention Hall 221 Railway Clearing Yards 223 Growth of Community Centers 225 Chicago as Aviation Center 227 Water Transportation 230 Illiana Harbor 237 Calumet Industrial Harbor 242 Postal Service 244 Public Utilities 247 Chicago's Freight Tunnels 249 Railway Electrification 250 Street Lighting 252 Industries on Drainage Canal 254 Municipal Miscellany 255 SEMI- CE/NTE/MAIIAL. CELEBRATIOAI CHICAGO FIRE OCTOBER 2 Poster proclaiming celebration of Great Fire anniversary. The personifying figure of Chicago was given to the city by The Inter Ocean, March 20, 1892, when that paper, now extinct, but long maintained as a Republican authority by Win. Penn Nixon, was in possession of H. H. Kohlsaat. The artist, whose conception had the approval of a dis- tinguished jury, was Charles Holloway. Here for the first time Chicago saw its characteristic vigor and purpose in sym- bolic portraiture, artistically executed, and its genius last- ingly proclaimed in a perfect motto. Shortly after the Chicago Tribune produced a city seal for popular use, and later The Chicago Association of Commerce introduced therein the potent advertising legend, "The Great Central Market." The motto of the current Great Fire anniversary "Un- daunted We Build" is the happy invention of Maurice Blink, president of the Commercial Art Engraving Company. CHICAGO'S STORY FROM JOLLIET AND MARQUETTE TO THE GREAT FIRE The Pioneer Found Provisions of Nature Promising Commanding City and Set His Masterful Hand to the Building Contributed by the Chicago Historical Society Milo Milton Quaife Author of "Chicago and the Old Northwest," and Editor of the "Lakeside Classics" Diedrich Knickerbocker began his notable history of New York with the creation of the world, and here also must any history of Chicago properly begin; for the most important factor in the development of Chicago is the economic environment responsible for her creation, and this environment was determined when the Creator moulded the Continent of North America. The force of this observation will become quickly evi- dent to anyone who will consider attentively Chicago's position on the map. Lying at the head of Lake Michi- gan, in the heart of the richest river valley on the globe, to Chicago all roads lead, even as of old they led to ancient Rome. Into this city, through which no railway train ever passes, pours the golden stream of wheat from a thousand leagues of western prairie. For its enrich- ment the cornfields of Kansas and Nebraska, the live- stock grown on the sunny plains of Texas and those of cold Alberta, the forests of Wisconsin and the iron mines of Minnesota yield alike their share of tribute, with the inevitable result that here in less than a century has developed one of the chief primary markets and prin- cipal manufacturing centers of the globe. Long Before the White Man Came These facts about the modern Chicago are common- place enough, but comparatively few are aware that for generations before the white man began his work of up- building the modern city, when for a thousand miles around brooded the silence of the wilderness, nature had made of Chicago a point of importance, the rendezvous of parties from far and wide bent on missions alike of war and peace. This importance proceeded naturally from the conditions of travel and intercourse in the wil- derness. Over all the eastern half of the continent the forest stretched practically unbroken, penetrated only by the narrow Indian trail or the winding river. Thus the rivers and lakes afforded almost the only highways Says Mr. Quaife, in his accompanying historical narrative: "Broadly speaking, Fort Dearborn was Chicago for almost three decades. * * * When the troops arrived at the mouth of the Chicago River in August, 1803, they found here several traders' huts or cabins, three of which were occupied by French Canadians." Permission of Central Trust Company of Illinois, the picture being copy of one of a series of mural historical paintings in that bank by Clarence C. Earle. through the wilderness; and Chicago lay on one of the principal routes of travel between the two great river systems of the continent, the St. Lawrence and the Mis- sissippi. Here at the south end of Lake Michigan the traveler could portage his canoe from the Chicago River to the upper waters of the Illinois, where he found him- self upon a ready highway leading to the farthest sources of the thousand tributaries of the Father of Waters. Thus it was inevitable that the site of Chicago should be known to Europeans from the time when they first penetrated to the interior of the continent. Forest 10 rangers were not commonly men of letters, and we can- not say who was the first white man to visit the place; but it is characteristic of the city which has since grown up that the first two visitors of whom we have record were traders; likewise they were lawbreakers, for they were roving the wilderness in defiance of the decrees issued in the name of His Most Christian Majesty, Louis the Fourteenth of France, to whose realm Chicago then belonged. Chicago's Recorded History Begins With the momentous exploration conducted by Louis Jolliet in the summer of 1673 the recorded history of Chicago really begins. The Mississippi had been dis- covered by De Soto, and its lower reaches explored, over a century before, and about the same time the French had begun their efforts at colonizing the lower valley of the St. Lawrence. Now Jolliet, sent out by the gov- ernor of New France, discovered the upper Mississippi and followed its course far enough to determine that it emptied into the Gulf of Mexico. Thus the identifica- tion of the upper Mississippi with the great river De Soto had discovered was established; and hard upon the heels of Jolliet came another dauntless Frenchman, the sieur de La Salle, bent on realizing his imperial vision of a New France which should stretch from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico. A companion of Jolliet on his voyage of 1673 had been the gentle priest, Father Jacques Marquette. So favorably was he received by the natives of Illinois that he resolved to return at an early date and establish a mission here. This determination he carried out the fol- lowing season. Leaving Depere (near modern Green Bay) in the late autumn of 1674, he journeyed along the shore of Lake Michigan as far as Chicago, where, overtaken by illness, he tarried through the winter in a rude shelter erected some distance up the south branch of the river. In the spring he went on to the vicinity of modern Ottawa, preached to the friendly natives, and then with the hand of death already upon him hastened to return to distant St. Ignace, dying en route at the mouth of the Notepseakan River, where Ludington now stands. Other missionaries seized the torch which fell 11 from the dying hand of Marquette, and from that day to this the Gospel has been preached in Illinois. La Salle and Tonty While the missionaries were thus zealously laying the foundations of the church in Illinois, its commercial pos- FLORIO'f Father Marquette's own map of the regions of his explorations with Jolliet, 1673-1674. Permission of Chicago Historical Society. sibilities were being no less eagerly exploited by the traders. Of these La Salle, "first promoter of big busi- ness in the West," was for almost a decade, until his 12 tragic death in 1687, the leading figure; and from his Fort St. Louis on Starved Rock for a decade and a half longer his faithful lieutenant, Tonty, continued to domi- nate the red men and monopolize the trade of the sur- rounding region. It was in this early period, too, that the dream, even yet only partially realized, of opening a practicable waterway from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico was first conceived. By cutting a canal of half a league at the Chicago portage, Jolliet reported, a bark could sail from Lake Erie to the Gulf. A few years later La Salle took sharp issue with this statement of Jolliet, showing clearly the uselessness for all practical pur- poses of such a canal, since the real head of navigation on the Illinois was not the point on the upper Des Plaines opposite the South Branch of the Chicago, but instead at Fort St. Louis, one hundred miles below. In later years by dint of frequent repetition the error of Jolliet effected lodgment in the public mind, and on July 4, 1836, the digging of the Illinois and Michigan Canal was gaily entered upon; but weary years of disappoint- ment ensued to dampen the ardor of the hopeful citi- zens of Chicago before the first boat passed through the canal in the summer of 1848; and the sequel confirmed the accuracy of La Salle's observations over a century and a half before, for Jolliet's ditch of "half a league" had lengthened to one hundred miles, and the cost to many millions of dollars. After Jolliet's Voyage of 1673 The period of French occupation of the Northwest continued for ninety years after Jolliet's voyage of 1673. During these decades the prosecution of the fur trade constituted the sole economic interest of France in this region, to effect which posts were established at strategic points throughout the Northwest, and the tribesmen were cajoled by friendly artifices or subjugated by martial means, as the exigencies of the French might dictate. A notable feature of this period was the half-century struggle between the French and the Fox tribe of Wis- consin, in which the Illinois and other tribes were em- broiled as allies of the French. Periodically, too, war parties of braves from Illinois and Wisconsin, and even 13 ^V-.P/vt , 'eL*.fii* Pi You are looking at one of the most interesting epistolary records of Chicago's age of discovery. Here is a letter, the middle portion eliminated for economy of space, written by La Salle and his signature is visible from "Le Checagou, le l er 7 bre , 1683," to Tonty and his other followers at Fort St. Louis (Starved Rock in the Illinois River) , advising them how best to conduct the Indian trade and keep harmony among the voyagers. Permission of Chicago Historical Society. 14 from points beyond the Mississippi, went down to Mont- real and Quebec to assist their Great Father in his nu- merous wars with the English. Illinois and Wisconsin tribesmen thus marched with Denonville in his invasion of New York in 1687 ; they massacred the English troops at Braddock's defeat in 1755 and at Fort William Henry two years later; and they fought under the banner of Montcalm in the defense of Quebec against General Wolfe in 1759. When at length New France fell, and the triumphant English reached out to take possession of their conquest in the West, the tribesmen, led by Pontiac, turned fiercely upon them. The garrisons at St. Joseph and Mackinac were massacred, Green Bay was abandoned, and for over a year Detroit was hotly be- sieged. But not even the genius of Pontiac could en- able the red men long to withstand the oncoming Eng- lish. In 1764 he made his peace with the conquerors; three or four years later in southern Illinois a renegade Indian, bribed with a keg of English rum, sunk a toma- hawk in his brain; and over his unmarked grave throbs today the busy life of the great city of St. Louis. New France Fades Into Anglo-Saxon North America Wolfe's conquest of Quebec in 1759 was one of the de- cisive actions of all military history. It made of New France but a memory and gave the future of North America into the keeping of the Anglo-Saxon. It ended for all time the dream of a greater France, it compelled the reorganization of the British empire on its modern basis, and foreshadowed the birth of the United States as an independent nation. The battle on the Plain of Abraham was thus a momentous factor in shaping the future destiny of Chicago. It chanced, however, that in the working out of the problem of imperial reorganiza- tion a dispute arose between the American colonists and the mother country. There ensued the struggle known to American history as the Revolutionary War, one of whose important phases was the contest for the control of the Northwest. The British center of operations in the West was Detroit. Three hundred miles away, at Pittsburg, was the American center, and directed from these two headquarters, the rival forces seesawed back and forth in their struggle for the mastery of the rich 15 region where today beats the industrial and political heart of the nation. In 1778 George Rogers Clark with a little army carried the banner of Virginia into this region, and for three years strove to reach Detroit and crush the British op- position at its fountain head. In this design he failed, but the partial measure of success achieved was never- theless a principal factor in gaining for the new United States, at the treaty of Paris in 1783, the Mississippi as its western boundary. During these years of intrigue and warfare Chicago was, by virtue of her situation, at the very heart of the struggle in the West. Contending Chicago's first department store. From mural painting in Fort Dearborn Hotel by Edgar S. Cameron. war parties repeatedly passed through or around the place, and where now the steel mills of South Chicago darken the sky by day and redden it by night was fougnt in the winter of 1780-81 a miniature battle. Policy of "Long Knives" Peace Settlement Broadly viewed, the Revolution in the West was a twenty-year struggle, ending only with Wayne's victory over the Indians in 1794 and the evacuation by the British two years later of their posts throughout the Northwest. So completely have the events of this period passed from the public consciousness that only by a positive exercise of the imagination can one compre- hend how as late as 1790 a British partisan in central Indiana could write as though he were in the heart of 16 the British empire, as for all practical purposes he ac- tually was. The sharp lesson driven home by Wayne's bayonets at the battle of Fallen Timbers at length convinced the 1 1 Chicago's latest department store, with victory parade of returning forces. tribesmen that the power of the "Long Knives," as the Americans were called, could no longer be ignored in the Northwest. In the treaty of Greenville, which the 17 victorious general extorted the following year, pains were taken to acquire from the natives the title to tracts of land at the most strategic points through the Indian country for the erection of forts, and the free passage of the rivers and portages connecting these points. Among the reservations thus secured was "One piece of Land Six Miles Square at the Mouth of Chicago River emptying into the Southwest end of Lake Michigan." For several years, following the Greenville cession, there were rumors afloat of a governmental intention to establish a fort at Chicago. At length the design as- sumed tangible form when in the spring of 1803 Captain John Whistler was sent overland from Detroit with an escort of six men to examine the route and report on the practicability of marching a company of infantry to Chicago. A few weeks later the march was made and in the bend of the river where now stands the Michigan Avenue bridge, amid hardships and privations which we of the present day can scarcely imagine, the walls of the stockade fort began slowly 10 rise. For Three Decades Fort Dearborn Was Chicago Broadly speaking, Fort Dearborn was Chicago for al- most three decades. Traders had visited the place from Jolliet's time onward and had made, it seems probable, more or less lengthy sojourns here. In the main, how- ever, the hand of time has wiped out all knowledge of their doings, and none may say with assurance who was the first white resident of Chicago. Governor Reynolds tells a remarkable story of a French woman, Madam La Compt, whom he knew in after years at Cahokia, who lived at Chicago with her husband for several years prior to the Revolution. When Gurdon Hubbard came here as a youth in 1818 he was shown by an old French trader the traces of corn hills on the west side of the North Branch, and told that as early as 1778 a trader by the name of Guarie had lived here. This chance story aside, our only hint of trader Guarie's existence is the record of Major Long's exploring expedition in 1823 that the North Branch was then known as the "Gary River." More tangible is the memory of Trader Baptiste Point du Sable, who was, according to his own description, 18 "a free mulatto man." Du Scble, like most Indian traders, wandered widely in pursuit of his calling, and we find him at different times at Chicago, Peoria, St. Louis and other points. In 1779 he was at Michigan City with a stock of goods whose principal item was ten bar- rels of rum. In 1783 he was living at Peoria, and in 1790 at Chicago. He lived with an Indian woman, and a daugh- ter of this union became the wife of Jean B. Pellitier of Cahokia. Some time toward the close of the century Du Sable sold his cabin at Chicago to another French trader named Le Mai and withdrew to Missouri, where he was living as late as 1814. Troops Arrived August, 1803 When the troops arrived at the mouth of Chicago River in August, 1803. they found here several traders' huts or cabins, three of which were occupied by French Canadians, all of whom were living with Indian wives. These men were Le Mai, already mentioned, Antoine Ouilmette and Louis Pettle. Pettle resided here until 1812, and probably perished in the massacre of that year. Ouilmette claimed to have come to Chicago in 1790, and is known to have lived here at least from 1803 until his death some time after 1829, remaining even during the years of warfare from 1812 to 1815. In 1804, following the founding of Fort Dearborn, John Kinzie, a native of Canada of Scotch extraction, who had spent long years in the Indian country, established him- self in the cabin formerly owned by Du Sable. Al- though not the first and never the sole civilian settler at Chicago, Kinzie was an abler man than the French trad- ers, and this factor combined with his racial and busi- ness connections to give him a dominant position in the tiny community where he resided until his death in 1828, saving the years from 1812 to 1816. Fort Dearborn Massacre of 1812 As at all wilderness outposts, so at Chicago, life flowed on in humdrum fashion during the years from 1803 to 1812. But the outburst of war with the mother country rudely terminated this peaceful existence. The red men, smarting under the menace of the steady advance of American sentiment and the consequent loss of their 19 homes, seized the opportunity to fall upon the little garrison, vainly essaying to withdraw from Fort Dear- born, and in a short, sharp fight of fifteen minutes' du- ration killed or made captive the entire force. The civilian residents capable of bearing arms, twelve in number, had been organized by Captain Heald as an auxiliary force, which he denominated the "Chicago militia." Some there were of the Six Hundred who came back from Balaklava, but the members of the first Chicago military organization, fighting valiantly in de- fense of homes and loved ones, perished to a man. Yet Bennet School, 1844, corner of State and Madison Streets, now world's busiest traffic crossing. This school was one of the first private schools in Illinois. By permission of Chicago Trust Company. no poet has ever sung their praise, and the city for which they died remains oblivious of the sacrifice. Peace with Great Britain was concluded at the close of 1814, but it still remained to gain control of the Indians of the Northwest, who, during the war, had made com- mon cause with Great Britain. As a means to this end it was determined to make the red men commercially de- pendent upon the United States by denying to the British traders, upon whom they had hitherto relied, access to their country. In a letter to the Secretary of War in the spring of 1816, General Cass pointed out that this communication was effected through three great chan- 20 nels of trade : the route from Lake Superior to the upper Mississippi, the Fox-Wisconsin river route from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi, and the route by Chicago and the Illinois between the same bodies of water. These two latter routes were the ones most commonly used, and to cut off this trade, Cass urged, it was only necessary to establish garrisons at Green Bay and Chicago. Gov- ernmental decision followed promptly in this instance and in July, 1816, the American flag waved once more over Chicago, never from this time to be hauled down. Forces Presaging the New Chicago For several years life at the New Fort Dearborn went on much as in the old days before the war of 1812. Meanwhile, far away from the wilderness stockade at the bend of the sluggish river forces were developing which were destined to remove forever the menace of Indian attack and to usher in the birth of the new Chicago. These were, in general, the persistent advance of Ameri- can settlers westward, and in particular the construc- tion of the Erie Canal under the guiding genius of Gov- ernor DeWitt Clinton. The Erie Canal was a master stroke of statesmanly provision. It poured into the lap of New York the limitless wealth of the western country and made her, apparently for all time, the chief city of the Atlantic seaboard. It poured a veritable flood of New England, New York and (later) foreign -born set- tlers into the upper Mississippi Valley. It completely altered the character of Illinois, which hitherto had been inhabited chiefly by southern men and economically de- pendent upon New Orleans. By filling the upper North- west with settlers, it made inevitable the birth of the modern Chicago. Happily Chicago has recognized its debt to Governor Clinton by naming a great thorough- fare in his honor. Before the influence of this far-reaching event could find local expression, the obstacle to white settlement presented by the Indian ownership and occupancy of the soil must be removed. The accomplishment of this was a long-drawn-out process, whose fulfillment, broadly speaking, was signalized by the Black Hawk war of 1832. From the local point of view this is the sole significance attaching to this tragic contest. It chanced to coincide 21 in point of time with the opening of an era of commer- cial enthusiasm and speculation such as the United States has never witnessed before or since that decade. In the West this era found chief expression in a rush of immi- gration and a frenzy of speculation in land. Development Fervor of 1833 The spring of 1833, therefore, ushered in the first and greatest boom in the history of Chicago. Over night, as A grand mansion of the old days, home of Eli B. Williams at Monroe Street and Wabash Avenue. Houses such as these, with trees and lawns, helped to strengthen the poetic claim of the Garden City's motto, "Urbs in Horto." The house became a well- known restaurant, the Maison Doree. The site was given to the University of Chicago three years ago. Permission of E. G. Goodspeed. it were, the sleepy military outpost was transformed into a mushroom city, attended by all the concomitants of ugliness and vigor which are characteristic of such a 22 development. A single incident will sufficiently illus- trate the speculative mania of the period. In 1835 Gur- don Hubbard became part owner of an eighty-acre tract extending westward from the North Branch between Chicago Avenue and Kinzie Street, purchased for $5,000. Even this price would have been deemed fabulous a year or two before. Chancing to visit New York a few months later, Hubbard found to his amazement a wild specu- lation going on in Chicago town lots. Hastily hunting up an engraver, he caused a plat to be drawn from his verbal description of the tract, and sold one-half of it at auction for $80,000. Reports of the transaction pre- ceded Hubbard homeward, but they seemed so extrava- gant that even the thrifty Chicago speculators regarded them as incredible until Hubbard himself arrived to authenticate them. The further revision upward of paper valuations of town lots which thereupon ensued can well be left to the imagination. And Now a City By 1837 Chicago had become a community of several thousand souls and achieved the dignity of a city. About the same time President Jackson pricked the bubble of the nation's speculative mania by the issuance of his famous specie circular, and the severest financial panic of our national history ensued. At Chicago the intensity of the depression corresponded to that of the speculative madness which it had brought to a close, and for several years the new-born city stagnated. Although the reaction bore hardly on the townsmen, carrying numbers of them to financial ruin and rudely overturning the eco- nomic structures which all had reared on a foundation of dreams, it had no permanent effect on the city's fu- ture. That future was dependent upon the development of the West, which found at Chicago its natural com- mercial .clearing house, and while a financial flurry might temporarily retard, it could no more stay this development than can the art of puny man stay the on- ward flow of a glacier. Even in the midst of the depres- sion a vision of the city's destiny was retained by some, at least, of the townsmen. From the dawn of American history to the opening of the nineteenth century the sailboat on water and the 23 horse-drawn vehicle on land were the established modes of transportation. In June, 1807, however, Fulton dem- onstrated the practicability of steam navigation and be- fore two decades had passed steamboats were penetrat- An unfamiliar picture of Lincoln presented to the Chicago Historical Society by Mrs. W. J. Chalmers of Chicago. It was taken on the battlefield of Antietam. Lincoln is accompanied by Allan Pinkerton, his personal bodyguard, and by General McClernand. Permission of Chicago Historical Society. 24 ing to the upper reaches of the Mississippi and the re- motest shores of the Great Lakes. This development of steam-propelled navigation was the logical complement to the opening of the Erie Canal in promoting the settle- ment of the West. It remained, however, to apply steam power to transportation by land, and about the year 1830 this application was begun in the United States. Wilderness Becomes a Fruitful Hinterland We are on the eve of the most important development in the history of Chicago, for it is scarcely too much to say that the modern city as we now know it is the product of the railroads. The story is told that an enthusiastic newcomer to Chicago shortly after the Black Hawk war ventured the prediction that within five years the place would number five thousand inhabitants, to which an army officer replied, "That cannot be, for there is no back country to sustain a city." "Back country" there was in plenty, of course, but it was still a wilderness, and lacking in highways to give Chicago access to it. The railroads supplied this want, and today Chicago's back country stops only at the shores of the Pacific. It is characteristic of Chicago's outlook, and of the sources from which her economic strength is drawn, that the city's first railroad ran west rather than east, being designed not to connect her with the Atlantic, but to bring to her markets and wharves the produce of her rich hinterland. In the early years of railroad construc- tion there was no conception of independent transporta- tion systems which should compete with water routes; instead, the first American railroads were designed, like the canals they superseded, to span the land lying be- tween navigable water courses. Chicago lay at the head of navigation of the Great Lakes, and by the Erie Canal had uninterrupted water communication with New York City. By means of the Illinois and Michigan Canal the city early essayed to make connection with the navigable waters of the Mississippi, but before the years of delay and disappointment which the execution of this enter- prise entailed were over, it had become evident that the importance of the canal as an instrument of transporta- tion was waning, and that other measures for tapping the back country were essential. 25 In the lead mine region of northwestern Illinois there had begun about the year 1821 an era of vigorous ex- ploitation and development, and within a few years the mining country was dotted with thriving villages and towns. Chief among these was Galena, whose aspira- tions equalled, and whose present commercial achieve- ments excelled, those of Chicago. The Mississippi af- forded the mines their only commercial outlet, and their This is the Chicago undaunted, the picture which you talk about to your children's children. It may seem to suggest Chicago's day off with nothing doing. Not so. It shows the first building put up in the burned district after the fire, the office of W. D. Kerfoot, and this is the challenge and promise which this resolute Chicagoan flung forth to the world and the Chicago Historical Society has the original board shown on the left of the house: W. D. KERFOOT IS AT 59 UNION PARK PLACE. ALL GONE BUT WIFE, CHILDREN AND ENERGY. Mark the "energy." That's why Chicago is here today. This first structure became a city directory, as signs were tacked all over it telling the whereabouts of business firms. Permission of Chicago Historical Society. principal trade connections were with St. Louis and New Orleans. But with the development of the lake- board cities there arose in the mines an insistent demand for an eastern commercial outlet. Milwaukee and Chi- 26 cago were quick to perceive the advantage which would accrue to the city which should become the eastern ter- minus of such a route, and each harbored plans for the construction of a railroad which should tap the wealth of the mines and the upper Mississippi. Ogden and Chicago's First Railroad In the expansive years of the thirties a charter had been taken out for the Galena and Chicago Union Rail- road, but for ten years nothing further was done in the matter. Then William B. Ogden became president of the company, and under the impulse of his genius the moribund enterprise leaped into life. The work of ac- tual construction was begun in the autumn of 1847, and a year later Chicago's first railroad extended to the Des Plaines River. Not until 1853 was Freeport reached, and the line was never built to Galena, for by this time the Illinois Central had entered the field, and the Galena arranged to use the Central's tracks from Freeport to its destination. Thus was constructed the first line of what is now the great Northwestern system. In Febru- ary, 1852, the Michigan Southern and Northern Indiana ran the first train into Chicago from the East, and three months later the Michigan Central entered the city. The development of the greatest railway center on earth had been auspiciously inaugurated. Meanwhile Milwaukee had not abandoned the contest, and during the early fifties not merely one but two steel roads were being pushed westward from that city. One reached Prairie du Chien in 1857, the other entered La Crosse a year later. Such was Milwaukee's answer to Chicago's bid for the commercial supremacy of the West. The Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul system, into which these lines presently evolved, made of Milwaukee a great city, but Chicago's advantage of position could not be overcome, and to her network of railroads the Milwaukee itself was presently added. Instead of deflecting trade from Chicago, as the Milwaukee line was originally de- signed to do, it became one of the most important feeders of Chicago's commerce. Chicago's Debt to Nature and Railroads The railroads completed the work which nature had begun of making Chicago the great central mart of the 27 continent. Henceforth her growth was to be conditioned only by the growth of the country itself. In 1850, after seventeen years of development unaided by the railroads, the city had a population of 30,000; by 1860 this had more than tripled, and in the following decade.,, not- withstanding the upheaval of the Civil War, it tripled again. Twenty years later the population was 1,100,000, and in the twenty years ending with 1910 this figure was almost exactly doubled. In the years while Chicago was attaining the dimen- sions of a city, the dispute between North and South was developing which was to eventuate in civil war. The story of this dispute and of the war which closed it TO CHURCH, Cor. Washington & Ann Sis., '":,'; i ' : 7" u j?w*'' l i R. B. MASO,Myor. W.TAVI ..R. C.,.., t !|.,. ;, rS-S) . Stern days when heroic men and women rose to un- precedented emergencies. Permission of Chicago Historical Society. belongs to our national history and need not be traversed here. As the metropolis of the state which gave Grant and Lincoln to the nation Chicago, of course, played a worthy part in the contest. Here from an early day abolition sentiment had been powerful, and when, after the Compromise of 1850, Stephen A. Douglas came home to account to his constituents for his share in that meas- ure the indignant citizens hooted him from the platform. Here Colonel Ellsworth had acted his brief role on the 28 stage of public affairs, and in his person Chicago fur- nished the first hero of the Civil War. Through War and Fire Although the war inevitably dislocated the business of Chicago, it did not greatly retard, apparently, the city's growth. What might have been in the absence of war we cannot say; but despite it the city grew from 110,000 in 1860 to 200,000 in 1866; and by 1870 another hun- dred thousand had been added. Thus we come to the event whose recital is to termi- nate our story, the Great Fire of October 9, 1871. To the superficial eye the ways of Providence seem ofttimes mysterious enough; to the discerning, "Providence" is seen commonly to be but a subterfuge for human igno- rance, folly, and greed. Despite all her pride of brawn and bigness, Chicago was preparing for herself, in the years of mushroom growth, a fearful lesson in the art of city building. Across the broad plain which skirts the river's mouth buildings by the thousand extended, constructed with no thought of resistance to the greatest menace with which our modern cities are confronted. Even the very sidewalks, made of resinous pine and ele- vated upon stringers, were combustible, almost, as a powder fuse, and the city's single pumping station, which supplied the mains with water, was covered with a roof of wood! If ever a city invited its fate, surely Chicago did in 1871. The season was one of excessive dryness. Up from the plains of the far Southwest blew week after week a scorching wind which withered the growing crops and turned the smiling green of the prairies to a dull brick- red. In the forests of Wisconsin and Michigan confla- grations of unexampled magnitude raged, desolating en- tire districts and slaying hundreds of human beings. The force which consumed the living pine in the forests would not long be balked by the seasoned pine of wooden-housed Chicago. Destruction Spreads Fertile Ashes About the Great Fire volumes have been written, which here must be condensed to a page. Where it started is clear ; how it started no man knows. Living in a shack 29 .3 il *"* 451 .o 19* Hi a l 30 at the corner of Jefferson and De Koven streets, was a poor Irish family by the name of O'Leary. The story commonly told is that Mrs. O'Leary went out to the barn with a lamp to see her cow; sometimes the detail is added that she proposed to milk this family pet. What- ever her intentions, the lamp was upset and cow, stable and Chicago were engulfed in one common ruin. One veracious reporter even assured the world that the cow accidentally kicked over the lamp; apparently the animal Landmark of Chicago's advance to greatness Mrs. O'Leary's cottage on De Koven, between Jefferson and Clinton Streets, the morning after the regenerative Great Fire. The historic barn and everything to the northeast passed in flame. Permission of Chicago Historical Society. was questioned as to her motives in the brief interval of time between the fatal kick and her own prompt de- mise. Modest Mrs. O'Leary, far from coveting the honor of starting the Chicago fire, testified under oath that she was safe abed and knew nothing about it until called by a friend of the family. Once started, the fire moved onward with resistless tread to the north and east until there was nothing more to burn. Between nine o'clock on Sunday evening and 31 ten-thirty the following night an area of three and one- half square miles, including the business section of the city, was burned, over 17,000 buildings were destroyed and 100,000 people rendered homeless. From Taylor Street to Lincoln Park, from the river to the lake, the city lay in ruins. The direct loss of property was about $200,000,000. Of human life, while never known, the estimate is commonly about three hundred. The mass of human misery, and the indirect losses entailed by the fire can never be estimated. Such was the lesson Chicago learned on that October night and day half a century ago. 32 FIFTY YEARS OF NEW CHICAGO Some of the Acts of a Dauntless City Which Said, "I Will," and Did It Mabel Mcllvaine Assistant Editor Fort Dearborn Magazine To go ahead as if nothing had happened was the one thought of Chicago after the great fire of 1871. She was aided in this determination by the attitude of the whole world toward her. With one accord it was agreed by all the world that Chicago must go on. Messages came from Europe, from India, from China, from the uttermost parts of the earth telling of substantial aid that was on the way. Mayors all over America pledged their cities in amounts of tens of thousands to be drawn at will. A single merchant in New York, A. T. Stewart, placed $50,000 at Chicago's disposal. The sentiment was rudely expressed by a journalist in the East, W. H. McElroy, who, after confessing that the New York papers used to try to take Chicago down, after the fire wrote: "But we loved you in spite of your many airs, Chicago, If it wasn't for wheat there wouldn't be tares, Chicago, And so as we heard your trumpets blow, Loud as theirs at Jericho, We said 'Well, one thing, she isn't slow! Chicago.' "And when of your terrible trouble we learned, Chicago, How your fair young beauty to ashes was turned, Chicago, The whole land rose in its love and might, And swore to see you through your plight, And 'Draw by the million on us at sight, Chicago.' " Business men in Chicago received telegrams from the men they had dealt with in the East and West, saying, "We know that you will need stock to replace what has been burned. Your credit is good. Order as usual." 33 And Chicago did order as usual. Without waiting to know where they were going to put them, Chicago mer- chants ordered stocks of goods, and hunted up places to sell them afterwards. Without waiting to know what was inside their red-hot safes, if anything, the bankers of Chicago met and agreed to resume business, and then when the money in the safes was found intact, they re- sumed payment on the dollar for dollar basis, one week after the most awful fire ever recorded. This action on the part of the Chicago banks gave the whole country confidence as to the ultimate outcome. It is a matter to be noted that not one of these banks failed as a conse- quence of having carried on. Board of Trade Kept Every Contract The Chicago Board of Trade, which might, under the circumstances, have repudiated its contracts formed be- fore the fire, voted as one man to keep them, and did keep them, every one. It was a member of the Chicago Board of Trade who, in the midst of the confusion, sought and obtained from Mayor R. B. Mason an order, written on the back of an envelope, to receive and dis- tribute the relief supplies which were coming into Chi- cago by the carload. Commandeering wagons and ware- houses, he rushed these supplies to the different divi- sions of the city for the "first aid" to the 100,000 people rendered homeless over night. As soon as practicable this work of distribution of relief supplies and funds was taken over by the Relief and Aid Society, the stanch old organization which had its rise in the panic of '57, did valiant duty through the Civil War, and was on hand with the only organization capable of handling a proposition of such magnitude in a systematic way. Their official records, deposited in the Chicago Historical Society, show that they handled and disbursed no less than $4,996,782.74 worth, meet- ing the immediate need. The churches helped in all this, gathering the frightened flocks together, furnishing shel- ter when they had a building left, or, like grand old Robert Collyer and the congregation of Unity Church, meeting amid the ruins, and agreeing to carry on, even if the church had no funds, and the pastor had to go back to blacksmithing to live. 34 The Congregational Church at the corner of Wash- ington and Ann Streets became the city hall for the time being, and the Methodist Episcopal Church on Wabash Avenue, the post office. Through the heroism of a sub- ordinate in the old federal building the mails had been saved, and Chicago was spared the interruption which their loss would have occasioned. "Undaunted We Build" Said Kerfoot With lines and boundaries all but obliterated, the real estate men were nevertheless first on the field, the very first structure to be erected in the burnt district being the real estate office of W. D. Kerfoot. Nailed to the side of the little slab shanty which he put up in the middle of Washington Street, because the ashes of his former build- ing were too hot behind that line, was a shingle that bore the slogan: "All Gone but Wife, Children and ENERGY." Several of the larger real estate concerns had copies of the abstracts of titles, the originals of which perished with the courthouse, and thus Chicago was saved the unutterable confusion of an uncharted city. Even with the duplicate records filed at Washington, however, it was often necessary to admit mere recollection in evi- dence in court for years to come. The refuse from the ruined buildings was carted away as rapidly as possible and dumped into the lagoon which formerly divided the Illinois Central tracks from the shore opposite Lake Front Park. How little did the people realize then that they were beginning the very work which in after years was to be prosecuted with vigor in carrying out the provisions of the city plan, by which, literally on the ashes of the old, was to rise the new, the city beautiful! As fast as the foundations of buildings were uncov- ered, their walls began to be rebuilt. As far as feasible they made them fireproof. The Nixon building, the only practically fireproof building in town before the fire, had stood the test. It became the model. Fine fronts of marble and even iron girders, unprotected by concrete, had melted like wax before the blow-pipe created by the tremendous and self-engendered blast of the fire. Concrete was now used in lining walls and covering iron work, 35 36 and soon experiments with steel resulted in the "Chi- cago steel skeleton construction," known to all the world today. Chicago had thus, in less than a century, pro- gressed from the palisade architecture, used in Fort Dearborn, through the "balloon frame" stage, the brick, limestone and iron period, and arrived at the most ad- vanced form of construction ever known. Battle-scarred but Invincible Of course this did not all happen in an instant. For immediate purposes merchants were permitted to put up temporary wooden structures on the lake front, and much frame building went on in the city at large. Strange to say, the taste of the people, all untamed by the disaster, was for a good deal of ornament, and to this day one comes upon houses in outlying districts trimmed with a sort of wooden fringe along the eaves, or brandishing a gingerbread tower and pinnacles. They are like brave old banners to those who understand all that their very existence meant in the midst of the battle- scarred but undaunted city. The feeling of Chicago people for their city may be partly understood when one reads how they all rejoiced as they heard that such and such a building was to be re- newed. Men would meet each other in the street and say, "Have you heard that the Palmer House is to be re- built?" "No! Let me hug you, old man." Or, "Did you know that the Grand Pacific was going up again?" when perhaps a war dance would be executed. Each business block that shot up out of its ashes was acclaimed like the sacred Phoenix, and men and women wept in unspeakable joy as they saw their churches and their dear familiar theatres lifting up their heads again. Field & Leiter, whose splendid new building on State and Washington had gone with the rest, began to rebuild at once, but meanwhile started life over again in the car barns at Twenty-second Street. People might laugh, but they liked the spirit of it just the same, and stood by them until they became what they are today, exclusively under the Field name, the greatest mercantile establish- ment under one management in the world. Indeed, it was that very strength of feeling for one another's pros- perity which knit together the inhabitants of Chicago 37 into one solid body, a corporation, but not without heart and soul. The "Rookery" As for the visible governing powers of the city, they were soon housed in a building on what was called the "reservoir lot" owned by the city, at the southeast cor- ner of Adams and La Salle, completed and occupied by January 1, 1872, and which continued to do duty until 1885. Being a mere bird cage of brick, with no orna- ment or convenience, it was nicknamed the "Rookery." Built about the old iron tank which had served as a res- ervoir for the South Side water works, it converted the latter into a storage place or vault, used by the post office and other city departments in common. It was in this tank that the several thousand volumes collected by Thomas Hughes, Queen Victoria and other Britishers were stored pending the opening of a public library in Chicago, a token of the sympathy and civilizing influ- ence of the English. Chicago was not slow to take the hint. By January 1, 1873, a reading room was opened in the city hall, ad- jacent to the tank, and by October 25 Dr. W. F. Poole was appointed librarian, and had a circulating depart- ment in operation the following year. Foundations of a Greater City's Culture Not that Chicago was without civilizing influences aside from this. Many of her inhabitants were of rare education and attainment such men as William B. Ogden, Chicago's first mayor; Isaac N. Arnold, friend and counselor of Lincoln; Ezra B. McCagg, entre to whose drawing room was like a title of nobility, and a host of others, whose private libraries and art galleries were sources of enlightenment. It is doubtful if society in Chicago has ever comprised men of more individual "light and leading" than at this time, not excluding the coterie of brilliant journalists and authors who helped to educate the public mind. The Chicago Historical Society, founded in 1854, had a library, museum and art gallery at the time of the fire, and began to rebuild and re-collect soon after. The Chicago Academy of Sciences, founded in 1857, had specimens and a library of great significance. Northwestern University, organized in 38 1851, Chicago University in embryo, organized as a Baptist college in 1855, Loyola University, chartered in 1858, all afforded opportunities for higher culture, and Chicago's public schools were of notable excellence. Opera in Reconstruction Days Musically, Chicago had already enjoyed forty short "seasons" of opera before the fire. The forty-first sea- son opened February 12, 1872, with Theodore Wachtel, a German singer, in "Trovatore" and "The Postillion." The performances, three in number, were given in the Globe Theatre. The forty-second season took place at the Academy of Music, with Emma Howson and others in "The Bohemian Girl," etc., in English. The next sea- son was given at McVicker's, with Pauline Lucca, Clara Louise Kellogg and other notables in "Mignon," "Travi- ata," "La Favorita," "Faust," etc., in Italian. And so it went on short "seasons" but plenty of them, with "Pinafore" and our own Jessie Bartlett to top off with in 1879. Chicago people, while taking kindly to opera, were not above going to the minstrels in between, and it is to be doubted if the so-called musical comedy of the hour reaches the point of perfection in its kind attained by some of these troupes of black-cork artists, whose names are individually remembered among our older citizens to this day, and whose melodious voices rendered the slave songs of the late war, or love ballads like "Drink to me only with thine eyes," with never-to-be-forgotten beauty, interspersed with solemn drollery. Thomas Orchestra Starts to Be Chicago Institution The Thomas Orchestra was to have performed in Chi- cago at Crosby's Opera House, one of the most beauti- ful buildings of its kind in the country, on the evening of October 10, 1871. They were left wandering about the streets of the devastated city deshabille., having lost their hotel the Sherman House as well as their audi- torium. They had the satisfaction, however, of open ing the first downtown music hall in Chicago after the fire, Kingsbury Hall on Clark Street, opposite the Sher- man House, on the evening of October 6, 1879. Chi- cago culture was to be credited with not only discover- ing them, but with holding on to them. 39 Another evidence of the cultural life of Chicago which had its inception in the seventies was the opening of Cen- tral Music Hall, on December 4, 1879. This building, erected through the taste and insight of George B. Car- penter, stood at the southeast corner of State and Ran- dolph Streets, a site now absorbed by the retail house of Marshall Field & Co. In it was not merely an excellent auditorium, where the Apollo Club and the Oratorio So- ciety vied with each other in concerts second to none on the continent, but there were lesser halls where chil- dren's classes were held, studios, and lecture rooms for various arts, musical and otherwise, constituting it a real center of culture and delight. Drama in the Seventies Chicago of the seventies was even more devoted to the legitimate drama than it is now. McVicker's Theatre, home of the legitimate from its foundation, was rebuilt immediately after the fire, and put on a play called "Time Works Wonders," by Jerrold, with a good stock company. This stock company was maintained all the time at McVicker's and furnished excellent support to such traveling stars as McCullough and Booth in their great Shakespearean roles, or, in lighter mood, to Mag- gie Mitchell or Joe Jefferson. On August 9, 1877, Sar- dou's "Seraphine" was produced at McVicker's for the first time in America, the occasion being the twenty-first annual opening of the house. About this time Hooley's Theatre began to go in for the legitimate more than be- fore, putting on Shakespeare with Booth, Barrett, Mc- Cullough, and Jefferson, Raymond, Maggie Mitchell, Lotta, etc., in between. In February, 1878, Sardou's "Exiles" was running simultaneously at McVicker's and at Hooley's. Haverly's Theatre, which stood at the north- west corner of Monroe and Dearborn, was beautifully re- decorated in white and gold, and had the honor of in- troducing Italian opera under Mapleson, in 1879. Lake Front Exposition Building Chicago was never long content with small things. Having got her house in order after the fire, she was restive to tell the world about it, and set about devising a plan by which she might receive visitors on a large scale. The result was the great exposition building on 40 the Lake Front where the Art Institute stands and ex- tending down to Jackson Street, housing the Interstate Industrial Exposition, which became an annual affair for years to come. The building was of Scotch granite, roofed with an elliptical glass dome supported by iron girders. Stepping inside, one was greeted with the roar of a gigantic fountain rising in the center, the throb of ma- chinery and the crash of bands playing while the crowd surged around, a sea of delighted sight-seers. It was not all sight-seeing, however. Merchants, man- ufacturers, agriculturists, artists, inventors, indeed, everyone who had anything to offer here had the op- portunity. Conducted at first without charge to exhib- itors, but with an entrance fee of fifty cents (afterwards reduced to twenty-five) , it did not at first pay expenses, but ultimately became self-supporting and even profit- able. Those who organized it, public-spirited men, headed by Potter Palmer as president, were completely satisfied if it met expenses. It was promoting Chicago. In one end of the building was arranged the first big public exhibition of paintings and statuary that Chicago ever had, or the Middle West, for that matter. In an- other section the Thomas orchestra found an auditorium large enough to accommodate the throngs who wanted to attend their summer night concerts. Early Expositions Foreshadow World Fair Before it was removed to make way for the Art Insti- tute, Edgar Lee Brown, of its management, had proposed the idea of a celebration of the landing of Columbus in America, to be held at Chicago in the early nineties. Opened in October, 1873, just two years after the greatest conflagration known to history, the old exposition was at once a demonstration of Chicago's exhaustless spirit and an earnest of her ability to cope with the World's Fair that was to come. Chicago's social life at the period of the fire had not been invaded by the club idea to any great extent. In a sense the city was one big club or perhaps we should say three big clubs, North, South and West Sides, re- spectively, and no closer organizations were needed. It was essentially a city of homes, big double-barreled homes, as it were, where the ample parlors would ac- 41 commodate hundreds at a real "function," or where a few friends could gather round the fireside in the "sitting- room" for social intercourse of the more intimate sort. It was the thing for young ladies in those days to play the piano, and nearly every home had its piano a grand or square, not an upright, which came in with the "flat" idea and many a skilled musician was found among these parlor performers. Young men were expected to bear their share of the entertaining, too, and played the guitar, banjo or "the bones," even going so far as to serenade occasionally. Most Chicago young people had been taught to dance at Bournique's or Marline's the waltz, polka, galop and square dances, and some were even expert in "fancy dancing." Balls were of frequent occurrence, interspersed with theatre parties, after which it was customary to have supper at Kinsley's oysters, frogs' legs, chicken salad and pate de fois gras, etc. Big Men Found Chicago Club Men folk entertained one another from time to time with game dinners at the Grand Pacific the Drake Hotel of its day or at the Palmer, the Sherman, or the Tre- mont houses, glorying in the frescoed ceilings, the Brus- sels carpets and the excellent fare. Out of such enter- taining as this and the desire for more metropolitan life grew the Chicago Club, the pioneer club of the West, and for many years the only social club in Chicago. Its membership of one hundred included such names as B. F. Ayer, Charles J. Barnes. T. B. Blackstone, A. H. Burley, John Crerar, John De Koven, John B. Drake, N. K. Fairbank, C. B. Farwell, Marshall Field, Robert T. Lincoln, E. B. McCagg, S. M. Nickerson, George M. Pullman, J. Y. Scammon, Perry H. Smith, Lambert Tree, Emory Washburne, Jr., and others of equal prominence socially and financially. A clubhouse where De Jonghe's restaurant now stands was ultimately attained, and there the younger members had their first taste of what at that time was considered really "high life." The Chicago Yacht Club was organized in July, 1870, the Farragut Boat Club in March, 1872, the Chicago Cricket Club in May, 1876, and the Bicycle Club in 1879. As for the national game, Chicago was represented at the meeting of the National Professional Baseball Asso- 42 elation in New York City on March 17, 1871, by the "White Stockings," otherwise known as the Chicago Club, which by 1876 became the champion club. The home grounds of the club at that time were located near the corner of State and Twenty-third Streets, and by 1877 the City Council had granted the club a lease of the lake front between Washington and Randolph Streets. Municipal Reorganization Out of the unusual conditions created by the fire, mak- ing necessary the repair or replacement of almost all public works, such as street pavements, sidewalks, lamp posts, waterworks, sewage systems, bridges, etc., besides the undertaking of new enterprises, such as the boring of more tunnels, the extension of horse car lines, etc., came the general consciousness that a change in the very fabric of the body politic was necessary. The re- sult was the reorganization of the city under the general incorporation act of April, 1875. By this Chicago's rural government by legislative enactment, suitable for a small town, gave place to a more metropolitan system, with more power vested in the common council. In 1876 the board of public works was abolished and the single commissioner system instituted, the mayor him- self holding that office temporarily until a regular com- missioner was appointed in May, 1879. Civic Bodies and Press Such changes are not effected without the action of or- ganized civic bodies, and chief among these were the Citizens' Association now the oldest civic reform or- ganization in America which came into being July 24, 1874, "to insure a more perfect administration in our municipal affairs," and the Commercial Club, organized on December 27, 1877, by the city's most prominent and public-spirited business men, and whose force in the affairs of the city it is impossible to overestimate. The newspapers the fourth estate of the period were the Journal, founded in 1844 and never missing an issue, not even that of October 9, 1871; the Tribune, founded in 1847, and the bulwark of Republicanism; the Times, founded in 1854, and with democratic pro- clivities; the Inter Ocean, founded in 1872 by J. Y. Scammon; the News, first issued on Christmas day, 1875, 43 with the present head of the Associated Press as its ed- itor, Melville E. Stone, and Eugene Field on its staff of poets. The morale of the people after the fire, as well as in some cases their actual physical well-being, was in great part sustained by the active and whole-hearted work of the churches. Among clergymen of the period whose names stand out prominently are the Rev. Robert Collyer, of Unity Church; Rev. E. P. Goodwin, of the First Con- gregational Church; Rev. William Everts, of the First Baptist Church; Dwight L. Moody, of the Chicago Ave- nue Church; David Swing, of the Fourth Presbyterian, later of Central Church; Bishop Charles E. Cheney, of Home of Carter H. Harrison, Sr., many times mayor of Chicago, on Ashland Boulevard. Christ Church; Bishop Whitehouse, of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and Bishop Thomas Foley, Roman Catholic administrator of the diocese of Chicago. How the "I Will" Spirit Was Born All these agencies pulling together as never before accomplished what to the ordinary mood of mankind would have appeared impossible, the resurrection of a city from what seemed to be annihilation. By the suf- ferings which these people who passed through the fire 44 endured together, they were welded into one body, one mind and one spirit, and Chicago of today is a demon- stration of what such unity can accomplish. Electricity and Sanitation in the Eighties Events touching every interest in Chicago in the eighties were the introduction of electricity in the form of light and telephone service, and the organization of the Sanitary District, looking to the purification of the city's water supply by way of the drainage canal. The first electric lights in Chicago were seen in 1880, a 50-light dynamo having been installed in the base- ment of the Young Men's Christian Association building, whence by June 1 light was going forth to at least forty lamps all under the patents of the wizard Edison. The first theatre in the world to use incandescent lamps was the Academy of Music on Halsted Street, Chicago. The first theatre to be completed lighted with electricity was the old Haverly Theatre on Monroe Street. That Chi- cago people rose to the occasion was shown when on the first night, just as the curtain rose, all the lights were turned on. As one man they sprang to their feet and applauded for fully fifteen minutes. By 1885 the court- house and city hall had electric plants of their own ; on the evening of December 31 the new Board of Trade building bloomed out with a corona of lights at the crest of its 300-foot tower, and in a few years they were in general use throughout the city. Telephones had been in the wind since 1878 when the Bell and Edison systems be- gan to operate in Chicago, but it was in April, 1881, that the Chicago Telephone Company bought out the Bell Company of Illinois and the American District Telegraph Company, consolidating the Bell and Edison systems, and giving the city practical service. Such utilities can only be appreciated by imagining their absence for a single twenty-four hours. The fact that Lake Michigan is the source of water supply for the city, and that prior to the eighties it had also been the place of sewage disposal, makes apparent the need that led to the organization of the Sanitary District under the acts of June 6, 1887, and May 29, 1889. Attempts to divert the course of the current in the Chicago River and its branches had been made early in 45 the eighties and before that, by means of powerful pump- ing stations within the city limits. Chicago was now empowered to go beyond its borders, cut through the rocky stratum separating the Lakes from the Mississippi water systems, and purify her own water supply. The year 1880 was a record year for Chicago in the development of commerce, not only throughout the Northwest, but in the direction of foreign trade. Corn receipts increased 50 per cent over the previous year, while oats and barley were larger than ever before. The value of cattle and hogs was greater than in any previous year of Chicago's history. Foreign tonnage entered at seaports of the United States had increased from 1,608.- 291 tons in 1860 to 12,112,160 tons in 1880. Chicago, doing her share towards taking care of this trade with Europe, had meanwhile acquired two new carriers, the Grand Trunk Railway in February, and the Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific in August. The Chicago & Atlantic Rail- road was opened in 1883, and with its connection, the New York, Lake Erie & Western, formed a direct line to the seaboard. Foundations of the Great Central Market In addition to the enormous growth of the packing industry of Chicago, there was development along cog- nate lines, and the estimated value of wool and hides handled in Chicago for the year 1885 was $25,000,000. The total value of raw furs brought to Chicago about this time was between one and two millions of dollars annually. A notable feature of the grocery trade in Chicago has always been the direct importations of teas and coffees. Among the more prominent grocers who developed in the seventies and eighties in Chicago establishments of national note were Franklin MacVeagh & Co., Reid, Mur- doch & Fischer, H. C. Durand & Co., Corbin, May & Co., Sprague, Warner & Co., Merriam, Collins & Co., John A. Tolman & Co., W. M. Hoyt, Henry Horner & Co., and Dean Brothers & Lincoln. The lumber industry, already the largest in the coun- try, in 1881 added another district to the South Branch of the river, extending from 35th Street to the Stock Yards, and by 1884 a number of firms were obliged to 46 move to South Chicago to secure space, while the North Branch was already being invaded by the retail trade. At that time there were about 500 steamers and sailing vessels employed in the lumber traffic in Chicago, and 30,000 railroad cars, the total value of the products re- ceived being about $50,000,000. By 1885 Chicago had become the recognized center of the clothing industry, both as to manufacture and dis- tribution. The total sales for that year aggregated $20,- 000,000. Masterful Advance of Great Industries By the middle of the eighties Chicago had already taken her place as leading the world in the manufacture and distribution of furniture. In 1870 she made about half as much furniture as Cincinnati, one-third as much as Boston and Philadelphia, and one-sixth as much as New York. By 1880 she distanced all the others except New York, but by 1885 she had beaten New York both in number of employes and amount of annual product. In parlor furniture her sales equalled those of New York, Boston and Cincinnati combined. Refrigerating cars came into use in Chicago in the early eighties, there being two concerns operating them on the basis of a percentage of the earnings of the rail- ways using them, plus a royalty. By means of these cars fresh fruit from the South appeared on Chicago tables, and the people in Boston began to eat fresh beef which might have been shipped from Cheyenne. Pullman Cars The increase of transportation by means of the seven- teen railroads entering Chicago had had the effect of greatly widening her borders, through the growth of suburbs, encouraged by the railroads issuing commuta- tion tickets. Pullman palace cars, Chicago's contribution to the comfort of the traveling world, began to be made in the town of Pullman the $5,000,000 village on the out- skirts of Chicago, created by George M. Pullman for the centralization of his manufacturing work, and in the hope of dispelling dissatisfaction of employes through advantageous surroundings. A commentary on this is 47 that the work went on apace, but for some reason the employes did not seem to like to live in the company houses perhaps because they were too uniform in ap- pearance. Within recent years Pullman has been an- nexed to Chicago, with all city privileges. An important experiment in the segregation of workmen and their families has been tried there, and manufacturers of to- day are putting into practice the lessons learned. One of the results is the study to afford as much variety in appearance in the houses as would obtain in any aver- age village. Chicago as Steel and Iron Center Chicago's position between the ore beds of Northern Michigan and the coal fields of Pennsylvania and Illi- nois made her a natural center for the manufacture of railroad rails and other iron products necessary to the development of the Northwest. While the North Chicago rolling mills were established in 1857, the South Chicago mills were of the seventies and eighties. The year 1881 was especially prosperous in the iron industry. The rolling mills found it necessary to run at full capacity and four new blast furnaces were built at South Chicago. The number of establishments engaged in the business for 1881 was 202; employes, 11,359; capital, $10,752,- 000, and value of products $33,343,000. While this does not seem a very huge total according to present day standards, still it brought Illinois up from fifteenth place in the manufacture of steel and iron to fourth place at that time. The location of the Pullman works on Calu- met Lake and the rolling mills at South Chicago, with the later development of the steel works at Gary, have had a strong influence on men's minds with regard to the ultimate location of Chicago's main harbor. Farm Machinery Center Cyrus Hall McCormick died in Chicago on May 13, 1884, having established the great business of manufac- turing reapers in Chicago on a basis so broad and firm that it led ultimately to the organization of the Interna- tional Harvester Company and made Chicago the world's center for the manufacture of agricultural machinery. The removal of the McCormick factory from the main 48 river to a point on the North Branch had the effect of drawing away a good many big enterprises from the mouth of the river to a zone where they could obtain more space. An industry which has almost passed out of existence all over the land, but which in Chicago of the eighties flourished like a green bay tree, was the brewing business. By 1885 there were thirty-three breweries in Chicago and twenty private malt-houses. The brewing interest had more than doubled in fourteen years and Chicago ranked high as a beer-producing center in the United States. The annual production in the middle eighties was 800,- 000 barrels and required over 5,000,000 bushels of malt, over 4,000,000 bushels of barley and 1,600,000 pounds of hops. Substance and Elegance in Building On the physical side vast changes took place in Chi- cago of the eighties. From the age of framework and marble fronts, the city passed to the age of brick, gran- ite and brownstone. All down Michigan, Prairie and Calumet Avenues on the South Side, out Ashland and Washington Boulevards on the West Side, and up Dear- born Avenue and North State and Rush Streets on the North Side appeared palaces, usually with bulging fronts and a round tower at the corner, and finished inside with the most massive of woodwork. Very elegant were these homes as to their fittings, for Chicagoans had many of them been abroad, and paintings, statuary and Aubusson rugs were the order of the day. Occasionally an East- lake house, or row of houses would appear, usually built of brick, with insertions of colored tile and stained glass windows. The flat geometrical ornament of the Eastlake fashion is connected in the minds of a great many Chi- cago people with the visit of Oscar Wilde, with his sun- flowers, for the main motif of the Eastlake ornament seems to be the sunflower or perhaps it is intended for a daisy. A striking example of the Eastlake style was the George E. Adams homestead, at Belden Avenue and North Clark Street, where the whole interior was one unified textbook of the Eastlake manner, even to the furniture of the bedrooms, built in, because nothing Eastlake enough could be procured, presumably. 49 Many clubhouses were built during this epoch, includ- ing the Calumet Club, on Michigan Avenue and Twen- tieth Street, opened April 21, 1883; the Union League Club house, opened in May, 1886, at Jackson Street and Third Avenue; the Union Club, opened in December, 1883, at Dearborn Avenue and Delaware Place, etc. The removal of the Chamber of Commerce from Wash- ington to Jackson Street occasioned a great deal of build- ing in that vicinity. The new Board of Trade building was completed in 1885, and was thought at the time to "defy competition." Not far from it on Adams Street stood the "purely Moorish" structure erected by Kins- ley, the caterer. On Michigan Avenue was erected the Richelieu Hotel. Fireproofing, advanced by the use of construction steel, began to result in "skyscrapers" and at the same time in a style of architecture in which some attention was paid to what the architects call "function" in deciding upon "form." The Marshall Field wholesale house on Adams Street may be taken as typical of the change which was coming over Chicago in point of archi- tecture. Only a warehouse, essentially, and without meretricious ornament, so grandly have the masses and proportions of the building been handled as to suggest in some sort the weight and import of the great business which it houses. H. H. Richardson of Boston was the architect of the Marshall Field wholesale building, but our own Adler and Sullivan were the architects of the Auditorium, built in 1889, including under one roof an hotel and a theatre, massive as the Pitti Palace, and ex- pressing as no building had done before the tremendous power of the young democracy by the lake. From this point on, it may be said that Chicago architecture had "arrived." Men no longer built buildings and tacked on the ornament afterward. The relation of form to function was observed, and the "Chicago School," headed by Louis Sullivan, discovered how to make even "sky- scrapers" dignified, and, in relating dwelling houses to landscape, learned to apply the principle, for this prairie country, of the horizontal line. Origin of Lake Shore Drive Along in the latter part of the eighties there arose a movement to make land east of Pine Street for building 50 purposes, and out of this grew the famous Lake Shore Drive. A pioneer in this movement was Potter Palmer, who, contrary to all precedent, dared the "inclement blasts" of the east wind and built a castle on the new extension in what was then an uninhabited waste. Tall trees and clinging vines now cluster round that castle, which has an ancient air, and is about to be opened with ceremony by the second generation of Potter Palmers. The beautiful drive one of the most superb in the world sweeps by it, and neighboring castles have come to its support, but already there is talk and more than talk, of "doing away with all that mediaeval grandeur" in favor of flat buildings, shops, and huge hotels. We could curb the lake which used to tear away the Lake Shore Drive at intervals, but it would seem that we can- not curb the mighty city, surging forward from the river, unless it be by a magic moat thrown around our castles by the zoning system. Great Political Conventions Center Here In the matter of elections, Chicago began to play a dis- tinguished part in the eighties, becoming the city for conventions of the great national parties. Beginning with 1880 more than a score of such conventions have been held here some of them the most momentous in the his- tory of the country. At least six of the men nominated have been elected Garfield in 1880, Cleveland in 1884 and 1892, Harrison in 1888, Roosevelt in 1904, Taft in 1908 and Harding in 1920. Meanwhile, within the city government was instituted what might be called a royal Democratic dynasty. Be- ginning with 1879-80, and continuing for five successive elections, the mayor of Chicago was Carter H. Harrison, who was mayor again at the time of the World's Fair, when at the height of his glory and of the city's tri- umph he was struck down by the hand of an assassin in his own hospitable home. His son, Carter H. Harri- son, Junior, not long after succeeded him for an almost equally long term of office. Political Impurities Way back in the seventies the city and county had ad- vertised for plans for a new city hall and court house, 51 and in the year 1885 they were ready for occupancy, hav- ing cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $5,000,000. Some notable trials which took place in the eighties are typical of the struggle which the city, and, in fact, the country, were passing through. In 1884 occurred the trial of Joseph C. Mackin for perjury in connection with alleged spurious tickets with the name of a Repub- lican candidate upon them in the state election. The case was tried before Judge Moran, with Emery A. Storrs attorney for the defendant, and J. S. Grinnell, Israel N. Stiles and Joel M. Longnecker for the state. Mackin was adjudged guilty and sent to Joliet. In 1887 began the "omnibus boodle" trial, resulting in the conviction of "McGarigle et al." on June 29th, and dragging Chicago's name in the dust. When Chicago Throttled Anarchy Out of a strike in the McCormick reaper works arose a disturbance in 1886 among the "international anarchists" of Chicago, who were organized into groups and very active. They were advocating a "general strike" for an eight-hour day, and stirred up an intense excitement among the workmen of the city, leading to ultra- anarchistic utterances. A riot occurred on the third of May at the McCormick works, and an anarchist meeting was called for next day in Haymarket Square in Ran- dolph Street. When it was judged that the speeches were too revolutionary to be allowed to continue, the police were called upon to disperse the meeting. A bomb was thrown and many policemen were injured, seven fatally. In the trial which followed before Judge Joseph E. Gary, no one person could be identified as the one who threw the bomb, but on the ground that they were morally con- spirators and accomplices in the killing, seven of the anarchists were condemned to death. Four were hanged, August Spies, Albert Parsons, Gus Engel and Adolph Fischer. Fielden and Schwab had their sentences com- muted to life imprisonment, but one, Louis Lingg, com- mitted suicide by exploding a dynamite bomb in his mouth. By the anarchist trial, in which Judge Gary's decision was sustained by the supreme court of the United States, it is considered that certain principles of law have been established reaffirming the very foundations of our 52 body politic, and forever protecting the citizens of the United States from the invasion of foreign anarchistic propaganda leading to deeds of violence. Strong Men Move for Political Reform The constant repetition of election frauds brought about a non-partisan movement in favor of a new elec- tion law that would have the effect of preventing such frauds. The movement was headed by Marshall Field, A. A. Carpenter, M. E. Stone, I. N. Stiles, S. Corning Judd, A. F. Seeberger, John A. King and others. A bill known as the "citizens' election bill" was submitted to the legis- lature and passed. On being submitted to the people it received a majority in every ward of the city, and elec- tion commissioners were appointed. The first election held under the provisions of the new law was the town and aldermanic one of April, 1886. During this period the Citizens' Association was active in the fight for civil service reform, and finally organized and launched the Civil Service Reform Association. They also carried on a persistent educational campaign for a constitutional convention in Illinois looking to tax consolidation. First Cable Train On January 17, 1881, the city council granted the Chi- cago City Railway Company the right to operate a line of cable cars in Chicago, and by January, 1882, the State Street line to Twenty-ninth Street was ready for use. On the 28th of the month, with a great deal of ceremony, the first public trial took place, Mayor Harrison, Superin- tendent Holmes, Judge Caton, Silas Cobb, William Bross and others of "the early day" making speeches. The Wabash and Cottage Grove line was constructed next, and by the close of the first year it was estimated that 6,000,000 more people had been transported than by the previous system of horse cars. The speed made was something less than ten miles an hour. The cable, which was adapted from the San Francisco system, was an end- less steel rope running in a slot under the street so that it could be "gripped" by the cars, which were thus pro- pelled along, the power being furnished by stationary engines in the plant. Ultimately the North and West Sides were all fitted out with cables, and if any inhabitant 53 of Chicago of the eighties happened to return to this region and did not hear the rattle of the cable in its slot, he would think that the world had come to an end. The cable itself was not so bad, although it did hitch along a bit and break occasionally, especially in icy weather, but the squabbles into which Chicago was thrown over the franchises, particularly the attempt of the companies under leadership of Charles T. Yerkes to secure a ninety-nine year extension, threw the people into bitter conflict with the authorities, and led in the next Hull House, world's largest social settlement. decade to the formation of the Municipal Voters' League and the Committee of One Hundred. When the Horse Still Was King The favorite equipage in Chicago of the eighties was a four-in-hand, or, failing that, a tandem cart. "Charlie" Schwartz, Valentine Dickey, Hall McCormick, Potter Palmer, Chatfield Taylor and later Arthur Caton pos- sessed these first bewildering vehicles, and used to aston- ish the eyes of their fellow citizens and assail their ears 54 as well with the winding horn which heralded their ap- proach. Fast trotting was in vogue on the boulevards, and all roads led to Washington Park on Derby Day. Ladies rather favored the stanhope-phaeton, and at "the hour" the avenue and the Lake Shore Drive were gay with pretty parasols and beautiful costumes a custom which the rapid-transit auto has rather sadly displaced. The West Division High School was built in 1880, the North Division in 1883 and the South Division in 1884. Prior to that all three sides of the city had united in one high school. Evening schools developed rapidly in the eighties. An educational event of surpassing importance to Chicago was the opening of the Chicago Manual Train- ing School on Michigan Avenue and Twelfth Street in 1884, through the insight and generosity of the Com- mercial Club of Chicago. In 1886 the old University of Chicago, founded in 1858 on land contributed by Stephen A. Douglas at Thirty-fourth Street and Cottage Grove Avenue, had to turn its property over to its creditors. Im- mediately plans for a collegiate foundation were insti- tuted by T. W. Goodspeed and others, with the result that John D. Rockefeller, who was debating a choice between New York and Chicago as a site for a college to be en- dowed by him, chose Chicago and subscribed $600,000 to that end. Chicago raised the remainder of the amount needed at the outset, and by 1891 William Rainey Harper was elected president, and the great enterprise was launched, on an unprecedented scale, with such foresight as to make the University of Chicago known throughout the civilized world today. The Founding of Hull House In the year 1889, in a long-neglected old family man- sion on South Halsted Street, two women came to take up their residence Miss Jane Addams and Miss Ellen Gates Starr. They had been traveling abroad, engaged in sociological and economic investigation for some years, visiting among other European institutions Toynbee Hall, in London, and many experimental foundations in Ger- many looking to popular benefit. Hull House the former home of one of Chicago's early citizens by the name of Hull was in the very heart of the cosmopoli- tan population which Chicago's great industries had been 55 drawing from foreign shores. Furnishing the house ex- actly as they would have done in a so-called residential district, with all the enrichment of pictures, collected in their travels, and quiet but harmonious furniture and rugs, these women proceeded to get acquainted with their neighbors. Immediately needs, spiritual and physical, began to be made known. The effort to supply these needs, to safeguard the bodies and to feed the minds of those with whom they came in contact has resulted in the great educational and industrial and social institution known as Hull House, whose influence extends today in ever-widening circles to include all mankind. Liberal Religious Forums of Swing and Thomas Striking examples of departure from routine in mat- ters religious which flourished in Chicago of the eighties were Central Church of Chicago, founded by Rev., or, as he was called, "Professor" David Swing, and the People's Church, organized to hold up the hands of the Rev. H. W. Thomas. The former church arose during the seventies because of doctrinal differences between the pastor and the presbytery, and the latter because of similar differ- ences in the Congregational Conference, occurring in 1880. Both brilliant men drew to them enormous audiences, Professor Swing in Central Music Hall and later the Auditorium, and Dr. Thomas in Hooley's Theatre and later the Chicago Opera House. Probably no more hu- manizing thought has ever found utterance in Chicago than from these two broad platforms. The continuance of Central Church under Dr. N. D. Hillis and the late Dr. Frank W. Gunsaulus have demonstrated the need for taking the truth to the people in the city proper as well as in the so-called "residential districts." An annual art exhibition was given all through the eighties in the Exposition Building on the lake front, constituting Chicago's Salon, and affording to the artists a market for their wares. People really bought pictures in those days, and statuary as well. We may laugh at them now, but the cultural life of the city is the richer today for the taste there developed. Chicago's First May Festival The first Chicago May festival was given on May 23- 25, 1882, with Theodore Thomas as director of music 56 and W. L. Tomlins in charge of the choral work. The second May festival came in 1884, under the same aus- pices. The first opera festival occurred April 13-25, 1885, with Adelina Patti, Signori Giannini, Cherubmi, De Anna, and others of the famous Mapleson organiza- tion, on the staff of artists. There was plenty of opera in Chicago those days, especially opera bouffe, beginning in 1880 with the "Pirates of Penzance," and following thick and fast with that whole wonderful series given by the Chicago Church Choir Company and the Boston Ideals, including "Pina- fore," "Patience," the "Bells of Corneville," the "Mas- cotte," "Olivette," "Billee Taylor," the "Musketeers," etc., etc., etc. As for the theatre, Sarah Bernhardt, Rob- son and Crane and Ellen Terry were among our visitants. World's Fair and End of Century in Chicago With the dawn of the last decade of the nineteenth cen- tury there occurred in Chicago an event once more bring- ing Chicago to the attention of the whole world, as had done the great fire of 1871, but with this difference: in- stead of appearing to the eyes of the world as a martyr to disaster, she had so far conquered circumstances as to be designated by the government of the United States to hold the great international exposition commemorative of the discovery of America. As a matter of fact, the initiative in this vast undertak- ing lay with Chicago, for as far back as 1885, the direc- tors of the Chicago Inter-State Industrial Exposition Chicago business men had expressed themselves to this effect: "Resolved, That a great world's fair should be held in Chicago in the year 1892, the four hundredth an- niversary of the landing of Columbus in America." By 1889 a "World's Exposition Company" was organized by Chicagoans, with a capital stock of $5,000,000. In 1890 Senator Shelby M. Cullom of Illinois introduced a bill in Washington providing for the holding of the "World's Columbian Exposition of the Arts and Industries," but neglected to say where it should be held. New York, St. Louis and Washington immediately entered into com- 57 petition with Chicago, but, by reason of the action al- ready taken, and backed up with funds in Chicago, to- gether with our acknowledged superiority of location as Daniel Hudson Burnham, director of works of World's Columbian Exposition and author of the Chicago Plan. From portrait by Zorn, by permission of Mrs. Burnham. to centralization and transportation, Chicago received the award. Building of the Matchless Exposition A national commission was appointed with Thomas W. Palmer as president; Harlow N. Higginbotham was pres- 58 ident of the exposition company; the local board of directors were elected from among the original stockhold- ers, and George R. Davis became director-general. Act- ing as professional advisor from the very beginning of the enterprise, Daniel H. Burnham, Chicago's great archi- tect and master magician, was now appointed chief of construction, with his partner, John W. Root, as consult- ing architect, and the firm of F. L. Olmstead & Co. as consulting landscape architects. There was also, for the first time in history of expositions, a board of lady man- agers appointed, with Mrs. Potter Palmer as president and Mrs. Ellen M. Henrotin as vice-president. Charles C. Bonney was president of the World's Congress Aux- iliary, covering every phase of human achievement. Summoning the Master Builders Burnham's problem involved a site far from the center of town Jackson Park but reached by seven railroads and the surface lines; in part reduced to park-like condi- tions and in part corresponding somewhat to Sidney Lan- ier's description of the Tampa Flats, "inexorable, vapid, vague and chill, the drear sand levels." His broad pol- icy was at once manifest by the calling not merely Chi- cago architects to the task, but the representative archi- tects of the entire nation, such men as R. M. Hunt, George B. Post, McKim, Mead & White of New York, Peabody & Stearns of Boston, Van Brunt & Howe of Kansas City, Adler & Sullivan, S. S. Beman, Henry Ives Cobb, W. L. B. Jenny and Burling & Whitehouse of Chicago. Augus- tus St. Gaudens was advisor in all problems involving the decoration of the grounds by sculpture and monu- mental fountains, and Frank D. Millet had charge of decoration. It is beyond our purpose or powers to go into detail as to the great scheme wrought out there. This much should be said, however: it was a city that was born on those "drear sand levels," with its approaches by land and by water, its civic or administrative center, its Court of Honor, about which were grouped or zoned if you pre- fer the buildings representative of the great main indus- tries; its outer zone embracing the Woman's building, Horticulture, Fisheries and buildings admitting of a lighter, more decorative treatment, the very keystone of 59 l c | iTS '* 5 I ^ * 1 which was the Art Building; and on the outmost fringe of all the outer park belt, so to speak the region de- voted to forestry, animal life, and the like. Seat of Commerce Materializes Its Dream Out of orderliness and art sprang beauty such as had never been seen before on American soil, or, indeed, in all the world mayhap. Chicago, the commercial city, the devotee of industry nay, if we remember her his- tory, the Cinderella who but late had sat among the ashes, was to show the world how to be worthy of the Fairy Prince. It was civilization that was exemplified there, the last best phase of it, which in providing com- fort and convenience for all comers, confers also the ineffable boon of beauty to refresh the spirit. A New York architect in speaking of it said: "Burn- ham, the chief of construction, rubs his wonderful lamp of Aladdin at Chicago and the sudden result is an ex- halation, a vast phantasm of architecture, glittering with domes, towers and banners, like the vision of Norumbega, which presently will fade away and leave no trace be- hind." Enshrining the Vision Doubtless he meant to be comforting, and even flat- tering, that New York architect, but he did not know Chicago people those hard-headed commercial people of the Middle West. They made no immediate sign, even when the vision vanished to the perception of those who considered it a mere phantasm. But deep in their inmost souls they retained the vision and resolved to make it real as once before they had retained the image of the dear city of their first love the Chicago which seemed to perish in the Great Fire, but which was cherished in their hearts until she lived again. The City Beautiful of today is the White City of yesterday, made tangible, practical and permanent. The year following the fair the South Park Commis- sioners proposed the improvement of the lake front from Jackson Park to Grant Park. In furtherance of this a plan for a connection between the two parks was drawn, and the project presented at a meeting of the West and South Park Commissioners and later at a dinner given by 61 the Commercial Club of Chicago. This plan provided for a park out in the lake, separated from the mainland by a long lagoon spanned at intervals by bridges. Beginnings of the Chicago Plan During the next three or four years the lake front scheme was matured by further study. Larger and more detailed drawings were made. Meanwhile, the Merchants' Club of Chicago, a young and vigorous organization of Chicago business men, on the llth of April, 1897, ap- proached J. W. Ellsworth, chairman of the Board of South Park Commissioners, to ascertain his opinion of erecting an exposition building on the lake front. After a conference it was decided to visit D. H. Burnham at his office in the Rookery Building. The result was that the plan for a solitary exposition building on the lake front was abandoned and the broader question, "What can be done to make Chicago more attractive?" sched- uled for the next meeting of the club on April 3rd. At that meeting, Burnham presented to his audience a bird's- eye view of Chicago from Fifty-fifth Street to Grant Park, showing an outer park 300 to 700 feet wide to be built along the lake shore east of the Illinois Central tracks from Jackson Park to Twelfth Street, and another park to be built out in the lake as an island about six miles in length. The lagoon formed by these two parks varied in width and a dozen or more bridges of graceful design connected the island with the mainland. The project was pronounced as "entirely feasible from a financial view- point," by a financial expert who was called upon to advise, and by one of Chicago's foremost merchants was called "an opportunity for making Chicago the most re- markable city of the world, which it would be the height of folly to neglect." Merchants' Club, Commercial Club and the Plan The lake front park plan was endorsed by the Mer- chants' Club in executive session on April 12, 1902, and at a meeting of the executive committee on February 17, 1903, the persons best fitted to introduce the lake front park bill at Springfield were selected. The bill, which involved the dedication of the land under the lake to this purpose, and the filling in of the submerged shore, was 62 drafted by Attorney John H. Hamline, and with the sup- port and active co-operation of the Merchants' Club, it was passed. Early in 1906 the Merchants' Club arranged for the preparation of a complete plan for the develop- ment of Chicago, a studio for the making of the drawings was built on the roof of the Railway Exchange, where Daniel H. Burnham and Edward H. Bennett could work without petty distractions, and where the great scheme took form. In 1907 the Commercial Club, which was the elder body, and the Merchants' Club coalesced to form one club, to be called the Commercial Club, and the Chicago Plan has proceeded under their auspices, with the help of every other civic agency. Most Practical, Yet Most Idealistic We have gone into detail with regard to this matter be- cause it shows the effect of the World's Fair, which prop- erly belongs to the period of the nineties, and the way in which Chicago men work when they want to accom- plish something worth while. At once the most idealistic and the most practical men on the face of the earth, they do not leave the carrying out of their ideals to the other fellow. They have not shifted their burdens onto the shoulders of overworked and underpaid public officials, but have found a way of co-operating with the latter which lightens the whole load. Another effect of the World's Fair was the cosmopoli- tanism which it created. Chicago people who had drunk the blending of golden and brown elixir out of the two teapots of the gentle Ceylon representative, or had taken coffee with the Costa Ricans, or in "Old Vienna," or from the "Hot, Hot" coffee-pot of the white-petticoated Turk, who had watched the batik-making of the Javanese, observed the completeness of Japan's defensive equip- )ment, sanitary and otherwise, been cheered by the life- giving quality of French art, or depressed by certain decadent tendencies in the German Chicago people who came in contact with all this daily and intimately could never be accused of provincialism again. They would feel at home in the real "Streets of Cairo," quite at their ease in a village of the South Sea Islanders, and in re- turn they knew that the name of Chicago and the entire feasibility of dealing with us had been made known to 63 the uttermost parts of the earth. It is needless to say that the memory of all this will have a decided effect in stimu- lating interest in foreign trade, which can never seem so "foreign" since the World's Fair. Panic of 1893 The inevitableness of our unity with the rest of the world was rather sadly demonstrated by the financial panic of 1893 occasioned primarily by the cessation of free coinage of silver in India and the consequent shut- ting out of American silver, leaving us with a great quan- tity on our hands. At the same time the silver purchase law of 1890 was in force, providing for the purchase of 4,500,000 ounces of silver each month by the United States treasury, and the issue of treasury notes against it redeemable in coin. The report of the fiscal year ending February, 1894, showed that our gold exports amounted to $70,000,000, owing to the liquidation of American securities abroad. Two national banks in Chicago failed, as did many such institutions elsewhere. At the same time, because Chicago is the great food market of the world, and people must have food, money continued to flow into Chicago and Chicago banks were in the main able to meet their obligations with hard cash. Congress at length repealed the Silver purchase law, and the coun- try recovered from the crisis. On May 11, 1894, occurred the strike at Pullman, where the Pullman Company, affected by the business depression, had had to lay off many employes, and fol- lowing which the American Railway Union ordered a boycott against all roads running Pullman cars. It tied up traffic all over the country, trains were stoned, and a general strike of all labor threatened. Federal troops from Fort Sheridan were ordered here, and Debs, the strike leader, failing to get support from the other indus- trial unions, called the strike off. President Cleveland appointed a Labor Commission to investigate the cause for the strike, with Carroll D. Wright as chairman. The Chicago Woman's Club was organized in 1876 by Mrs. Caroline M. Brown, and this important advance of organized women into the cultural life of Chicago had been preceded in 1873 by organization of the Fort- nightly Club by Mrs. Kate Newell Doggett. The Friday 64 Club, composed of younger women of tastes similar to those of the members of the Fortnightly, further ex- tended the fields of cultural interest which the women of Chicago were more and more exploiting. There was begun, largely through the efforts of Mrs. Ellen M. Henrotin, the great movement of the confederation of women's clubs of all states, a movement with large consequences. Journalism in the nineties carried such literary special- ists as George Ade, Finley Peter Dunne ("Mr. Dooley"), Opie Read, Brand Whitlock, and John McCutcheon was then laying the foundations of his unique popularity. Writers of distinction were Henry B. Fuller and Hamlin Garland, and John Vance Cheney, the poet; and with poetry one associates Chicago's distinguished writer, Miss Harriet Monroe, author of the World's Fair Ode and subsequently the founder of the magazine, Poetry. These people and others opened new vistas for Chicago authors. Among magazines are to be noted the Dial, edited by F. F. Browne, and the House Beautiful, edited by Melville E. Stone, Jr., while the creation of the Economist by Clinton Evans was the founding of an institution. In dramatic writing Chicago has given to the world William Vaughan Moody, Edward Sheldon and Frank and Fannie Hatton. Among gifted amateurs are Mrs. Arthur Aldis and Kenneth Sawyer Goodman, the latter not returning from the great war. Among fiction writers contributing to the distinction of Chicago letters are Frank Norris, Robert Herrick, Theodore Dreiser, Upton Sinclair, Emerson Hough, Joseph Medill Patterson, Clara Laughlin, Elia W. Peattie, Edna Ferber, Lillian Bell, Henry Kitchell Webster, Hobart Chatfield Taylor. Chicago's most representative poet in the present era is the late William Vaughan Moody, who in noble verse came to a permanent place among great writers. An- other writer of verse of fame far beyond his own city is Edgar Lee Masters. The magazine, Poetry, has been a medium unique and important for the productions of such unusual writers as Carl Sandburg, Vachel Lindsay, Ezra Pond, Eunice Tietjens, the last being the associate editor of Poetry, and many others of the more modern school of verse. Mention of the cultivation of poetry in 65 Chicago must include the name of the lamented humorist, Bert Leston Taylor ("B. L. T."), conductor of the "Line 0' Type" in the Chicago Tribune and publisher of two volumes of verse. Wit, scholar, philosopher, poet in one was this important entertainer and teacher, and a great reading constituency regrets his death. In the writings of university professors Chicago has richly contributed to the literature of science and research. Chicago artists who have come to their own are such as Lorado Taft in sculpture, Ralph Clarkson and Louis Betts in portraiture, Oliver Dennett Grover and the late Charles Francis Browne in landscape, Frederick C. Bart lett, Edgar S. Cameron and Jessie Arms Botke in mural painting. It would be invidious to single out a few as men of mark among Chicago's architects, but a less personal selection may be effected by glancing over the names of exhibitors at the thirty-fourth annual Chicago architec- tural exhibit at the Art Institute for the year 1921. Among names which appear there are noted S. S. Beman, who, it will be remembered, was active during the World's Fair period; E. H. Bennett and W. E. Parsons, Mr. Bennett having collaborated with D. H. Burnham on the Chicago Plan and being still connected with it as consulting architect; Frank D. Chase, working more es- pecially in steel construction; Chatten & Hammond, architects of many park buildings; Coolidge & Hodgdon, architects of many of the University of Chicago build- ings; Graham, Anderson, Probst & White, whose Wrig- ley building overtops all others in Chicago in height; Alfred Granger, who is building a home for E. H. Soth- ern in Washington; Holabird & Roche, architects of the Monroe building and the University Club; George W. Maher, who specializes on the building of homes; Per- kins, Fellow Hamilton, who are building Nanking University, in Nanking, China; Pond & Pond, architects of the City Club and of the new Chicago Woman's Club buildings; Schmidt, Garden & Martin, successful with large undertakings in hospital and factory construction; George F. Schreiber, architect of the Singer and Flatiron buildings, New York, as well as in other forms; Howard Shaw, devoting himself largely to domestic architecture, particularly for suburban purposes. 66 On the constructive side of things in Chicago of the nineties, there was the steady progress of that great engi- neering enterprise, the Drainage Canal, and much build- ing. The Field Museum was incorporated in 1893, under the name Columbia Museum of Chicago, a title changed in June, 1894, to Field Columbian Museum, and in No- vember, 1905, to Field Museum of Natural History. The continuance of this museum in the Art Building at Jack- son Park and the purchase by its far-sighted director, Dr. Skiff, of the foreign exhibits available in his line, consoled the people in part for the disappearance of their beloved Fair. The Art Institute, incorporated in 1879, came into its own in an adequate building on the lake front at Adams Street on November 1, 1893. The ownership of the building, which cost $785,000, is vested in the city of Chicago, while the right of use and occu- pancy is vested in the Art Institute. The museum features are as fine in quality as any in the country, while the school is unsurpassed in this country. The Chicago Acad- emy of Sciences, through the generosity of Matthew Laflin, received title to a new building at Lincoln Park and Center Street in 1893. On May 30th of that year the cornerstone of the new Public Library was laid, while the Newberry Library, the largest general reference library in the West, entered its new building at Dearborn Avenue and Walton Place in time to assist in the cere- monies of receiving our foreign guests who came to at- tend the Fair. Good Citizens on Guard A bold attempt on the part of the traction people to secure a 50-year extension of their franchise was de- feated by the formation in 1896 of the Municipal Voters' League and by a representative Committee of One Hun- dred sent from Chicago to attend the legislature at Springfield. The active campaign for the improvement of municipal service began in 1896, although a civil service system was inaugurated in 1895. The salaries of councilmen were raised with good effect. The Civic Fed- eration, organized in 1894, in the year 1896 demonstrated that it could clean the streets of the center of the business district for slightly over half what the city was paying, and this it did by actually hiring the street cleaners 67 with an expert to direct the work. Cartoonists of the day revelled in the chance to depict John G. Shedd and Harry Selfridge in "White Wings" costume, doing the city's dirty work for it. The Merchants' Club reformed the city's bookkeeping, and secured the establishment of the first municipal pawnbrokers' society in 1899, an institution of inesti- mable benefit to the poor of a great city. A Municipal Art League was formed the same year. In 1899 the Chicago city council created the Special Park Commission and provided for a systematic study of present and future needs of the city in the matter of parks and recreation grounds. In the same year the Illinois Juvenile Court came into existence, largely as the result of Chicago's interest and active effort. Chicago Thinks Toward the "Greater Chicago" The phrase "Greater Chicago" came into common use in 1898 and 1899 in connection with the efforts of various civic bodies to secure the consolidation of the numerous taxing bodies within the city, so that one municipal gov- ernment should perform the functions of the city, county and sundry small town governments involved. This was the time when the press all over the country was agitated by reports that whereas Chicago then covered 184 square miles, she soon would embrace 400 square miles, includ- ing "prairie, corn fields, forests and frog ponds, while every living thing would be included in the census, bring- ing the total up to 5,000,000, and ending with the annex- ation of Illinois." Chicago went calmly on, however, and while she did not succeed in eliminating all the taxing bodies she would have liked, she did gain considerable territory, which made possible the extension of much- needed roads beyond the former city limits, and concerted action between city and county when the matter of forest preserves arose. Technical Education in the Nineties Technical and industrial education in Chicago was much forwarded by several events in the nineties, such as the opening by the Armour Institute of Technology of its principal building in 1893, the incorporation in 1894 of the John Crerar Library as a free library of ref- 68 erence, confining itself to scientific and technical litera- ture, and the organization of Lewis Institute on the West Side. Sociological studies and welfare service were advanced by the organization of Chicago Commons in 1894, and the incorporation in 1898 of the settlements of Northwestern University and of the University of Chicago. Women's clubs were assuming greater importance through their serious constructive studies along humani- tarian lines, as well as along purely cultural themes. Work of One Trade and City Building Organization In the year 1903 Chicago celebrated the centennial of her foundation as a frontier trading post under the name of Fort Dearborn. An important event in 1904 was the organization of The Chicago Association of Com- merce. It were futile to attempt to enumerate the things ac- complished by the Association of Commerce since its organization. A partial list of things done in a single year published in their annual reports for 1919 may serve as typical : Organized the Mississippi Valley Association for the eco- nomic development, north and south, of the great productive section of America. Secured enactment of the convention hall bill by the Illinois General Assembly. Organized the Chicago Crime Commission. Secured 66,000 jobs for soldiers, sailors and marines through co-operation of Chicago employers. Formed the Advertising Council of the Association, the largest "ad" club in the country. Organized the Investors' and Advertisers' Protective Bureau. Obtained passage of the Illinois waterways bill and the favorable attitude of the United States authorities to- wards this great project. Obtained federal legislation, establishing a $1,500,000 harbor at the Great Lakes Training School. Formed the Foreign Trade Club of the Association. Fathered the movement resulting in the organization of the Illinois Chamber of Commerce. 69 Conducted Chicago's most successful Fire Prevention Day. Brought to Chicago the headquarters of the American College of Surgeons, increasing Chicago's prestige as the leading medical center. Conducted the first important trade tour into Mexico, to be followed that year by a return trip in which many American cities were expected to join. Sponsored a strong movement for the improvement of the St. Lawrence River, the success of which will make Chicago an ocean port. Received in Chicago the International Trade Missions of Belgium, France, Great Britain and Italy and con- ducted their three-day program in this city. The Wednesday meetings of the Association's Ways and Means committee are unique in the entire country, con- stituting as they do one of the most important forums ever erected for the consideration of matters affecting the city, state and nation and the world. Standardizing Philanthropic Work An unusual departure within a commercial organiza- tion was the institution in 1911 of the Subscriptions In- vestigating Committee, which now has on its list 219 com- mendable local charities, civic and reform associations, enabling the business man who has not time himself to investigate, to judge quickly of the sound management, social service efficiency and financial integrity of those appealing for aid. The constructive relation of the Association of Com- merce to the Chicago Plan Commission and its work may be judged from testimony in Walter D. Moody's book, "What of the City," published in 1919, Mr. Moody hav- ing become managing director of the Chicago Plan Com- mission after service as general manager of the Associa- tion of Commerce. In April, 1920, Chairman Charles H. Wacker, of the Plan Commission, reported that al- ready twelve basic improvement features had been pro- vided for by bond issues where necessary, and were either under construction or advanced in procedure in the Board of Local Improvements or in the courts, these be- ing Roosevelt Road, Michigan Avenue, West Side terminals and related work, South Shore lake front, 70 Illinois Central Railroad terminal, Western Avenue, Robey Street, Ogden Avenue, South Water Street, acqui- sition of 14,254 acres of forest preserves by Forest Pre- ISN'T IT TIME SHE HAD A NEW DRESS? The late Luther D. Bradley, famous cartoonist of the Chicago Daily News, stressing this city's bare municipal necessities in that paper's issue of August 17, 1904. In 1904 the constitution of Illinois was amended so as to permit special charter legis- lation for Chicago, with the approval of the people of the city on a referendum vote. Under authority of that amendment the Municipal Court of Chicago has been estab- lished as a substitute for the old justice courts. The fifty-ward law and the law for the non-partisan election of aldermen rest upon the same basis. A law is on the statute books under which all the park governments may be consolidated with the city, but it has not yet met with popular approval. It was submitted once and rejected. A plan is on foot to submit it again. Efforts to secure comprehensive charter revision under the Chicago charter amendment of 1904 thus far have proven unavailing. A semi-official charter convention created in 1905 did much good work on the subject and agreed upon the draft of a new charter. Lack of success was due to political differences that developed after the measure was presented to the legislature. 71 serve Commission, outer highway system. Toward the public cost of these improvements of ten years the peo- ple had voted $61,510,000 of bonds; the special assess- ments for the Michigan Avenue and Roosevelt Road (Twelfth Street) improvements had amounted to $8,- 125,237.89; the railway companies had agreed to spend $162,091,350, and the Forest Preserve Commission had expended $5,316.762. A later announcement is that of the improvement of Thirty-ninth Street or Pershing Road, as an east and west artery, connecting Lake Michigan with the McCormick Zoological Gardens, for which the land near Riverside has already been received by the Forest Preserve Commissioners as the gift of Mrs. Harold McCormick. Michigan Boulevard, widened and provided with the magnificent "boulevard link bridge," now sweeps northward unfettered for traffic or for auto- mobile use by reason of the bridge's two-level structure, and the Lincoln and South Park boards have agreed to the plan for an outer drive between Grant and Lincoln Parks. The Franklin-Orleans $1,000,000 double-leaf span, with its approaches forming the connecting link between the loop and the Northwest Side, was opened on October 23, 1920. The Field Museum of Natural Sciences the largest marble building in the world, and containing as wonderful collections as any in the world was opened on land made pursuant to the Chicago Plan on the lake front and at the head of Roosevelt Road. In the direction of transportation, the following are significant events: Drainage Canal opening on January 1, 1900, linking the Chicago River with the Mississippi, first link in the route to foreign fields by waterway. First train over the electric road to Joliet, September 12, 1901, and first train over the Aurora, Elgin & Chicago Electric Railway, August 25, 1902. First Chicago underground tunnels for freight in use July 15, 1906, and first electric cars run on Clark Street the same year, with subsequent electrification of lines. Acceptance by the railway companies with tracks entering Chicago of an ordinance of the Chicago City Council for the elevation of 192.77 miles of main track and 72 947 miles of all tracks and the construction of 724 sub- ways at a cost of $65,000,000 in the year 1908, with subsequent performance of much of the requirement. Opening of the new passenger station of the Chicago & Northwestern railroad in 1911 at a cost of $25,000,000. Beginning of construction of the new passenger station for the roads using the present Union Station Penn- sylvania, Burlington, Chicago & Alton, Milwaukee & St. Paul R. R. estimated cost at post-war prices $80,- 000,000, 1921. Pageant of Progress at the $5,000,000 Municipal Pier, July 30-Aug. 14, 1921, showing approaches by water, by the new Chicago Avenue surface line extension, and by hydro-aeroplane, three 6-passenger boats floating in the harbor, together with power-boats, arousing discus- sion of Chicago as the American marine aviation center. Passage of an ordinance by the Chicago City Council on July 27, 1921, for the deepening of a broad channel through the center of Lake Calumet and the building of piers and slips with filled ground for ware- houses a practical step towards making a center of deep-sea shipping, in close contact with railway lines and obviating the transshipment of freight through congested loop areas or along the river. Men's and Women's City Clubs An event of importance growing out of a feeling of the need of companionship in the downtown district by those engaged in civic work was the formation of the City Club of Chicago in 1903. The club now has 2,000 members. Their six-story clubhouse is the rendezvous of civic organizations of all kinds. Two main activities of the club are the conducting of a forum for discussion and of committees for investigation and report on civic ques- tions. The Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency, offspring of the club, is also housed in its building. The Woman's City Club has also been formed on some- what similar lines, the pioneers being Mrs. Mary W. Wil- marth, Jane Addams, Harriet Vittum and Mrs. J. T. Bowen. In 1907 was launched as an experiment the Chicago Sunday Evening Club to provide in the loop district 73 from October to June a popular Christian service every Sunday evening. A small audience has grown until in May, 1921, the average attendance had become 2,500 with 2,175 at a previous song service. The founder of the club is Clifford W. Barnes, and he has been sup- ported by leading business men. The club looks toward the erection of a great building in the downtown dis- trict where a community center shall be established with rooms for recreation, education, public welfare and promotion of Christian ideals. The small parks and playgrounds movement, which was well under way in 1910, has developed enormously in the decade that intervenes. In 1920, in addition to the several large parks, there were 194 small parks and play- grounds maintained by the city and by park authorities. Many of these have field houses and some have swimming pools. Prior to 1910 the bathing beach facilities were limited in Chicago. In 1920 there were twelve public bathing beaches, three maintained by park boards, the rest by the city government. Clarendon Beach, managed by the city, is the largest, with 10,000 lockers and accommodation for 23,000 bathers in one day. Interesting special schools which have been opened in the new century are the Francis Parker School, founded on the principles of advanced education held by Dr. Parker, at the expense of Mrs. Anita Blaine McCor- mick, and the Chicago School of Domestic Science, whose north branch opens this fall in the old Belden Avenue mansion of the George E. Adams family. The College of Education at the University of Chicago is one of the most highly specialized schools in the world. At the close of its summer session in 1921 the University of Chicago conferred 400 degrees, 57 of which were the bachelor's degree in the College of Education and 19 in the College of Commerce and Administration. Great Orchestra and Great Opera Cultural opportunities at the Art Institute of Chicago were seized by 4,267 students last year, and by 1,100,000 visitors to the museum of the Institute. Typical of the work, which is an outgrowth of the institution, is the Fountain of Time by Lorado Taft to be erected in per- 74 manent material between Washington and Jackson Parks with proceeds from the Ferguson fund. The building and dedication on December 14, 1904, of the permanent home of the Chicago Orchestra, Orches- tra Hall in Michigan Boulevard, is one of the most notable events in the musical world of America, com- pensating Chicago for the long years of patient cultiva- tion of the people's taste, and crowning her judgment in matters artistic, she who fifty years ago knew that Theodore Thomas and his orchestra deserved a place of their own, and never faltered until she had achieved it. The orchestra has recently made a tour of the country with overwhelming success. Chicago may congratulate herself on another score at this fifty-year celebration. Grand opera has likewise come here to make it her home. For several years the Chicago Opera Company has been the recipient of sup- port from the public, aided by the munificence of the guarantors, chief of whom was Harold F. McCormick. In January, 1921, Miss Mary Garden was made general director, with George M. Spangler, formerly in charge of conventions for the Association of Commerce, as business manager, and the strong backing of the asso- ciation behind the whole organization. Its artistic suc- cess has long been unquestioned, and it is now felt that its financial status is assured as well. A unique devel- opment in Chicago, revealing more idealism than she is commonly credited with, is the summer season of opera at Ravinia, where artists of the grand opera organiza- tions of both Chicago and New York lend their assist- ance the summer through to a most unusual summer repertoire, such as "Mignon," "Traviata," "Lakme," "L'Elisir d'Amore," "Martha," "Jewels of the Madonna," "Manon," "Madame Butterfly." A number of new theatres have opened in Chicago with the new century, including the Columbus in 1901, the Iroquois and the Garrick in 1903, the Colonial in 1904, the New Olympic in 1904, the New Theatre (for- merly the Steinway) in 1906, the Apollo in 1921. The burning of the Iroquois Theatre on December 30, 1903, was the occasion of such loss of life that Chicago, in common with all other cities, has established fire regula- tions for theatres never before attempted. The silent 75 drama came to Chicago for the first time September 1, 1897, the place being the Scenic Theatre, now the Fashion Theatre, No. 557 S. State Street. Today the moving pic- ture houses of Chicago number 450, some of large size and architecturally distinguished. Illinois in the Great War Meeting requirements as a center of population and patriotism in the Spanish-American War of 1898, as in the prolonged struggle of the Civil War, Chicago and Illinois mightily took up the huge responsibilities of One of Chicago's great days the preparedness parade, June 3, 1916. The demonstration even exceeded the huge outpouring not long before marking the mood of New York and the Nation, the growing will to enter the war and settle it. Permission of Chicago Daily News. the world war, and Illinois gave 351,153 men to the army and navy of the United States during this conflict, furnishing one man for every twelve in the army and more men to both army and navy than any other state excepting New York and Pennsylvania, both of which have a larger population. The state's own division was the 33d, and this was the only distinctively Illinois organization that saw active service in France. It was formed from the state's old National Guard regi- ments and represented every part of the commonwealth. It was led chiefly by Illinois men, under the command of 76 Major General George Bell, Jr., a veteran of the regu- lar army. The division had a total of 7,255 battle cas- ualties, including 989 men who were killed or died of wounds. The 33d (or Prairie) Division was trained at Camp Logan, near Houston, Tex., and after a short pe- riod of training overseas took its place beside the vet- eran divisions of the American army and fought glo- riously throughout the critical days of the war. The division's brigade units were: 66th Infantry Brigade, composed of the 131st and 132nd Infantry and 124th Machine Gun Battalion; 65th Infantry Brigade, composed of the 129th Infantry, 130th Infan- try and 123d Machine Gun Battalion; 58th Field Artil- lery, composed of the 122nd Field Artillery, 123rd Field Artillery and 124th Field Artillery, 108th Ammunition Train and 108th Trench Mortar Battery. Fortunes of 86th Division The 86th Division, which was trained at Camp Grant, Illinois, composed chiefly of Illinois selected men, was not permitted by circumstances of war to fulfill all of its fine promise. It was depleted time and again while training by drafts made upon it to fill ranks of other divisions that were about to sail for France. Indeed, the 86th Division included in its personnel at various times enough men to make up several divisions and it is likely that the division was represented in almost every regiment seeing actual service in France. Finally out of the stream of raw recruits the division was per- fected and almost a year after it had gone into training at Camp Grant the 86th was ordered to France, disem- barking at Brest in September and October, 1918. De- structive fighting was then in progress and there was a need for replacement, a need for men rather than di- visions, and the 86th as a division was sacrificed. Illinois was also well represented in the 84th and 88th Divisions and in a number of regiments and many smaller units, one prominent organization being the 149th Field Artillery (First Field Artillery). Among the first units to leave Chicago for France was the 13th Engineers, recruited from six railroad systems. The colored population of Illinois furnished two regiments who were in the thick of the fighting, being the 370th 77 a l * r-i.i4< c rs w ^.ss 13 eT3 C ! I 2 * S bC w V^>*T2 III 78 Infantry, formerly 8th Infantry, and the 365th In- fantry. The first Illinois organization to reach France was Base Hospital No. 12, being one of the four com- plete units of its kind organized by the Chicago chapter of the American Red Cross. There were Illinois men in the fight from the first appearance of American forces at the front to the last terrible days of the Argonne, and Illinois contributed thousands to the technical and scientific branches of the service. Illinois, too, in the work of the Great Lakes Naval Training Station became the center after the war began of the greatest post of its kind in the world. The home lines were held with equal sacrifice and devotion. Two striking and influen- tial public events were the preparedness parade of June 3, 1916, and the government war exposition of 1918. Complete Devotion to Supreme Task About 7 per cent of the war loan subscriptions of the Nation came from Illinois, which has but 5% per cent of the population of the United States. The State Council of Defense, Samuel Insull, chairman, has re- ported that the state's total contributions to various funds for war aid and relief organizations were more than $45,000,000. The farm crop of 1918, greatest in money value ever produced by any state, was estimated to be worth $879,697,000, and in the same year the output of Illinois factories in direct war contracts was about $2,000,000,000, the total of manufactured products being valued at $6,000,000,000. Illinois gave to the Nation the American Protective League and the Four-Minute men, and organized labor kept industrial peace. Of the state's 351,153 men in the army and navy more than 46 per cent entered by enlistment. Illinois regis- tered 1,572,747 men under the selective draft and of these 188,010 were inducted into the service. More than 5,000 men gave their lives for their country, and out of the seventy-eight officers and men awarded the Con- gressional Medal of Honor seven were residents of Illi- nois, while 350 officers and men from this state received the Distinguished Service Cross. The state maintained four great training camps, one the Reserve Officers' Training Camp at Fort Sheridan, and the others the Great Lakes Naval Training Station, National Army 79 Cantonment at Camp Grant, and the Chanute Flying Field at Rantoul. Under the State Council of Defense 80,000 citizens engaged in war activities and nearly 700,- 000 women in Illinois were enrolled in the woman's Liberty's service flag. A splendid bit of war work by John T. McCutcheon, in Chicago Tribune. 80 committee of the State Council of Defense, while hun- dreds of thousands of other men, women and children were otherwise active for the victories. Civilian War Work Chicago's war work, non-combatant, functioned through the American Red Cross, and in the follow- ing seven societies, all like the universal mother, ar- dently devoted to the aims of victory: National War : 33d Division comes home to its own, June, 1919. March past La Sail* el as seen from the headquarters of The Chicago Association of Commerce International Film Company. Work Council of Y. M. C. A.; National War Work Council of Y. W. C. A.; National Catholic War Coun- cil (Knights of Columbus) ; Jewish Welfare Board; War Camp Community Service; American Library As- sociation; Salvation Army. The receipts from the coun- try at large of the Y. M. C. A., as of March 31, 1919, were $125,282,859, and expenditures $97,817,005. Chi- 81 cago contributed for war "Y" work about $12,000,000. In the united war work drive securing $8,555,000, the Y. M. C. A. was allotted $4,000,000; Knights of Colum- bus, $1,500,000; Jewish Welfare Board and Salvation Army, $185,000 each. The American Red Cross, as re- Since America entered the war the Chicago Chapter of the American Red Cross has received in contributions from Chicago citizens nearly $15,000,000, and it continues to be the succoring mother wherever in its jurisdiction arises the call. Reproduced by permission of C. D. Gibson, the Life Publishing Company and the University Club of Chicago. 82 ported by its national war council, Feb. 28, 1919, had re- ceived in cash and supplies more than $400,000,000, with 8,000,000 American women in its service, about 17,000,- 000 full-paid members and 9,000,000 school children ad- ditional. In Chicago the Red Cross has been administered by the following executive committee: John W. Scott, James Simpson, Albert A. Sprague, Seymour Morris, Frank 0. Wetmore, Augustus A. Carpenter, Charles H. November 29, 1915. January 24, 1916. There were days when, as the late and masterful Luther D. Bradley, of the Chicago Daily News, trenchantly depicted, we were indeed "slow to anger" ; but there did follow Chateau Thierry^ St. Mihiel and the Argonne and Armistice day. 83 Wacker, Wm. Wrigley, Jr., Marquis Eaton, chairman. Chicago's citizens have contributed since this country entered the war nearly $15,000,000. It is a vast com- munity enterprise commanding in Chicago during the war a membership of more than 1,000,000 persons. Through this agency Chicago equipped and put in serv- ice numerous ambulances and four complete base hos- pitals, cared for more than one million soldiers and sailors in transit, transformed $1,700.000 worth of raw material, through the volunteer service of 100,000 work- ers, into $4,000,000 worth of manufactured supplies and took adequate care throughout the war of upwards of fifty thousand families dependent on the Chicago men who were then fighting in the armies of the United States and of its allies. The chapter has continued since the war to bridge the gap for thousands of dis- abled soldiers and sailors awaiting the relief ultimately available under the Government plan. It carries on among the children, through the Junior Red Cross, an extensive program of patriotic education and service. It gives essential instruction in dietetics, first aid, and home care of the sick to many families; more particu- larly to the families of disabled service men. 84 THINGS DONE AND TO DO Activities and Projects of Chicago as a City Which Contain Essential Elements of Development Program A city, like a family or corporation, is what its people make it. Headless and planless organizations drift but, even with some good done by chance, leave no monu- ments in government, industry and social service. Em- pires are not born, masterful communities are not founded in seed unthinkingly sown by the wayside. Ger- many had a plan, a German plan, and she set forth to make it good. It was not easy to arrest execution of that plan, so well ordered was it, so united and zealous were its devotees. If to a bad plan can be given extraordi- nary impetus and direction, surely a good plan can go far by the benevolence of its purpose. But a plan, al- ways a plan, a program. A city of the first class is today physically and morally a commanding example of organization, of regulated in- dividualism. We may like a city for its eccentricities, but the city that draws and sways, loves and is loved, is a balanced organism of diverse attributes and these come only by design. In the greater cities growth rests upon commerce and industry, in the rich soil of which flourish the creative arts. The life of a city is thought, worship, industry, trade and government. Chicago is still pre- eminently a great workshop and market into which edu- cation and the arts are bringing new power and prestige. Conditions promise it a vast accession of people, but these people must assert themselves masters of their own development or Chicago will be population without iden- tity. Manufacturing and merchandise are the essentials of a market, but more numerous are the elements of a city whose aspect is inspiration and whose word is leader- ship. Dawn of an Era of Plan No Mecca to the race is the city which satisfies itself only. A symmetrical city means health, production and 85 sale, churches, schools, museums, amusements, cleanli- ness, order, public safety, beauty, transportation com- munity elements such as these do not automatically fall into their respective relations and start to function to the greatest advantage merely because man is a gregarious animal and the "government at Washington still lives." Into all, inciting and correlating and forever guiding, must enter plan. Chicago as a social and economic ag- gregation has attained in an uncontrolled century, strik- ingly by the potency of destruction, the framework and moral power of greatness now opens an era of con- scious cultivation and regulation, an era of plan. At this historic hour in the spontaneous and unorgan- ized progress of the world's youngest great city many of its friends herewith propose to fellow citizens that we all scan the making of the heritage to our children, and agree that concert of action along certain lines of devel- opment is reasonable, indeed is imperative. Accordingly The Chicago Association of Commerce offers for study of the people of this city the following summaries and suggestions constituting a practical program of work, and before us all nothing existing so well deserves seri- ous and grateful consideration as the Chicago Plan. Ac- companying presentation herein of its essential features go other proposals begging the respectful study of the generations passing and to be. Population at Centennial Every city has policies of improvement, and certain facilities and services are common to Boston, Chicago, Seattle or New Orleans essential things in structure and function, but each city may present a variation of the universal problem, and in a city of the size and rapid growth of Chicago municipal activities cannot be left to evolve, but must be directed according to local require- ments and harmonized as soon as possible with the gen- eral plan. Chicago had 2,701,705 people in 1920, according to the government census figures. A committee of The Chi- cago Association of Commerce, reporting upon smoke abatement and the electrification of railways in 1915, made estimates of Chicago's future population for a number of periods up to and including 1950. The esti- 86 mate of this committee for 1920 checked very closely with the official census returns. The committee's fore- cast for 1950 places Chicago's population at 4,267,803. Past experience shows that Chicago has gained at least 500,000 people each decade, or 50,000 annually. If we assume, to be conservative, that the city's growth after 1950 will be at the rate of only 40,000 people an- nually, Chicago will have at the centennial celebration of 1971 more than 5,100,000 inhabitants. Double Its Present Area? In 1871 the city of Chicago covered 36 square miles of territory; today somewhat more than 200 square miles are embraced within its limits, a growth in extent during the short space of fifty years of 455 per cent. Cook County covers an area of 933 square miles. While annexations become less frequent after cities grow large, there are today many thriving communities crowded about the city's boundaries, some of which will undoubtedly become parts of the greater city. As the territories immediately surrounding the city's limits be- come more densely populated, and the differences be- tween city and suburban life less emphasized, many of these communities will come into Chicago, so that it is quite within reasonable prediction to foretell a Chicago double its present area when another fifty years shall have passed. Chicago is the place of origin of twenty-three railway trunk lines and within the Chicago district are thirteen switch roads, making thirty-six different entities compos- ing the physical facilities of the world's railroad center. From the beginning of the construction in 1847 of the Galena and Chicago Union Railroad a superior pioneer line, by the way up to the present vast preparations for freight and passenger accommodations west of the river, new railroads have, so to speak, steamed in where they could, hooked on to the growing city's economic struc- ture and set out to establish the relations between manu- facture, trade and transportation. Now has become acute Chicago's problem of terminals. The great question of transportation involves the im- provement of harbors and waterways and of the devel- opment of aviation policies and facilities. In the re- 87 versal of the Chicago River, for drainage disposal and navigation, Chicago accomplished an undertaking of the first magnitude, and for the time, with the co-operation of the federal government regulating the discharge of water through the Drainage Canal, the drainage problem has its solution, but Chicago has great matters before it in this department of municipal safety. Essential Improvements Chicago is a city daily moving to and from the center a great and increasing number of people. Intensive study of the problem of local transportation steadily points to the building of subways and the perfecting of surface and elevated lines. Other public utilities must be fos- tered; progressive electrification of one great railway is ordained with corresponding elimination of smoke; the reduction of noise must be sought; parks, playgrounds and bathing beaches must be multiplied; a zoning system will be a creation of the near future and Chicago's hous- ing problem will begin to have solution ; in practices for public safety the people are willingly accepting instruc- tion; beauty must not be a happening but an objective; government must be simplified and measured by its serv- ice for the common good; our water front must be made to attain its inspiring possibilities; education must be developed as a holy trust, and religion considered at least as vital a force as the functioning of any mechanical equipment or service; social welfare work must receive even greater encouragement, and the arts acquire the impetus, as they have the friendship, of commerce itself. These statements, historical and forward looking, must in view of the confines of this book be confined to basic things, to some of the essentials of growth, and the realm of the incidental cannot be opened on all sides. This forelook will serve its ends to the generation in control, and to the citizens of tomorrow, if it concentrates atten- tion upon some of the meritorious activities and possi- bilities of Chicago's development, secures the more in- telligent perpetuation of work in hand, and stirs the imagination and will of the men and women of the fu- ture to realize a greater and better city. CITIZENSHIP Chicago Citizens Urged to Commit Themselves to All the Duties Which Franchise Implies Problem of Americanization A year significant in Chicago history, 1921, has been marked by a proposal issued by Joseph R. Noel, presi- dent of The Chicago Association of Commerce, that the citizens of this community formally pledge themselves to give greater attention to the various duties of citizenship, and cultivate personal and collective devotion to politi- cal obligations. Men and women voters have been asked to sign the following citizenship pledge: WlTH SINCERE BELIEF IN THE NOBLE PURPOSE WHICH GAVE BIRTH TO OUR NATION AND IN THE LOFTY PRINCIPLES WHICH HAVE BEEN WROUGHT INTO ITS CONSTITUTION ; WITH ARDENT LOVE FOR THE COUNTRY WHICH HAS CONFERRED UPON ME A PRICELESS HERITAGE OF FREEDOM AND OPPOR- TUNITY, I GRATEFULLY ACKNOWLEDGE MY PRIV- ILEGES AND OBLIGATIONS AS AN AMERICAN CITI- ZEN, AND PROMISE TO VOTE AT ALL PRIMARIES AND ELECTIONS SO THAT I MAY HELP TO GIVE ASSURANCE THAT "GOVERNMENT OF THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE, AND FOR THE PEOPLE SHALL NOT PERISH FROM THE EARTH." Executing Political Responsibility A card bearing this pledge is being issued in large numbers, and already the extensive degree of its accept- ance suggests the desirability and promise of this call to fulfill a common trust. The declarations of this pledge are simple, elevating and patriotic and cannot but invite in course of time general adoption. The practical re- sults of popular commitment to the objects of this pledge should appear in a reanimated citizenship, purposeful and persistent. Whoever signs this pledge will acquaint himself or herself with the issues and candidates of cam- paigns; will give personal attention to the membership 89 and acts of political conventions; will attend primaries; will vote at all elections, and will work for the purity and efficiency of the ballot. Citizens who hereby give themselves to a more active citizenship will also accept, seeking no exemption, the duties of jurors, and in the selection of legislators, state and national, they will choose representatives who will enact laws which will be enforceable, and when such A new Lincoln statue is among the rich possessions of Chicago, and will be erected at the south end of the Grant Park improvement. It is the work of the great Saint Gaudens, sculptor of the noble memorial in Lincoln Park. The sculptor aimed to make this statue the greatest creative work of his life. He worked on it nearly twelve years. He has sought to suggest the isolation of Lincoln in the crucial period of the Civil War. Will not Chicago long say with Lowell in his own imperishable ode? Our children shall behold his fame, The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man, Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame, New birth of our new soil, the first American. 90 laws become enacted they will insist upon enforcement. There is no time, speaking without the least partisanship, so auspicious as the present for concert of action to emphasize the evils of political negligence and the bene- fits which will follow systematic devotion to all the obli- gations of citizens. Chicago's Task in Americanization The war admonished Chicago and indeed all America to take new thought about the Americanization of the alien. In 1910 there were 783,428 foreign born people in this city, and in 1920 these had become 805,482. Here is a problem of much racial complexity, the end being, apart from that of standardized education, the conversion of the foreign born into citizens of ardent and intelligent Americanism and of the complete preparation of their native born children for all the duties and privileges of a progressive democracy. Among many local forces contributing to the work of Americanization, The Chicago Association of Commerce has had the pleasure of establishing a particularly inti- mate touch with the adult foreign born, and this through conducting classes in English and citizenship in many in- dustrial plants. So far as this instructive work has gone, when the circumstances have encouraged the greatest number of classes and the largest attendance, classes have numbered fifty-six, having 616 sessions, and attendances 6,788 in one month. With the continued and invaluable co-operation of the Chicago Board of Education and the favor of industrial employers, this work of making Amer- ican citizens will go on. It is reasonable to anticipate the gradual amalgamation of the races in America, and to this end is being taught first the English language and the obligations of citizenship, and the more elementary laws of federal and state government; and in this con- nection our procedure of naturalization should conduce to high conceptions of citizenship. Future Policies in Making Citizens While the next fifty years may not require so much of the teaching of English in this special way, because of the work of the public schools, it will require great wis- dom in directing the study and reading of both young 91 and old in matters relating to citizenship, a citizenship that shall be harmonious and hopeful. Finally when, as we shall strive to do, we shall have secured a united peo- ple speaking a single language, there remains the task of setting forth higher ideals and more definite obliga- tions on the part of the individual which will secure the greatest good of all. This involves in many forms classes in citizenship for adults, lectures, social gatherings, more right ways of inspiring the individual to a higher type of personal life, and the better recognition and fulfill- ment of social obligations. 92 WOMAN AND THE NEW CHICAGO Her Endowment with Political Powers Based Upon Organized Cultural and Welfare Work Promises That Her Citizenship Will Be a Progressive Force In the presidential election of 1920 the successful can- didate received in Chicago 213,083 votes of women and his next competitor 66,700. The population of Chicago in that year, as by the federal census, was 2,701,705, and of this total the females were 1,331,541 and the males 1,370,164. The total vote of Chicago's women at the presidential election was 293,401 and of men 491,- 600. The nineteenth amendment to the federal constitu- tion conferring equal suffrage with men upon women was proclaimed August 29, 1920. In 1913 the Illinois legislature gave women the vote for presidential electors and other officers. In other states many legislatures followed, and this gave such im- petus to the national movement that the federal constitu- tional amendment, which had been so heroically pushed for several years, became an accomplished fact, the Illi- nois legislature being first to ratify the suffrage amend- ment. It was estimated that under this amendment more than 26,800,000 women were made eligible to vote in all elec- tions. Under existing state laws 17,000,000 had already become entitled to vote for President of the United States and 7,000,000 to vote for members of congress. Chicago, the Illinois contingent of this imposing host, is in the organization period of vast future service. The public welfare work of Chicago women already has its monuments in settlements, kindergartens, vacation schools, school lunch rooms, women matrons in jails and schools in jails, child welfare society, parental schools, juvenile court, pensions for mothers, civic music associa- tion, children's orchestra, corrective schools for girls, policewomen, community kitchens, day nurseries, and with the advent of the great war it was women who stabil- ized the home forces, who saved the food, whose tireless 93 needles augmented the clothing and sanitary supplies of armed millions. Woman and Housing Problem Now come the requirements of peace to be satisfied by social or political action, or both, and the call to women Projected building of Woman's Club of Chicago, Nos. 62-72 East Eleventh Street. Permission of Pond & Pond, architects. as citizens is to be practical, not too partisan, and fulfill the possibilities of golden opportunity. Woman as a citizen will not long leave Chicago's neglected problem 94 of housing untouched. Into matters of education, house- keeping and recreation her sympathies, her intuitions and her constructive powers will enter for distinguished accomplishment. The urgency of the housing situation is already making her an advocate of a zoning system, and her service for the betterment of physical conditions will develop corresponding forces to strengthen the city's spiritual life. While woman's entrance into municipal politics may imply a degree of temporary submission to its evils, it should be the expectation of the sex which gave itself first the franchise, and has far to go in its corrective use, that the sordid conditions of a great city, in moral and physical transformation, will enlist the best endowments of the new voting class and stimulate woman's practical devotion to the ideals of government. yr> PROGRESS IN GOVERNMENT A Sufficient Taxation System to Be Expected from Present Constitutional Convention Unification of Chicago's Many Governments Imperative Accom- plishment of Future There is now in service a constitutional convention for the purpose of providing a new constitution for this state. The greatest need which must be met by this convention is the removal of those limitations fastened upon the state and particularly the city of Chicago by the now archaic constitution of 1870 which prevents our having a workable, fair and sufficient taxation system. The situ- ation in the convention, however, is that unless the dele- gates agree to a proper representation of Cook County in the legislature, to be provided by the new constitu- tion, based upon the population of Cook County as it may be from time to time without limitation, at least in one house of the legislature, there is no possibility that any document drafted by the convention can ever be adopted by the voters of the state. If the opposing fac- tions in the convention can agree upon this fundamental necessity, and at present this does not seem hopeful, Chi- cago and the state of Illinois may acquire a taxation system which will remove the handicaps under which the city peculiarly and the state to a less degree are la- boring. Real Estate Bears Undue Tax Burden Under our present constitution all property is sup- posed to be taxed uniformly by valuation. The propor- tion of intangible property is much greater now than it was at the time of the adoption of the constitution. The ease with which this property passes from hand to hand, and the lack of necessity for identifying any individual with ownership of intangible property, has practically rendered the taxation of this variety of property impos- sible. At the present time much more than 75 per cent of the revenues of the state and municipalities derived from general taxation is borne by real estate, and most of the intangible property in Illinois entirely escapes 96 apparently the recognized tendency in the drafting of state constitutions, to write into a state constitution only such limitations upon the power vested in the state legis- lature as will: Equitable Taxation Requirements First, require taxation to be uniform upon all prop- erty of the class taxed. Second, require that all exemptions from taxation shall be by general law uniform as to the class of prop- erty exempted and at all times subject to modification or repeal at the pleasure of the legislature. Economic conditions rapidly change, and the history of this state, with its marked tendency to become a manu- facturing and mercantile state rather than an agricul- tural one, demonstrates the wisdom of having as few hampering restrictions as possible upon the exercise of the fundamental power of taxation w r hich is essential to taxation. The constitutional limitations preventing the classification of property and preventing the imposing of reasonable income taxes must be removed, and, if the new constitution be adopted, undoubtedly will be re- moved. When it is remembered that a state constitution is not a grant of legislative power to the legislature of the state but is merely a limitation upon the legislative power of the people, which by election is vested in the legislature, it will readily be apprehended that only those limitations upon the power of taxation should be written into the constitution that are essential to pre- serve the liberties of the citizen and prevent abuse of power. It is coming to be more and more the settled opinion of those who have studied these subjects, and is the continuance of the state. Superfluities and Complexities Reorganization of local governments in Chicago is an urgent issue created by increasing taxes without improve- ment in the volume and quality of public service, by em- barrassed public finances, public dissatisfaction with the character of local administration and frequent clashes of different authorities with one another. The problem of unification, which for many years has been under dis- 97 cussion, has received helpful analysis by the Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency, which has pointed out that a reform program should contemplate improvement under existing laws and constitutional provisions, under new laws passed under the present constitution, and under new conditions brought about by extensive modi- fication of the constitution of Illinois, a service now in progress at the hands of the constitutional convention, which, by action of the legislature, was called together at its first meeting January 6, 1920. There are twenty-four local governments exercising jurisdiction in Chicago without central control and cen- tral responsibility, not counting several township gov- ernments of nominal existence. The structure of Chicago as an organized community shows the following characteristics: From the vote of the people are derived the executive officers, and directly from the people, too, comes the municipal court. The municipal government appoints the board of education, the public library board and the municipal tuberculosis sanitarium. The departments constituting the city gov- ernment actuated by the mayor and city council num- ber about twenty-five. Governments and Governments In the progress of this political analysis the observer now fixes his attention upon other sources of power and he sees that that virtually greater Chicago, that is, the political organization of Cook County, gives birth to a board of commissioners, to sundry courts, commissions and institutions, and that the circuit court, constituting one of these creations of the voters of Cook County, is the birthplace of the South Park Commission, which em- braces various vital departmental activities. The gov- ernment of the forest preserves is a separate government with the members of the County Board ex-officio com- missioners, and the physical limits of the preserves are coterminous with Cook County. The observer discovers, however, to his surprise as he further seeks an under- standing of that complex organism known as the govern- ment of Chicago that the remaining two great park sys- tems, namely, West Chicago and Lincoln Park, do not derive their existence directly from the voters of Chicago, 98 or from the voters of Cook County as single creative bodies, but from the governor of Illinois. These two park boards have, of course, their own extensive internal organization. The analyzing observer of the governmental situation in Chicago now discovers that when this city accom- plished its big feat in engineering and sanitation, revers- ing the Chicago River and uniting Lake Michigan and Illinois and Mississippi Rivers, there was created, to embrace the city's own ample boundaries within it, the Sanitary District of Chicago and that the management of this district, comprising its necessary departments, is reg- ulated by direction of the voters of the district. Here is found a sort of an organized municipality working for another municipality of an area about half as great. Have we now exhausted enumeration of the elements of political Chicago? We have not. Voters in fourteen dif- ferent and distinct petty park districts select governing commissions of the same. A Principle of Consolidation The problem of municipal consolidation presents two fundamental questions, namely, what should be the terri- torial limits of the unified municipality, and what gov- erning agencies should be eliminated and how should the activities be combined and organized? Seeking here to be suggestive rather than controversial, it may be said that the territorial limits of the unified government should be the same as the metropolitan community, and it should include all contiguous area, especially urban in charac- ter or likely soon to become so, having municipal inter- ests in common. Application of such a principle would, of course, meet with suburban resistance, but future mu- nicipal progress would be likely to make practical con- solidation more easy than would be the attempt to this end today, and, as the Chicago Bureau of Public Effi- ciency well says, "by the time consolidation shall be leg- ally possible the natural limits of the reorganized and unified Chicago may be more clearly apparent." Within the boundaries of the district outside Chicago, and these boundaries extend on the north to include Glencoe, on the south to include South Holland, and on the west to include Bellwood, there are 108 taxing bodies, not in- 99 eluding Cook County and the Sanitary District. These taxing bodies are composed of five cities, namely, Ber- wyn, Blue Island, Evanston, Harvey and West Hammond, thirty-five villages, ten park districts, fifty school districts embracing eight townships, of which three lie partly with- in the present city limits. Nine townships lie partly within and without the proposed city limits, that is, the area within the Sanitary District. The eight townships lying wholly within the present limits of Chicago, that is, Rogers Park, formerly Evanston, Hyde Park, Jefferson, Lake, Lake View, North Chicago, South Chicago and West Chicago, having only formal existence could also be formally abolished. There are also eleven school dis- tricts lying partly within and without the proposed city limits. Obvious Economic Advantages In the matter of absorption of outlying communities in a greater Chicago the point has been well made that there is a distinction between mere annexation to Chicago of a single municipality and the merger into one effective government of all urban agencies of the territory natu- rally comprising the community. Whatever may be re- luctance even to consider consolidation now, the day may come when this argument will be granted of paramount importance. A city made coterminous, say, with the county or within the lesser boundaries of the Drainage District would accomplish the elimination of great overhead ex- pense in government, that is, in salaries and in needless registrations, primaries and elections. The present tax- ation machinery is unsatisfactory and involves an enor- mous waste, and the judicial machinery of such a county and city as now organized is declared to be on the whole conspicuously inefficient and wasteful. There is the mu- nicipal court of Chicago and five separate independently organized county courts, that is, the circuit, superior, county, probate and criminal. The present judicial or- ganization and procedure lead to much needless annoy- ance, expense and delay. There are six separate clerk's offices. Consolidation would bring economy in the service of deputy sheriffs and deputy bailiffs. Important sav- ing would follow in jurors' fees if there were but one 100 court instead of six, for the reason that a number of judges calling for jurors as they are required would not need as large a supply as if each judge had enough to supply him alone, because the judges are not always trying jury cases. A smaller number of jurors supplying all the judges would be required than if each judge were required to keep on hand his full quota. Prodigal Duplication By consolidation also would be saved the cost of sev- eral independent legal departments involving duplica- tion of many subordinate positions. In these depart- ments, quite beyond the classified civil service, spoils politics plays a wasteful and inefficient part. Needless overhead must be accounted for, too, in maintenance by the city's several governments of several accounting agencies, while advantageous purchasing demands a cen- tral purchasing department and standardization of equip- ment, material and supplies. Enormous is the combined buying power of Chicago's different local governments. Seventeen different park governments even in a city as great as the world's fourth is surely a prodigal dupli- cation of machinery and personnel; and the traditional usages of a conglomerate not a unified city, with prece- dent and politics still ruling strong, must soon yield to the sway of economy and common sense. The ways and means of bringing about this new day may become the substance of heated civic discussion and bitter political campaigns, but simplification of Chicago's government will be an accomplishment of the near future, even though sundry historic boards and officers disap- pear. It is the estimate of those who have studied the unification problem intensively, and with least yielding to partisanship, that consolidation of Chicago's local gov- ernments would ensure economies aggregating from $4,000,000 to $5,000,000 annually. The fifty-ward law is coming into operation with an expected saving of more than $500,000 in election expenses every other year. Reforms in Progress Public-spirited citizens and civic and business organ- izations are working in co-operation to secure tax re- forms, especially improvement in methods of assessing 101 property; the short ballot, and reduction in election ex- penses. There is a definite movement on foot to secure for Chicago the city manager form of government. A law has been passed and adopted by the people on a refer- endum vote under which aldermen in Chicago are elected on non-partisan lines, and there is public demand for applying this same system of election to the mayor. Much progress has been made in curing old abuses under which custodians of public funds kept for themselves or their friends large portions of interest earning on money in their possession. Strict accounting is now required by law of the treasurer of the city of Chicago and of the treasurer of Cook County. 102 CHICAGO NEEDS PROGRAM OF RELIGION Challenge of the Hour Finds Great Communions of Prot- estantism and Roman Cotholicism Strong of Purpose and with Plans of Growth to Meet Wants of an Urgent Era An irreligious city may pass the way of Rome a city recognizing the supreme power of religion over com- munities and individuals may fail in its struggle with the material but it will know the satisfactions of a spiritual triumph embodying the ideals of progress. On October 10, 1871, the mayor of Chicago, as shown in an illustration in this book, proclaimed that the head- quarters of the general relief committee would be in a church as it happened, a Congregational church of the West Side. True, it may have been a peculiarly avail- able building, but it is not without point to observe that it was from a church that stricken Chicago raised the flag of succor and kept faith with the noblest traditions of Christendom. A corresponding tower of strength are the churches of Chicago today, and their mission and virtues must be conserved through a distinct program of development if this wonderful city is to go forward, mighty of spirit. Seeking community of thought in way of discovering tendencies and duties, all who love their city and believe in the organized manifestations of re- ligion will read with profit the following observations of a representative of many Protestant churches: Morality and Religion We are celebrating three hundred years of progress since the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth. Every student of history knows that the fundamental explanation of the best elements in the life of the Nation is the fact that those men and women laid the foun- dations of our best life and most beneficent institutions in the Christian faith, and sought to practice their convictions in con- sistent daily living. The semi-centennial celebration of the Chi- cago fire, with its striking story of amazing progress, unparalleled 103 by any other city of equal population in a similar period of time, involves the very same elements of stability and strength in the character of the builders of our city as marked that of the Pil- grims. They possessed those deeper essentials to truest advance- ment, allegiance to righteousness, reverence for law and the ap- praisement of moral and spiritual values as the indispensable and priceless assets of the city's best life. The builders of Chicago, acting on Washington's familiar em- phasis that morality is impossible without true religion, set about the nurture of religious institutions and the development of those movements in education and philanthropy which are its hand- maids, together with those organizations which seek the noblest aesthetic culture, as the flowering out of the love of the beautiful which always co-ordinates with the sense of truth and right living. It is therefore not unnatural to note that the old First Presby- terian Church was organized in Fort Dearborn itself at the very beginning of our civic life. The fight of faith was to go hand in hand with the fight for liberty and order in making a city in- creasingly wholesome for the nurture of our children and the finest development along all lines of progress. Christian Ministrations The free church and the free school have always gone together in vigorous democracies, and beyond the grades of the public schools clear-visioned and large-minded men and women have seen to it, long before state institutions of higher learning were established, that great universities and professional colleges should keep pace with the growing needs of higher education. More- over, great-hearted citizens have made possible those splendid hospitals which minister to sickness and pain, open to all people regardless of race or creed, such as Augustana, the Presbyterian, St. Luke's, Wesley Memorial and dozens of others. The very commendable many-sided programs of the Young Men's and Young Women's Christian Associations command the universal respect and the eager support of our citizens generally, Christians and Jews uniting in their encouragement. They touch every section of the city, the great commercial establishments, the large manufactur- ing plants, as well as various educational institutions, carrying on a program adapted to the needs of men and women, boys and girls, in physical, mental and spiritual culture. Our churches are established in every part of the city, minis- tering to people of every condition. Their representatives seek to apply their religious principles in co-operation with all others, of whatever faith, and are found on such boards as the United Charities, the Council of Social Agencies, Children's Home and Aid Societies, etc. They carry on the fruitful work of the Bible and Tract Societies, and send their representatives into the juvenile courts and the institutions for delinquent and dependent boys and girls, as well as men and women, pointing them to the way of another chance. In recent months many of them have been specially active in ministering to the unemployed. If the complete figures were at hand, the total would be amazing. One church alone furnished meals for 75,000 people during the last year. Some of our colored churches gave 41,000 meals to people 104 out of work during the first five months of the year. The Brother- hood House, the Chicago Christian Industrial League, Halsted Street Institutional Church, Chicago Commons, Norh western Uni- versity Settlement, Marcy Center, Olivet Institute, Hull House, the Garibaldi Institute and others are all ministering day and night along lines of social betterment, Americanization, etc. Demand for Adequate Program As we face the future we are conscious of the widespread em- phasis in many lands of the "spiritual slump" marking the re- action from war conditions. Chicago has not escaped this re- action, noted in increased juvenile delinquency, in lax ideas con- cerning conventions that were considered almost sacred only a few years ago, in a growing indifference to the immoral at- mosphere which penetrates modern theatricals as never before, in the complacent neglect of the institutions of religion on the part of many who were loyal until recent years. To ignore this diagnosis would be folly. To face it honestly, with appreciation of the fact that it must be counteracted, if our society is to retain its wholesome character, is our plain and un- escapable duty, as we value our heritage and realize our re- sponsibility for the generations that are to follow. Our fathers have given us a great inheritance. Shall we be as faithful and generous to our posterity? No lackadaisical attitude toward our task will suffice. The worthy citizens of Chicago never faced a more supremely important responsibility. It is the distinctive challenge of the hour. Shall we meet it with courageous deter- mination and with an adequate program? Our dream of main- taining and elevating the ideals of our people will be nothing but a dream, unless we accept this challenge with the same spirit of the "I will" attitude which has achieved big things along so many lines. But bigness is not greatness, for true greatness is impossible except the moral fibre of the city's life be made in- creasingly stronger and its spiritual aspiration dominates its plans for pleasure. Our leaders in the great enterprises of the city, in commerce, in education, in art and every activity which seeks to make Chi- cago a "city beautiful" in its external growth, need to get to- gether in serious concern for the sane, strong program of true religion that is absolutely essential to the salvation of the people, to lives of integrity and loyalty, to high ideals, which will be revealed in something of that spirit of sacrificial service which was so constantly manifest in the devotion of the war days. This readiness to serve, at real sacrifice, in places of official respon- sibility, on juries, on boards of welfare organizations, to be true to the obligations of citizenship at the primaries and elections, to appreciate the fact that every man or woman who has succeeded in Chicago owes a real debt to Chicago, which can only be paid by seeking to serve the city's welfare in some actual devotion to its higher interests this readiness is the first essential to the fidelity which we must bring to the solution of the problem as to how we may make the Chicago of the future something even finer and nobler than it has been in the past. 105 Let it be urged in the light of undeniable history, notwith- standing all the failures of the institutions of religion, that these alone have developed most helpfully the culture of those very gifts and graces of character which have been the strength and the admiration of mankind, evident in the individual, in our sweetest and strongest home life, and in the truest leadership in the best hours of our nation's progress, from Washington and Lincoln to the present time. First Resident Priest in 1833 In the twenty centuries of history of the Roman Catholic church the story of the growth of this faith in Chicago and Illinois forms an important chapter. From the day when Father Jacques Marquette, the Jesuit priest, and two companions pushed their way into the Chicago River, the march of the Catholic church has kept pace even with the marvelous growth of Chicago itself and has vitally contributed to it. As the business and civic leaders of Chicago have been guided by their vision, so have the leaders of this church down to this hour, to the administration of the present distinguished head of Chicago Catholicism, the most Rev. Archbishop George William Mundelein. Chicago received its first resident priest in 1833 in the person of Father St. Cyr, and ten years later this place was selected as the see of a new diocese embrac- ing all Illinois, and Bishop William Quarter became Chicago's first Roman Catholic bishop. The institu- tional work of this prelate a quarter of a century before the great fire laid the foundation for the present wide activities of the church, including parochial schools, hospitals, orphanages, boys' schools and universities. Bishop Quarter in December, 1844, secured from the Illinois legislature a charter for the University of St. Mary of the Lake and established that institution. Its successor today now under construction, and as planned by the present archbishop, is to be the greatest Catholic educational institution in the West, if not in all America. In the great fire the losses of the church were esti- mated to be about $1,000,000, the properties including churches, convents, asylums and schools, the labor of years of courage, sacrifice and piety. Among these institutions destroyed were St. Paul's church, parsonage and school, on the West Side; St. Louis church and rectory, the Christian Brothers' academy, the convent and 106 school of the Sisters of Mercy, St. Mary's cathedral on the South Side, the Holy Name cathedral and bishop's home, the House of Providence, the academy of the Sisters of Charity, St. Joseph's orphan asylum, the Christian Brothers' parochial school, the convent and school of St. Benedict, St. Joseph's church and the Benedictine Fathers' monastery, the Magdalen asylum, the Church of the Immaculate Conception, St. Michael's church with the convents and schools attached to these churches, on the North Side. Rising Heroically from the Fire But among the builders arose the Rt. Rev. Thomas Foley, young, vigorous and capable, and restoration be- gan in the re-erection of fine academies, colleges, schools and church edifices, which, as a local historian declares, were among the chief ornaments of the Chicago that had passed in flame. It is noteworthy that St. Ignatius, at Roosevelt Road and May Street, which had been founded and opened a year before the fire, and the parent school of the present Loyola college, being out of the path of the flames, was spared. Fifty years have passed and this is the significant growth of the Catholic church in Chicago as officially indicated by its authorities: 1921 1872 Catholic churches in Chicago 227 28 Diocesan priests 643 138 Priests of religious orders 350 31 Parochial schools 202 23 Pupils in parochial schools 130,000 10,000 High schools 22 Pupils in high schools 2,172 The above statistics measure only in part the develop- ment of the Catholic church in Chicago whose funda- mental is religion, but whose activities reach out into education, charitable work, orphanages, hospitals, social work and civic betterment. Chicago's Catholic population today is declared to be 1,200,000. In 1880 the diocese became an archdiocese. Archbishop's Great Educational Plan The plans for the future of the Roman Catholic church in Chicago are indeed spacious, commensurate not only 107 M ' a 108 with its achievements in Chicago, but with its vast deeds for civilization throughout the world. The great educational plan of Archbishop Mundelein, which is definitely and rapidly unfolding, centers about the University of St. Mary of the Lake, the seat of which is being erected on a 1,000-acre tract on the shore of St. Mary Lake at Area, near Libertyville, about forty miles from the heart of the Loop. On this site the divinity school, including the colleges of philosophy and theology, are to stand, with the administration building, chapel, dormitories, power houses, library, recreation halls with terraced lawns, roads and bridges, to cost Dormitory units at St. Mary of the Lake Theological Seminary. Permission of Joe W. McCarthy, architect. some $10,000,000 now under construction, the school of philosophy being ready for occupancy. The university departments of De Paul and Loyola, already well established, and of the new college for women Rosary college under construction in River Forest, are to be a part of the great university, each functioning as a separate unit, but with the degree-con- ferring power centering in the University of St. Mary of the Lake. The Quigley Memorial seminary on the near North Side is the preparatory school for the divinity school. The present large number of high schools for girls and for boys, scattered about the city, is being added to and uniformly graded so as to be preparatory schools for the other colleges of the university. Practically every parish has its parochial school, from which the pupils are graduated into the high schools, the completed sys- 109 tern taking the child from the primary grade on until his or her degree has been won. Benevolent Work of Roman Church The church's system of charities has been developed into the Associated Catholic Charities, an organization formed three years ago by the archbishop, and whose contributing membership is co-personnel with the mem- bership of the church itself. A great fund is raised annually from contributions taken up in every church, and distributed through the Central Charities Bureau, under the direction of Rev. Moses Kiley, selected by the archbishop and trained for the work. In this distribu- Chapel of St. Mary of the Lake Permission of Joe W. McCarthy, architect tion the agency largely used is the St. Vincent de Paul Society, for many years the central organized charity agency of the church. These funds are divided about equally, one part going toward the support of the many orphanages, old people's homes, training schools, of which St. Mary's institution at Desplaines is the largest; schools for the deaf and dumb, hospitals, girls' homes and similar institutions. The other part is used in personal and family relief work. Welfare work is carried on through many organiza- 110 tions of men and women, each doing a definite part in the general plan. Perhaps the more important and effective forms which this work takes is that of the Big Brothers, an activity delegated to the Holy Name Society, for the reclaiming of wayward boys; the Big Sisters for the reclaiming of girls, the Protectorate of the Catholic Woman's League and other similar organizations whose agents patrol the railway stations to protect girls, look after the homes for working girls and similar work. More than fifty charitable and welfare institutions, in- cluding day nurseries, and also fifteen hospitals, are be- ing supported in whole or in part, and are given super- vision and aid through the Associated Catholic Charities, and by the varied associations of laymen and women, all working under the direction of the church, and fol- lowing plans of the archbishop. Here and There in Chicago's Church Work The world's most cosmopolitan great city should have and does have the churches of all races and creeds, the Christian church predominating, although the presence of Jewish synagogues distinguished looking, too marks that age-old faith. The two best known Jewish temples are Sinai, whose eminent leader, Dr. Emil G. Hirsch, has celebrated his forty-first anniversary as rabbi, and Temple Sholem, whose leader, Dr. Abram Hirschberg, is to celebrate his silver jubilee. A 21-story building on the same site is to supplant the old First Methodist church building at Clark and Washington Streets, having the distinction now of being the only church in the Loop district. Architecturally speaking, probably the most notable church edifice in Chicago is the First Presbyterian, and the most beautiful chapel or church of the Roman com- munion is the Quigley Memorial preparatory seminary. In this connection should be mentioned the beautiful St. Mary of the Lake Roman Catholic church on the North Side, dedicated by the archbishop four years ago. Lutheranism was founded in Chicago as long ago as seventy-five years, the pioneer community being that of the First St. Paul's Evangelical Lutheran church on the North Side. Of the inter-denominational churches, of which Chi- lli cago has not a few, a representative organization is the Moody Bible Institute. Chicago has sixteen Christian Science churches, two recently having been dedicated and free from debt. There are three Greek Catholic churches, the population to which they minister being about 25,000, and there is also a Russian Orthodox church. 112 SOCIAL WELFARE Advanced Policies, Practical and Humane, to Govern Administration of Chicago's Charities, and Greater Conservation of the Family Will Be Attained One of the fundamental problems of Chicago of civ- ilization, indeed is the efficient public application of private philanthropy. In ten years Chicago's charitable organizations, accepting the standardizing and co-ordinat- ing service of the Subscriptions Investigating Committee of The Chicago Association of Commerce, have shown a steady and remarkable growth, and today 220 organiza- tions, practically all of Chicago's organized charitable, philanthropic and civic organizations, conform to certain business principles and seek popular support in accord- ance with methods defined by this committee. The management of the vast network of charitable and philanthropic bodies is coming into the hands of capable business men and women who are devoting far more time and feeling to these obligations of an organized society than at any previous time. Executive heads of these relief organizations, charitable and philanthropic, take a personal interest in sound methods of administra- tion, and expert public accountants scrutinize institutional finances and prepare an annual report and balance sheet for practically all of the charities of Chicago. Central Council of Social Agencies As the latest progressive step in philanthropic service there has come into existence the Central Council of Social Agencies, with purpose to promote the hisrhest possible degree of co-operation among the city's philan- thropic societies. The co-operation of the council and the aforesaid committee of business men working in har- mony has brought about a closer correlation of the work of the charitable bodies and has prevented much superfluous and costly effort. Chicago's charities, having taken on principles of busi- ness administration, without loss of the hallowed spirit of philanthropy, are now by nature of their organiza- tion and the interest and good will of the public pre- pared to adopt advanced methods and higher levels of 113 service in their field of activity, and under such conditions many of the serious errors and unsound policies which have characterized charities of some other cities will be avoided. Here will be carefully studied the best programs which have been approved in other places, and only Chicago's particular needs will determine their adoption here. Chicago Charity Plan It may be remarked with emphasis that the final adop- tion of any scheme will be characterized as the "Chicago Charity Plan." Under this plan state, county and city will gradually undertake larger service and the stand- ards of service on the part of public bodies will improve. This program will relieve the financial strain on private charity, and funds will thereby be released for wise ex- perimentation in fields of private philanthropy. Organ- izations such as the Elizabeth McCormick Memorial Fund, the Chicago Community Trust, the A. A. Sprague Memorial Fund, the Psycopathic Hospital and similar organizations will be enabled greatly to modify the pol- icies and administrations of many of the private and pub- lic organizations. In the future, health, safety first and thrift campaigns will all have their immediate bearing on the scope and character of work of existing phil- anthropic organizations. A certain solicitude and tenderness of the personal kind will qualify the systematic and thorough efforts made by churches, lodges, schools, community centers, clubs and societies to combat the sense of isolation or friendlessness that characterizes the lives of vast metro- politan multitudes. In the future perhaps more than now will be nurtured the spirit of neighborliness even when Chicago's people number 5,000,000, 7,000,000 or 10,- 000,000. A gigantic task, but a city of exceptional pur- pose will try more than ever to keep alive, to unify and make productive a strong community spirit. The organ- izations in the great cities will have corresponding branches and affiliated bodies in every city and village in the country, and those who come from farm and vil- lage will find organized friends to lend moral, physical and mental relief in the first few weeks of solitude in a huge community. In the future, whatever the advances of the past, Chi- 114 cage will not be satisfied with a social service and civic program merely negative or palliative. It will be a fixed principle characterizing the city as a whole to provide ways to lift human life to its highest possible plane of efficiency. In search for this end more sound industrial policies will be realized to remove from the worker the fear of unemployment and to stimulate every citizen to do his best with his endowment. It will be the aim of that new Chicago to find work congenial and sufficient for all. Relief Policies of the Future Work, worship, play and elevated and competent fam- ily life, these four things will give to Chicago the highest type of American citizenship. These words seem of the nature of a "dream," but those in social welfare work who look upon disease, poverty and crime as these conditions are seen in their steadfast service are not despondent, although the state of the "other half" some- times may strain their faith in the potency of the ideal. An authority in Chicago charities, a man of patience, compassion and moral fortitude, says this: The foundation of the highest civilization that has yet been reached is the family, and the abnormal homes which now exist in Chicago threaten the very life of the city; for from those homes come the feeble-minded, the insane, the delinquent boys and girls who develop into the inefficient or unambitious working men and women, and the criminals. The workers in the charity field have an entree to many of these homes, and they see what most of us have only read about. The ideal of these workers is not only to keep the poor from starving and freezing, but to restore normal family life to every home in which they enter. The poor need so much more than they ask for they ask for bread when what they need is sanitary surroundings, medical attention, suitable employment, proper food, ambition for themselves and their children. To give the poor money is easy, but to give them increased interest in life and a desire to develop and to live normally is not easy hard as it is, it is the ideal of the charity visitor. And that ideal must be realized, for society cannot stand and Chicago cannot succeed if thousands of abnormal families are permitted to continue to exist in its heart and produce the delinquent, the criminal, the inefficient, the unambitious, the feeble-minded, and the insane. Care of the Child Another distinguished worker in the charities stresses the possibilities of the future for a clearer understanding 115 of the ramifications of the subject generally known as "child care" or "child welfare." He points out that more and more the community should understand the various services provided for the direct and indirect pro- tection of childhood, and the future should interpret more thoroughly the service of these agencies in terms of better child life. The future, too, must provide a clear definition of the fields of service of each and every agency to reduce overlapping. It is believed by such stu- dents and workers that probably the greatest force for the strength of the race will be found in the preventive service applied to childhood and child life, and industry may join hands with social service to this end. Few will disagree that the education of both fathers and mothers in the progressive steps of infant welfare should farther and farther permeate this community and so lessen infant mortality and defective childhood. It is the belief of not a few that eugenics in a few years will have its favorable effect upon the race, and that public opinion will more and more support the regulation of marriage, and that even more drastic measures may be resorted to for con- servation of social welfare. The prophets of today, who are also the workers in philanthropy, foresee that many types of prevention will be applied to the human race, and that these in a few years will greatly reduce the results of human inferiority which must now be cared for by the philanthropic public, results which are not only a financial drain, but bring misery beyond words. 116 EDUCATION AND THE FUTURE A New Day in Public School Instruction Northwestern University Plans City Campus for Professional Schools University of Chicago Projects Great Building Enterprises What Chicago shall become in the next half century in knowledge, ideals and practical accomplishments will be determined much by the service of its public schools, its church and other schools, and its institutions of higher learning. In the public schools is the strength of the republic, and no more important educational lab- oratory exists than the schools of cosmopolitan Chicago. More and more are the schools compelled to look to trade and manufacture for the ideals and processes by which education may be achieved. Education is becom- ing standardized along the mechanical, industrial and commercial lines, while heretofore it was standardized along lines of classical book study. Idols of the classi- cist of former days are being displaced and less and less value is likely to be given to the purely book form of education. Educators foresee that during the years of the near future schools will give increasing emphasis to the material, and some hold the prospect to be that more and more will the local unit, that is town or city, tend to become absorbed by larger unit state and nation in the support and control of education. Under these cir- cumstances there will be possible a greater increase in school activities. Continuation schools, providing for those not able to complete their education in the regular day schools, and also to instruct and train industrial classes to prepare workmen for higher and better posi- tions will be established at convenient and accessible points throughout Chicago instead of at two or three places as now. Technical High Schools for Girls More attention can be given to physical education, in- cluding not only games and other recreations, but to scientific correction of physical defects early in the life 117 of the child, this serving as an effort to prevent recur- rence of the condition found when we went into the great war, when many of our young men were discovered phys- ically unfit. There must come erection of technical high schools for girls as fully equipped and as convenient as are similar schools for boys. Chicago's educational sys- tem starts with the kindergarten and logically should end with the full college course and degree, but at present two years of junior college work only are given. It is the belief of important authorities that in the near future there should be a completely equipped four-year college in Chicago leading to the degrees of bachelor of arts, bachelor of science and similar degrees. Experts de- clare that the physical development of childhood into youth, including the adolescent changes, seem to make A Chicago high school in 1921 necessary some readjustment of our present scheme of education, and there is a prediction that the future holds a reorganization whereby the kind of educational material used and the method of its use will change at the end of the sixth school year, and an entirely different content and method of treatment become established from the seventh to the ninth and tenth school year. Industrial Education Into the field of education has come a new ideal and no longer is it thought necessary that a man, in order to become educated, must deal with books alone. It is be- coming accepted that education may be acquired also with tools, materials and physical things, and all the public school systems of this country are recognizing and emphasizing the value of what may be termed "industrial education." The high school of today is not that of twenty years ago. Then there was no equipment for study 118 of the sciences physics, chemistry, botany, zoology and no shops for the teaching of trades or other elements, whereas today one is impressed with the presence of lab- oratories and shops in the high school building and more and more have grown the demand for activities that will truly educate, such as require manual dexterity in the handling of materials, fibres, textiles and metals, activi- ties which shall also express in concrete form ideals which have been established in the minds of students and which have their educational value in the utility of the product as well as in the training of the brain and hand. The planning and execution of educational as well as in- dustrial activities tend to become standardized and to yield quantity production. The day of isolated school systems is passing. Association of Commerce Will Aid The success of a school system depends upon the intel- ligent sympathy of the people. Chicago in recent years has been much benefited by this circumstance. The pres- ent outlook is for the continuance and increase of co- operation. This co-operation will, it is believed, receive within a year an important demonstration on the part of the Committee on Education of The Chicago Association of Commerce, which will submit for public consideration the result of long study of the American problem of edu- cation in the related elements of city, state and nation. Since 1846 fifty-one new activities have been under- taken by the Chicago school system. Music came in 1847 and German in 1865; crippled children became recog- nized in 1900 and then, too, were baths and the blind thought of; in 1909 vacation schools and the industrial arts were new activities; in 1911 vocational guidance secured attention and in 1916 the teaching of commerce and administration; in 1917 Americanization recognized the alien, and also out of war came in the same year the cadet corps and school gardens. Chicago's necessities and Europe's example set continuation schools going in 1918, and in 1919 and 1920, respectively, the physical welfare movement begat summer camps and athletic directors. Its need for service to its 410,768 enrolled pupils is more revenue. The yearly increase in cost of operating the Chicago 119 schools is $2,000,000, and the current budget is $28,000,- 000. The cost of free text-books will be $1,500,000 the first year. Chicago has more pupils per teacher and there are 9,700 classroom teachers than any city of comparable size except Philadelphia. While teachers receive more salary than in 1910-11, salary still bears the same relation to the per capita cost of education that it did then. School Building Program Physical growth of the school system may be indicated as follows: Three elementary schools are just being completed at an approximate cost of $500,000 each. Construction has been ordered on eighteen elementary schools at a cost of about $500,000 each, and construction has also been ordered on two high schools at approximately $1,250,- 000 each. Additions to four high schools have been ordered. It is expert opinion that Chicago should have in the very near future at least twenty-five more buildings for elementary schools and four more buildings for high schools. The education that will be provided in the future by our public schools, universities and colleges will undoubt- edly be of such character that it will produce the type of trained youth whose product and service will enable America to compete more successfully with the nations of Europe and Asia in the markets of the world. Acclaimed by administration, alumni, students and public as a man of learning and leadership, Dr. Walter Dill Scott became inaugurated this year as president of Northwestern University, and at once strengthened official purpose and general interest in development of new and great university projects not as part of the campus at Evanston, but near the edge of the expanding business district of Chicago. Founding of Northwestern University In 1850 a group of devout, resolute and far-seeing men met to establish Northwestern University, and at the time when no degree of higher learning had ever been granted in Chicago or at any place in the United States north and west of this city. At that time only as many people lived in Chicago as live in Evanston 120 today, yet that group of educational pioneers had faith in the Chicago of 1850, believed that it would become a great metropolis and planned their projected university accordingly. They purchased 380 acres of land as a site fin ^o^*. -' ' v Projected medical group of assembled Chicago schools of Northwestern University. Permission of University authorities and Holabird & Roche, architects. 121 and laid the foundation for a university equipped to render service to the growing city. From the year of the Chicago fire to the present day the attendance at North- western has increased each decade about three times as fast as the growth of Chicago in population and the growth of Chicago has been a wonder. Great Building Program of Northwestern It is the belief of the authorities of Northwestern Uni- versity that with the passing of the pioneer days and the development of a great world city, the educational re- Projected Chicago buildings of Northwestern University to form group and campus on north shore. Permission of University authorities and Holabird & Roche, architects. quirements of the university will continue to increase three times as fast as the population of the Chicago dis- trict. Held by the successors of the determined founders that this measure of growth will hold true and therefore to permit the university to increase three times as fast as the metropolis there must be made at once provision for extensive expansion. Accordingly the university authori- ties have bought nine acres of land on the lake shore four blocks north of the Municipal Pier, where they ex- pect to place the institution's medical school, law school, dental school, school of commerce and school of journal - 122 ism. It is hoped to erect on this site buildings to accom- modate as many as 10,000 students, although the total registration in the university in 1921, as great as it is, is only 8,500. It is believed by these bold and patriotic educators that Chicago is to become a great educational center, and it is hoped to make the city campus of the university, located in the heart of Chicago, a great center for all forms of social service, and the dream of these - Proposed design by Bertram C. Goodhue, architect, for University Chapel of the University of Chicago. The noble edifice will probably be named Rockefeller Chapel. It will face the Midway between Woodlawn Avenue and University Avenue, with entrance on Woodlawn. Permission of University authorities. wise men contemplates the rising here of great hospitals, headquarters for charities and churches as well as educa- tional buildings. One of the ambitions and capacities of the university relates to social service as appears in the statement of the fact that its medical and dental clinics in Chicago last year served 50,000 patients. Now these 123 Interior of forthcoming University Chapel, University of Chicago. Permission of University authorities. Architect, Bertram G. Goodhue. 124 friends of society are planning a greatly enlarged plant hoping to serve hundreds of thousands annually, and it is hoped to make this prospective city institution render to the greater Chicago a distinct and eminent service which shall be characterized by the practical nature of its instruction and by predominance of laboratories and clinics. The spirit animating Northwestern for the win- ning of the war should carry far its projects for human betterment in an era of peace. University of Chicago's Thirty Wonderful Years Youngest of the great American universities, the Uni- versity of Chicago in thirty years of remarkable growth has received within its doors 87,000 students and its an- Library group of Midway front, University of Chicago, as designed by Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge, architects. Permission of University authorities. nual enrollment is 11,000. Its library even now num- bers 1,000,000 books and its assets aggregate $50,000,000. From the first it has welcomed women both as students and teachers, and in its school of education it has one of the two completely organized educational laboratories in the world. In development of its several schools in 1916-1917 there was raised for medical work $5,461,000, but the entry of the United States into the war prevented the immediate execution of the broad plans made possible by this fund. The war record of alumni, students and faculty has been praiseworthy indeed, and the university was an important training center. Four thousand three hundred and fifty-five alumni and former students were in service. In the summer of the winning of the war 125 La Verne W. Noyes presented to the university property of an estimated value of about $2,000,000 for establish- ment of scholarships for those who had served under he American flag in the great conflict and for their descend- ants. Hundreds of men are now enjoying its benefits. A distinguished memorial will some day be erected in the quadrangles of the university to commemorate the service of the men who went forth, of whom seventy-two gave up their lives. Medical Development Plans The great fund for medical development will provide, first, within university precincts for a medical school of the highest grade; second, establishment of the Rush Graduate Medical School near the Presbyterian hospital as a graduate medical school for practitioners, and third, extended provision for special medical research. As building conditions improve the university will take up erection of these proposed buildings and execution of the whole medical program. The medical building program, large as it is, is only a part of the university building program as a whole, the execution of which has been pre- vented by the war and industrial conditions following. There are to be buildings for administration, for theology and for a divinity chapel. There are also to be a univer- sity chapel and a new club house. The university chapel, which is to be a stately Gothic building seating more than 2,000, will be erected by means of a fund of $1,500,000 set apart ten years ago by John D. Rockefeller, university founder, in his final gift of $10,000,000. This chapel, surmounted by a massive tower 216 feet high, will be the dominating feature of the quadrangles and one of the most impressive buildings of its kind. An academic ave- nue of unusual distinction is to become the university's possession of the frontage on the Midway extending for three-quarters of a mile on both sides of this spacious boulevard. Institutes for Graduate Work in Science Distinguishing a five-year program outlined by the university's veteran president, Harry Pratt Judson, in 1920, are increases of salary to faculty members, a step first taken in 1919, and development of the graduate schools for investigation of the basic principles of pure 126 science involved in important problems of society and its industries. Within these graduate schools will be organ- ized a series of institutes, the first being that of physics and chemistry, with necessary building and equipment, requiring building funds or an endowment. The second institute will be that of plant agriculture and here will be trained men in the fundamental science of agriculture, and it will be notably advanced work. Here again many hundreds of thousands of dollars will be required. The third institute will be that of mining, also for advanced work, and requiring several hundred thousand dollars. The fourth institute will be that of the science of educa- tion and will call for liberal endowment. Indeed, in establishment of these institutes there will be necessary new endowments amounting to $3,000,000, while for the new buildings will be required $1,250,000. To meet the growing needs of the great library and the need of class- rooms, and to provide an adequate administration build- ing and residence halls for both women and men, there will be required not less than $1,750,000. The total financial requirements of the university within a five-year period are $10,000,000. University Commissions A new feature of university development with co- operation of all interests is to be the appointment of university commissions, fourteen in all, one from each of the main groups of university interests. On each commis- sion will be two alumni, a university trustee, two faculty members and two or more citizens. The duty of each commission will be to study the work of its particular school or group of interests and make to the board of trustees suggestions for improvement. The university needs scholarships and fellowships and many depart- ments need money for publication. Each journal needs an endowment fund to insure its future. Many graduate students upon passing their doctor's examination find that to publish their theses as required by the university will cost them $500 or more, an expenditure for which ten years of study has not prepared them. The university has been active in the Near East, the latter released from Turkish control, in the field of archaeology. It is desired to establish a field school of 127 geology. The department of geography hopes to organ- ize research expeditions, and the department of zoology plans a museum, while botany needs an experimental garden, laboratory and greenhouses. By the invention of Professor Michaelson of the university a twenty-foot interferometer operating in connection with the 100-inch telescope at Mount Wilson, California, there was meas- ured December last the diameter of the giant star, Betel- geuze, which is learned to have a diameter of nearly 300,000,000 miles, or 300 times that of the sun. Such is astronomical research by gifted scientists well equipped, w 7 hile one of the world's most remarkable astronomical equipments is the property of the Univer- sity of Chicago in the Yerkes observatory at Geneva Lake, Wisconsin, where each year 8.000 people see the great 40-inch telescope in operation. 128 A GREATER CHICAGO'S HEALTH Medical Progress and Falling Death Rate Encourage Confidence in Security of City of Tomorrow Man's efficient survival is measured by his physical hardihood and his practical solution of the complicated problem of health. A vigorous future is promised Chi- cago by its sanitary progress in fifty years. The death rate of 1921 is not much more than half as high as was that of 1871, when it was 20.87, having fallen from about 25 per thousand. The baby death rate is about one-third of that of the Great Fire period. The span of human life is longer. The death rate of children from 1 to 4 is about one-fourth that of 1871, of typhoid fever about one-fiftieth, of diphtheria about one-third, of scarlet fever about one-half, of consumption about one-fourth, while smallpox and cholera, a great menace half a cen- tury ago, no longer cause deaths. In those days that tried men's souls Chicago had an evil reputation from the health standpoint, whereas today its public health status attracts families and homes. Wonderful has been the progress of medical science at large in the past fifty years, embracing introduction of the germ theory of disease, the X-ray and application to practice of the microscope and laboratory. Almost the entire list of vaccines, anti-toxins and serums has been discovered and come into use. Surgery has progressed more rapidly than other branches of medicine, but none has lagged completely, and the period has been one not only of dazzling discovery but of improvement in day-by- day working methods as well. Chicago's Growth as Medical Center And the next fifty years and Chicago? There will be an increase in the number of great hospitals and their aggregate bed capacity. From all over the world will come graduate and undergraduate students for research and clinical work, and post-graduate schools inviting medical practitioners from everywhere will spread the advances of medicine to numberless localities. Here is 129 the home of the American Medical Association and of the College of Surgeons, and place of issue of their journals. Here is the strategic center of medicine. Methods of health conservation developed in Chicago's department of public health will be copied elsewhere. Will the next fifty years see further material reduction in Chicago's death rate? There are trustworthy authori- ties who would answer in the negative, believing, indeed, that the rate of 1920 or 1921 cannot be held; but on the other hand the same authorities contend that improve- ment of health in the next fifty years will equal those of the past, with improvement found largely along lines of increased efficiency. The goal must be to have men work- ing at full efficiency at 60 or even 70 years, and as the rule. Life in the Greater Chicago The greater Chicago, say the far-seeing, will fifty years hence be a metropolitan district extending at least as far as through Michigan City, Kankakee, Joliet, Aurora, Elgin and Waukegan, and one will speak, for in- stance, of the Elgin wards of the Kankakee subdivision. Improved transportation will reduce the congestion of metropolitan population by permitting the people in in- dustries to live in the open, and this will make for efficiency through good health. Some believe that there will not be any change in the present move- ment of population toward cities and that man will find sustenance in synthetized foods. When that time comes the ground can all be given over to the uses of habitation, of industry and things pertaining thereto, and cities, metropolitan districts or industrial districts, whatever they happen to be called at that time, will be proportionately increased in size and develop- ment, and this will not mean decrease in the health meas- ure. Man has shown his ability to protect himself and save health in cities. There will be new discoveries and progressive increase in the efficiency of health methods so that we can contemplate the growth of Chicago in the next fifty years with complacency. The advances of that new day will have proceeded from the sanitary efforts of our ancestors of the seventies, when the very high death rates of the forties and fifties 130 had fallen because of better drainage, better sewerage and garbage disposal and better control of contagion. Just after the fire the young city of 300,000 had 306 physi- cians, 5 medical colleges with a total of about 300 stu- dents, and there were 10 hospitals with a total of perhaps 1,000 or more beds. After the Great Fire The fire destroyed six hospitals, leaving a total of 650 beds available after the conflagration. Within a few days after the fire all relief work was concentrated under the organization formed by the Relief and Aid. One hundred and seven people perished in the fire. In spite Death rate of Chicago per 1,000 of population, 1871 to 1920, inclusive. Chart drawn by Dr. W. A. Evans. of these casualties and exposure of the homeless at this terrible period, Chicago had a lower death rate in Octo- ber of 1871 than in the same month in 1870, 1872 or 1873. The liberalism, community spirit and genius for organ- ization born out of the great disaster soon showed itself in public health work, and public sentiment began to get behind efforts for the improvement of the city's health 131 to a degree never known before. Much of the money left at the end of the relief period was used to endow beds in hospitals. Two examples of sanitary progress appeared, one, in the removal of all slaughter houses from the district bounded by Fullerton Avenue, Western Avenue, Thirty-first Street and the lake, and in prohibit- ing the keeping of more than three cows in a city lot. To- day Chicago's hospitals are licensed by the health depart- ment, numbering 75, with 6,676 beds available. These institutions do not include homes, places for convales- cents or asylums. Chicago has six medical colleges attended by 1,736 undergraduate students and has at least four well-organized post-graduate schools with many stu- dents each year. Besides, there are a few institutions teaching certain medical subjects to graduates. The department of public health of the city of Chi- cago advises that during the past six years notable re- ductions have been made in Chicago's death rates from the principal preventable diseases. For example, the death rate from scarlet fever has been reduced 75 per cent ; the death rate from typhoid fever, 90 per cent, and through the combined efforts of the Municipal Tubercu- losis Sanitarium forces and those of the department of health, the deaths from tuberculosis have been reduced practically 50 per cent. The record of the department's work against diphtheria, however, while showing a com- mendable reduction in the deaths from this disease, is far, in its judgment, from being satisfactory; and this despite the fact that, during the past six years, there has been a reduction of 18^ per cent in diphtheria deaths and for the last three years 32 per cent. The unsatisfactory situation as to diphtheria is, how- ever, common to other large cities. There is, however, not only a preventive in the form of toxin-antitoxin, but a cure, if administered soon enough, in the form of anti- toxin. It is because the parents of the city of Chicago do not avail themselves of these known and approved agen- cies that Chicago and other cities in America have not banished this disease. The commissioner of health is now appointing a diphtheria commission to study the situation and to co- operate in an intensive drive against this dangerous dis- ease of childhood. 132 PUBLIC SAFETY Chicago Safety Council New Organized Force for Con- servation of Life and Fire Prevention Preservation of life, limb and property is a duty of organized government whose work may become supple- mented by private initiative. The increasing number of fire, industrial and traffic fatalities brought about in 1920 the organization by The Chicago Association of Commerce, in conjunction with the National Safety Coun- cil, of the Chicago Safety Council, which operates as a department of the Association and is the local repre- sentative of the national body. It is not concerned with profits, politics, nor the inducements of business. It is engaged in the task of educating the people of the Chicago district in safety and fire prevention, and it also concerns itself with health, sanitation and first aid. It had become time to set up principles and means of safety. In 1920 in Chicago and the remainder of Cook County deaths caused by accidents were 1,982 men, women and children, with the serious injury of 49,550. Of these deaths 497 were of children under sixteen years of age and 542 deaths were caused by automobiles. The gravity of the industrial phase of the problem is shown in the fact that about $5,000,000 was expended last year by employers in this district under provisions of the workmen's compensation act. Within Chicago proper the fire loss in 1920 amounted to $11,800,000, an increase of nearly 100 per cent in two years. There was also loss of property by collisions and other acci- dents. The total loss by accidents and fires last year was $25,000,000, a greater part of which could have been prevented. Lines of Service Intensive organization of the Chicago Safety Council has come to embrace more than 300 men and women actively interested in its work, including business men, doctors, lawyers, engineers of various classes, club women, social workers, industrial executives, leaders in automobile clubs, etc. This large group of earnest and 133 competent friends of safety are functioning through the same sort of safety organization which has accomplished striking results in industrial, railroad and public utility fields. It is now said to be recognized that accidents in industry can be more effectively prevented by work carried on in a public way than through accident pre- vention activities through the industry itself. The future service of the Chicago Safety Council for a safer Chicago is partly indicated by the variety of the efficient activities of its first year, which has embraced a school for safety supervisors, prevention of motor ve- hicle accidents, teaching of safety and fire prevention in the public schools, instruction and formal graduation of foremen from a safety instruction course, about 50,- 000 workmen being represented ; production of beneficial publicity, prevention of traffic accidents, co-operation with the American Red Cross, prevention of accidents on railroad premises and at crossings, promotion^ of the study of health and sanitation, instruction of chauffeurs and truck drivers, direction of fire prevention day, study of accidents to juveniles, co-operation with the Ameri- canization movement, holding of many meetings and conferences. Number of Fatalities Less The Chicago Safety Council has reduced fatalities in Cook County from 2,026 in 1919 to 1,982 in 1920, a decrease of 2.2 per cent. This record was adversely af- fected by an increase of 29 per cent in automobile deaths in 1920 as compared with 1919, but it is to be noted that automobile licenses in Cook County have increased from 143,531 in 1919 to 175,724 in 1920. The Chicago Safety Council plans to make of the semi-centennial anniversary period a "no accident-no fire" week when thousands will be given special cause to consider individual responsibility for the general good. In preparation for this safety campaign the coun- cil has displayed an effective picture poster on local transportation lines urging citizens to make Chicago safe. Building upon its useful past, the Chicago Safety Council means to improve upon its work and undertake new and appropriate activities to demonstrate that acci- dents and fires are not inevitable but are readily pre- ventable. The council pursues its mission of conserva- 134 tion of life, limb and property with the presumption that people appreciate that its work is not only intensely hu- manitarian but economically fit. Chicago will be safer tomorrow than today because of the Chicago Safety Council. 135 CHICAGO WEATHER Not Unlikely Energy of Chicago People Due Largely to Peculiar Nature of Climate When some years ago The Chicago Association of Commerce made an appropriation to aid in publication of a study of Chicago's weather, in form of an exhaustive work on the "Weather and Climate of Chicago," by Prof. H. J. Cox, government meteorologist, and asso- ciates, business showed that breadth of interest in pro- moting education relating to the basic conditions afreet- ing this great city's life that has found additional ex- pression in subsequent activities. It is appropriate that in these notes on the future of Chicago one should pic- ture in non-statistical fashion, and in the words of this same esteemed public servant, certain conditions which make for the vital efficiency of Chicago and an expand- ing future: "The city is located in latitude 41 53' north, some- what less than half-way from the equator to the pole, and in longitude 87 37' west, on a crescent-shaped plain gradually rising from the level of Lake Michigan, whose altitude is about 581 feet above mean sea level. This plain at its highest point is considerably less than 100 feet above the surface of the lake, and its greatest width is approximately 15 miles in a northeast-southwest di- rection. The whole plain is bordered inland by a glacial moraine which rises in places to about 150 feet above the higher portions of the plain itself. This rim is far too low to exert any appreciable effect upon the climatic or weather conditions of the city, and forms no barrier to either cold-wave areas from the west or hot winds from the southwest and south. Such barrier, however, is but infrequently needed, as many times the waters of the lake serve to soften the rigors of the wintry storms or to moderate the intensity of the summer's heat. No Changes Probable in Chicago's Invigorating Climate "Located as it is at the southwest corner of the lake, Chicago is justly proud of its climate. As a consequence 136 of the cool expanse of water in summer, the city often enjoys delightful and refreshing breezes while the in- terior of the country away from the lake is sweltering in an air hot and still almost to the point of suffocation. The city is close to certain well-defined storm tracks, and the passage of these disturbances insures ample pre- cipitation and interrupts the otherwise monotonous cycles of temperature and weather change. Chicago has been called the 'Windy City,' but the wind move- ment here is not much greater than it is at other places in the Great Lakes region. Its changes in weather are often sudden and pronounced, but usually are of such a character as to have a stimulating effect upon the av- erage person of health; and it is not at all improbable that the great energy of its people, which has resulted in the rapid upbuilding of Chicago, is due largely to the peculiar nature of its climate. "There will be in the future, as there has been in past, a great variety of weather conditions occasional cold and warm waves, snows, rains, gales and drouths, mingled with the usually excellent weather for which Chicago is noted. Fortunately, a recurrence of the pro- longed heat such as that experienced in the summer of 1921 need not be anticipated for many years; nor will the winters on the average be more severe or more mild than in the past. Past periods of drouth like the one pre- ceding the Chicago fire in 1871, when practically no rain fell for twenty-two days, may be expected infre- quently; and these will be balanced by rainy spells of more than the usual length. There is, in fact, no proba- bility of any change in our climate, and our weather will merely undergo its usual fluctuations from day to day, from week to week and from month to month." 137 PUBLIC LIBRARY Branch Library in Every Ward Who Plans Next Legacy to People's Treasure House of Books? Let not Chicago forget that the Chicago Public Library owes its origin after the great fire to gifts of books from English publishers and authors who founded the present institution by presentation of over 12,000 volumes sump- tuously bound and each volume inscribed "As a mark of English sympathy." In this historic collection, of sentimental as well as of literary value, are autographs of famous people, not the least being that of Queen Victoria herself. This nucleus of Chicago's present great treasure house of books was organized and forwarded under the direction of Thomas Hughes, prominent Brit- ish author and publicist. An embarrassment of riches proved to be the arrival of these books less than two months after the fire, and a two-fold problem was pre- sented because the city had neither authority to accept and care for them at public expense nor were there suit- able quarters in which to store them. Joseph Medill, of the Chicago Tribune, mayor, passed the case on to a special committee of citizens with Thomas Hoyne as chairman. And where was this precious gift, requiring a fireproof depository, installed? It was deposited in an iron water-tank standing on trestles behind the tem- porary city hall at the southeast corner of Adams and La Salle Streets, this humble structure because of its shabby exterior being known as the "Rookery," a name that passed to a more stately successor on that site. Offspring of First Fifteen Thousand On January 1, 1873, was formally opened the new library with sole function, however, that of a reading room. The first librarian, Dr. William Frederick Poole of Cincinnati, a man distinguished in his profession, was appointed January 1, 1874. There were less than 15,000 volumes when books began to circulate, and in the first year the daily average circulation was over 799. The number of volumes has today become 1,100,000 and 138 home circulation has risen to 25,000 volumes per day. And these great resources and services are represented in no less than 1,800 different branches, stations, etc., whence books may be borrowed. So much in brief of the Chicago Public Library of the past. As for the future all hopes and policies are con- tained within the idea that the library shall be brought within easy walking distance of every citizen from his home. The total number of registered users, that is to say borrowers, is now 400,000 in a population of 2,700,000, or 15 per cent, an excellent proportion, but it would be greater were facilities greater. The aim announced ten years ago but not yet attained is "a branch library in every ward." This accomplishment will not take fifty years, but nevertheless progress toward it will be slow under present conditions. The library board needs sites, locations and buildings, and with buildings planned and built and owned by it. It now has but five special buildings, whereas to secure thirty- five or forty others there is needed a building fund of $5,000,000 within the next ten years. The library's sole revenue is the annual tax lately increased to 8/10 of a mill. There are no endowments and in the fifty years there has been but one bequest. Public-spirited people of wealth should think of everybody's library as if it were in the class of museums and hospitals and technical schools. Chicago will surely sustain and expand what England so spontaneously founded. New Services Projected A new educational service, perhaps, will be the cre- ation of a home study bureau to advise as to the sys- tematic courses of reading for individuals and clubs, including building complete book service. Another fine project awaiting opportunity is the extension of or- ganized service to all hospitals. A yet unrealized hope but not abandoned is no less a development than a busi- ness branch on La Salle Street, equipped with every sort of reference material. Such a branch would sub- serve research for any occupation. Still another project contemplates installing in public schools and in every room 50-book deposits. At present are served about one-fourth of the rooms, some 1,500, in this manner. 139 In each of the twenty-seven high schools it is hoped eventually to have a fully equipped branch under com- petent direction; and meanwhile must go forward serv- ice to music art, the industrial arts, and the blind, and the general subject of visual education will continue to receive attention. Possibilities of instruction by pic- tures, moving and otherwise, are fully appreciated by the library management, which is discussing the idea of a service of free picture films for schools, churches, clubs and similar institutions or groups. The library is doing its own executing as well as its own dreaming, but much depends upon the public's be- stowal of resources. Not in fifty years can these projects be put through if the library must subsist solely upon its normal income. There must be library development means provided on a larger scale than supplied through official sources, and therefore the board considers launch- ing a publicity campaign to bring its needs and oppor- tunities to public attention. Chicago must be "sold" on its public library 100 per cent "sold." Chicago must come to feel throughout its entire population that the library is worthy of current support and testamentary benevolences. Surely it should not take half a century to bring true the ideals of its friends today. 140 CHICAGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY Rare Treasures Make Library and Museum One of the Bulwarks of American Traditions When Chicago was nineteen years old as a city, that is, in 1856, a group of bankers, merchants, physicians and lawyers decided that Chicago should then begin to collect and preserve a record of her own history, of the states carved from the old Northwest Territory and of all America. Therefore they banded themselves together under the name of the city which several of them had helped to organize as a village in 1833. Today these city fathers are perpetuated in school buildings and thoroughfares, although our children may not realize the historic significance of such names as Kinzie, Barry, Hubbard, Arnold, McCormick, Manierre, Ogden, Skin- ner, Scammon, Ryerson, McCagg, Burley and Went- worth. This group made itself the city's center of cul- ture and here were laid the deep foundations of the Chi- cago Historical Society, so deep and broad as to invite such a superstructure as the great Gunther collection of Americana which now awaits purchase. When that well known citizen, Charles F. Gunther, died in 1920 and he had been for twenty years a di- rector of the Historical Society the latter took on the responsibility of administering his great collection of historical treasures and of paying to his estate $150,000. Happy to say, $60,000 has been raised by the Society and it is expected that a popular subscription will com- plete the funds. Meanwhile, Chicago is losing much of the advantage of the possession of these treasures be- cause but a small portion can, by limitations of space, be exhibited at the home of the Society. Children's Museum of Americanisnv What Chicago now has within its grasp is the com- plete establishment of a children's museum of Ameri- canism. When the collection of the Chicago Historical Society shall have been amplified and enriched by pos- session of the Gunther treasures, Chicago and other west- 141 ern children need not journey to eastern centers of his- tory and antiquarian study, but in our own great city can perfect their conceptions of Colonial and Revolu- tionary America. Indeed, for twenty years the Chicago Historical Society has been adapting its collections to the understanding of children, and today Washington and Lincoln and others of the Nation's great seem to in- habit in their very personalities the halls of an institu- tion which is one of the bulwarks of American traditions. Constant and constructive are the activities of the So- ciety, embracing the publication of ten large volumes and over seventy lesser ones; historical lectures, an an- nual social function, current topic talks, children's lec- tures, Sunday afternoon talks on American ideals, Sun- day suppers for soldiers during the war, hospitable re- ception of kindred clubs and societies, development of a rare library already comprising 100,000 volumes, manuscripts, pamphlets, etc., including a collection of early newspapers resorted to from all parts of the coun- try, and of course an historical museum. The Society also recognizes patriotic anniversaries and "Chicago fire day." Did the Society have more ample support, being maintained entirely by membership dues and the interest of legacies, it could co-operate with every ac- tivity that makes for a better city and a more united Americanism. Fire Destroyed Valued Possessions From its foundation in 1856 the Society has been a medium of expression of Chicago's best citizenship, its members standing foremost for the successful prosecu- tion of the Civil War and carrying their patriotic serv- ice through all the years of Chicago's life story. By 1871 the Society had collected the very great number of 100,000 volumes, etc., and installed them in a massive fireproof building at the northwest corner of Dearborn Avenue facing Ontario Street, the fine home of the So- ciety today being at the corner of Dearborn Avenue and West Ontario Street. On Monday morning, October 9, 1871, this store- house of treasures melted in the fire, its secretary, Colonel Samuel Stone, nearly losing his life in a fruitless effort tc save its records and the most precious of its docu- 142 ments, the original draft of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation; and afterwards from the ashes there was recovered but one book and one relic, the former a handsomely bound edition of the Psalms of David, and the latter an old Confederate sword. The ashes were not cold before John Wentworth had laid the founda- tion of a second collection by building up the files of the Democrat from copies solicited from beyond the fire region. Then came the fire of 1874, and such collections as had been made in the intervening time were swept away. Today the library and historical museum are what they are by virtue of its founders and conservators and the good will of an appreciative public, which will surely call in the near future for enlargement of the Society's resources and not unlikely the relocation of its home. 143 CHICAGO AND THE ARTS In a Great Market and Workshop the Fine and Decorative Arts Are to Flourish and Music and Poetry Will Further Assert Their Power Art's influence upon the Chicago of tomorrow, gifts of the sisterhood architecture, landscape design, paint- ing, sculpture, music, poetry will disclose its inspiring powers in fullest expression only as we of today train the taste, kindle the imagination, enrich the mind, guide the hand of those who are to create, the while agreeing as an entire community that, although business be our vocation, beauty shall be one spiritual quest. Order prepares for beauty, and a vision of order dawns upon Chicago, its prophecy being the Chicago Plan. With order will come adornment, and, although the quaint and picturesque of ancient Europe may not be- come recreated in an American capital of commerce and industry, behind less interesting walls but along sunlit ways there will be a degree of health and comfort which the new civilization will glory to achieve. And art will begin to flow through the life and works of a people as a quickening stream. Those who give thought to their city known Chicago's faults, and, although these cham- pions be not organized as such, are a constant and pro- gressive band for its betterment and beautification ; and the Art Institute and public schools will have proven power houses of execution. Grace Will Gild Power Ten years will give almost sensationally transforming touches to this masterful city seeking the graces; and the stately and monumental, the lovely and benign, will dis- place many a hard and forbidding relic of a people wresting success from the material, but attuned to the spirit. Resident and stranger want a clean and smoke- less city, and "strict control of the billboard horror, a constant and hideous irritation." "It does not," further writes a leader in the arts, "seem possible that 'big busi- ness' can realize to what extent the polluted air and 144 flaunting billboards influence people against one of the most wonderful cities in the world today. If they did they would take such action that would shortly eliminate both." What is good in Chicago's buildings, bridges, towers, parks and statuary and in decorative painting, will have our own and the world's approval ; and we shall be rich, indeed, if, as one artist hopes may prove our fortune, "this most characteristically American city shall possess the greatest comprehensive collection of American art, and if the Art Institute shall develop so as to house this, and also contain the finest examples of the art of all nations." Restore Columbian Art Gallery Eminent in his art, and of countrywide authority, is he who wishes the following benefits to the city of his long and enriching service: The tangible thing that I have most desired for a score of years is the development of the city's water front the union of Grant Park with Jackson Park by means of the outer drive and the lagoon. This realization of Mr. Burnham's imposing vision will glorify our city and serve all its people. Another thing which I have greatly at heart is the restoration of the Columbian art gallery to its original beauty and its recon- secration to public service. In that building, which has been called the most beautiful in America, I would like to see installed a great museum of architecture and of American sculpture. Also a wing should be reserved to neighborhood uses, with gymnasium and auditorium. Such accommodations I would like to see multi- plied and scattered throughout our city that every young man and woman might have opportunity to develop physically and socially, and, if so disposed, on lines musical and dramatic. I hope to live to see the Midway Surrounded by the imposing structures of the University of Chicago and fitly decorated with sculptural expression of the highest ideals of an ambitious and aspiring citizenry. But whatever we suggest or dream is to be so greatly surpassed in the next half century that it seems almost idle to record our hopes. How little did those stout-hearted men of 1871 foresee the Chicago of today. We can but imitate them, each doing as honestly as he can the little job assigned him; out of our united efforts will develop the Chicago of the future, the true City of Destiny. Art's Great Storehouse Distinguished among institutions of its class, whether in the new world or among the more classic centers of art in the old, is the Art Institute of Chicago, which requires 145 and deserves the public's continued appreciation and in- creased support if the fine arts shall flourish in this city as its ideals demand. The Institute is a popular pos- session in two senses it has the support of over 13,000 members, and last year over 1,000,000 people visited its galleries. The Institute is now asking for the modest sum of $1,000,000 to carry on and develop the work of one of Chicago's major activities and nearly one-third of this sum has already been subscribed. The Art Institute is the recognized leader and dominant factor in Chicago's art world, and its call to the public to aid in financing its necessary expenditure and expansion is the result of its position and growth. It faces a deficit in operating income and at the same time faces the need for expansion that is nothing less than compulsory. One of the city's most famous cultural institutions receives from but a part of the public support in entrance fees, while a small South Park tax is but one-third or less of requirements for operation of the Institute. Institute's School of Art It cannot be too frequently repeated that the Art In- stitute of Chicago conducts the largest art school in the world, and in the four decades of its existence the many thousands of students who have received inspiration and education in its classes have wielded an incalculable in- fluence all over the world. In the life of the city the museum wields a far greater influence. So great is this influence that the Art Institute has become a veritable community center, where rich and poor, throughout the year, crowd through the doors that are never closed a single day. In activities as well as in number of visitors no other art museum in America compares with the Art Institute. In its hour of urgent need it is scarcely conceivable that Chicagoans will not come speedily and gladly to the aid Lorado Taft's "Fountain of Time" is a fragment of the sculptor's compre- hensive scheme for the decoration of the Midway. Along with three bridges dedicated to the Sciences, the Arts, and Religions, and a cordon of statues of great idealists, he proposed some years ago a "Fountain of Creation" or evolu- tion to be erected at the eastern extremity of the avenue and the "Fountain of Time" for the sunset end. The model of the latter is now in place. This sculptural allegory is a recognition of the mystery of life; a presentation of waves of ephemeral human atoms as contrasted with the rock-like eternity of Time. The conception was suggested by Austin Dobson's paraphrase of Ronsart: "Time goes you say? Ah, no Alas! Time stays, we go." 147 of an institution of such vital importance to the future of our city. There should be more than sufficient ready contributions to meet every need. The increasing number of gifts of important art col- lections, the growing school and demand for new features and modern facilities have all combined to render addi- tions of such insistent necessity that it is impossible to The Municipal Art League and the Chicago Camera Club, in a series of strikingly lovely postal cards for public sale, are uncovering beauties in the material forms of smoke-beset Chicago. Not a classic old world ruin this, but the peristyle adorning the lake front. Photo by Robert H. Conklin 148 ignore the conditions. The recent gifts of such splendid collections as the Kimball and Palmer pictures will alone require two galleries for their accommodation. Chicago's increased interest in art is well exemplified As dignified and stately as a Grecian temple a section of the portico of the Field Museum. This picture is another art gift of the Municipal Art League and Chicago Camera Club. Photo by A. H. Born 149 in the two important prize competitions offered through the Art Institute by the Chicago Daily News and the Chi- cago Tribune, the Tribune offering a $5,000 prize for mural paintings to decorate the walls of its local room, and the News offering $1,000 for a sculpture decoration for a fountain to embellish the grounds about the Daily News sanitarium for sick babies. A reader of the accompanying interesting sketch of the Chicago of the past fifty years will note that in a com- munity having its own endowment in the arts there was the happiest cultivation of opera to the degree of avail- able resources tomorrow a greater Chicago will read that in 1921 this place became the first American city to effect an organization of citizens to underwrite in their private capacities the adequate production of grand opera. Grand Opera's Splendid Promise A growing institution of exhilarating promise and its support would be an obligation of a municipality in Eu- rope is the Chicago Opera Company, which, resolving to do a great share in making Chicago authoritative as a music center in America, is about to enter on its eleventh season, opening at the Auditorium Theater, Monday, No- vember 14. Under artistic and business direction of exceptional capacity, this company will present an array of singers without serious rivalry in the world. To assure that this undertaking shall attain the mag- nitude and excellence proposed, and that it shall be re- liably sustained and without undue burden anywhere, there is being enrolled a body of 500 citizens and busi- ness houses, becoming guarantors at not to exceed $1,000 a year for five years beginning May 1, 1922. If deficits ensue in the early years of a splendid adventure and there have been deficits which but a few have generously borne in the past this guarantee fund will provide an adequate sum to care for them. Half of the guarantors has already been obtained. Public-spirited citizens of means following the example of their like will not fail to seek enrollment. Already the extent of the advance subscriptions for the next season's seats indicates not only encouraging financial support, but extension of the main- tenance of opera among the people, that is the democ- 150 ratization of a cultural activity which needs to be made financially available to become intensively developed. Chicago's Cultivation of Poetry A year ago the London Times, writing of the Chicago publication, Poetry, a magazine of verse, Miss Harriet Monroe, editor, made this interesting observation: "We need not linger on the many English and French con- tributors of this periodical. We do have to note that it has published, as it honestly claims, much of the best experimental poetry written by Americans in the past eight years. They have succeeded in their primary de- sign to create poetry which should be American in thought, feeling, subject and form. That is after all a distinguished achievement." A tribute of moment this to a little institution of authority and leadership peculiarly Chicago's own, an instrument to make Chicago a center of influence in the art of poetry, and recently drawing from the editor of another London paper the interesting admission that, speaking as he was in the office of this magazine, he was "in the center of the English-speaking poetry world." It is the opinion of the editor of Poetry that Carl Sandburg and Edgar Lee Masters, both Chicago residents, are two of the most distinguished poets now writing in English, and that Vachel Lindsay of Springfield may be claimed for the Chicago group, which includes also Eunice Tiet- gens, Agnes Lee, Frances Shaw and, of course, the maga- zine's editor herself. The magazine. Poetry, comes to its ninth birthday October 1st of this year, and in this short but fruitful period it has had the honor of introducing many poets, among them some of the most famous, and it is generally acknowledged to be the most influential organ of the art now published and a true force in the development of poetry in America. "Man does not live by bread alone," nor do peoples grow great without inspiring utterances of the spirit. A Center of Musical Study During the last decade the musical activities of Chi- cago have been increased to such an extent that the city bids well to become the musical center of the country. 151 The first organizations in the field were the Theodore Thomas Orchestra, now known as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and the Apollo Club. The Apollo Club was founded forty-nine years ago under direction of William Tomlins. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra came into existence about thirty years ago, with Theodore Thomas as its director. When the Apollo Club was first organ- ized Chicago was just recovering from the effects of the great fire. It may be said that these two organizations have been the main factors in making Chicago musical. Today are found musical organizations in every large corporation. Bands the Chicago Band a leading ex- ample choruses, orchestras, fife and drum corps, are all represented. With the growth of interest in organized music has also come tremendous development of the student body. Chicago runs a very close second to New York in number of musical students. Coupled with the growth of the city has developed the musical organiza- tion known as the Civic Music Association, whose chief reason for existence is Americanization through music. It conducts free Sunday concerts in the outlying dis- tricts, giving them in the field houses of the parks. In these same places twenty-one children's choruses have been organized which have received two lessons a week from experienced teachers. The aim of these choruses is to teach the children of the foreign born their own folk songs in English. Another development of the Civic Music Association is the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, Frederick Stock, di- rector. This is the only organization in the country where an American trained musician can acquire experi- ence and routine to fit him for work in the Symphony Orchestra. Heretofore it has been necessary to use foreign players for this highly specialized work because of the fact that Europe has seen the value of symphony training and in many cases men received their educa- tion through government subsidy. This orchestra has been in existence for but a year and a half and has placed nine players in the major symphony orchestras of the country. Several choral festivals are held in the city and its environs each year. First in importance is the North Shore Festival at Evanston. 152 THE CHICAGO PLAN What a City of Rapid and Unregulated Growth Has Done and Is Preparing to Do by Means of a Model Plan United Public Backs Great Undertakings Chicago's greatest conception for physical improve- ment, and a model in principles for the entire world, is the development scheme of the Chicago Plan Commis- sion, now generally known as the "Chicago Plan." This proposal of vision, practicality and magnitude, proceed- ing from Daniel H. Burnham and Edward H. Bennett under auspices of the Commercial Club, is now under- going effective application in the reconstruction and ex- pansion of a great city evolving without a plan from frontier conditions. The plan of Chicago contemplates solution of prob- lems of transportation, recreation and public health, and points the way to orderly municipal development. Twelve of the major features of the Plan have been assured, each of commercial benefit, while many have humani- tarian consequences, but the philosophy of the Plan at large is the attainment of commercial advantage. The Plan, as submitted to the public twelve years ago, has been given important and constant public emphasis by Charles H. Wacker, chairman of the commission, and by the late Walter D. Moody, managing director, while at the same time major features of the Plan by approval of the public have begun to be realized before its eyes, and to secure conclusive and enthusiastic approval for its principles and projects. By force of such circum- stances, therefore, Chicago is beginning to consider its own development as a problem of science and art, to ac- cept a formulated program, to attain certain great and popular ends and to urge that civic leaders cast their "dreams" upon the sky. Chicago is ready to "dream" and tomorrow execute. Competing Cities Plan and Spend There is a war of cities and the community which does not design a practical and beautiful organism for business 153 and residence may already see an imperilled future. Cities competing with Chicago trade and industry are spend- ing millions upon public improvements, and in Chicago's determination for a progressive policy lies the secret of its supremacy. It is not enough to be the greatest rail- road center of the country when there is a lack of water transportation, congestion of streets, inadequacy in ter- minals. The relative commercial standing of Chicago, not to speak of its distinct advance, cannot be maintained without the application of this great city's great will to such undertakings as the building of an industrial harbor in Lake Calumet, of a vast transfer harbor at the Illinois- Indiana border, completion of a waterway between Chi- cago and the Gulf, and the bringing of deep sea ships from all seas to Chicago by way of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River. The creation of these indispensable economic instruments require, however, large internal improvements which will enhance the ease and economy of doing business within Chicago itself. The Chicago Plan is the paramount conception de- signed to meet the requirements of a crisis. In realiza- tion of certain great economic externals others will help, but within itself Chicago must justify ambitions based upon its central location, abundant raw materials, enor- mous labor market and unlimited trade territory. Improvement of Main Thoroughfares Rehabilitation of railway terminals on the South and West Sides will be a great improvement, but there re- mains much to be done in further enlarging our railroad and waterway facilities and in developing a scientific in- terchange system. There is congestive traffic between railroad terminals which could be handled better and more cheaply elsewhere. Large areas of railroad prop- erty are developed to only a small part of their use- fulness and the true railroad and waterway transporta- tion system is yet to come. Street traffic will benefit from creation of a quadrangle of wide streets around the busi- ness center composed of Michigan Avenue, Roosevelt Road, Canal Street and South Water Street, and com- munication will be further helped by the opening, widen- ing and extension as main streets of such as Western Avenue, Robey Street and Ogden Avenue, but there is 155 need for an enlarged program of street improvement, because in the nine-mile width of Chicago there are but three through north and south streets, and in its length of twenty-six miles but twenty -two east and west streets. Another Chicago plan project of much commercial benefit is the effort to secure two blocks on Canal Street between the Chicago and Northwestern depot and the new Union station as the site for a new post office. Chicago, the pivotal business point of the entire United States, suffers inadequate postal facilities, and not only Chicago but the entire country is the loser. Attractive City Brings Great Wealth to Itself The city which is attractive to an intelligent popula- tion, arousing its pride and militant championship, is also likely to be attractive to the world at large. The next generation is growing up to accept as its own, and Transformations of a century about the site of Fort Dearborn, the timber walls of which rose on the near side of the river where now sweeps broad Michigan Avenue crossing the stream at two levels on Chicago's finest bridge. In the river's center lies the Rush Street bridge discarded. Beyond the queenly Wrigley Building the new Chicago Tribune plant rests solidly at the right, and in the distance, were the picture's area extended, might be seen Chicago's newest great hotel, the Drake. Thence align themselves Chicago's most beautiful mansions. Permission of Ralph C. Digging Company. 156 as features of a beautiful and distinguished city, the Michigan Avenue improvement, the forthcoming lake front park, forest preserves, Field Museum, the stadium, and similar spectacular and useful improvements which are to serve in splendid fashion the welfare of the people. Travel and trade come to interesting cities and Chicago must consider the advantage of the revenue to be derived from hundreds of thousands of tourists. It is estimated that money of this class amounts to $876,000,000 a year in New York City; that before the war travelers spent in Switzerland $150,000,000 a year, in France $600,000,000 a year, and that American travelers alone spent $500,- 000,000 annually in foreign lands. Zoning and Housing The latest development in city planning is city zoning, and by the legislature Chicago has been given power to divide itself into various districts, such as industrial, commercial, residential and the like. The Chicago zon- ing commission has been appointed and this essential public service will begin to be undertaken, having in view a plan recognizing the rights, proprieties, beauties and decencies of harmonious metropolitan growth. From the beginning Chicago's housing question has been in the mind of the Chicago Plan Commission and today, through suspension of building following the war, the problem is more acute than ever. People continue in great numbers to move to cities, and to supply proper housing facilities both for the new-comers, and for the thousands who have long suffered from fatal social neg- lect, calls for a definite and comprehensive plan. Build- ing will yet resume in Chicago on a great and perhaps feverish scale. There may be urgency, haste and strenu- ous competition. The vast numbers moving to this busy workshop will demand and deserve adequate and eco- nomic housing. England has some experience to submit about the building of houses under town planning control, and about building houses within economic reach of work- ing people. Chicago cannot too quickly and thought- fully produce a housing program with which purposes in general city planning and zoning are related. From this brief survey of the Chicago Plan in the 157 broad, one may profitably proceed to more particular mention of some of its features. The policy of grouping public buildings as advocated in the Plan has stimulated the formation of civic centers over the entire country, notable examples appearing in New York City, Cleve- land, San Francisco, Massachusetts, Philadelphia, Buf- falo, Denver, cities in which the principle already is demonstrated or working out. Chicago alone, however, parent of this movement, has up to the present taken no step in the interests of economy, convenience and beauty as regards its public buildings. In the Chicago Plan the civic center has been designed for the vicinity of Congress and Halsted Streets. The city's center of popu- lation is at Fisk and Twentieth Streets, and has always moved slowly in a southwestern direction from the days of Fort Dearborn. For population and other important reasons, this junction offers an ideal site for the civic center. Here would be the keystone in the arch of civic Double deck plan for reconstruction of South Water Street. improvements for the general plan and by this would be greatly benefited the West Side. Revised Scheme for Civic Center It may be necessary, however, to modify the original scheme of the civic center, because for the last dozen years the city and county building has established more or less a present center of administration and so, retain- ing the present city hall building for city hall purposes 158 indeed, the building had outgrown itself before ready for occupancy and for special departments of justice as related to that site, there might be erected a new group of buildings at Halsted and Congress Streets, including a town hall or auditorium, the municipal courts, state appellate courts, juvenile courts and others, an Illinois state building the state alone has a score or more of separate offices distributed about Chicago a board of education building, etc., and at the same time ground should be secured for future extension of all these serv- ices. In connection with this scheme, the diagonals orig- inally converging at Congress and Halsted Streets, shown in the Plan of Chicago, would not be executed but modi- fied. Such would be a revised plan for a civic center. Reconstruction of South Water Street South Water Street, as Chicago's historic produce dis- tribution center, defeats its own vital ends and the re- moval of this great business and relocation elsewhere is believed by many to be necessary to Chicago's recon- struction and progress. The authorized improvement of South Water Street according to the Chicago Plan extends from the new Michigan Avenue bridge to the Washington Street bridge and Market Street, a distance of more than half a mile. It is proposed to complete the marginal street along the Chicago River, connecting the South Water Street improvement with Roosevelt Road and extending it south into and beyond the great terminal area. The service of such a street by reduction of traffic congestion in the city's heart would be as much as 16 per cent, acting in the removal of 15,714 vehicle trips per day. Property valuations would also greatly increase. Features of Reconstruction The modernizing of South Water Street calls for a two- level thoroughfare. The upper level will open from the proposed plaza at the south end of the new Michi- gan Avenue bridge, and this level will appear to be a part of the normal adjacent street system. The lower level will form an open, uncovered dock 25 feet wide, accessible from the capacious double roadways of this level, where the trucking traffic will be carried. The 159 O.S upper level will not resemble an elevated structure. West from State Street it will be carried on a masonry wall of fine architectural treatment, with arched open- ings for lighting the lower level. The improvement will offer opportunity for architectural effects in connection with the new bascule bridges. The whole river front scheme will follow similar lines, although not neces- sarily two level, south to the great freight terminal area. Those who surveyed all Chicago when they composed the Burnham Plan Chicago Plan gave due thought to system and harmony and therefore to the need of the improvement and reorganization of the city's trade ter- minals. Recommendation was made for a common freight handling center properly related to all railroads in the downtown district and to the docks. The Plan Commission soon thought that to realize its great under- taking the solution of the terminal situation was essen- tial, and the commission's advance upon this problem led other architects and engineers to study the subject and evolve plans for terminal development. In time re- sulted what is known as the Union Station ordinance and Pennsylvania freight ordinance passed by the city council March 23, 1914, and afterwards accepted by the railroads interested. These ordinances benefited both city and railroads. Among the advantages were the fol- lowing: Benefits Both to Railways and Public Widening of viaducts between Canal Street and the river to the full width of the street at uniform grades. Opening of Monroe Street between Canal Street and the river. Widening of Canal Street and establishment of a more uniform grade. Provision for a double-decked connection between Canal Street and the North Side. Provision for the ultimate opening of Congress Street to the width contemplated in the Chicago Plan. Agreement to co-operate in the straightening of the Chicago River, and steps to bring about this straighten- ing between Polk and Sixteenth Streets have lately been taken by the city council. Chicago's freight terminal situation is a major prob- 161 lem of its future. All interests can agree that here is unnecessary and uneconomic duplication of freight and passenger facilities and services, because these terminals are neither located, constructed nor operated as they should be, whether viewed from the municipal or rail- road point of view. It is a matter of unregulated devel- opment; the question is one of improvement. The Chicago Plan Commission and the Chicago Ter- minal Commission so recommends believes that serious study should be given to the advantages of the two or three-level plan in the development of great facilities in congested areas. Such a plan increases the capacity of a given area much over 100 per cent. It permits the use of greater space for standing teams and trucks and makes possible the opening of thoroughfares above the tracks and more intensive railroad uses upon the lower level, thus increasing the value of these facilities for re- ceipt and delivery of freight. Co-operative Freight Stations A railroad usually finds operating advantages in the separation of freight and passenger terminals. This fact is of great practical importance in preparing for the electrification of railroad terminals. The cost of electri- fication will be much reduced by simplification and unifying the passenger tracks entering the city by re- moving the present tangle of cross lines, by establishing direct instead of round-about routes around the city, and by the joint use of tracks available for and adequate for more railway companies than now use these particu- lar tracks. The Chicago Plan Commission believes that the adoption of outlying co-operative freight stations would greatly simplify the electrification of the more central freight terminals and tracks. In this field of study consideration has been given to the territory be- tween the south branch of the Chicago River and State Street and north of Eighteenth Street, because here the terminals offer the greatest obstruction. Here, the city planning authorities point out, is a situation which would lend itself well to the application of the principle of co- operative operation. In all such planning effort has been made to secure the elimination of present railroad grade crossings and opening up of streets for uninter- 162 rupted traffic without interference with railroad develop- ment. Straightening Chicago River In many respects the straightening of the Chicago River is the most important single step that can be taken to improve the central terminal area. There is proposed a direct channel between Polk Street and Dodge Street, which would permit extension of Franklin Street and streets east of Franklin as north and south thorough- fares. Railroads own about all of the property involved. The present curve or bend in the river's channel south of Twelfth Street makes it very difficult to develop the land lying between Dodge Street and the river. By straightening the river, as the city council has very re- cently proposed to do, the land lying between Clark Street and the present river channel would be capable of harmonious development along normal rectangular lines. Terminal accommodations are already provided for the railroads now using the present Union Station on Canal Street, and there are enough to care for other roads entering the city on the west which should logi- cally use this station. The Illinois Central site on Roose- velt Road could assemble all or most of the through trains of the South Side, and such a station at the south end of Grant Park offers opportunity for splendid archi- tectural effect, and the broad right of way southward for several miles along the lake with no grade crossings makes the avenue of approach to the greater Chicago of tomorrow of superior attractiveness. It should here be said that the proper method of ar- ranging for accommodation of the suburban service of all railroads has not been worked out, but this problem can be solved. A plan might contemplate an under- ground railroad connecting the terminals, permitting of a direct interchance of passengers between these ter- minals on an overlapping basis and the routing of sub- urban trains so as to eliminate existing congestion. The Public Sees and Approves the Plan In such late Chicago Plan undertakings as appear in the widening of Michigan Avenue, construction of the splendid two-level bascule bridge and developing of the 163 164 avenue's extension to the lake shore at the water works one of the world's spacious city improvements and to become a boulevard of international distinction the Chicago public has seen initial steps in the realization of the Plan, and a pride and confidence has been nour- ished which was begotten when with the Plan's original promulgation its creators projected the spectacle of a magnified and beautified lake front from the north city limits to Jackson Park. With fundamental features of communication under execution like the "boulevard link" and Roosevelt Road, lately Twelfth Street, the people the more eagerly await consideration of such grand elements of the Plan as establishment of a civic center, development of the lake front, improvement of South Water Street, widening and extension of streets. By the Chicago Plan is proposed the making of a lake front park of about 1,700 acres, of which 1,500 will be land area, and the scheme would be worked out in con- nection with a commercial harbor, if such should be built, known as harbor district No. 3. The park would stretch from Grant Park to Jackson Park and the har- bor from Sixteenth Street to Thirty-first Street. Much filling in would be required. Very extensive bathing beaches, a lagoon providing a four-mile racing course, and adequate harbors for many small craft are contem- plated. The lagoon of protected water provides ideal conditions for a great skating rink, and in such enclosed lake rowing and canoeing is practical at all times during the summer season. Greater Development of Bathing Beaches The people's resort to the lake for its bathing de- lights has been a significant movement in the field of public amusement and health within the last few years, and bathers have had to be accommodated by ten public beaches and at the North Shore, Manhattan, Lake Shore, Chicago Beach Hotel and other private beaches. All these beaches, public and private, had a total capacity of about 175,000 people daily in 1916, and their use has been about doubled since that date. The proposed plan of the lake front provides for five beaches in addition to all existing, having a total ca- pacity of about 200,000 people daily. While the ca- 165 pacity of the proposed lagoon beaches is really limited only by the length of the water front from Grant Park to Jackson Park, the capacity of the public beaches is largely dependent upon the amount of dressing-room space. The danger of pollution of the water will be diminished as congestion is diminished, whether the beaches are located in the lagoon or on the open shore. Numerous cross-town car lines will bring this entire lake front development in close touch with the West Side, where the greatest need for access to the lake exists. Already completed is the first piece of the general Grant Park improvement scheme shown by the beautifi- cation of the strip along Michigan Avenue between the Art Institute and Randolph Street, where the sunken grassy area stretches northward to the stately peristyle and fountain bordering upon Randolph Street and the southern end of the widened portion of Michigan Ave- nue. The treatment of the strip south of the Art Insti- tute to the proposed Union station on Roosevelt Road will be mainly similar to that of the north strip, a colonnade and fountain balancing the fountain of the "Great Lakes." The plan for the whole Grant Park im- provement from Randolph to Twelfth Streets, east and west of the railroad tracks, has been prepared, and funds provided by bond issue. Grant Park an All-Chicago Meeting Place Grant Park, raw and unfinished as it is, has become an important factor in Chicago's larger life, place for public celebrations, for the formation of parades, and for such great demonstrations as the military tourna- ment of 1910, the aviation meet of 1912, the Knights of Pythias celebration of 1917, a review of the draft army, war exposition in 1918, with an attendance of over one and one-half million, and the armistice day celebration. Grant Park is an indispensable utility emerging into a state of order and beauty. One obvious use of this area, as proven by intensive current practice, will be its many-sided service as an athletic field. Features of Superb Improvement By the provisions of the Chicago Plan a broad street would be cut through Grant Park opposite Congress 166 Street, bridging it across the railroad, and expanding Michigan Boulevard into a large plaza almost to the tracks. In this situation Chicago should look for impor- tant adornment in sculpture, and in the broad places following this imposing entrance to the Lake Park. On the east of the tracks are other places for sculp- ture, and here would be the concourse laid out almost square and approached through little wooded spaces. Three levels are planned, each leading down toward the This air view embraces the Grant Park area under develop- ment after the Chicago Plan. A few years will transform this area into the world's most splendid water front. For the near side of the massive Field Museum is planned a spacious and architecturally important stadium. Permission of Ralph C. Diggins Company. lake, giving a finer view of it than can be found any- where on the present lake front. Trees would surround the concourse on all sides providing natural openings for large pieces of statuary, and it is believed by land- scape architects that statues of Washington and Lincoln would fit in here most appropriately. The dimensions of this concourse or plaza would be 900 by 500 feet. There would be provision for several small play-fields and parking space for automobiles, and at the north and south ends of the lake shore would be facilities for boat houses, and to cut off the park from the commercial en- terprises between it and the Municipal Pier on the north 167 CHICAGO PLAN COMMISSION IMPROVEMENTS EXECUTED, IN PROGRESS AND PROPOSED SEPT. 1921 E.KBENNETI CONSULTANT KEY EXECUTED UNDER ORDINANCE PROPOSED Status of improvements of Chicago Plan Commission, heavy lines Map drawn for this book 168 rk executed; long dashes work under ordinance, and short dashes lennett and Wm. E. Parsons. 169 New Chicago towers begin to thrill the gazer, and more practical bridges with lines of beauty span its vital stream. The Michigan Avenue bridge will be marked by four stately pylons bearing sculpture of distinction. By permission of Graham, Anderson, Probst & White, architect* of the Wrigley Building. 170 there could be created, by a fill-in, a wooded area. At the south end a similar park development in front of the Field Museum is projected. It should be noted in picturing the beauties and utilities of this transformed region that a bridge should span the mouth of the Chi- cago River connecting the south lake front with the north lake shore thoroughfare and Municipal Pier. Place of Honor for War Memorial A great accomplishment awaiting Chicago, in keeping with the Chicago Plan, will appear in conception and erection of a war memorial worthy the city and its heroic sons. The metropolis of the Central West devoutly acknowledges the patriotic duty which the near future will command it to perform. Public sentiment is yet to determine the nature and location of this memorial, but, be it monument or community building or in other form, its purpose requires that it be given the chief place of honor in all Chicago, and it is tentatively proposed by the Chicago Plan consultant that it take the form of a commemorative monument and find its site in Grant Park. It is pointed out that Chicago has on its lake front an opportunity unique among the larger cities of America, and in the proximity of the memorial, if placed in Grant Park, to other features of the Chicago Plan, and near by Michigan Avenue, which is assuming the superb char- acter of the main highway of a great metropolis, there would be accomplished what the people desire in such a tribute and what the Chicago Plan invites in the nature of its principles. The memorial as proposed would be for the most part beyond the railroad tracks and would fit in as an in- tegral part of the park plan. The site of the memorial would be on the central axial line, that is, on Congress Street extended, of the whole arrangement of the plan of the city of Chicago, as place of honor standing first. Memorial's Stately Setting Victory Concourse The idea calls for a plaza on Michigan Avenue west of the tracks, which might be known as Michigan Place, and could extend on a great causeway to the east. Here would be raised the memorial. Its setting would be the place of assembly 900 feet by 450 feet wide, to be known 171 as the "Victory Concourse," the latter surrounded by monuments, the chief of these to be known as the "Me- morial Arch," with colonnades or peristyles to be erected to the men and women of the war. This motif running parallel to Michigan Avenue and visible from it would consist of colonnades, each about 250 feet long, and a A view from the air, looking toward the lake, of Chicago's intensely developed Loop. In the middle ground is a great business house of famous name, with the Northwestern Railway Station lying nearer the observer. Distant to the far right is the Field Museum. New bascule bridges span the Chicago River. Dimly on the city's lake edge stretches Grant Park, rich in the potentialities of beauty and utility. This view is declared the first aerial picture of the entire central business district. Photographed and copyrighted by Ralph C. Diggins Co. central arch on the axial line of Congress Street and of somewhat the general proportions of the world's most majestic structure of its kind, the Arch of Triumph in Paris. A Splendid Proposal The commemorative monument proper would rise to a height of about 140 feet. Within the arch and the peri- styles, and in its sculptured surfaces and groups, the events of the war would be commemorated and the 172 names of the dead inscribed. At night the whole group would be moderately illuminated. On the north of the concourse would be an altar of justice and on the south an altar of liberty, and on the east monuments to the Allied nations, somewhat similar to those of the Place de la Concorde in Paris, and there might be a monu- ment to Allied statesmen and generals and a monument to peace. East of such a grand arrangement as the "Vic- tory Concourse" would be, by the plan already adopted, a great public garden, and to the north playgrounds and drives with arrangements of trees and the monument of Abraham Lincoln, now about to be erected. To the south beyond the noble Field Museum a great open air stadium capable of seating 75,000 people is among the assured improvements of the future. Within such environment Chicago's war memorial would be taken as a splendid possession into the heart of the city's life. Status of Plan Projects The board of local improvement is carrying out seven street improvements proposed in the Chicago Plan, chief among the projects being the Michigan Avenue develop- ment with its magnificent bridge, already a practical im- provement; work on the Roosevelt Road assures the peo- ple of the enjoyment of an important east and west high- way, and the transformation of South Water Street has been ordered by the city council. Projects awaiting de- velopment in the near future are the opening, widening and extension of Western Avenue, Ashland Avenue, Robey Street and Ogden Avenue. At present eighty- seven different projects in every section of Chicago, and of interest to the people of every class and location, are pending before the Chicago Plan Commission for con- sideration. These relate to improvement of street fa- cilities in outlying districts, the making of roads radiat- ing out from and encircling Chicago, the establishing of a new traffic circuit girdling the city from Lake Michi- gan on the north to the lake on the south and extending for miles through the forest preserves system along the Desplaines River. Plan Commission's Improvement Schedules The Chicago Plan Commission, realizing the principles and projects of the Chicago Plan, is a body that designs 173 and recommends physical improvements for Chicago but is not charged with their execution. This is the province of the city government. Within the service of the Chi- cago Plan Commission are undertakings of two classes, those designated as "new," and those as "in the making." The location, and to some degree the relative signifi- cance, of these improvements receiving official considera- tion are herewith indicated by their characteristic names, although space limits forbid further description of each project: IMPROVEMENTS OF GENERAL INTEREST NEW New Union passenger station district Archer Avenue Ashland Avenue Clark Street Cottage Grove Avenue Dearborn Street Federal Street Indiana Avenue La SaUe Street Market Street Outer Circuit Pershing Road Plymouth Court Polk Street Post office Robey Street Section and half section line streets Sherman Street State Street Wells Street IN THE MAKING Canal Street Forest Preserves Lake front park and harbor plan Indiana Avenue Ogden Avenue Outer drive (bridge near shore connecting north and south side boulevard systems) Polk Street River straightening Roosevelt Road South Park Avenue South Water Street West Side railway terminals Western Avenue NORTH SIDE Ashland Avenue Bryn Mawr Avenue Clark Street Devon Avenue Lincoln Avenue Foster Avenue Rogers Avenue Sanitary District Road Sheridan Road Tower Court Wrightwood Avenue Fullerton Avenue Peterson Avenue Ravenswood Avenue Ridge Avenue Wrightwood Avenue 174 SOUTH SIDE Blackwell Street Beverly Avenue Charles Street Fourteenth Street Cottage Grove Avenue Loomis Street Eighteenth Street One Hundred and Third Street Eighty-seventh Street Seventy-first Street Fifteenth Street Sixteenth Street Fifty-fifth Street Torrence Avenue Lake Calumet region Twenty-second Street Ninety-fifth Street Oakwood Boulevard One Hundred and Third Street One Hundred and Eleventh Street One Hundred and Thirteenth Street One Hundred and Thirty-fourth Street Sixteenth Street Stony Island Avenue Taylor Street Torrence Avenue Twenty-second Street Vincennes Road Wentworth Avenue WEST SIDE Avondale Avenue Fifth Avenue (Colorado Avenue) Cicero Avenue Milwaukee Avenue Clinton Street Randolph Street Congress Street Van Buren Street (viaduct) Crawford Avenue Desplaines Street Harrison Street (completed) Halsted Street Jefferson Street Kedzie Avenue Madison Street Sanitary District Road Taylor Street (viaduct completed) Van Buren Street 175 SUBWAYS Chicago's Local Transportation Problem a Transportation Problem Only, and Ought Not to Be. Clouded With Other Issues Chicago with a surface line transportation system of more than 1,000 miles of tracks the largest single street car system in the world and an elevated system totaling 166 miles of tracks, still finds its local transportation service inadequate at certain times of the day and faces the task of supplementing the service afforded by existing facilities. The need of greatly increased capacity for transporting people rapidly and comfortably between their homes and places of business for the rush hour problem is the most serious has been clearly understood by the public for the past twenty years. This being true, one may won- der why in all these years so little real progress has been made. Almost from the beginning the public has been united in the belief that subways were needed to supplement the service of our surface and elevated lines. Beyond this fundamental proposition, however, agree- ment has ended and controversial issues have crept in. Whether the subways should be built to compete with or supplement existing means, whether they should be mu- nicipally or privately owned and operated, whether they should be built by city money or traction company money, whether they should spread out over the entire city, or be confined to the central business area, whether they should be designed to make it more easy or more difficult to get downtown, whether the rate of fare should be changed, what shall be the method of controlling and operating a unified traction system these and many other questions have been the subject of endless re- ports, endless discussions, much political activity and no accomplishments. In 1916, the date of the report of the Chicago Trac- tion and Subway Commission, there were more than 4,000,000 passengers carried daily on the city's surface and elevated lines, and about 160,000 on steam and elec- 176 trie interiirban lines. Today the traffic is surely as heavy, and probably greatly increased. Requirements of Central Business District Physically, Chicago is about 26 miles in length, about 8 miles wide and with an area of 200 square miles. With the immense traffic load carried daily it is a remarkable fact disclosed by this study that 48 per cent of the car- riding public work within an area of 5 square miles, em- bracing the central business district. In a similar area of 12 square miles 53 per cent of the people work, and in an area of 23.5 square miles 63 per cent find employ- ment. Despite tendencies in recent years for business and industrial concerns to seek locations removed from the central business district, the above facts prove without contradiction that any subway system which helps to carry the public to and from their place of business must make ample provision for the central business area. This statement is not intended to ignore those important out- lying business and industrial centers whose rapid devel- opment in recent years has brought transportation prob- lems of local character fully as important to them as those of the loop district. Chicago's transportation problem is city-wide and any solution attempted must regard it in this light. It is undoubtedly true, as outlying interests have alleged, that Chicago needs subway or elevated lines to afford better communication between outside centers without com- pelling a trip through the central business district. This requirement can easily be met in any well considered plan of improvement. One Unified System The question of a unified system of local transportation operating under one management, and with ownership under one body, may perhaps be considered controver- sial, yet it is believed by many that if this one question were submitted to public referendum with all other de- batable issues removed, it would receive the support of a large majority. Leaving aside the questions of munici- pal or private ownership and operation, it must be ap- parent that one unified system under single ownership 177 and management can be more economically operated and more effectively moulded to serve the public than two or more competing systems separately owned and managed. The public will be largely satisfied when it can secure good service at a fair price and it is therefore legitimately interested in any method which promises such service. It may perhaps be worth while to suggest that much progress in reaching a solution of Chicago's transporta- tion problem may be made by considering a few of the fundamentals involved in city-wide conferences held be- tween election periods and when the opportunity to arrive at calm judgments is perhaps more favorable. Discussion of subway financing involves questions of a debatable nature and immediately brings up the old ques- tion of municipal versus private ownership. On this question it may be observed that too often the funda- mental of service to the public has been forgotten and plans supported or opposed solely upon the question of whether they carried the proper label. The real issue is not the type of ownership or Chicago's ability to finance subways or other transportation improvements. The chief difficulty has been the public's apparent will- ingness to be led astray by well phrased issues actually not fundamental. Let the People Understand and Act Chicago must and will work out her transportation problem within the coming few years if she is to hold her splendid development. If this city seriously wants to get a real transportation system, giving every part of the city satisfactory service, for one thing it will keep everlastingly at it instead of permitting the question to sleep and to be brought forth periodically as a political issue. Greatest public attention will be devoted to the issue between election periods. The aim will be to secure city-wide understanding of the problem. The fundamen- tal of service must not be clouded by other issues. Chi- cago will first work out the best plan which will provide the service; it will then endeavor to adjust the financing to bring the plan into being; it will not be misled by arbitrary rates of fare proposed, but will work out and stand for that rate, which will, step by step, transfer the plan into a reality. 178 Had the wonderful Chicago Plan been submitted as a whole to public referendum shortly after 1908, when it was born, it would undoubtedly have been rejected be- cause of lack of appreciation of its benefits. Instead, the Chicago Plan Commission has educated the public to understand what the city plan means, and step by step is bringing it into being. Yet every few years there is brought forth in Chicago a complicated transportation plan, including subways, and before the public fully understands its provisions, they are asked to approve the plan as a whole. Is there not a lesson Chicago can learn from past experience in subway and transportation planning? 179 RAILWAY TERMINALS Principles of Railway Terminal and Plan Commissions to Get Greater Efficiency in Handling Passenger and Freight Traffic and Develop New Areas for Commerce and Industry In the year of the outbreak of the great war, 1914, the world's railway center, acting through its city council, created the Chicago Railway Terminal Commission, and in that year was visited Toronto, Montreal, Boston, New York, Liverpool, Manchester, London, Paris, Brussels and Antwerp, and it was the plan of the commission to in- spect rail and water terminals in Frankfort, Hamburg, Berlin, Dresden, Vienna, Budapest, Kiel, Copenhagen and Stockholm, but the outbreak of the war arrested the tour of the party in Belgium. Of much value, however, was the expedition and, fortified by its discoveries, by previous study by the city council, by the voluntary work of civilian experts and the service of the Chicago Plan Commission, the Chicago Railway Terminal Commission came to a determination of fundamental principles which contemplated economy and efficiency in the work of the railroads in handling passenger and freight traffic, in promoting the interests of shippers and passengers, in enabling the general public to conduct its business with the least practicable congestion of streets and interference with the expansion of present business districts and de- velopment of new areas of commerce and industry, and in enabling the city as a whole to shape its general de- velopment policies for the general good. Co-operation in Terminal Administration The problem of the railway terminal expert relates not to the scientific creation of terminals in an unbuilt city, but to the readjustment of railroad terminal facilities in an unordered and complex community. A single ter- minal company could operate a combined and co-opera- tive terminal system with decrease of cost and increase of efficiency. Considerations that brought about union passenger stations at railroad centers has compelled 180 favorable consideration of union freight terminal plans, and the public has realized the convenience of co-opera- tive terminal facilities for passenger traffic, although im- portant instances exist of competitive passenger terminals. It is the belief of the Chicago Railway Terminal Com- mission that in the terminal handling of freight the pressure of the public and the needs of the railroads will gradually bring about the adoption of co-operative meth- ods and facilities in place of competitive methods and facilities, and it is further the conclusion of the commis- sion that the key to the solution of Chicago's railway terminal problem respecting both freight and passengers is to be found in joint and co-operative rather than in separate and competitive terminals. If the terminal situation were treated co-operatively there would be simplification at once of the tangled net- work of tracks, release for business of valuable property now held by the railroads for present competitive pur- poses or prospective competitive needs, reduction of operating costs and increase in efficiency. As to subur- ban and through passenger service, the two classes do not require the same accommodations. Various services can be co-ordinated with great advantage and so secure the more intensive use of rights of way. Less Than Carload Traffic It is thought many existing disadvantages in the handling of less than carload traffic might be obviated by loading such freight at receiving stations or team tracks directly into trap cars for outlying stations or yards located on less valuable property and equipped for sorting and schedule loading of L. C. L. freight. Indeed, the commission would apply the co-operative principle by establishing in centers of traffic some uni- versal freight receiving stations for outbound L. C. L. freight. This would reduce unnecessary teaming and street congestion. The commission favors consideration of the two or more level plan in the future development of freight facilities in congested areas. Forthcoming electrification would be greatly reduced by simplifying and unifying the passenger tracks enter- ing the city; by removing the present tangle of lines; by establishment of direct instead of roundabout routes 181 within the city; and by the joint use of tracks available for and adequate for more railway companies than those which now utilize these particular tracks. The adoption of outlying co-operative freight stations would greatly simplify the electrification of more central freight ter- minals and tracks. Since its creation the Railway Terminal Commission has acted in an advisory capacity to the city council on all matters pertaining to railway terminals. In this way it has been enabled to direct all actions of the council in matters pertaining to them. After the passage of the West Side union station ordi- nance, the two problems of greatest importance as affect- ing the terminal situation in the central business district were: first, the development of an adequate passenger terminal station on the property of the Illinois Central Railroad on the lake front and Roosevelt Road; second, the straightening of the Chicago River and the rearrange- ment and consolidation of railroad terminal facilities in the territory south of the Loop district between State Street and the Chicago River. The passage by the city council July 21, 1919, of the so-called Illinois Central-lake front ordinance was the culmination of several years' intensive work on the part of the commission and was considered one of the most important developments in connection with the rail- way terminal problem of Chicago. This ordinance pro- vides for construction of a passenger station on the lake front at Roosevelt Road, of a capacity to take care of all the direct passenger trains now using the Dearborn, LaSalle and Grand Central Stations. The interests of prospective tenants in this station are amply safeguarded in the ordinance and all of the facilities provide for the entrance of other railroads into the station. This ordi- nance was drawn entirely by the Railway Terminal Com- mission and all of the work thereto originated in the office of the commission. To Straighten Chicago River Since the passage of the Illinois Central-lake front ordinance, the commission, in addition to its regular duties of passing on railway terminal matters, has given a great deal of time to the consideration of the railway terminal situation south of the Loop district. The studies in connection with this project are embodied in the re- port submitted by the chairman in March, 1921. Briefly, this report recommends the straightening of the Chicago River between Polk Street and Sixteenth Street; the removal of the three existing passenger sta- tions; the construction of a sub-level suburban station 183 about on the site of the present LaSalle Street Station; the consolidation and concentration of all of the rail- road facilities in the territory between Clark Street and the straightened Chicago River, south of Taylor Street and between Wells Street and the river north of Roose- velt Road; the construction of freight stations in this territory on a two-level plan with special freight house driveways serving the freight house on the viaduct level; the opening of new thoroughfare streets through the terri- tory on the viaduct level and the construction of the freight facilities so that it will be possible to develop the air rights over the railroad freight house for com- mercial purposes; the release for commercial occupation of all the territory now held by the railroads between Clark Street and State Street, south of Polk Street, and between Clark Street and Wells Street, north of Taylor. Would Open Four New Streets Such a plan, if carried out, would entirely remove the so-called "iron band" which is preventing the south- ern expansion of the Loop district. It would permit the opening of four new thoroughfare streets leading into the district from the south. It would permit of the devel- opment of State Street south of Van Buren as a con- tinuous business thoroughfare, and entirely change the general aspect of all of the territory south of Van Buren Street, since under the plan the railroad facilities would be entirely covered by commercial property, and to all intents and purposes the property occupied by the rail- roads would have the same appearance as other com- mercial property. The benefits to the railroads would be that under such a plan they could secure double their present facilities without cost, since the rental on air rights would be more than sufficient to pay the interest on the cost of the rail- road facilities, and in addition thereto, they would have available what has been conservatively estimated as $60,- 000,000 worth of property no longer needed for railroad purposes. The last session of the legislature empowered the city to straighten the Chicago River to open new streets. The city council has instructed the commission to con- tinue the study of the subject and to report. 184 ZONING NEW CHICAGO TASK Commission Acting Under Good Law Will Attack One of the Problems of Chicago Plan In a primary sort of way Chicago, as early as 1863, had considered the location of certain industries with reference to their nature. From 1910 to the present the city ordinances have provided that in residence districts frontage consents shall be required for not less than twenty-seven different kinds of industries and buildings. When the legislature in the 1919 session authorized Chi- cago to lay out zoning districts, and when Mayor Thomp- son recently appointed the city's first zoning commission, practically every business subject to restriction under the present state law had been restricted by the city council. It was full time for the introduction of the zoning prin- ciple. The necessary enabling act had been got after a bill in the previous legislature had been defeated and after various civic bodies had done much to bring about such legislation. Illinois Has Superior Zoning Legislation Even the 1919 zoning law, believed when passed to be adequate, was found later to contain certain cumbersome provisions, which led business and civic organizations to seek the passage of a new act by the 1921 legislature. This effort was successful and Illinois today has what zoning experts generally admit to be one of the best zoning enabling acts in the Union. Empowered by the 1919 act the city, through a council committee and rep- resentatives of civic bodies, visited ten cities in the United States and Canada where zoning was an accomplished fact or under progress. Then resulted the holding in Chicago, December 16 and 17, 1919, of a citizens' zone plan con- ference, and Chicago by aid of visiting authorities and its own experts effectively concentrated attention upon this urgent problem. There are two classes of zoning ordinances, one being known as the "piecemeal" type and the other as the "comprehensive" type, the latter now in operation in New 185 York City and St. Louis. Los Angeles in 1909, estab- lishing the first zoning ordinance in this country, adopted the "piecemeal" type. The Chicago ordinance calls for the "comprehensive" type. The New York ordinance, adopted in 1916 and one of its most satisfactory provi- sions is the creation of a board of appeals has in a gen- eral way received city-wide approval, and there has been surprisingly little attempt to change it. The changes in the St. Louis ordinance were small and affecting but a slight percentage of the city's area, and the ordinance, which was adopted at the time when no building was taking place, has had general approval. What Zoning Means Zoning has two phases, one dealing with general de- velopment and organization and the other with the devel- opment of the smaller district or neighborhood so as to promote the best interest of that neighborhood for resi- dential use, or for industrial use, or any other use which it is most fitted to serve. A building is well located and brings the best results when with its kind, and so it is the function of zoning to supplement and encourage a natural tendency toward segregation. Zoning involves the rela- tions of business and industrial centers, residences, apart- ment house, and the single family home owner, and zon- ing facilities the segregation of different kinds of traffic. Zoning, too, deals with housing congestion, building heights, building lines, billboards and erection of build- ings new and old. Zoning in Chicago will have a constant relation to the comprehensive scheme of city building known as the Chi- cago Plan. It will supplement and preserve the best characteristics of the districts the Chicago Plan seeks to open up or extend. City planning attempts to create a city which functions to best advantage for all of the interests it serves, by means of the arrangement of streets, transportation sys- tems, parks, public buildings and so forth in an orderly and economical manner. Zoning preserves the values city planning creates by regulating the use of private property for the benefit of all. City planning and zoning experts have joined in pictur- ing the benefits Chicago will enjoy by orderly develop- 186 ment under a zoning ordinance, which they believe should be broadly conceived and without complicated or irritat- ing limitations. All zoning ordinances are based upon restrictions to the use, height and area of lot occupied by a city's buildings and in this respect Chicago's ordinance when completed will be similar to those of cities already enjoying the benefits of zoning. Differences will arise chiefly in working out these restrictions to suit the special conditions of our city. Chicago's Zoning Commission Has Momentous Task Chicago is one of the world's metropolitan cities, com- bining in one community and on a grand scale the prob- lems of the residential, commercial and industrial city. None of these problems will be simple of solution and perhaps the most difficult will be the industrial. With more railroad systems and a greater belt line mileage than any other city in the world, Chicago's Zoning Commis- sion faces a momentous task in working out the highest and best uses of the property fronting these lines. Wise restrictions in our present building code, and a fairly well laid out system of local transportation, have some- what simplified the problem of determining residential and commercial areas. In developing Chicago's zoning ordinance, which, with the experience of other cities as a background, should be the best of any city in the country, every citizen is con- fronted with a definite responsibility. We must learn what zoning means, understand thoroughly that it will bring individual and collective benefits to all, suppress all selfish or personal interests for the common good, and be prepared at all times to co-operate whole-heartedly with the authorities in this difficult task. 187 COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY Elements of Chicago's Leadership as Economic Center SUIJIAUJ sooiAJog pun sdpijoj ipun Thought Commercial Arbitration Court Advertising and Investing It can scarcely be said of the commerce and industry of Chicago that it needs certain changes and improve- ments, as one might say of the needs of a defective busi- ness or municipal corporation. The advantageous con- ditions which have drawn manufacture and trading to this continental center are comparatively fixed in their operations, and whatever can be done to perfect these is a problem of broad and collective action. The com- pelling genius, the onward, victorious spirit is here, and there remains agreement on community-wide issues and the ways and means of progressive action removed from the sphere of extravagant and superlative speech. Chi- cago in fact is already an accomplishment so extraor- dinary that its story and message can be adequately de- livered without excess of phraseology. Factors of Supremacy Here we are today with all the powers, however un- regulated, of invincible youth, superior because of our geographical location with proximity to the national population center; because here is the meeting place of many land and water paths; because of our nearness to an abundance of national wealth, and because of the vision of the pioneers who foresaw a great city and went through flames to make it. Today, if Chicago were consciously to plot a program of economic develop- ment, would there not be emphasized first the factors of land and water transportation, the multiplication of industries, the conservation and development of public utilities, the internal reconstruction and beautification of a planless city, and the balanced expansion of that invaluable fact and name, the Great Central Market? By the 40 per cent of the railway mileage of the United States concentrated here are served 50,000,000 188 people. The wholesale trade of this continental dis- tributing center in 1920 was estimated at $6,000,000,000 and here is conspicuously the world's greatest market for livestock, grain and lumber, and here is held a com- manding position in the distribution of general merchan- dise, foodstuffs, seeds, machinery, jewelry, pianos, wear- ing apparel, automobiles, furniture and household ar- ticles. As producer and distributor putting forth from its manufacturing zone annually, from more than 20,000 factories, goods valued at $6,500,000,- 000, it has the indispensable co-operation of banks with joint resources of nearly $3,500,000,000. This volume of products of the metropolitan industrial district, Chi- cago, has grown from that of the city of 1870, one year before the destructive and re-creative episode of the great fire, when the estimated output was worth $92,- 518,742. Here center the raw products of the Mississippi Valley iron, copper, lead, zinc, petroleum, lumber, wool, hides, grain and here the constructive thought of the entire country finds expression in the meeting of 700 conventions a year in the convention city of America. From this distribution center move daily 2,500 through package cars to 1,800 points with one transfer of service to more than 60,000 others. Here is developed manufacturing power unlimited coal gas and electricity and here a score of nationalities offer the labor of hand and brain. Chicago's Future in Its Tributary Territory Conditions of Chicago's growth heretofore promise indefinite expansion. This can be affected favorably or otherwise by its larger economic policies, and transporta- tion is of course qualifying all. At this railroad center is laid in the case of many great lines the first or last rail of their system. Without these gigantic instruments of progress an empire of the West would not have been and Chicago would have continued a portage. Chicago's future depends upon the greater develop- ment of its tributary territory. Leaders of Chicago commerce have long held the supreme idea of the open door frequent exchange of products believing that the greatest extension of its own trade is found in serv- ing the best interests of all other communities. Within 189 a Chinese wall may be stagnation. Any policy that re- stricts the freest distribution of products must prove harmful both to the railways and the commerce of the country the commerce of Chicago. "Carrying coals to Newcastle" is exceedingly profitable to the carriers, as it is to the country's buyers and consumers. The com- merce and industry of Chicago as well as of the country at large have been built up in recognition of this prin- ciple. Transportation charges for years have been so adjusted as to permit of the most extensive distribution whereby all have been benefited to a greater or less ex- tent. Now, however, come evidences pointing to serious restriction of distribution, the outcome being far-reach- ing and possibly fraught with results unfavorable to all communities. Problem of Railroad Consolidation The federal transportation act of 1920 instructs the Interstate Commerce Commission to propose a plan to be submitted to congress for the consolidation of all the railroads of the country into a limited number of sys- tems. It is now thought that the report of the com- mission finally submitted may propose about twenty systems for the entire country. Such a proposal is, of course, not only unique but may be looked upon as somewhat revolutionary. Nevertheless, Chicago and the country must face it, having in mind two vital phases of the question first, will such a reconstruction scheme tend to bring greater efficiency in operation so that trans- portation charges may be materially reduced and at the same time adequate revenues produced for the carriers; and second, will such a plan tend to encourage the broadcast distribution of the commerce of the country and will a few large systems be as considerate of the welfare of the individual shipper as are the present many smaller systems? These points are of equal im- portance. The welfare of the carrier means or should mean better and more service, and the widest distribu- tion of commerce at a cost comparable with fair return to the carrier is in the interest of both carrier and ship- per. This book expresses no convictions on this mat- ter, its purpose being to invite attention to this new and highly important phase of the transportation question, 190 one of vital concern to Chicago and all sections of the country. It is to be expected that the business interests of Chicago will approach judgment on this great issue from a broad point of view what is best for the com- merce and industry of the country as a whole must ulti- mately benefit the carriers. Things Practical to Do The normal growth of this great market and work- shop finds constant stimulus in the rivalry of other ad- vancing centers of population, trade and industry, not to speak of the operation of forces expressed in prob- lems resulting from the great war. To meet such new situations there must be policies and facilities and the future invites concentration upon certain practical projects. The business success of the Pageant of Prog- ress in 1920, considered with the distant background of the trade and sample fairs which are increasing in Great Britain and Europe, counsels Chicago to make an or- ganized effort to create periodic international great fairs. Place and time are opportune and this city's interest in the extension of its world trade urges serious study to develop such an enterprise. Another new institution which students of Chicago's foreign trade problem advocate, and which is as yet un- known to this great market, is a commercial museum containing a permanent exhibit of goods in demand by foreign countries and which can be supplied by Chi- cago. Chicago requires the benefits of world trade pro- motion, of market advertising, of foreign trade organi- zation. Not enough foreign business men are familiar with the Great Central Market in its true extent as a source of supply of goods required throughout the world. Chicago's Vast Foreign Trade Uncredited The statistical methods of the United States govern- ment permit the disclosure of but a meager portion of the export trade of Chicago, because exported goods are credited not to the place of origin but to the port of exit. Inquiries by The Chicago Association of Com- merce lead to the conclusion that this city's foreign trade in 1920 may have been as great as $1,750,000,000 or 191 Tower of business strength to be raised as keystone, of LaSalle Street stronghold. See opposite page. 192 $2,000,000,000, and indeed possibly as great as $3,000,- 000,000. In that year the enormous foreign trade of the United States amounted to $13,358,963,000, of which perhaps the very considerable portion of 20 per cent is to be credited to the Chicago district. One Chicago in- dustry alone in 1920, that is the packing industry, ex- ported not less than $1,160,000,000 worth of products and the amount of Chicago's grain exports in the same year was 285,000,000 bushels. Chicago as a Free Port A new facility which may in time distinguish the Great Central Market as a point of export is a free port such as is now being discussed for the great port of New York and as is now in operation in such foreign cities as Hamburg and Danzig. It is reasonably contended that such an institution would greatly stimulate Chi- cago's foreign trade and would be easy of establishment by virtue of the practical creation of Chicago as a sea- port by the development of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence waterway project. When Chicago becomes connected with the Atlantic and the Gulf by deep sea ship services additional steamship companies will establish offices here and it will be possible to book freight over any route and to any pert of the world right here in Chicago, and that day consular and commercial representatives from every nation in the world will be active promoters of trade on this spot. Meanwhile, Chicago should be sys- tematically active in sending its own trade emissaries abroad from this city; and Chicago should also sys- tematically prepare to inform its local merchants, man- ufacturers and exporters of the visit of foreign buyers to this country, so that their coming to Chicago shall not be casual and accidental but in fulfillment of a calcu- lated American business program. The establishment of a foreign trade bank under the Edge act, supplementing the services of local institu- On the opposite page appears the massive structure to be erected by the Board of Trade, with possible modifications and when business conditions favor, at the southern end of Chicago's financial fortress, LaSalle Street. On diagonal corners will be respectively the Federal Reserve Bank, approaching completion, and the bank supplanting that of the Illinois Trust and Savings, resulting from consoli- dation of the Illinois Trust, the Merchants' Loan and Trust and Corn Exchange. By permission of B. A. Eckhart, chairman of building committee, and Holabird & Roche, architects. Mr. Eckhart's associates are George M. Reynolds, James A. Patten, John H. Jones and Joseph Simons. 193 tions, might make more effectual the purposes of this city in foreign trade development. Two agencies of progress springing out of the re- quirements of business, and calculated to be of much service in the future as they have already proven to be in the short period of their existence, the Commer- cial Arbitration Court and the Advertisers' and Investors' Protective Bureau, both services having been started for the general welfare by The Chicago Association of Com- merce, the former designed to adjudicate business dis- putes without resort to the public courts, and the latter operating already with striking effect in the regulation of misrepresentative advertising and the control of the flotation of unprofitable and fraudulent investment se- curities. Commercial Arbitration Court The Commercial Arbitration Court has been acclaimed both at home and abroad as one of the most unusual business undertakings ever assumed by a group of pri- vate individuals. The movement began in 1917 in an effort to promote the adjudication of commercial cases by voluntary tribunals very much as is done in England. Appropriate new legislation has been secured from the state of Illinois and the Supreme Court of Illinois has this year sustained the constitutionality of the act and passed on certain matters of procedure thereunder. The Commercial Arbitration Bureau was established May 4, 1921. The manager has already arbitrated a number of important causes, and a corps of 165 arbitrators has been formed, three trade experts from each of the fifty- five subdivisions of The Chicago Association of Com- merce, giving to litigants a wide range of selection of arbitrators. But the most important work yet done has been drawing the attention of business concerns to the benefits of this form of adjudication. It is not possible to estimate the total number of causes that are being kept from the public courts as a direct result of the bureau's operations, but it is known that as a result of this move- ment many disputants have selected their own arbi- trators and hearings have been heard in private. Re- sults so far obtained have exceeded the greatest expec- tations of those who have been responsible for the 194 establishment of this new facility for the promotion of justice with peace. Advertisers and Investors' Protective Bureau Also unusual, effective, too, but little heard of, is the Advertisers and Investors' Protective Bureau, the func- tions of which relate to and control in way of cen- sorship financial exploitation and commercial publicity, to the end that the offering and sale of fraudulent and hazardously speculative securities are prevented and misrepresentation in merchandise advertising is elimi- nated. The manager of the bureau, a special investi- gator for the secretary of state in administering the Illi- nois blue sky law, has in the past two years reviewed for the Illinois secretary of state proposed flotations of securities amounting to $660,000,000, approximately 40 per cent of which was declined approval for sale in this state. The bureau has also the unreserved co-opera- tion of the Chicago newspapers in excluding undesirable advertising of every character. The triple powers of state, press and The Chicago Association of Commerce, with actual membership of nearly 7,000 and an asso- ciated and influenced membership of not less than 50,- 000, enable this bureau to function successfully with- out threat, coercion or prosecution to a degree which has won great and wide commendation. A new and important service to the Great Central Market is found in the organization this year by The Chicago Association of Commerce of the Interstate Mer- chants' Council, of which the first general convention will be held early in 1922. Twenty-six states are now represented in the growing membership. It is planned to hold conventions in Chicago twice each year. The purchasing power of the merchants concerned is great. 195 CHICAGO IN BANKING This City's Financial Strength Cares for Its Commerce and Industry and Assures Adequate Growth to Meet National and World Requirements In banking resources and financial strength Chicago has grown even faster than in industries and commerce, and never in her history has the ability to finance all of her commercial activities with a surplus of funds for permanent investment been more evident. New wealth from the soil, the forest and the mine is the wellspring of Chicago's happy condition. Chicago may never hope to displace New York as the country's money center, but the time is rapidly approaching when it may, at least, share the honors with New York more evenly than today. Recently an officer of an old Chicago bank visited New York to discuss the feasibility of opening in that city a working agency or branch of his bank, not to receive deposits but to perform such other functions and establish such other relationships as a Chicago in- stitution might have need to establish in New York. He found in banking circles that while his personal pres- ence there, as a representative of his bank, would be entirely acceptable, the establishment of an actual phys- ical agency would not be so welcome, and furthermore he learned that under a recent interpretation of the banking laws of the state of New York, by both super- intendent of banking and attorney general, a license to locate such an agency could not be secured, although it was less certain that this same barrier would be raised against a branch or agency of a bank incorporated under the laws of a foreign country. Reciprocity? Considering the cordiality with which eastern banks have been permitted to enter Illinois for the operation of those logical banking functions consistent with our own banking laws, it may be suggested that the time 196 has arrived for Chicago to recognize her own financial power and to insist as between hers and the eastern money center a like exchange of privileges and a like consideration in the field of investment as well as com- mercial banking. The right of the older city to retain all of the advan- tages and give none may well be challenged. Chicago's power to distribute investments and to parallel every power now possessed by New York may seem remote, but the rapid growth of wealth in the Central West will, sooner than we think, bring the time when the "I Will" spirit of Chicago will demand equal rights with respect to all forms of financial operation. As the financial center of the West, with banking re- sources high and expanding, and with a tendency if not a confirmed practice among the business men of sur- rounding states to float their securities in their geo- graphic market, Chicago banks are fully meeting realized requirements and lending proportionate aid to the coun- try's development and a war-torn world's rehabilitation. Rivalry with the larger money center, strong in years and capital accumulation, endowed with the peculiar ad- vantages of the greatest place of export and import, need not excite in young Chicago passionate emotions, and yet at the same time financial conditions unfavor- able to Chicago's growth and supremacy and not due to incompetence of her own should be regarded as sub- ject to favorable change through the great and increasing powers of this city. New York and Chicago as Financial Centers A Chicago student of the characteristics of New York and Chicago as financial centers makes these interest- ing observations: "Chicago's financial judgment is not influenced by adventitious circumstances. This is characteristic of all centers of production. The humor, business tempera- ment, judgment, initiative and resourcefulness of the New York financiers veers or functions with the rise and fall of prices on the stock exchange. Prices of securi- ties are not an assured criterion of values. Chicago's financial judgment is based on fundamentals. It is the center of realities born of pioneering, imagination and 197 t :*-^rC^/-^ Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, now under construction. Permission of Bank, and Graham, Anderson, Probst & White. 198 courage. It is creative and productive in motive and fact. "In New York the fluctuations of the stock market are dominating in influence. In Chicago they are incidental if considered at all. Great commercial centers and mar- kets are not, and never have been, commanding in their financial importance. Chicago, however, has proven in such a number of ways that it is a creator and breaker of precedents that it is safe to assert its coming suprem- acy in finance while maintaining its dominant position as the greatest producing and distributing market in the United States." Chicago Credits Based on Actual Business A Chicago banker of general authority, discussing the strength and prospects of the local money system, says: "Banks like ours, whose credits are based on actual business of corporations, are in a much stronger posi- tion than those whose transactions are based largely on the stocks of corporations." A vital distinction is here involved affecting the prestige and growth of Chicago as a money center, and its future is also closely con- nected with this established feature of Chicago banking. Says the same authority: "The thing we are most proud of in our local banking situation is our system of clear- ing house examination, which was organized immedi- ately after the Walsh failure in 1905. This system of clearing house supervision has grown into the most com- plete and effective supervision enjoyed by any city in the world, and there has not been a single failure of any bank under this supervision in fifteen years. Of course there is no pretense of guaranteeing deposits or doing anything more than giving intelligent and careful supervision, but the results are very impressive. Speak- ing of our promotion of foreign trade, the banks of Chicago have been very slow to encourage trade in South American countries, and the experience of seaboard banks has fully demonstrated the wisdom of the Chi- cago banks." Banking Facilities On June 1 of the present year the twenty-four national and nearly 120 state banks of Chicago reported aggre- 199 gate banking facilities as follows: Capital employed, $265,446,592; deposits, $1,741,444,311; loans and dis- counts, $1,493,178,193; cash resources, $481,885,562. Corresponding items accounted for June 1, 1920, were as follows: Capital employed, $239,361,570; deposits, $1,805,228,994; loans and discounts, $1,548,299,008; cash resources, $474,529,476. One of the significant changes of the last few years has been the growth and distribution of savings deposits throughout the city, de- posits this year reaching a total of $497,315,100, of which 51.1 per cent, or $254,223,334, was in the banks of the central business district. The growth of savings deposits, while steady all over the city, has been largest in the outlying banks, and these accumulating resources of the smaller banks have served as a reservoir for cash of great value to the business community in periods when the commercial banks had loaned to their capacity. The bulk of accounts in the large downtown banks is in com- mercial deposits. Financial Team Work More and more Chicago is purchasing and distributing the securities of this richly productive central region, although the resources of the eastern money center will for an indefinite time be employed in national develop- ment. Chicago is becoming able to care and should care for the investment business of that vast industrial and manufacturing area, the Mississippi Valley. A Chi- cago producer of world renown says: "Always a group of financial men can be formed to swing any deal that is too large for a single institution, and always our men work well with bond houses or other financial agencies. Every sign points to the further development of Chi- cago as a financial center and its ultimate supremacy in the field." Charges are not any greater in consequence of syn- dicates organized by eastern bankers in which Chicago and other western investment bankers participate. There is only a commission charged by the originat- ing banker, who also participates in the syndicate on the same basis as other members. There is also the advan- tage of a wider distribution of the securities, which broadens the market and stabilizes it. Let it be said 200 that Chicago, increasing as it is in its numbers of issuers of securities in large amounts, will soon become an in- itiatory banking center, offering participations to invest- ment bankers of New York and other eastern cities. Today, but a hundred years removed from the village and the wilderness, Chicago can handle its own great projects and a $60,000,000 flotation has been accom- plished here and offer financial facilities throughout the country. Banking authorities emphasize the fact that in the last four or five years Chicago has enjoyed a sig- nificant growth with reference to the sale of investment securities, and it is felt that today this city is doing a reasonable percentage of the volume of business which Chicago could expect to do in this class of banking. Great, however, as are the possibilities here, greater will be this business in the no distant future. This will be true in part because of the spirit of co-operation between banks and investment houses. Here is the heart of America; here is the center of production and manu- facture, and here the corresponding growth of banking wealth and its instrumentalities. The East may still say that there is a "West," but this imperial area no longer recognizes boundaries as fixed and immutable. Chicago and the Liberty Loans As to Chicago bank stocks, these have won an estab- lished place among investors, and as for Chicago as a banking training school not alone are the distinction and authority of its banking veterans striking evidence, but other evidence exists in the contributions which this city has made to the banking personnel of New York. Up to the close of 1919 the United States had issued five Liberty loans with subscriptions which greatly ex- ceeded allotments and aggregated $24,016,141,750. The total war disbursements were $32,427,469,054.72. Chi- cago's share in these five loans with percentage of sub- scriptions was as follows: Chicago's Total Chicago Percentage First $3,035,226,850 $357,195,950 11.7 Second 4,617,532,300 585,853,350 12.6 Third 4,158,599,100 608,878,600 14.8 Fourth 6,954,875,200 969,209,000 13.9 Victory 5,249,908,300 772,046,550 14.7 201 The resources of Chicago banks have kept pace with the general growth of the city. In 1861, when the Chi- cago Clearing House Association was first organized, the total deposits of its members amounted to $17,000,000. In 1871 these had risen to $31,000,000, and by 1896 to $138,000,000, while now they exceed $1,600,000,000. In the meantime the capital and surplus of all the Chi- cago banks has increased from $14,500,000 in 1871 to over $234,000.000. Foreign Trade Foreign trade has not been, perhaps, as important a factor in Chicago as in the case of some of the cities on the seaboard whose entire business prosperity depends on the export and import trade of the country. Never- theless, although an interior city, Chicago has not failed to play its part in our trade with countries outside of the United States. Especially in the handling of bills of exchange based upon exports of raw materials, Chi- cago banks have been of primary importance. And in this connection they have not failed to make use in an ever-increasing degree of acceptances, an instrument of credit relatively new in this country. The acceptance market, which plays such an important part in the financ- ing of the foreign trade of European countries, is con- tinually growing in favor, and Chicago banks have been doing their best to develop a broad acceptance market in this region. As more direct communications by water are developed by means of the Great Lakes-St. Law- rence canal and other bodies of water, the part which Chicago plays in the country's foreign trade will become more and more important as time goes on and may rival even the trade of those cities on the sea coast which now regard this part of our commerce as their sole province. Confidence in the banks of the state has in late years been vastly improved and stabilized through the elim- ination of private banks, at one time a very serious men- ace, by legislative enactments requiring all banks to take out national or state charters and become subject to na- tional or state regulation and examination. As has recently been said by the president of the Chicago Stock Exchange, no broad, open market for securities exists without the speculator, and speculation 202 should not be confused with gambling, because it is not only a legitimate but a necessary part of the business system of the country and has been so recognized by the Supreme Court of the United States. The standing of the Chicago Stock Exchange is high and authoritative and performs an essential function at the great central financial and commercial capital. It aims to maintain and does maintain a high standard of business morality; it observes approved standards of legitimacy in securi- ties; it aids in directing into the channels of trade and industry the much needed capital of the public; the quoted prices of its market can be accepted as a measure of value and an index to general business conditions; it keeps in liquid form and ready for use where most needed the surplus wealth of the community. Second only in importance in the United States to the New York Stock Exchange is the Chicago Stock Exchange. 203 CHICAGO AS COTTON MARKET Certain Reasons Why Chicago Is Entitled to Aspire to Develop a New and Great Business Some ten years ago The Chicago Association of Com- merce sent a member of its staff to ask the most repre- sentative man officially the governor in seven of the cotton-producing states how the South would look upon an effort of Chicago to hold a cotton exposition. Seven governors were interviewed and conclusions reported to a special committee of the association. While such an enterprise was not undertaken, the findings of the rep- resentative were not prohibitively discouraging. As a matter of fact, the inquiry had been conducted at the suggestion of a great southern cotton city. Time has passed. Let us now, considering a Chicago cotton ex- position as but an industrial incident, discuss Chicago as a permanent cotton market. Chicago has the opportunity of becoming in the near future the leading cotton market of this country. Many favorable conditions point to this development within a period of ten years. At the outside some believe that Chicago will become the leading cotton market before twenty years have passed. America's cotton crop has been estimated as worth about $2,200,000,000 annually. This country produces between 60 per cent and 70 per cent of the world's sup- ply of this staple. It is estimated that the cotton business of the world represents an investment of about $30,000,- 000,000. Thirty per cent of the cotton produced in this country is consumed in the South, the remainder is shipped to New England mills or exported to Europe. Relation of Chicago to Producing Area While cotton is marketed during about three months of the year, distribution of the country's crop is a twelve months' operation. The sale of cotton is conducted in exactly the same way as the sale of grain, in which "hedging," or the purchase and sale of "futures," is 204 conducted as a form of insurance, protecting both the seller and purchaser of the commodity. At the present time the country has two principal cot- ton markets, New Orleans and New York City. The New Orleans cotton market possesses a well developed ma- chine for the purchase and sale of the commodity, finan- cial accommodations are adequate, and excellent ware- house facilities are provided. From the standpoint of warehousing a sufficient reserve supply of cotton to liqui- date contracts, the New York cotton market has latterly been decreasing in importance, although there has been little diminution in the amount of trading on the ex- change. In the cotton-producing territory lying nearer to New York than Chicago, the development in recent years of cotton mills has brought about a condition where almost the entire crop is consumed locally. The greater part of the cotton crop, about 72 per cent, is now produced in territory nearer to Chicago than New York City. The completion of the Welland Canal and other parts of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence waterway is certain to make Chicago a great cotton market, for it will then be possible to ship cotton to New England for local con- sumption or export it direct to Europe more econom- ically than by way of New York. Superior Advantages of Great Central Market There is even the possibility that a cotton market may be developed in Chicago before the Great Lakes-St. Law- rence waterway project has been realized. Should the Illinois waterway be completed and in operation be- fore the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence waterway, as seems probable, the lower water rate between the southern cotton fields and Chicago might make it possible to de- velop at that time a Chicago cotton market. Even to- day the cost of shipping by rail is but little more than by water, and there is little prospect of immediate re- ductions in water rates. As a cotton market, both for American consumption and for export, Chicago possesses outstanding advan- tages over New York City as well as New Orleans. New Orleans has an excellent cotton market for the territory immediately tributary. It is not a logical market for 205 cotton held at points outside New Orleans and destined for shipment to New England or Europe. Less than .5 of 1 per cent of the cotton bought and sold on the New York Cotton Exchange is actually held in New York warehouses. Small cotton reserves tend to create a speculative market. As already indicated, this situation is due to the fact that southern cotton mills now consume nearly all the cotton produced in the southern states of Virginia, Georgia and the Carolinas which are closest to New York. Geographical Considerations Ninety-three of 145 important cotton shipping points in the South are nearer to Liverpool via Chicago than by way of New York City. Of fifty-two remaining points, all are located in the Carolinas, Georgia and Ala- bama, where the amount of cotton available for export is small by reason of large local consumption. From the standpoint of New England consumption the distances from southern shipping points, except those in the Carolinas, Georgia and Alabama, are greater only by an average of 99 miles than by the present direct route. Thus the expense of shipping cotton to New England mills from a market in Chicago does not in- volve an appreciable increased transportation cost. Summarizing, Chicago is nearer than New York to the territory now producing most of the cotton available for shipment to New England and Europe. The distances from this territory to New England and Europe are shorter via Chicago than any other route and it is there- fore practicable to establish a Chicago cotton market. The Chicago Board of Trade, now handling the na- tion's grain crop, possesses all the machinery needed to market the cotton crop for the South. Warehouses required to hold cotton reserves could be built in Chi- cago with rail and water connections, operated at a profit, and at storage rates probably one-third those of New York City. To Chicago's merchants a local cotton market would mean a substantial expansion in the city's marketing territory. To financial interests it would mean increased business and new opportunities for the employment of capital. To the Board of Trade it would mean increased 206 business and the opportunity of making Chicago the country's leading cotton market, as it is now the greatest grain market. The completion of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence waterway, the Illinois waterway and the creation of large harbor facilities provided in the plans for the Illiana and Calumet harbors, as well as the industrial development of the territory along the sanitary canal, make certain that Chicago will not overlook this oppor- tunity of further increasing its commercial and indus- trial leadership. 207 NEW INDUSTRIES Printing Drawn to Country's Center Paper, Wool, Auto- mobiles, Etc., Lines Finding Good Production Point Here. Chicago is known as a city of balanced industry, and this fact constitutes one of its strongest industrial assets. The city producing a wide variety of manufactured prod- ucts is always in a stronger and more strategic position in times of business depression than the city with but one or two predominating industries. With perhaps a greater diversity of output than any other producing center, there are yet important industries not represented in Chicago, or if present, on a smaller scale than the importance of the market merits. New leg- islation, new processes and changing conditions frequent- ly bring Chicago the opportunity to expand industrially. As an example of opportunities which comes through legislation and changing conditions, the publishing in- dustry may be cited. The new parcel post zoning law placed eastern publishers of magazines having national distribution at a distinct disadvantage, particularly those whose publications carried a large proportion of adver- tising matter. The printers' strike in New York City, about a year ago, caused a number of these magazines to make temporary contracts with Chicago publishers. Ex- cellent service and material savings have caused these contracts to be made permanent. An eastern magazine of national circulation has placed with a local concern a contract for publishing its entire western edition in Chicago and is finding that publication and distribution in the center of the Middle West effects a saving of at least $300,000 annually. These are but indications of a trend which will bring to Chicago as the time goes on more and more magazines of national distribution. Paper from Chicago's Waste Beginning of construction of the first unit of a paper mill which, when completed, will cost $1,500,000 marks the initial step in paper manufacturing locally. The 208 plant, to be known as the Waterway Paper Products Company, will produce news print and wall paper using largely as raw material waste paper collected in the city. Later other paper lines will be added. The production of paper in Chicago is the logical outgrowth of an in- teresting business developed to large proportions in re- cent years and engaged in the collection and sale of waste paper. Chicago is thus conserving natural resources and beginning an industry certain to expand because of an almost unlimited local market. With 75 per cent of raw wool of this country produced west of the Mississippi River, it has always seemed an economic waste for this wool to be shipped to eastern mills along the Atlantic coast, and then shipped back to the Middle West as wool cloth to be consumed by manu- facturers of clothing who produce about 50 per cent of the country's output. Production in proximity to raw material supplies, and in the center of a great market, are local advantages which have been given emphasis with the increased freight rates brought about by the war. Indeed, one large woolen manufacturer had plans for a $5,000,000 plant in Chicago under preparation when the business slump developed a year ago. That this plant will be built when business revives cannot be stated authoritatively, but it is certain that woolen manu- facturers will not be slow to recognize the advantages Chicago possesses and will ultimately locate industries here where local raw material and a great market make for economic production and distribution. Automobile Manufacture With 50 per cent of the automobiles and motor trucks of the nation owned in the middle western states, of which Chicago is the leading distributing center, it is ap- parent that the local market offers large possibilities for manufacturers of automobiles, motor trucks, rubber tires and automobile supplies. All of these lines are now rep- resented in Chicago, but in all of them the opportunities for further development are almost without limit. Of significance to automobile and motor truck manufac- turers is Chicago's strategic railroad situation. Here the manufacturer can be assured of adequate transporta- tion at all times. Business prosperity can never clog 209 the city's many trunk and belt lines and drive-a-ways will be unnecessary. Among many other industries in which a favorable situation with respect to transportation, raw materials, market, labor and economical production costs suggests opportunities for further expansion may be mentioned glass products, hospital supplies, machine tools, heavy and light cutlery, hardware lines, aeroplanes and equip- ment, shoes, chemicals, knitted goods and drugs and medical supplies. 210 INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS Current Demonstrations in Chicago's Industrial World Point to Improvement in Working Principles and in Standards of Industrial Morality. Americanism in industrial relationships is the de- mand of the day, and "freedom" and "independence" with all the significance of national traditions are its watchwords. The employer asks for himself no prin- ciples of advantage which he does not concede to the employed. In the current year in Chicago two events have done much to guide public thinking about a com- plex local situation, and to make more convincing the function of arbitration in settlement of labor troubles. What Chicago anxiously seeks is the general resumption of work at a just wage, and also the correction of fla- grant evils in the building industry. These two influential events have been an investiga- tion by a state legislative committee, and a decision by Judge K. M. Landis, of the federal court, in determina- tion of wages and regulations in the building industry. These are current and local events signifying progress back of and beneath these manifestations of the march toward industrial freedom has been and is the national movement to attain relations of liberty, co-operation and fellowship in all industry, and indications of this pur- pose appear in acts of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States and in the policies of the employers of Chicago. Investigations and Decisions Chicago's building industry seems emerging from an impossible state of corruption and blockade by virtue of the investigations of a joint committee of the Fifty -sec- ond general assembly of the state of Illinois, known as the Dailey committee, John Dailey, chairman; and by virtue of important adjudications, leading to resumption of work in the building trades by co-operation of the parties at interest, at the hands of Judge Landis as arbi- trator. The invited intervention of Judge Landis as arbi- 211 trator has been a constructive episode in the drama of industrial progress and of like service have been the in- vestigations of the legislative committee. The decision of Judge Landis if accepted tends to unbind a shackled industry. He reduced the wages of skilled and unskilled labor in the building trades from 10 to 36 per cent, and promulgated new rules and conditions designed to re- store this industry to a sound basis. The decision, Thursday, September 8, of nation-wide interest, was in arbitration of wage differences between employers and employes in building construction, the matter of arbitration having been submitted to the jurist June 10, 1921, and followed an agreement entered into between the Building Construction Employers' Associa- tion, the Associated Builders and the Chicago Building Trades Council, authorizing, after several weeks of idle- ness in the industry, Judge Landis as umpire to fix the wages to be paid in the several trades represented, the award to become effective when made and remain in force until May 31, 1922. It was also agreed that on or before February 1, 1922, the umpire should determine the rates to control from May 31 that year for the period of one year. The agreement also contained other provisions. The following trades were not parties to the arbitration: Carpenters, elevator constructors, plasterers, sheet metal workers, painters, glaziers and fixture hangers. Findings of Dailey Committee Evidence before the Dailey committee indicated pay- ment of tribute to grafting labor business agents, and resort to many devices by associations of employers and material men to stifle competition and increase prices. The committee said: Working rules, jurisdictional disputes, and agreements of va- rious unions and crafts have furnished a fertile field for crim- inal operations of dishonest business agents. The evidence ad- duced along this line convinces the committee that scarcely any building, large or small, erected in the city of Chicago within the last two years, has been immune from the imposition of graft. The methods employed in exacting graft have been infinite in disguises. It has been exacted in the form of insurance against strikes by the payment of money before construction of buildings has been begun, or by the payment of large sums of money to prevent strikes called upon the slightest or no pretext whatever, 212 by the payment of money to call off strikes, whether such strikes had any foundation or not from the union labor viewpoint. Associations of material men have been guilty of practices as hurtful to building operations as the criminal practices of crooked business agents. These associations, by cunningly devised schemes, have endeavored to avoid the conspiracy laws of the state. Ex- change of cost information, pooling of bids, exchange of bids and of price lists, reporting to each other of bids and contracts, average cost systems, restrictive agreements with labor unions, agreements with dishonest labor leaders, and many forms of "co- operative competition" and other euphemisms, have served as de- vices for the restraint of trade and the inflation of prices of building materials. The financial burdens imposed upon the building industry by these associations are greater even than those imposed by grafting business agents. The opinion expressed by many witnesses is that the artificial burdens placed upon building by crooked business agents and criminal associations connected with the building industry have increased the cost of building in Chicago at least 30 per cent. These agencies are largely responsible for the housing shortage in Chicago, the almost complete cessation of building, and in- creased rentals. Trade Associations Under Scrutiny The committee has inspired recent legislation to break up the "piratical practices of dishonest business agents" and has been compelled to witness the defeat of a bill designed to correct what in the opinion of the committee was "the most malignant malady of the building indus- try." The bill was patterned after the federal anti-trust laws and the anti-trust laws of the leading states of this country. It was a bill for an act in relation to contracts, combinations and conspiracies in restraint of trade and commerce. In view of the desperate efforts made to de- feat the measure, the Dailey committee feels that investi- gations should seek all of the methods employed for price-fixing by associations proposed to be affected by the bill, and the committee feels that the permanent com- mission established by the present legislature should de- vote much of its efforts to this service. Some fifteen important trade associations have been under investiga- tion by the Dailey committee. A special grand jury in Cook County has returned many indictments and the fed- eral special grand jury has been carrying on appropri- ate investigations. The aforesaid commission which suc- ceeds the committee on investigation is given even greater powers than the committee itself, and the commission, 213 says the committee, "should continue vigorously until the evil and the sinister situation hampering the building in- dustry is completely eradicated. The committee feels that the disclosures unearthed by it, together with the speedy and successful prosecution of the indictments al- ready obtained, will destroy the grafting business agents and price-fixing associations, and bring an early resump- tion of building operations." The National Problem A production situation such as the above, which has imposed hardship upon hundreds of thousands in a housing crisis, and has otherwise worked great loss to this city, is an industrial calamity which can and must be arrested, but it is the nation-wide program of labor its policies and operation which constitutes the greater problem and which in its manifestations in Chicago as throughout the country can be settled permanently and therefore justly only by labor's recognition of the su- preme general principle which should govern both em- ployer and employe, that of freedom and independence. Seeking this end the Chamber of Commerce of the United States in 1919 issued a proposed liberty pro- gram, a program submitted by business for the common advantage of labor and capital, and in 1920 the labor policy committee of The Chicago Association of Com- merce arrived at certain principles of industrial liberty. These principles may be said to govern the employing forces of Chicago at large. The merits of these prin- ciples invite general understanding and strenuous sup- port. A Chicago industrial policy based upon these principles will A Chicago Industrial Policy Protect the employer and employe in the right of free- dom of contract. Prevent any interference with persons seeking to work and earn a living. Protect the public right in the free and uninterrupted use of streets and transportation of persons or goods. Oppose restrictions of output, discrimination in the use of materials, limitation of apprentices, sympathetic and jurisdictional strikes and boycotts. 214 Oppose the payment of money or other considerations for settlement of strikes or special privileges. Before the many hundreds of commercial and trade organizations of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States that great body placed certain principles which, if in effect should, it was believed, bring about peace and justice in industrial relations. These principles pre- suppose a generosity of sentiment actuating both bodies and the need of peace in industrial adjustment. Regu- larity and continuity of employment should be sought to the fullest extent and the right of workers to organize is clearly recognized as that of any other class or part of the community. The need was stressed of adequate representation of the parties at interest and the faithful observance of agreements when made. Agreements should contain provision for prompt and final interpre- tation in event of controversy regarding meaning or ap- plication. Wages should be adjusted with due regard to their purchasing power and to every man's right to an opportunity to earn a living at fair wages, to reason- able hours of work and working conditions, to a decent home and enjoyment of proper social conditions. Principles of National Chamber The principles enunciated condemned as a subterfuge the fixing of a basic day as a device for increasing com- pensation. The principles called for efficient production in conjunction with adequate wages, and further de- clared that consideration of reduction of wages should not be reached until possibility of reduction of costs in all other directions has been exhausted. The principles further set forth that administration of employment and management of labor should be recognized as a distinct and important function of management and accorded its proper responsibility in administration organization. Finally the national chamber called for a system of na- tional employment offices subject to civil service law with policies determined in conjunction with the national, state and local advisory boards, and equally representa- tive of employers and employes. The Chicago Association of Commerce is now con- ducting preparatory work to qualify it for a study of the present unemployment situation in this city. 215 CHICAGO'S DRAINAGE How Health and Perpetuity of Chicago Have Been Assured by Great Drainage Engineering, and What Are the Sewage Treatment Projects for Metropolis of Tomorrow Chicago's sewerage system contemplates sanitary serv- ice for about 3,000,000 people, but the look forward is provision for 4,000,000. What has been done and what has been projected is the substance of the following sketch of a municipal fundamental: The Sanitary District was organized in 1889, its pri- mary object being the protection of Lake Michigan from pollution by sewage. The first work of the district was the construction of the main drainage channel across the Lake Michigan-Mississippi divide from the Chicago River at Robey Street to the Desplaines River at Lock- port. This work was accomplished between 1892 and 1900 and in January, 1900, the Chicago River was re- versed, sufficient water flowing from Lake Michigan to properly dilute the sewage of the city. The city of Chi- cago reversed the sewers which discharged into the lake and turned this sewage into the river. The Sanitary Dis- trict widened and deepened the Chicago River and, co- operating with the federal government and the city of Chicago, removed center-pier bridges from the river. The second accomplishment was the extension (1903- 1907) of the main drainage channel from Lockport to Joliet and the development of power from the water used for sewage dilution. This power is sufficient to light, at cost, practically all of the parks, boulevards and streets of Chicago. It is also used for pumping water and sewage and some is sold to commercial con- sumers. Protecting North Shore Water Supply Next in order was the construction (1908-1910) of the north shore channel from the lake at Wilmette to the river at Lawrence Avenue, and the building (1912-1915) of intercepting sewers along the lake front from Glencoe 216 to Evanston. This project turned back all the sewage of the north shore towns away from Lake Michigan. The last canal project is the Calumet-Sag channel from the Little Calumet River, at Blue Island, to the main drainage channel at Sag. This channel, the con- struction of which was begun in 1911 and was much de- layed by the world war, is practically completed and its operation will reverse the flow in the sewage-laden Calu- met River. The Calumet intercepting sewer, built in conjunction with the Calumet-Sag channel, will intercept the sewage of the Calumet region and deliver it to the channel, whence it will be carried to the main drainage channel. With the completion and operation of the before mentioned channels and sewers, the primary object of the Sanitary District is accomplished. Lake Michigan, the source of our abundant water supply, is protected from pollution by sewage originating in the Sanitary District, which is the whole region between the Indiana state line and the north line of Cook County. A move- ment is on foot to organize the towns along the lake shore further north, in Lake County, into another sani- tary district to co-operate with the Sanitary District of Chicago in keeping the waters of Lake Michigan free from pollution by sewage from any of the communities within the limits of the state of Illinois. Going beyond the southern portion of Chicago, efforts are being made to organize Indiana Harbor, East Chicago, Hammond, Gary and other towns into a district to handle the prob- lem along the shore in Northern Indiana. Navigation Advantage In addition to the accomplishment of the primary ob- ject of the Sanitary District, and incidentally the use of its waste water for power, we have a Chicago River widened to 200 feet, deepened to 26 feet, with all sharp bends eliminated, spanned by modern bascule bridges; in fact, so improved that the largest boats on the Great Lakes can navigate it safely. Beyond that we have a ship canal with a minimum width of 160 feet and depth of 24 feet cut across the divide between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River for a distance of 33 miles, the most important link in the long desired waterway 217 from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. The Calu- met-Sag channel is an important auxiliary branching off from the main channel at Sag and leading directly to the proposed new Calumet harbor, the Illiana har- bor, and the industrial region in the Calumet District. By this canal through traffic can pass around instead of directly through Chicago. Before the operation of the main drainage channel there were recorded in a year 174 deaths from typhoid to each 100,000 inhabitants of Chicago. Now the typhoid death rate is less than one. Plans That Look Far Forward So much for past accomplishments. The canal and sewer systems before mentioned provide adequately for approximately 3,000,000 people, which is about the pres- ent population of the Sanitary District. By 1950 this population will be increased to probably 5,000,000. To provide for the increase the Sanitary District has laid out an elaborate program and has begun the construc- tion of sewage treatment plants. To determine the best method of sewage disposal, other than dilution, the Sani- tary District has been studying the problem experi- mentally since 1908. Elaborate experiments have been conducted on domestic sewage (from the region south of Thirty-ninth Street, 1908-1912), on Stockyards and Packingtown wastes (1912-1918), on tannery wastes (1919 to date) and on other special industrial wastes, such as those of the Corn Products Company, etc. There are now under construction two large sewage treatment plants. One at Twelfth Street and the Des Plaines River (begun in 1919 and to be completed early in 1922) will treat the sewage now going into the Des Plaines River from Maywood, Forest Park, part of Oak Park, River Forest and other towns along the Des Plaines. This will clean up the Des Plaines River and make it a fit stream to run through our forest preserves. The other, the Calumet sewage treatment plant, begun in 1921 and to be in service by 1923, will treat practically all the sewage in the Calumet region. t Sewage Treatment Projects The start toward sewage treatment having been made, the carrying out of sewage treatment projects will be 218 pushed as rapidly as the finances of the Sanitary Dis- trict will permit. There are four immense projects now under consideration, viz., the North Branch, the West Side, the Stockyards and the Southwest Side, which, com- bined with the Des Plaines and the Calumet, will cover the entire Sanitary District. Land has already been purchased west of Evanston for the North Branch sewage treatment plant, which is now being designed to take care of a population of 1,000,000 people. Construction will be started before the end of the present year on intercepting sewers to lead to this plant the sewage of the area north of Fullerton Avenue and south of the north line of Cook County. The West Side plant will take the sewage of all the district south of Fullerton Avenue, the Loop district and the area west of the Chicago River. This project will handle the sewage of 2,000,000 people and its construc- tion will logically follow that of the North Branch project. Negotiations with the packing interests are now under way to determine the basis on which the Stockyards sewage treatment plant will be constructed and operated. The points in dispute should be settled and construction started in the near future. The wastes from this industry are equivalent to the domestic sewage of 1,000,000 peo- ple, so this plant will be a project of some size. Finally will come the Southwest Side treatment project, which will handle the sewage of about 2,000,000 people who will live south of the Loop and river and north of Eighty-seventh Street. All the sewage treatment plants will be designed with a view toward future expansion. Sufficient land is pur- chased at each site to make room for the future growth. The population to be served will be near 5,000,000 peo- ple by 1950, but it will not stop at that figure. When the above outlined program is carried out the Chicago River and the drainage channels, instead of receiving raw sewage as at present, will receive clear effluent from the treatment plants and the improvement over present conditions will be as great as the present is over the past, when the Chicago River was in fact an open sewer and a menace to the health of the community. 219 220 CHICAGO NEEDS CONVENTION HALL Cities Seeking to Dispute Chicago's Lead as Convention Center Build Fit Meeting Place Exposition Hall- Municipal Pier Public Garage Chicago greatly needs a convention hall which should be a town meeting hall, auditorium and exhibit hall com- bined, with smaller meeting and exhibition halls in- cluded. It should have a seating capacity of upwards of 7,000 in the main auditorium with smaller halls seating 50, 200, 500 and 1,000 respectively. It should have rail- road connections and so located as to be convenient of access from all parts of the city. Chicago is each year losing a number of valuable conventions and exhibits with and without conventions because of lack of suitable facilities in which to hold such gatherings. Other cities such as Milwaukee and Cleveland have facilities to care for the larger affairs beyond Chicago's accommodations. An earlier Chicago boasted on the lake front posses- sion of an exposition hall which as one function in its use was the scene of an industrial exhibition. For many years Chicago, mindful of its own past and of successful practice in other communities, has declared that an in- stitution of this nature should be revived, and now with the recent successful accomplishment on the Municipal Pier of an enterprise of this nature, as a gratifying busi- ness and pleasure event of the summer of 1921, Chicago is asking itself again whether it should not systematically set about creation of seasonal as well as annual industrial shows. A spacious and convenient exposition hall suit- ably located would fulfill, apart from a separate conven- tion hall as such, many of the conditions which constitute the requirements of the Great Central Market. Aside from such an idea, however, is the adaptation of the Mu- nicipal Pier, further distinguished as a public utility by the late Pageant of Progress, to the uses of an exposition building and a convention hall. Mayor Thompson and others concerned in the produc- tion of the late industrial exposition on the pier, the Pageant of Progress, express the hope that means will 221 be found to develop this shipping and recreational prop- erty as follows: First: Extend the floor of the upper level across the present open space, providing for heavy floor loads and proper roof to insure ventilation and protection against heat and cold. Second: Install a heating plant for winter operation. Third: Insulate the side walls and roofs of the two present wings to admit of winter use. Fourth: Provide partitions or movable dividing walls so that any separate unit of space may be used without in- terference by another part. Where Park Multiplying Cars? Since the automobile has come to be regarded as a utility in addition to being a pleasure vehicle Chicago has done nothing to meet the requirements of the thou- sands who daily drive through the downtown district. With increased travel in its streets we have been forced to place restrictions upon parking without compensating in any way. Each year there is an increasing number of people who come into Chicago on pleasure or business bent in automobiles. They are bewildered and may be fined if they are forced to leave their machines long enough to spend the money they have appropriated for pleasure or merchandise. Some of the best thought in this community has studied this problem. It is hoped by many that an underground garage may be built in Grant Park or elsewhere which will remove from the streets and swallow up the waiting automobile. A big private garage enterprise, involving erection of a high building, has been one of the announced projects of the recent past. An impressive sight from any building on the lake front is the acres of automobiles in orderly alignment in Grant Park, Chicago's emergency mod- ernization of the hitched teams of visiting farmers sur- rounding the business and official center of less metro- politan communities yesterday, and, with a striking in- crease in the number of automobiles, necessary today. 222 RAILWAY CLEARING YARDS Twelve Trunk Lines Operating With World's Largest Facility of Kind Expedite Chicago's Freight Movement With thirty-nine railways, including twenty-four great railway systems, terminating in Chicago, it is not strange that among the many railway yards which handle the vast interchange business which the Great Central Mar- ket creates there should he one yard notable in concep- tion and in the facilities offered. At the southwest corner of the city lie the great clear- ing yards of the Belt Railway of Chicago, adjacent to the Clearing Industrial District. These yards constitute the largest facility of its kind in the world. They stretch for a distance of live and one-half miles in length, one-half mile in width, and contain 150 miles of track with a handling capacity of 10,000 cars daily. Chicago's clearing yards are built on the gravity system, that is, cars destined for a given road are brought up a grade to the crest of a hill or hump and released to coast under their own weight down grade, where at a given point an intricate system of switches diverts them to the proper classification tracks. In this manner trains of miscellaneous cars brought into the yards by the Belt Railway are broken up and the individual cars sent over the hump to the classification tracks of the outgoing lines. Complete trains are thus made up in a remarkably short time for each trunk line and sent on their way. The Belt Line Railway and its transfer yards at Clear- ing is owned by twelve of Chicago's important trunk lines serving the east, west, north and southern sections of the country. Thus there has been created here a great service, beneficial alike to local business and industry, to the participating roads and to the outside shipper into or through Chicago. New Gravity Switching Yard The Illinois Central Railroad Company has under con- struction about 22 miles from its terminal at South Water 223 Street in Chicago a large switching and classification yard known as Markham Yard. This yard is to be the northern terminal for steam service operation after com- pletion of electrification within the city limits. Markham Yard will be the southerly terminus of the electrification of the Illinois Central lines in Chicago except for the suburban passenger service, which will be electrified to the southerly end of the suburban dis- trict at Matteson, 28 miles from Chicago. At Markham Yard the engines of through passenger trains will be changed to electric engines when the through passenger service has been electrified within the city limits. The yards with its mechanical and other terminal facilities and buildings is estimated to cost about $5,000,000. 224 GROWTH OF COMMUNITY CENTERS Industrial and Domestic Influences Fashion Development of New Centers of a Greater Chicago Visitors to Chicago often remark that Chicago sug- gests to them a group of cities, or communities, each with its special interests, but all being bound together for the common welfare. South Chicago is a striking example of a well -developed community, fully capable of standing by itself, yet part of the city. Several large industrial plants are located in South Chicago, but their offices are in Chicago. The suburbs are also examples of separate communities whose interests are intimately bound up with those of the city proper. One of the significant developments of recent years lias been the location of many factories in groups in what were formerly outlying districts of Chicago. This has brought about a decentralization of the industries, which were once grouped in districts that were much closer to the main parts of the city. Manufacturers who have moved into the new districts explain that they have gained several advantages. They hold that the old districts were outgrown and had be- come too congested, making the handling of freight diffi- cult and being too far away from the homes of employes. Industrial Advantages The new districts are where the plants have the best of switching facilities, which do away with the necessity for teaming. Raw materials are unloaded directly from the cars and shipments are sent out the same way. This simplifies the handling of freight and reduces such costs to the minimum. The loaded cars are switched to the railroad yards, where they are attached to trains which take them to their destinations. Less-than-carload ship- ments are also handled in this way, as shipments made by several factories are grouped until they fill a car. Another advantage is that the plants in the outlying districts are located close to the homes of employes, many of whom are able to walk to and from their work. If 225 they ride the cars are not crowded in these localities and, besides, the worker going home from these plants usually goes in the opposite direction from the main rush of travel. This plan also gives relief for the crowded districts where the workers were formerly forced to make their homes. The workmen evidently like this plan, for they are buying homes and are settling down. They are often helped by the employers in buying homes, as there is then less chance of the workman leaving and going to some other plant. These homes are much more healthful than those where the workmen formerly lived. Development of Little Cities There are strips of big manufacturing plants along the western side of Chicago, especially to the south. These include some of the largest industrial establishments in the West. In addition to having favorable business fa- cilities these plants are located in an unusually attractive district. They are close to Western Avenue boulevard. The workmen live in localities which are suburban-like. They have ample school facilities for their children. There are stores, churches and banks within easy reach. The presence of the big plants has caused rapid develop- ment of localities which were merely prairies a few years ago. Residents of these localities who wish to reach the city can do so by trolley car. Bankers who are familiar with conditions in these neighborhoods say that the workers are thrifty, that they wish to own homes and that they are evidently much better off than when they lived in rented quarters in congested districts. The em- ployers are pleased with this, as they hold that a con- tented employe is the best workman. Home building or- ganizations have been started at a number of plants. The officials of the companies finance these building plans and the workmen make payments in installments, much as they formerly did in paying rent. Several plants, formerly located in or near the down- town district, chose outlying locations after taking a vote among their employes. This was somewhat in the form of a survey which showed the location of the home of every employe. When these locations were determined a site was chosen that was as near as possible to the homes of the majority of the workers. 226 CHICAGO AS AVIATION CENTER The Great Central Traffic, Commercial and Population Center Needs a Farseeing Program to Establish Its Proper Place in Continental Flying Chicago's aviation program will be determined by its own initiative and national co-operation. Here is the logical center of great manufacturing and operating ac- tivities, and here early in farther development of local and continental aeronautics should be created a munici- pal air port or harbor; indeed, say practical men, there should be two ports, one near downtown for passengers and express, and at the edge of the city an extensive plant with hangars, repair apparatus, meteorological station and wireless service. A primary necessity seems first to be ground facilities rather than flying machines them- selves. Needless to say, however, with terminals must go properly marked air routes. At the University of Illinois war needs developed activities related to the general problem of the state's advance in aeronautics. The Chicago Plan Commission has discussed the ad- visability of landing fields provided on extensions of the new lake front, these being merely for quick landing and the handling of passengers, after which the machines would go on to the above mentioned larger field, and the Ashburn field is believed by many to be the best for the purpose. Whatever the field's location, it must be far enough romoved from the city's building activities to warrant broad and permanent development. Airplanes are expected to come when facilities have been made ready for them. At the present writing the would-be air traveler on a hurried mission must take an hour to reach this field from the business district. If it were possible that such a person could start on such a voyage in the neighborhood of this business district a pilot would put him forward 100 miles on his way during the time of his land movement to the distant terminal. Chicago Needs Facilities for Night Flying An important step in aeronautic progress would be a downtown passenger station for out-of-town business. 227 People cannot become interested in owning airplanes or hiring them until there are all the facilities of service, and at the present time Chicago has no facilities for night flying, and there must be flying by night. The well advised insist that Chicago should make a bid to the country for the manufacture of planes. Here is the center of the country's transportation and here should be the center of aircraft construction. In Europe aviation companies are aided by subsidies to help them In the spacious prairies where the wild onion ("Chicago") grew has risen a colossal mercantile house with like nowhere in the world. The business, in 1919, of this, the parent establishment, amounted to $219,218,100. Copyrighted photo taken from the air by Ralph C. Digging Co. get started, and financial help may be needed here. Sev- eral plans have been suggested to make Chicago a manu- facturing center, but no manufacturing is done here yet, except in the making of parts by different firms. As to the degree of business in this city in the selling of air- planes, it may be said that during the last two years about 200 machines have been disposed of and these 228 have been sent all over the country, especially to the oil fields of the South. Federal Legislation Necessary While the airplane industry of Chicago is in an in- cipient and unorganized state, thought is being given to its development and to one basic difficulty in the fact that there are no uniform laws in this country governing aircraft and there has been little or no local legislation, while to develop aeronautics as a national pursuit on a great scale those who enter it must know their legal status, and efforts are being made to lead the govern- ment to establish federal control of the air just as a nation now has control of the sea to a point three miles from land. To this end may be necessary a constitu- tional amendment. The present tendency, restricting aviation development, is for each state or smaller com- munity to pass its own laws, and these are likely to con- flict with the laws of other communities. When air navi- gation acquires a legal status real progress will begin. Constructive federal legislation is a necessity, a parallel being found in the regulation of waterways. Chicago and New York have simultaneously passed ordinances regulating flying within city limits, with the provi- sion that these regulations shall be effective only until federal laws are passed. At present flying at less than 2,000 feet of elevation is prohibited, although a lower altitude can be taken when an airplane can glide to a flying field. It is contended that no manufacturer can develop new designs that will be used in quantities warranting produc- tion to pay a profit until this war material is disposed of, the business protected by proper legislation, and pub- lic confidence established, all of which is now only in its beginning. Now is the time, it is further contended, to plan for the future of construction and operation rather than for the promotion of large undertakings which must first be proved to the public as safe and time-saving and commercially profitable. As for Chicago's relation to aviation as an arm of military defense this is a prob- lem in itself, and its consideration thus far since the great war has probably been confined to federal authori- ties. 229 WATER TRANSPORTATION Illinois Waterway and Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Project With Suitable Harbor Improvements Promise Establishment of Chicago as Seaport in Seven Years Indian and trader's canoe, pioneer's pack, ox-cart, prairie schooner, canal boat, railroad, lake sailing craft and steamships, these by virtue of the dispensations of nature and of the will and vision of old world explorers and new world adventurers and settlers, determined the birth and growth of a continental transportation center and market, here where meet the natural routes of land and water, here Chicago. Geography, transportation, climate and resolute men are the primary conditions of Chicago's being. Rare endowments these, but they must be fostered and en- hanced. Lake shipping many, many sails and none to- day the abandonment of that important economic factor of a half century ago, the Illinois and Michigan canal, the multiplication of railroads until all the conti- nent has turned hitherward all of these forces of prog- ress have been interacting and advancing this city, but great changes have occurred in their relations, and water transportation does not supplement land transportation to the degree required by the growing industry and commerce of the country and by Chicago, the central commercial and industrial capital. Fluctuations of Lake Tonnage In 1871 Chicago shipped by lake 12,121,000 bushels of wheat; in 1891, 31,103,000; in 1914, first war year, 56,456,000; in 1920, 11,193,000. Her heaviest corn shipment was 97,167,000 bushels in 1898, and her heaviest shipment of oats was 50,193,000 in 1897. Her lake trade in flour, as great as 3,472,000 barrels in 1908, had fallen to 3,000 barrels in 1920. Entrances and clearances of vessels at the port of Chicago in 1900 were 16,966; in 1920, 7,051. Within these years the highest cargo tonnage received and shipped was 13,- 230 275,320 in 1913. The preponderant lake borne cargo is iron ore, amounting in 1920 to 6,496,034 tons, received in the Calumet River, heavy receipts at Gary and Indiana Harbor not included. In the Central West has matured a purpose, fostered by such representative bodies as the Mississippi Valley Association, to develop water communication with the Gulf by the Illinois River and other streams, and with the Atlantic Ocean by the Great Lakes and improved St. Lawrence River waterways, the guiding American or- ganization promoting the latter project being the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Tidewater Association. Already an international joint commission has gathered in the United States and Canada the views of authorities on the ele- ments of such an undertaking, and engineers have been appointed, in terms of official instructions, "to take charge of the survey of the St. Lawrence River, Montreal to Lake Ontario, for the purpose of preparing plans and estimates for its further improvement to make the same navigable for deep-draft vessels of either the lake or ocean-going type, and to obtain the greatest beneficial use from these waters." The report of the engineers is in hand and there is awaited the recommendations to the two governments of the International Joint Commission, composed of three Americans and three Canadians. Illinois Waterway Improvement None before Chicago has greater interest in this revo- lutionizing international project, with which is related, although a prior conception and wholly independent of it, the improvement of the Illinois River already au- thorized as to financing and execution by the people of this state. The work will consist of the canalization of the Des Plaines and Illinois rivers from Lockport to Utica, a distance of 61 miles, and the incidental devel- opment of 75,000 hydroelectric horsepower. The Illinois River below Utica must be improved, and this can be done without difficulty within the necessary time for the completion of the Lockport-Utica canaliza- tion. This work falls within the jurisdiction of the United States, and is still to be authorized by congress. In fact, the exact character of this part of the whole im- provements will somewhat depend upon the determina- 231 tion of the allowable outflow of water through the Chi- cago drainage channel. Chicago is therefore interested in securing proper action by congress covering these questions. It is to be hoped that factional differences can be buried and that all our citizens will work to- gether to this end. The money to be spent by the fed- eral government will be small compared with what the state of Illinois has authorized in connection with the Lockport-Utica work, a total of $20,000,000. There is every reason to expect that within seven years, and perhaps within five years, the Illinois barge canal will be completed between Lockport and Utica, so that Ore is now a large item in lake tonnage; the vessels are big and the unloading facilities have speed and gigantic grasp. This is the steamer Harvester unloading at South Chicago. Permission of International Harvester Company. barges carrying up to 1,000 tons and even more can run directly between Mississippi River points and Chicago. It is also to be hoped that the work already authorized by congress on the Mississippi, Ohio and Missouri Rivers will be completed without delay so that barge transpor- tation may become a reality. The Monongahela River, where the improvements were completed about twenty years ago, has been and is used so satisfactorily that the practicability of this type of transportation seems as- sured. Chicago Can Be a Seaport in Seven Years But the greater project, Chicago's new way to the seven seas when as an ocean port may she receive at her own 232 docks, direct from shipper, to market, the world's raw and finished products and dispatch to distant markets her own manufactures, and the assembled foodstuffs and goods concentrated here by rail, lake and river and as- sorted for domestic and overseas shipment in such a vast clearing house as Illiana Harbor is devised to be? The answer may be positive but of the nature of prediction. Chicago ought to be a seaport within seven years. As- suming that one more year will be sufficient for the ne- gotiations between the United States and Canada and the enactment of the necessary legislation, one additional year for perfection of the engineering investigations and the building up of an organization, and allowing an additional five years for actual construction, Chicago ought, as said, to be a seaport within seven years. If it is assumed that the two governments agree and authorize the improvement of the St. Lawrence, and that the new Welland Canal, which is now approximately 40 per cent finished, will be completed within the same time, Chicago may then expect to do direct a large for- eign commerce. Chicago is therefore confronted imme- diately with the problem of harbors. No time should be lost in undertaking the improvements contemplated under existing laws. It should be borne in mind that while for the present the channels through Detroit River and Lake St. Clair have a navigable depth of only 21% feet, one may expect progressive deepening in the future the same as in the past. Our harbors should therefore be planned so that not less than 30 feet navigable depth will be available or easily attainable by dredging as re- quired. The sixteen states backing the St. Lawrence project produce 75 per cent of the country's wheat, 65 per cent of the corn, 100 per cent of the flax, 85 per cent of the iron, 39 per cent of the copper, 74 per cent of the zinc, 46 per cent of the lead. The Great Lakes produce upon their shores countless articles entering into foreign trade. Present transportation routes to the sea are costly and unreliable. In January, 1918, there were 418 vessels held in New York harbor for lack of fuel and cargoes because of car shortage. In the fall of 1917 the Northwest suffered 233 The Mississippi Valley's proposed twofold outlet to the sea prom- ises to make Chicago the world's great central inland seaport. Here is to develop, by means of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence waterway and the Illinois waterway, an even larger transfer point with facilities proposed or authorized of vast capacity and efficiency. Map by courtesy of H. C. Gardner 234 for lack of 6,000,000 tons of coal, and to supply the need it was necessary to use 50 per cent of the freight cars of forty-seven railroads for many weeks and later to use them to make up the iron ore shortage. For all of the export traffic from the Great Lakes states and the Northwest, and for most domestic traffic destined for the eastern seaboard, the St. Lawrence River will furnish a direct route with average saving of 800 to 1,500 miles of rail haul and elimination of the exces- sive costs of transfers involved at Atlantic ports. The area which will benefit directly from the proposed route for commerce with the United Kingdom and west- ern Europe, including the Baltic Sea, has a population of about 41,000,000, and the area tributary by commerce with the Mediterranean ports has a population of about 36,000,000. An area having a population of about 30,- 000,000 will benefit by water traffic with South America, while 20,000,000 will benefit through direct ocean trade with the West Indies and Central America. Furthermore, a territory of 21,000,000 will get advantage from coast- wise vessel service to and from the ocean ports of the United States. The direct water haul from Chicago to Liverpool is 859 miles less than from New Orleans and 1,043 miles less than from Galveston. The area tributary to the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence deep waterway extend to the western boundary of Montana. Millions of Home Population Benefited A total of over 41,000,000 people of the country's 105,683,108 would be benefited by the St. Lawrence waterway improvement. The products of this area have an annual value of over $26,000,000,000, the country's entire production being estimated at over $70,000,000,- 000 annually. The passage through the canals and dredged chan- nels between Montreal and Duluth under the proposed project will involve a total delay of about 12.6 hours as compared with the navigation of an equal distance in open waters. This loss of time will lessen the earning ability of the vessel to about the same extent as an in- crease of 120 miles in the length of the voyage. Such 235 an increase in distance of a voyage of between 3,000 and 5,000 miles is of no consequence. Tonnage and Horse Power It may be expected that within five years after the opening of the St. Lawrence waterway it will carry a commerce of not less than 20,000,000 tons a year. On a basis of population it is estimated that 28,000,000 tons of exports and 12,000,000 tons of imports originate in the area tributary to the Great Lakes. The rail traffic in and out of Chicago alone amounts to nearly 200,000,000 tons without duplication. By the St. Lawrence ship channel would be received pulpwood, sulphur, china, clay, coffee, cocoa, sugar, fruits and nuts, rubber, fertilizer materials, lumber, hides, asphaltum, gums, tanning extracts, sago and tapi- oca, fibres and textile grasses, flaxseed, seeds for planting, spices, vegetable oil, granite and a great number of other imports. Outward bound from the Great Central Mar- ket and Mississippi Valley seaports would be grain, iron and steel, coal, agricultural implements, automobiles and other vehicles, salt, copper, meat, dairy products, linseed oil, rubber goods, leather, furniture, paper, live stock and manufactured goods other than enumerated. The St. Lawrence River when fully improved would develop 4,000,000 horsepower, worth about $60,000,000, and saving from 35,000,000 to 50,000,000 tons of coal annually. To haul this coal from the mines to the fac- tory would require one trip of 700,000 to 1,000,000 cars. If the power of the St. Lawrence were all used for manu- facturing, the value of the raw materials would be $2,600,000,000 and of the finished products $4,400,000,- 000. The total volume of freight interested in this waterway is the tonnage now moving entirely by rail between the Great Lakes and the Atlantic seaboard, its volume being annually about 250,000,000 tons. 236 ILLIANA HARBOR Government Engineer Defines Interstate Location for Great Transfer and Industrial Harbor to Provide for Traffic Which New Waterways Will De- velop in Making Chicago Seaport It is the belief of Col. W. V. Judson, U. S. A., federal engineer directing navigation improvements in the Chi- cago district, that this city, already the world's greatest railway center, will in ten years be the northern terminus of an eight-foot barge canal connecting the Great Lakes and the railways centering in Chicago with the coal mines of Illinois, the cotton belt of the southern states, the ocean port at New Orleans, and it is the expectation of this authority that within fifteen years Chicago will be connected with the great ports and sea routes of the world by a channel from twenty-two to twenty-five feet deep following the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River. Here, then, center of commerce, are to meet great facili- ties of transportation, and here must be established in- strumentalities for a great world port, and nature al- ready has set her hand to its preparation. The lands are low lying and flat and the submerged lands of the foreshore are all publicly owned and can in an area of nearly 100 square miles be raised into sur- face land for any great purpose. Back of the lake shore are some 92 miles of channel available within an urban area for barges and lighters, that is to say, in the Chi- cago River and branches, the Main and Sag Drainage Canals, Calumet River and branches, and the Indiana Harbor Canal. Where Can a New Port Develop? The requirements of a great future direct attention to undeveloped resources, an outlook even the more logical because the commerce of the Chicago River is now but little more than one-fifth of what it was many years ago, and the commerce that remains, through the operation of bridges and interruptions of land traffic, impose in- direct costs with which the future must reckon. 237 Where can the new port develop? not along the city's immediate lake front, not along those parts of the Michi- gan shore already occupied by industrial plants. Lake Calumet may be developed into such industrial sites as may be found on the banks of the Calumet River and the Indiana Harbor Canal, but that lake will not serve as the center of a great transfer harbor because of the bends and bridges interposing between it and Lake Michigan. Harbor sites, however, do exist in the shallow lake known as Wolf and George with their marshy margins lying close to Lake Michigan upon the Illinois state line, and such geographical circumstances have led the United States engineer to designate his proposed greater port project "Illiana Harbor." Here have been preserved from industrial or urban development about 3^ miles of Lake Michigan frontage and some 6 square miles of submerged and marshy land lying immediately shore- ward. Lake Michigan Shore Near Wolf Lake It is the belief of this engineering and navigation authority, whose general plans for harbor improvement have been approved by the war department, that the Lake Michigan shore near Wolf Lake and including it offers the greatest opportunity of this region for the crea- tion of wharf facilities of a character, magnitude and location suited to the needs of Chicago's future. It is to be borne in mind that if modern convenient port facili- ties are not created in the Chicago district somewhat as proposed these will be created somewhere else along the southern end of Lake Michigan, and if thus created they will be less convenient for commerce than they might be if located at or near the state line, and just so much more of the great commercial hinterland, south, west and northwest of Chicago, which should belong to the south- ern end of Lake Michigan, will be divided between the ports of Toledo, Milwaukee, Green Bay and Duluth. The engineer's general plan shows sixteen piers on the Lake Michigan shore, each 3,000 feet long and 750 feet wide and affording at the same time place for 232 ves- sels of an average length of 500 feet. Behind the wharfs on the lake front would be railway yards for the accom- modation of 16,000 freight cars. Inside the shore line, in 238 Wolf Lake, would be nine piers 750 feet wide and aver- aging 4,100 feet long, together with additional wharf frontage, the whole providing for the accommodation of 212 vessels averaging 500 feet in length. Behind the Wolf Lake piers would be yards for the movement and storage of about 8,400 freight cars. The total wharf frontage within and outside the shore line would pro- vide for 444 vessels, averaging 500 feet long, and more than 24,400 cars would be cared for within the yards. The accompanying warehouses would store 2,473,500 tons of freight. Illinois and Indiana Take Initial Steps It is fair to assume that congress would consider build- ing with federal funds the breakwater and entrance of Wolf Lake. Barges from the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers would reach the wharves by the Sag channel and The great Illiana harbor project of Col. W. V. Judson, U. S. A., which the states of Illinois and Indiana, by legislative action, are about to study. 239 the Little Calumet and Calumet Rivers, either passing out of the mouth of the latter into the area protected by the breakwater, or being admitted to Wolf Lake by a canal connecting the southern end of the latter with the Calumet. Lake and ocean vessels might with but slight deviation from their courses stop at the wharves near the mouth of the Chicago River to put on and off pas- sengers and certain express and local freight. It is probable that a detour would be arranged for the many fast passenger trains which now cross Wolf Lake's channel of exit near the Lake Michigan shore line. To realize this scheme of port facilities the states of Indiana and Illinois have taken the first joint steps, that is, pro- vision for creation of a harbor commission. Today at the port of Chicago the principal existing port facilities may be classed as industrial, whereas the facilities at New York have for their primary function that of transfer from railway to vessel and vice versa. The Chicago industrial and commercial district has a water-borne commerce of nearly 20,000,000 tons per annum as compared with New York's 45,000,000, and the great bulk of the Chicago movement consists of raw materials. Chicago's port facilities for transfer purposes are the grain elevators on the Calumet and Chicago Rivers, but with the great waterway avenues in contem- plation Chicago must plan on a large scale for modern port facilities and for transfer purposes. Wonderful Industrial Port Possibilities After construction of the proposed waterways to the sea terminating in Chicago, and after development of proper transfer as distinguished from industrial port facilities, lighters and barges will doubtless be required to land at the industrial plants, and in one of the great- est industrial districts of the world, along the Indiana Canal and Calumet River, on the lake front at Gary, Indi- ana Harbor and Calumet Harbor, and eventually in Calu- met Lake are wonderful opportunities for industrial port development, a small fraction of which is now used. The function of a transfer harbor means the shifting of freights between ocean vessels, lake vessels, barges, lighters, warehouses and railway cars. The piers would be on the quay system with transit sheds. Railroad 240 tracks would traverse each pier. There would be vast railway yards. And there are other kinds of port facilities, and one is a lighterage service. If a great transfer port becomes operating in Chicago lighters will be used on a large and increasing scale connecting transfer port facilities with great and small industrial plants and with the ware- houses of merchants everywhere about the district. It is felt by some that the Chicago River as an avenue of light- ers and barges would thus perform a much more useful service to the commerce of the district than it does now, even if in the future it proves best to replace movable with fixed bridges. Barges plying to the Gulf of Mexico would be able to deliver and receive cargoes wherever lighters could operate and in scattered localities would be needed minor terminals for lighters and barges. Local Passenger and Package Freight Another class of terminals would be to receive and store bulky matter such as building materials and coal to be locally consumed. Still another class of port facilities would be required to care for the local passenger and package freight steamers plying Lake Michigan and han- dling package freight mostly originating in or destined for the retailing or jobbing districts of Chicago. Facili- ties of this class would be found at the Municipal Pier and in harbor districts Nos. 1 and 2 at the river mouth and in No. 3 extending southward from Sixteenth Street, and in addition there would be port facilities of special characters contemplating summer excursion service and reception of Michigan fruits and vegetables. Finally, Chicago should expect to provide for the service of ocean vessels carrying passengers in large numbers. The states of Indiana and Illinois have already enacted laws providing for an interstate harbor commission to in- vestigate and report upon the feasibility of a public in- terstate harbor in Wolf Lake and upon the shore of Lake Michigan near Wolf Lake lying partly in the state of Indiana and partly in the state of Illinois. Each act con- templates the addition of a federal member to the two members of the commission to be appointed from each state, and an appropriation is made by each state in the sum of $25,000. 241 CALUMET INDUSTRIAL HARBOR One of Chicago's Latest Constructive Decisions Is to Build an Important Industrial Harbor in Lake Calumet Adoption by the city council of an ordinance to create an inland industrial harbor at Lake Calumet in July of the present year marked another forward step in Chi- cago's efforts to secure adequate water terminal facili- ties in preparation for the era of waterway development foreshadowed by the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence and Lake- to-Gulf waterway projects. The plan for the creation of a vast industrial harbor in Lake Calumet was prepared by the committee on har- bors, wharves and bridges of the city council and con- templates the creation of a deep water channel a third of a mile wide and two and one-half miles long, with a dozen deep slips on the side of the channel capable of accommodating the largest ships now plying the Great Lakes. Completion of the plan will involve the expenditure of between $3,500,000 and $4,000,000 and the creation of more than 1,450 acres of land alongside the harbor suitable for intensive industrial development. Details of the plan provide for a system of belt line railway serv- ice so that industries locating on the new harbor will be afforded both rail and water connections. The action of the council follows an act of the last legislature turning over to the city the state's rights to the submerged lands at Lake Calumet. No money for construction purposes has so far been appropriated and it is therefore probable that the public will be asked to approve a bond issue at a later date to cover the financ- ing. It is important to understand that the plan pro- vides for the creation of an industrial rather than a transfer harbor. When completed the Calumet harbor will supplement and fit in admirably with the Illiana harbor which is planned to care for the large transfer business between rail and water that will come to Chi- 242 cago with the completion of the two great waterway projects in which the city is so vitally interested. , L* CALUMET Authorized conversion of Calumet Lake into a great industrial harbor. By permission of Chicago Tribune 243 POSTAL SERVICE Chicago's Great Need of New Post Office Shown by Restricted Efficiency in Handling Vast Business A new main post office is an essential not alone to Chicago but to the business of the continent itself, and by unanimous action of the Chicago Plan Commission, May 24, 1921, Chicago has petitioned congress that money be appropriated at once for purchase of the site of two blocks between Canal, Clinton, Madison and Adams Streets, reasons for acquisition being that the site is universally accessible, not to speak of its relation to the present post office by wagon or tube; that it has adequate street room; that it fronts upon the two-level portion of Canal Street; that it is located between the Northwestern and Union stations, where 62 per cent of Chicago's mail is handled. Before the house of representatives and similar measures have been introduced at other sessions is a resolution providing for increasing the cost of the new post office site from $1,750,000 to $6,000,000, estimated cost of the proposed site. Unless congress acts favor- ably in the near future Chicago's postal service will cease to function to the required degree of efficiency. When the Chicago Plan Commission acted as aforesaid it came to its conclusions through consideration of the following conditions: Cogent Reasons for Improved Facilities Chicago's postal facilities are inadequate with dark and unsanitary working quarters. Public sidewalks are used for handling and storage of mail, a practice amounting to a nuisance in the congested central district. As long as four years ago thousands of firms and commercial bodies in Chicago and 236 cities in nineteen states petitioned congress for relief. On January 21, 1920, the Chicago city council formally deprecated congressional delay. Chicago's postal receipts since completion of the 244 present office have increased 211 per cent, increase greater than the combined postal business in 1919 of Boston, Detroit, Cincinnati, Kansas City and Jersey City. These receipts have increased $13,000,000 in the past five years alone, $3,000,000 more than the total receipts of Philadelphia, third largest post office in the United States. The approximate postal tonnage of all classes in 1895 was 27,267.9, and receipts were $4,594,319.36. In 1919 tonnage had risen to 269,875.7 and receipts to $35,674,- 466.79. The receipts for 1920 were $43,005,319.27. It is estimated that in 1945 the tonnage will be 882,734.7 and receipts $121,930,885.59. The approximate square feet of space required to handle Chicago's mail in 1919 was 915,337. In 1925 it will be 1,442,819, and in 1945 3,552,747. The congestion of the present post office building has caused the mail service of today to be 25 per cent less rapid than it was a quarter of a century ago. The postmaster of Chicago provides the following in- structive advices suggesting postal growth and require- ments : Enormous Growth of Business The postal receipts of 1920 $43,005,319.27 show an increase over those of 1919 of $4,848,057.20, or 12.7 per cent. In 1878 the receipts were $975,500.65. In 1920 the number of pieces of mail of all classes originating in Chicago was 2,374,558,543, and the num- ber delivered in Chicago 1,018,996,585. Registered ar- ticles mailed here numbered 4,103,028 and registered articles received 5,345,723. A prospective postal improvement is the Van Buren terminal to be erected west of the river between Van Buren and Harrison Streets, a building 796 feet long by 75 feet wide and six stories high. It is proposed to con- solidate in this building mail operations now performed in local terminals and to install facilities for the sale of postage stamps and the handling of registry and money order business. Indeed, in general here will be handled the bulky second, third and fourth class (parcel post) matter. The Quincy station is now fully equipped for the handling of outgoing parcel post mail, and delivery of 245 local mail intended for the territory in which this build- ing is located is made from this station, and money order and registry business is also conducted in this building. Parcel post mail for local delivery is sent to the Eleventh Street annex. Postal improvements in aviation service opens inter- esting possibilities. It is not improbable that post office buildings will be so constructed that it will be possible for airplanes to alight on and depart from their roofs, thus effecting direct delivery and dispatch of mails and without loss of time in hauling to and from aviation fields. Airplane Postal Service It is also possible that mail distribution may be made in transit in airplanes operating between large cities, and that the delivery of mails may be made to intervening points without the need of planes making a landing. On the transcontinental airplane route between New York and San Francisco there will be placed in operation six remodeled army airplanes to carry double the amount of mail carried in the present type of machine. These planes will carry 800 pounds of mail, or 32,000 let- ters, with no additional cost for fuel or pilots. 246 PUBLIC UTILITIES Growth of Public Services from Simple Beginnings Prom- ises a Future of Wonderful Accomplishments The best informed about the tremendous growth of Chicago's public utilities are willing to guess at devel- opments of the next twenty-five years but frankly refuse hazards of a prediction covering half a century. Already well within a half century have come the practical mani- festations of electricity, and what has happened in the field of communication begets anticipation of future miracles. In way of positive assertion based upon ac- tual antecedents let it be here claimed that Chicago will be the central hub of the electrical system of the nation. Its northern power plant will be at Waukegan and its southern at the most important distribution point in the South Chicago-Gary district, where manufacturing fa- cilities have grown to colossal size. This great electrical belt will be connected with high-power transmission lines of 200,000 to 500,000 voltage reaching far into the Northwest, to the Mississippi River, to the coal fields of Illinois, to like resources of Indiana and Kentucky, and running east into the Pittsburgh district and through Niagara Falls and beyond to the great electrical system that will have been built up in the New England states. In that not distant day few industries will develop their own power, but this will come in concentrated form from central electric plants, eliminating capital invest- ment by individuals, economizing labor supplies, con- serving the country's fuel resources and lowering pro- duction cost. Gas will be no longer an illuminant and will develop in its real field as a heating agent and part of manufacturing processes. Railroads in and around Chicago will be electrified. Industrial Progress of Tomorrow Home, street and industrial lighting will transcend anything now imaginable. Food producing areas ad- jacent to Chicago, even hundreds of miles away, will have electrical service from the system with Chicago as 247 its hub. Little coal will come to this city, and the greatly developed transportation systems of that day being re- lieved of this burden will have increased capacities for other services. Gas will then be the industrial fuel and Chicago will be virtually a smokeless city. The great source of gas manufacture will be in the South Chicago- Gary district, where smoke and fumes will be converted into pure gas. Residential buildings in Chicago of all classes will be heated by gas from central plants and with the consequent economies and sanitary benefits. At the mouths of coal mines will be great gas plants, while in Chicago will be central station plants supplement- ing gas supplies received from the sources of coal and oil. In the near future electric transportation will have exceeded the progress made in the previous quarter of a century. Surface and elevated electric lines will have become economically related, subways will reach from the city's heart far outward, suburban lines and city lines will have become unified, and express service will be emphasized. Surface lines will be feeders of the main trunk lines. Electricity will continue to be the pro- pelling power. Day of the Wireless Telephone In the extension of world communication Atlantic and Pacific cables will be connected directly with Chicago. Chicago and down-state will be served by automatic tele- phone systems, improving the present system, however advanced it be with connections by operators. The wire- less telephone will continue to be perfected, and it is not unreasonable to anticipate that the present commer- cial advantages of the ordinary telephone will have be- come so expanded that the greater portion of the solicita- tion of business will be conducted over local and long distance lines, eliminating much expense in the conduct of business. As for the practical development of wire- less telephony he will guess best who guesses last. Properties such as these are basic to a community's well-being and their administration should be far re- moved from the adversities of politics. 248 CHICAGO'S FREIGHT TUNNELS An Unseen Economic Instrument Affecting Surface Traffic Conditions and Downtown Liveability Is Freight Tunnel System How many Chicagoans know that the city possesses a subway system in successful operation? To most peo- ple subways mean large underground passages, designed to carry passengers, but Chicago's system was built to carry freight and lighten the load upon its already abused streets. Forty feet below the surface of every downtown street lies a network of small subways or tunnels through which, day and night, trains hurry to carry on an im- portant part of the city's business. More than 60 miles of these freight arteries not only honeycomb the loop district proper, but extend north to Superior Street, west as far as Green Street and south to Sixteenth Street. The service which they give extends, therefore, to the wholesale and light manufacturing district, as well as to the office building and department store section of the central business district. Through these tunnels 132 electric locomotives haul trains laden with their full quota of the city's freight. A total of 3,000 cars is op- erated, which, if made into one train, would be seven miles long. In volume, the most important business is the handling of merchandise which is hauled between the railroad ter- minals, the industries and business houses of the Loop district. The interchange of freight between railroad terminals is another part of the business of no small size. Totaled up, the volume of merchandise hauled an- nually runs between six and seven hundred thousand tons. But this is not all. Our streets and our lungs are cleaner because between 60,000 and 100,000 tons of coal are delivered annually to office buildings and business houses via the tunnel. In addition there is the handling of excavated material, cinders and other forms of refuse. Of these there is about 220,000 cubic yards handled an- nually. 249 RAILWAY ELECTRIFICATION Problems of Transportation, Cleanliness and Beauty Involved in an Improvement of Progressive Realization Typical of Chicago's way of attacking large problems is the beginning it has made toward the electrification of railway lines and terminals. Closely following the ex- haustive study of the electrification of railway terminals made by a committee of The Chicago Association of Commerce in 1916, came the three-party negotiations be- tween the South Park Commissioners, the Illinois Cen- tral Railroad and the city of Chicago relative to the de- velopment of park facilities along the lake front, as con- templated by the Chicago Plan, the construction of a new Illinois Central terminal, and the provision of a now harbor district. These negotiations made it possible for the city nol only to take a big forward step in advancing a vital part of the Chicago Plan, but also afforded the opportunity to begin the realization of a dream in the heart of every citizen, that one day Chicago's atmosphere would be re- lieved of smoke, soot and other forms of pollution. It is now a matter of history that in connection with the lake front improvement ordinance passed by the city council on July 21, 1919, and accepted by the railroad companies February 18, 1920, there was included provi- sions for the gradual electrification within the city limits of the Illinois Central, the Michigan Central, the "Big Four," the South Chicago Railroad Company, the Ken- sington & Eastern Railroad Company, and the Blue Island Railroad Company, comprising the group of roads now using the present Park Row station. According to the provisions of this ordinance, the above railroads are to complete the electrification of all their facilities lying within the city limits by 1940, or within a period of nineteen years from the present date; but within a much shorter period the greater part of the services will already have been electrified. Following a preliminary period of two years after the 250 acceptance of the ordinance, during which the Illinois Central and its associated lines will lower their tracks, rearrange utility services, and make general plans and preparations, all of the suburban service is to be elec- trified within the succeeding five years or by the summer of 1927. In 1930, or three years later, all of the freight service north of Roosevelt Road, or Twelfth Street, is to be changed to electrical operation. Within five additional years, or by 1935, all of the freight service south of Roosevelt Road and within the city limits is to be changed over from steam operation. Finally, within another five- year period, or by 1940, the through passenger service is to be equipped for electrical operation. Study of Electrification System Large forces of engineers and draftsmen are now en- gaged in making preliminary plans necessary to carry- ing out the work authorized in this ordinance. A com- mission of widely known electrical engineers has been employed by the Illinois Central to recommend the sys- tem of electrification to be adopted. In considering the beginning of the electrification of the Illinois Central and Michigan Central group of roads it is well to appreciate that no electrification project of similar complexity has ever been carried out before. That the work will be successfully accomplished on time, no one doubts. As a visible evidence of progress the Illinois Central has recently installed twenty new steel suburban coaches, designed for use under electrical operation. These coaches embody a number of new ideas and their performance will be carefully studied. Tests are also being made of other forms of electrical equip- ment, to the end that when construction begins the Chi- cago project will utilize the latest and most practical equipment that science has developed. The next fifty years is certain to bring fundamental changes in the operation of Chicago's railroads beyond conception at the present time. In nineteen years the Illi- nois Central group of roads will have been completely electrified. Before this work is completed, efforts will undoubtedly be made to induce other roads to follow the example of the Illinois Central group. 251 STREET LIGHTING Great and General Illumination Coming Out of Primitive Gas Light Facilities of Year of Great Fire What street lighting there was in Chicago at the time of the great fire in 1871 was obtained from a few primi- tive gas lights placed on street corners. Gas was fur- nished from a small plant located on the near West Side, but this new form of illuminant was considered such a luxury that it was a number of years afterward before it began to replace kerosene lamps in the homes. Chicago streets were wholly lighted by gas for sixteen years after the fire, and even after the introduction of electric street lighting gas was used for a long period throughout the greater part of the city. One reason for the extensive use of gas in Chicago was that standards could be more economically installed and operated in residential sections and the further fact that the change to electric lighting could not keep pace with the growth of the city. Chicago's first municipal electric lighting station was placed in operation on Christmas eve, 1887, and con- sisted of one hundred lights located along the river at street intersections. From that small beginning the mu- nicipal system was rapidly expanded until on December 31, 1918, there were 45,534 electric lamps in operation. The number of municipally-operated street lights, how- ever, at no time measured the extent of the city's lighting system. So rapidly did Chicago grow that at all times in addition to the municipally-operated lights the city leased large numbers of gas, gasoline and electric lights from commercial companies. This was particularly the case in the outlying and less built up sections of the city. The power for Chicago's municipal lighting system was generated by the city in steam plants until the middle of 1908, when they were abandoned and power obtained from the hydro-electric plant of the Sanitary District located at the terminus of the drainage canal near Lock- port, Illinois. From the time cheap power of the Sanitary District became available the city's lighting system has been rapidly extended year by year. Substation after substa- 252 tion has been built to serve residential and business areas, and gradually the system has caught up with the growth of Chicago and the number of rented street lights has been correspondingly decreased. As illustrating the rapid changes which the city's street lighting system has undergone it may be recalled that as late as 1915 the flaming arc lamp was believed to be the most efficient high power type lighting unit. Large num- bers of such lamps were installed throughout the city by the department between 1912 and 1915, and business and improvement associations, desiring a greater intensity of lighting than furnished by the city, were abandoning the old incandescent cluster lights on low standards in favor of flaming arcs on higher standards. The lighting of Dearborn Street in the downtown district, in which The Chicago Association of Commerce assisted, was a notable example. Progress Beyond Imagination Today the nitrogen filled tungsten lamp, an incan- descent type, is proving more economical than the flam- ing arc. In consequence, the city's lighting plans are already being changed from the use of high power units on high standards at relatively great distances apart to lower power units on lower standards more closely spaced, with the result that for the same cost it is possi- ble to obtain a greater amount of illumination more evenly distributed. The city's plans for extending the present electric lighting system include the replacement of all gas and gasoline lighting with modern, economical and efficient electric lamps. Judging from past developments in the art of street lighting, it is fair to predict that the next half century will bring improved facilities and equipment beyond imagination at the present time. Among the more imme- diate improvements which can be foreseen, the proposed hydro-electric development at Brandon's Road by the Sanitary District, which will double the amount of power at present produced, will give the city of Chicago not only the best lighted streets of any city in the world, but make possible the obtaining of current for operation at a cost that will permit unlimited illumination. 253 INDUSTRIES ON DRAINAGE CANAL Navigation Improvements Will Turn Industrial Attention to Sites Along Chicago's Ship Channel Measured by its reserves for future industrial growth, Chicago is indeed fortunate, for with the single exception of the north shore there lie on all sides of the city large areas already served by rail lines and only awaiting the nearer approach of the city to be changed to manufac- turing and residential uses. Of these there is one in par- ticular worthy of mention because of the possibilities it presents for development in the immediate future. Ref- erence is made to the Sanitary Canal stretching from Robey Street in Chicago to Joliet, a distance of 32 miles, and presenting 64 miles of dock frontage on a channel 200 feet wide, 24 feet in depth, and capable of floating the largest vessels that ply the Great Lakes. The entire dock frontage along the main drainage channel, as well as the Calumet-Sag channel, connecting the Calumet and Northern Indiana manufacturing districts, is owned by the Sanitary District of Chicago and is available for lease to industries on terms extremely reasonable. Already the main channel of the Sanitary District is the site of a number of the city's large industries which have found important advantages in a location served by both rail and water. When Chicago's dream as an ocean port nears realiza- tion, as provided in the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence and Lakes-to-Gulf waterway projects, numerous industries, warehouses and shipping concerns will find this virgin territory along Chicago's ship canal an admirable loca- tion for their business. Spanned and surrounded by Chi- cago's network of railroads, and adjacent to the Great Central Market, this territory is destined in coming years to be a thriving center of industry and commerce. Spoil banks along the channels, partly of clay and partly of stone, are already being utilized to a certain extent by industries, and plans now being developed call for the more rapid preparation of these sites for their ultimate use. 254 MUNICIPAL MISCELLANY Chicago Wastes Water Garbage Disposal Methods Prim- itive Street Improvement Track Elevation With a daily consumption of 264 gallons per capita of water, Chicago has established a record for wasteful- ness. This is far more than the amount consumed by the residents of any other city. It indicates that great amounts of water vanish in a manner that has not been accounted for, either being wasted indiscriminately or being appropriated by industries to a degree that is not appreciated. Figures for the year show that the average daily consumption is 714,451,000 gallons, or 2,270 gal- lons for each tap. It is contended by many that the remedy for this situa- tion is in the use of meters. At present only 8.9 per cent of the service pipe is metered. All told, there are 2,915.7 miles of service pipe in Chicago. This pipe is from 4 to 48 inches and is of cast iron. The range of pressure is from 15 to 60 pounds. In cities where meters are in general use the consumption per capita is far less, the number of large industries which consume water being also less. Disposal of garbage in Chicago is handled in a primi- tive manner. The present system is one that might be suitable for a village, but that is entirely inadequate for a large city. The garbage is now dumped into the old quarries and clay holes, which in time are certain to be filled. The problem then will be even more difficult of solution. The present plan has been condemned as unnecessarily expensive and as being decidedly unsanitary. During the administration of Carter H. Harrison as mayor a start was made toward building an incinerator quite a distance out on the South Side. His term as mayor ended before the incinerator was finished and the work was dropped by succeeding administrations. The frame of the in- cinerator is still standing. It was the intention to dis- pose of the garbage by burning at this plant. The gar- bage was to be handled in a scientific, up-to-date man- 255 ner, but this idea has been given up and now nothing is being done to solve the problem. Streets and Highways At the time of the Chicago fire, Chicago's streets, where improved at all, were covered with heavy plank- ing to make traffic possible in wet weather. Shortly afterwards, in 1874, cedar blocks were introduced, fol- lowed by asphalt in 1882, brick in 1891 and creosoted wood block in 1893. Today Chicago has 3,257 miles of streets, of which 2,188 miles, or 68 per cent, are improved with modern, substantial pavements. In a normal year Chicago im- proves between 100 and 150 miles of streets, spending as much as $6,000,000 in one year on this single item of public works. At the rate Chicago's streets are being improved it is a safe prediction that before another fifty years shall have passed Chicago will be a 100 per cent paved city, unless in the meantime there are made con- siderable additions of unimproved territory. Connecting Chicago's improved streets the county to- day has 194 miles of improved highways, which in turn connect with the highways of adjacent counties as co- ordinate parts of a state-wide system of hard surfaced roads. Track Elevation For many years Chicago has given official recognition to the safety first movement by carrying out a policy of elevating main railway lines. Of these lines a total of 4,000 miles have been mapped out as comprising the task the city has set itself to perform. To date 970 miles of this large total have been com- pleted at a total expenditure of $95,000,000. In addition 280 miles have been provided for by city ordinances, but not yet completed. The work completed has resulted in the elimination of 963 grade crossings. There remain 536 crossings at grade to be eliminated in connection with pending and future work. Track elevation is a set- tled part of Chicago's many plans for making a greater city and the work will be carried forward year by year as rapidly as railroad finances permit. 256 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA CHICAGO, A HISTORY AND FORECAST. CHGO