One impulse from a vernal wood 
 May teach you more of man, 
 Of moral evil and of good, 
 Than all the sages can. 
 
 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.
 
 WORLD MAGAZINE 
 
 Volume XII. 
 
 NOVEMBER, 1909 
 
 No. 3 
 
 PLANNING A WORLD 
 METROPOLIS 
 
 BY -HEN R_Y - M . 
 
 short winter day, 
 seventeen years ago, 
 about a score of the 
 leading architects of 
 the country met at 
 luncheon, to discuss a 
 great project in which 
 they were all deeply in- 
 terested. To each of them had been en- 
 trusted the designing of one of the build- 
 ings which were, when grouped together, 
 to house the greatest of world's exposi- 
 tions. After the luncheon, Richard M. 
 Hunt, then the dean of the profession, 
 rose, crippled by rheumatism, to explain 
 the design of the Administration build- 
 ing which he had pinned to the wall. As 
 he spoke the idea of the exposition as a 
 harmonious and artistic whole, seemed, 
 for the first time, to take hold on those 
 
 who listened. The next speaker was an- 
 other New York architect of almost 
 equal reputation, his sketch showing a 
 tremendous towering dome and other 
 features not in harmony with the general 
 conception. A single glance about the 
 room and he was ready to make the 
 necessary sacrifices. 
 
 "I think I shall not advocate that 
 dome," he said, "and I shall modify the 
 other features of the building." 
 
 One by one the architects present sub- 
 mitted their drawings. On each of them, 
 it was plain, the conception of a great 
 harmonious city of palaces had laid its 
 compelling spell. Each of them volun- 
 teered to make such modifications as 
 were necessary to make his plan a har- 
 monious part of the whole. 
 
 There was present also, at this meet- 
 
 Copyright. 1909. by Technical World Company.
 
 PROPOSED TRANSFORMATION 
 
 ing, a number of painters and sculptors. 
 Among them was Augustus St. Gaudens, 
 who had sat, all the winter afternoon, 
 listening and looking on with glowing 
 eyes, but saying nothing. When the last 
 man has spoken, Mr. St. Gaudens hur- 
 ried across the room to where sat Daniel 
 M. Burnham, to. whom, with his partner, 
 was chiefly due the larger design of the 
 exposition. Seizing Mr. Burnham by 
 both hands, Mr. St. Gaudens enthusias- 
 tically cried out, "Do you realize that 
 this is the greatest gathering of artists 
 since the fifteenth century?" 
 
 The city in which this meeting was 
 held was Chicago, often ignorantly 
 called the most materialistic and commer- 
 cial of cities. In reality it is one of the 
 
 236 
 
 most aspiring and spiritual. The great 
 enterprise, to the unity of which archi- 
 tects and artists sacrificed their personal 
 preferences, was the World's Columbian 
 Exposition. The design and arrange- 
 ment of its buildings have never been 
 surpassed. It was the beginning of the 
 orderly and artistic grouping of great 
 public buildings in the present day and 
 in the United States. 
 
 From it has come the movement for 
 the betterment and beautification of 
 Cleveland, Boston, Baltimore, St. Louis, 
 San Francisco, Washington and other 
 great muncipalities. In most of these 
 plans the men who learned their lesson 
 at the World's Fair have had the larger 
 part. 
 
 SS
 
 OF MICHIGAN' AVENUE. 
 
 Now, on a scale never before attempt- 
 ed anywhere, plans have been completed 
 for the transformation of Chicago itself. 
 They represent the fruit of thirty months 
 of devoted work on the part of architects 
 and artists, many of whom have freely 
 given their services to it. Back of the 
 movement stands the Commercial Club 
 of Chicago, made up of the same class 
 of men though of a younger generation 
 who raised twenty millions of dollars 
 for the building of the World's Fair, and 
 who were wise enough to intrust its ex- 
 penditure to trained architects, artists 
 and landscape gardeners. 
 
 The plans for the reconstruction and 
 transformation of Chicago are most elab- 
 orate and have been worked out in full 
 
 detail. When carried out they will make 
 of the great town on Lake Michigan a 
 world capital of almost unequalled 
 beauty, splendor, comfort and conven- 
 ience. They contemplate the expendi- 
 ture of several hundred millions of dol- 
 lars. From the Indiana line on the south 
 to Winnetka, seventeen miles north of 
 the city, artificial roadways and islands 
 are to be filled in along the shores of 
 Lake Michigan and a magnificent marine 
 pleasure park created. About the city to 
 the west and north, four great circles of 
 exterior highways are to be built, the 
 outer circle describing a radius of sixty 
 miles from the lake. For the pleasure 
 and the convenience of future generations 
 great outer park belts, comprising more
 
 238 
 
 TECHNICAL WORLD MAGAZINE 
 
 than sixty thousand acres of forest and 
 woodland, are to be acquired. There is 
 to be a concentration, at a convenient 
 point, of all railroad terminals, so that 
 both freight and passengers can be trans- 
 ferred, without crossing the city. For 
 the transportation of freight and passen- 
 gers great subways are to be constructed 
 under the city streets and a complete, 
 unified system of both surface and ele- 
 
 which the city already owns along the 
 shore of Lake Michigan, the intellectual 
 and artistic center of the future world 
 metropolis. A mile to the west and well 
 across the river is to be established the 
 future civic center, at the intersection of 
 Halsted and the present Congress Street, 
 which is to be widened and made the 
 future axis of the interior city plan. 
 About this civic center are to be grouped 
 
 PLAN OF PROPOSED YACHT BASIN. 
 Showing also rearrangement of down town streets. 
 
 vated roads is to be perfected. Within 
 the city proper it is proposed to supple- 
 ment the existing streets with several 
 circles of boulevards and with a number 
 of diagonal arteries running out from 
 the center like the spokes of a wheel. 
 The boulevards are so planned as to act 
 as connecting links between the larger 
 as well as the smaller parks, which are 
 already scattered about the city. 
 
 Finally it is proposed to make of Grant 
 Park, the great stretch of green-sward 
 
 all the great public buildings which are 
 now scattered about the city. 
 
 Carefully worked out in all its details 
 and illustrated with maps, plans, photo- 
 graphs and a whole series of beautiful 
 paintings, the great project has been de- 
 scribed and published in a book entitled 
 "Plan of Chicago," representing in con- 
 crete form, certainly the most elaborate 
 and ambitious scheme for city improve- 
 ment since society was organized. 
 
 To many people it will seem visionary,
 
 COPYRI8HT, 1901, CHICAGO COUMERCUl. CUM 
 
 PROPOSED GROUPING OF RAILWAY STATIONS. 
 
 but they are those who do not know the 
 temper of Chicago ; who are not familiar 
 with its previous achievements ; who 
 
 have never felt the impulse of that Chi- 
 cago spirit to which nothing is impossible 
 so long as the end in sight is a great one. 
 
 PROPOSED HARBOR AND LAGOONS.
 
 240 
 
 TECHNICAL WORLD MAGAZINE 
 
 Chicago, with its feet in the muck of 
 stock-yards, is, at the same time, the 
 most romantic fact in history. The man 
 who was the first white child born on 
 the site of the present city died only the 
 other day. Yesterday a seven million 
 dollar hotel was opened on a lot on which 
 another pioneer, in his boyhood, pastured 
 the family cow. In less than a century 
 it has grown from a log fort in a swamp 
 to a huge community of between two and 
 three million people. 
 
 Sixty years ago, when Chicago was 
 still a mere village, its people realized 
 that before proper drainage could be had 
 the whole city, as it then existed, must 
 be raised out of the swamp in which it 
 had been located. The project was pro- 
 portionately more appalling to the few 
 thousand citizens of that day than is the 
 present plan for th? transformation of the 
 city, but it was promptly undertaken and 
 
 the level of all the streets, from Twelfth 
 to the river and for a considerable dis- 
 tance both on the North and West sides, 
 was raised by several feet and almost all 
 the then existing buildings were lifted 
 high above their old foundations. 
 
 Ten years later fifty years ago the 
 need of a cosmopolitan park system was 
 first agitated. With a courage and fore- 
 thought which the men of the present 
 day can be trusted to emulate, the ceded 
 funds were raised and so large a body of 
 land bought for park purposes that even 
 in 1880 Chicago was the second city in 
 the United States in the area of its pub- 
 lic parks. 
 
 In the '90s the people were aroused to 
 the necessity of protecting Lake Michi- 
 gan their water supply from contam- 
 ination by sewage. To achieve this end 
 the city spent sixty million dollars in dig- 
 ging the great drainage canal. To the 
 
 PLAN FOR PROPOSED CENTRAL AXIS. 
 Showing also water-front and street improvements.
 
 ALONG ONE OF THE PROPOSED LAGOONS. 
 
 From a painting by Julos Guorin. 
 
 history of the same decade belongs the 
 raising of twenty millions for the World's 
 Columbian Exposition. 
 
 Each of these projects two of utility 
 and two undertaken solely with the idea 
 of making the city a place of beauty is, 
 of its kind, by far the largest ever under- 
 taken by any city. They furnish the rec- 
 ord on which the members of the Com- 
 mercial Club base their prediction that 
 the people of Chicago are not to be baf- 
 fled by the mere size of the new project 
 which has been laid before them. 
 
 As a matter of fact many of the most 
 important features of the new city plan 
 are already in process of realization. 
 Most of the dirt from the city streets, 
 from the big tunnels and subways under 
 the surface, and the other refuse which 
 has in previous years been dumped far 
 
 out in the lake, is now being used to fill 
 in the proposed islands and driveways 
 along the shore. From these sources 
 alone, sufficient material is available at 
 no cost to fill in thirty acres of made 
 ground each year. Already Grant Park 
 that great pleasure ground in the heart 
 of Chicago is fast creeping out into the 
 lake toward the far distant Michigan 
 shore. It is on this park that the pro- 
 posed center of intellectual and artistic 
 life is to be located. There already 
 stands the impressive Art Institute, with 
 its great collection, and funds amounting 
 to more than eight millions of dollars 
 are now available for the building of the 
 Field Museum and the John Crerar 
 library, which great, monumental build- 
 ings are to complete this part of the plan. 
 Ninety-five per cent of the roads neces- 
 
 C. 
 
 7
 
 REARRANGEMENT OF GRANT PARK 
 
 sary for the completion of the proposed 
 outer circles of highways are already in 
 existence. The missing links are short 
 and will cost comparatively little to open. 
 They are certain of completion within a 
 ^few years. Several years ago Chicago 
 approved, by more than a majority vote, 
 the purchase of forest and river lands 
 for an outer park belt, but the project 
 was not consummated because of the 
 fact that a two-thirds vote was required 
 for its approval. Agitation looking to- 
 wards the acquirement of an outer park 
 belt, on a much larger scale, is now un- 
 der way and there can be little doubt that 
 when again it is submitted to the people 
 it will be triumphantly approved. 
 
 Acting under the so called Chicago 
 
 242 
 
 plan by which the city gets more than 
 half of the net profit of its street rail- 
 ways, the surface transportation systems 
 have been almost completely rebuilt dur- 
 ing the past few years and are now on 
 the way towards approximate perfection. 
 Freight tunnels under all the down-town 
 streets, connecting the various railway 
 stations, are now in operation and only 
 the other day a great syndicate made pro- 
 posals for building a complete system 
 of subways for passenger traffic. Elec- 
 trification of railways running through 
 the city has been promised. The first step 
 towards the creation of the proposed 
 civic center at Halsted and Congress 
 streets was taken this fall when the na- 
 tional government determined to locate
 
 ALONG CHICAGO'S WATER-FRONT. 
 
 its new Post Office building at the inter- 
 section of these streets. 
 
 Chicago is the center and metropolis 
 of a fertile empire greater in area than 
 Germany or France. It is already the 
 greatest railroad center in the world. 
 More than three thousand miles of nav- 
 igable rivers are direct tributaries to its 
 commerce. During the last half of the 
 nineteenth century, the population of the 
 city increased from thirty thousand to 
 more than two million. Bion Arnold, 
 the distinguished engineer, has estimat- 
 ed that, if the present rate of growth con- 
 tinues, the population of Chicago in 1950 
 will be more than thirteen millions. James 
 J. Hill has declared that when the in- 
 habitants of the Pacific coast number 
 
 twenty million, Chicago will be the great- 
 est city in the world. Quite accustomed 
 to dealing with astounding and incredible 
 rates of growth, the men of Chicago are 
 now planning for the future on a scale 
 correspondingly great. 
 
 With all the blushes and self-conscious 
 awkwardness of youth, Chicago admits 
 its present and manifold short-comings. 
 At the same time it calls attention to 
 some indications that it has not alto- 
 gether been lacking in the realization of 
 its manifest destiny. For the Thomas 
 Orchestra, which is without a rival on 
 the continent, it has built a permanent 
 home on the lake front, which is now 
 valued at nearly a million and a half of 
 dollars. As students at the Art Insti-
 
 244 
 
 TECHNICAL WORLD MAGAZINE 
 
 tute, which represents a much greater 
 investment, there are already gathered 
 more than four thousand young men and 
 women from the Middle West. In the 
 Lake Forest University, Northwestern 
 University and the great University of 
 Chicago it possesses important centers 
 of the higher education. To the gener- 
 osity of a former business man it owes 
 its Benjamin Ferguson fund of one mil- 
 lion dollars, the income of which is to be 
 
 devoted to the erection of statuary in its 
 parks and along its boulevards. 
 
 With the completion of the present 
 plans Chicago will become the true intel- 
 lectual and artistic, as well as commer- 
 cial metropolis of the Middle West. 
 Retaining its place as a great business 
 center, it will also be the great show 
 place and play ground for all the people- 
 throughout the length and breadth of the 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 To Sleep 
 
 A flock of sheep that leisurely pass by 
 One after one ; the sound of rain and bees 
 Murmuring ; the fall of rivers, winds and seas, 
 Smooth fields, white sheets of water, and pure sky; 
 
 I've thought of all by turns, and still I lie 
 Sleepless ; and soon the small birds' melodies 
 Must hear, first utter'd from my orchard trees, 
 And the first cuckoo's melancholy cry. 
 
 Even thus last night and two nights more I lay, 
 And could not win thee, sleep, by any stealth ; 
 So do not let me wear tonight away ; 
 Without thee, what is all the morning's wealth ? 
 Come, blessed barrier between day and day, 
 Dear mother of fresh thoughts and joyous health ! 
 
 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.
 
 Chicago 
 
 BY CHARLES HENRY WHITE 
 
 IN all probability the impecunious 
 stranger will settle down to receive 
 his first impression of Chicago from 
 a street-car, because this saves money 
 and a great deal of time in a new com- 
 munity. Framed for an instant by the 
 window-sash, a myriad of things barely 
 seen flit by in a disordered pageant of 
 struggling people, streets bristling with 
 chop-suey signs, great office-buildings, 
 trolley wires, street-cars, trucks, auto- 
 mobiles, and Irish policemen. I open 
 my map to see where I am heading. 
 
 " The loop," the conductor says. 
 
 " You don't mean to say so ?" I look 
 rapidly out of the window to locate the 
 thing, fearful that I may be too late to 
 see how the populace amuses itself. 
 
 The passengers, hanging like bananas 
 from the straps above, pivot grotesquely 
 about as we turn a corner. The man is 
 still looking me over suspiciously. 
 
 " The loop," he repeats, with a dog- 
 ged persistence. 
 
 "Where is it quick!" 
 
 In my anxiety to open the car window 
 it jams. A passing car obstructs my view. 
 
 " You're on it," he replies, dryly, 
 withering me with a glance. " It will be 
 five cents." 
 
 I pay my fare, and reach the cold, un- 
 sympathetic pavement, and board a car 
 going in the opposite direction. Now 
 we are passing through a city canon 
 echoing with the roar of traffic. A horde 
 of people rushes past in the gloomy 
 shadow cast by great walls of granite, 
 groaning under tons of bastard orna- 
 ment. This must be one of the principal 
 thoroughfares, and I ask my neighbor 
 where we are. 
 
 " Non capisco, Signore," is his polite 
 reply. I bow my thanks and turn to 
 my left. 
 
 " Could you tell me what street 
 this is?" 
 
 " Bitte, ich bin nur Heute hier an- 
 gekommen." 
 
 He smiles and makes some primitive 
 signs with his hands and arms. I reply 
 by motions more involved, occasionally 
 moving my scalp. We are making little 
 headway, when I spy a likely fellow 
 sitting beside my new acquaintance. 
 With suppressed agitation I put my 
 question to him. 
 
 "Pardon, vat for you demande?" 
 
 He is anxious to help me. I repeat 
 slowly, " The name of the street we 
 are on." 
 
 " Tiens ! for sure vee go on " he re- 
 plies, reassuringly ; " mais lentement. 
 Allez ! Nom de Dieu, on va plus vite 
 chez nous !" 
 
 Then I remember that Chicago is 
 cosmopolitan. There still remains the 
 man swinging on his strap before me. 
 He is an American unmistakably Amer- 
 ican and I begin again: 
 
 "Perhaps you could tell me what 
 street this is ?" 
 
 "How's that? I didn't quite get it?" 
 
 He leans far over, holding his hand 
 around his ear in the shape of a mega- 
 phone. I repeat my question with great 
 emphasis, and his face brightens. 
 
 " Well," he replied, after great de- 
 liberation, " if the three-fingered Wizard 
 is in the box, they'll make it three 
 straight or I'm a ..." 
 
 The end of this sentence was drowned 
 by the explosions of a passing auto- 
 mobile. 
 
 " No ; you've missed it," I screamed, 
 now fully decided to make him under- 
 stand. " What street are we on ?" 
 
 "You think so, eh? Well, I'd like you 
 to tell me how a man is goin' to pitch 
 three games and be strong, and ain't 
 all the others cripples?" 
 
 There is still my map, which I have 
 overlooked in the excitement. I open it 
 with a nasty grimace. 
 
 "Loop car all out!" 
 
 And there we are again, a struggling 
 car-load of humanity, scattering ourselves
 
 HARPER'S MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 
 
 over the street. A loop victim may be 
 easily recognized by his childish petu- 
 lance and overbearing manner toward 
 his wife or friends every time he hits 
 the pavement where the car has dropped 
 him. To find the loop, look for a panic- 
 stricken group of strangers groping 
 about in a futile effort to find the street 
 name; for in Chicago the latter may 
 turn up if it does at all in . the most 
 unexpected places: half obliterated on 
 one of the steel posts supporting the 
 trolley wires, or, high up somewhere, 
 carved in weak relief on the brownstone 
 building; again, it may be hidden be- 
 neath the cornice of a building, or the 
 nearest basement may reveal something. 
 If not here, the policeman will have it 
 in his inside pocket. To find him, look 
 for the nearest " Family Entrance." 
 
 The Chicagoan is very proud of the 
 loop, and will glow with a sunny radiance 
 the moment you approach the subject. 
 " It is the greatest system on earth," he 
 explained to me. "You see, each car, 
 as it comes into the city from the sub- 
 urbs, goes immediately into the loop when 
 it reaches the business section of the 
 city, and returns along parallel lines to 
 the point it started from. Do I make 
 myself clear?" 
 
 " Perfectly," I replied, with ill-con- 
 cealed bitterness. " Suppose that you 
 don't want to return to your starting- 
 point, from either domestic or busi- 
 ness reasons?" 
 
 " You don't have to ; get off." 
 
 " Yes, but the loop may not be within 
 a mile of my destination?" 
 
 His manner became somewhat in- 
 tolerant, and he added : " The loop is near 
 enough for any man's place of business. 
 You can always walk." 
 
 Strictly speaking, the man who has 
 no business in this section of the city 
 had better look about and arrange mat- 
 ters so that he has, or he has no busi- 
 ness in Chicago, and certainly none on 
 the loop. 
 
 But it is an ungrateful pessimist who 
 would stop to find fault with such in- 
 significant details in this breezy city, 
 where there is more visible, sensible in- 
 dependence to the square mile than in 
 all the Eastern cities put together. You 
 may not like Chicago this will be be- 
 cause you are unfamiliar with it but 
 
 you must love and respect the Chicagoan. 
 He is the sanest and most rational of 
 beings; he is contented with the city, 
 and not anxious to persuade you to live 
 there. If you do not like him or his city 
 or the things contained therein, he is 
 democratic enough to tell you what you 
 can .do. This attitude is the West, and 
 is refreshing. 
 
 Patrick Henry, with his " Give me 
 liberty or give me death," would have a 
 dismal time to find employment in this 
 happy, cosmopolitan community. I love 
 a place where one may show one's feel- 
 ings in an unmistakable manner. Chi- 
 cago is the Arcadia of the man who is 
 fortunate enough to possess his own con- 
 victions. For an indication of this latent 
 spirit read the enormous sign conspic- 
 uously displayed in the baseball park: 
 " The management requests the earnest 
 co-operation of its patrons in prevent- 
 ing the throwing of glass bottles into 
 the field." 
 
 Westward ho ! for Gallic enthusiasm. 
 It will be seen here that odds and ends 
 scrap-iron, stones, or bricks which a 
 high-strung, opinionated man is apt to 
 carry with him as ballast to be gotten 
 rid of at the propitious moment, are 
 not included in the manifesto; but after 
 all, a generous and liberal-minded man- 
 agement must stop somewhere. 
 
 Even in the smallest matters one's per- 
 sonal freedom has been safeguarded. 
 Smoking is permitted on the front plat- 
 forms of the Chicago street-cars, so that 
 the passengers within may get the benefit 
 of it when the car is in motion. But 
 here again the Chicagoan is ahead of us, 
 for we have no smoke at all. The cau- 
 tious person who takes advantage of this 
 privilege, and who knows his Chicago, 
 will have a care to select a decent brand, 
 or every man, woman, and child will 
 suspect that he has been shaking dice 
 for his cigars lost his weekly allowance, 
 and been reduced to the humiliating and 
 odious stogie. 
 
 For it should be understood that in 
 Chicago the man with the slightest drop 
 of sporting blood in his veins never de- 
 scends to the depths where he buys his 
 cigars. He shakes dice for them with 
 the proprietor of his store. Ask your 
 Chicago friend about this, and he will 
 accompany you to '' his place " with the
 
 Vol. CXVIII. No. 7o 7 .-9i 
 
 MICHIGAN AVENUE 
 
 Etched by C. H White 

 
 732 
 
 HARPEK'S MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 
 
 hospitable air of a man directing you to 
 a foreign mission. Should you be friend- 
 less in Chicago, drop into the first tobac- 
 co store and look for the inevitable green 
 baize cloth conspicuous on the counter. 
 Here the new customer may use strong 
 langiiage and rattle the dice-box till his 
 hand shakes. 
 
 So much has been said detrimental to 
 this most maligned of communities that 
 one comes here expecting to find a great 
 city of slaughter-houses, breweries, and 
 mammoth power-houses, grouped about 
 a lake, in great disorder. It must be 
 wild, of course, and with just a touch 
 of that inevitable " woolliness " insep- 
 arable from the West but difficult to 
 explain. Then comes the awakening on 
 the morrow, when you go out to look 
 the place over and find the Chicagoaii 
 in possession of the finest site for a 
 city in America ; an incomparable water- 
 front, a chain of parks unsurpassed any- 
 where, miles of beautiful driveways skirt- 
 
 FLAG-TOWER OF ALMOST MEDIEVAL CHARACTER 
 Etched by C. H. White 
 
 ing the lake, and the principal avenue 
 of the city the avenue of the city 
 with its clubs and great hotels overlook- 
 ing as fair a sheet of water as you will 
 find this beautiful land over shimmering 
 with faint emerald greens and blues and 
 losing itself in a pale turquoise horizon 
 lightly smudged by the distant train of 
 smoke trailing behind the lake steamers. 
 It has also the worst architecture in. 
 America, and a river, at first glance 
 commonplace, yet revealing in its almost 
 momentary metamorphoses a rare and 
 exotic beauty, as it shapes its course be- 
 neath the network of bridges spanning 
 it at every corner, or drifts past giant 
 grain-elevators, looming vast and ghost- 
 like above its banks, alive with longshore- 
 men toiling at the landing. It wanders 
 through neighborhoods where, if the art- 
 ist be fortunate enough to find a motive, 
 he had better seize it immediately and 
 take it home with him or commit it to 
 memory before the sun sets, for strange 
 things happen after 
 dark in this barren 
 district. 
 
 Of course I did not 
 possess this valuable 
 knowledge when I 
 settled down for the 
 afternoon before a 
 flag-tower of almost 
 medieval character, 
 languidly leaning 
 over the street pre- 
 paring for its final 
 plunge into oblivion. 
 This was my fore- 
 ground, with a mid- 
 dle distance of shan- 
 ties and a sky-line 
 of distant towers 
 and embattlements 
 worthy of San 
 Gimignano. 
 
 I had just placed 
 a few organic lines 
 on my copper, when 
 a voice behind me 
 said, " I've rayport- 
 edit." 
 
 An Irish policeman 
 towered above me. 
 
 " You've reported 
 what?" I asked, in 
 bewilderment.
 
 CHICAGO. 
 
 733 
 
 " Turned in me report 
 a week ago to Clancy at 
 the station-house," he re- 
 plied, doggedly avoiding 
 my question. 
 
 " I don't quite under- 
 stand . . ." 
 
 " Neither do I," he 
 broke in, interrupting me. 
 " I've said right along it 
 ain't safe or proper to 
 have that there tower 
 hangin' over our wives 
 and children. Say 
 ain't you on one of . 
 the papers?" 
 
 " A T o." 
 
 " Aw, gowan quit yer 
 kiddin'." 
 
 He gave me a playful 
 dig in the ribs and 
 chuckled. " But I've re- 
 ported it just the same," 
 he proceeded. " I says, 
 'Clancy,' I says, Hake 
 it away,' I says, just 
 like that. 
 
 " ' Take nawthin' away,' 
 says he. 
 
 " ' Clancy,' says I, ' that 
 there tower is goin' to 
 take a tumble one of 
 these days, and when it 
 does there's goin' to be 
 a procession and people 
 movin' slow,' I says ; ' and 
 if it's a Guiney, maybe 
 there'll be a band fer 
 them to march with,' 
 I savs. 
 
 " ' There'll be time 
 enough when we hear the 
 music,' says he. But 
 don't you forget it, young 
 feller, I've reported it 
 all right." 
 
 With that he left me 
 and wandered slowly 
 down the street. 
 
 On the following day, 
 after a dismal half -hour 
 groping about in a futile effort to find 
 the familiar tower in grotesque silhouette 
 against the sky, I stumbled upon a 
 small mound of earth, thinly sprinkled 
 with sawdust. 
 
 There could be no possible doubt in 
 
 QUINCY STREET 
 
 Etched by C. H. White 
 
 my mind of the magnitude of the catas- 
 trophe that had taken place overnight. 
 The old tower, these many years rising 
 above the sea of weather-beaten roofs like 
 a lighthouse to guide the weary, patient 
 workman as he shaped his zigzag course
 
 HARPEK'S MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 
 
 homeward, three sheets in the wind, on 
 Saturday nights, was no more. As I 
 stood sadly contemplating- the ruin which 
 1 in a measure was responsible for, a 
 man in uniform waved to me from across 
 the street. 
 
 "Didn't I tell you I'd rayported it?" 
 he yelled, and then waving me a fare- 
 well, took a short cut through a corner 
 lot and disappeared. 
 
 Even the affection I cherish for those 
 homely suburbs pales into insignificance 
 beside the memory of a delightful corner 
 I stumbled upon by accident, right in the 
 centre of the city, yet swept by the cool 
 breezes of the lake. With its lions gazing 
 stolidly at the nondescript architecture 
 before them, and the weather-beaten, 
 grimy facade, severe as a Florentine pal- 
 ace, the place itself is not particularly 
 interesting. It is the people one meets 
 of a midsummer's day loafing in the shade 
 on the broad stone steps that lend an in- 
 terest and variety to the day's work, found 
 nowhere else in Chicago. Here the idler 
 will find a sociable, warm-hearted gather- 
 ing of delightful but unemployed people. 
 
 It was on these steps one morning that 
 there was revealed to me, through the 
 medium of a park policeman, the exist- 
 ence of an interest so intense in matters 
 artistic that I may say, if he be an indica- 
 tion of the general trend of feeling in 
 the street, a veritable renaissance is at 
 hand in Chicago. 
 
 He stood silently for some time before 
 speaking, but I felt his presence in the 
 agitated movement among the loafers, 
 who, awakening from their lethargy, shuf- 
 fled rapidly sideways, like crabs, out of 
 the danger zone, at his approach. 
 
 " I've never seen that kind of work 
 done before," he began, after a long 
 scrutiny at my copperplate ; " and I've 
 seen most of everything. I suppose that's 
 what you call etching." 
 
 I replied that it was, and ventured a 
 few explanations concerning the process. 
 
 " Then you ought to drop into the In- 
 stitute and see the Whistlers; they have 
 some good ones." 
 
 This was said simply, without any at- 
 tempt to convey a sense of his erudition 
 merely a casual remark such as one ama- 
 teur might make to another. He rambled 
 along, quite innocent of the colossal im- 
 pression he had made on me, occasionally 
 
 jarring me with a query as to the relative 
 merits of Diisseldorf, Munich, and Paris. 
 Then without any warning he said: 
 
 " Of course you know Montgomery, the 
 corn man ?" 
 
 " Montgomery ?" 
 
 " Yes, the corn man." 
 
 " Oh Montgomery ... I see . . . why, 
 of course ... let me think a moment. . ." 
 
 In desperation I groped about for the 
 slightest clew to conceal my ignorance. 
 
 " I thought you'd know him," he con- 
 tinued, breaking in on my reverie and 
 saving the situation. u He ain't much on 
 apples or even backgrounds, but when it 
 comes to corn not on the stalk, mind 
 you, but on the ear or off you've certain- 
 ly got to hand it to him. It lays over 
 anything I've ever seen. Just set him 
 and others before one or more ears of 
 corn you can even scatter it around loose 
 and call time, and then watch him. 
 Why, he'll make Rubens and the rest of 
 them in there look like pikers. No, sir 
 not an artist for miles around has any- 
 thing on him, and I'd like to bet my 
 shield he can hang it on them all." 
 
 " He must be a wonder!" I gasped. 
 
 " He is. I own a couple of his corn 
 pieces and knew enough to get in when 
 they were low. Now they bring fancy 
 prices." He winked with profound sig- 
 nificance. " One of them is called Which 
 is Which? and has a piece of real corn 
 tacked on the frame, and do you know it 
 keeps 3'ou guessing to tell them apart. 
 Even the birds fall for it." 
 
 He spoke with deep and genuine re- 
 gret of his failure to follow his brother's 
 example, who was a prosperous painter 
 in Europe, and confessed that even now, 
 after years on the " force," the smell of 
 turpentine filled him with a strange and 
 restless -yearning, resulting in weeks 
 of protracted sketching during his 
 idle hours. 
 
 When I asked him for a memento he 
 laughed bashfully and put me off, but 
 when I implored of him the smallest 
 courtesy one artist may extend to a 
 brother, he removed his white gloves 
 and drew with my fountain pen on the 
 back of a visiting-card a fantastic por- 
 trait of what I believe to be a dog 
 executed with surprising rapidity and 
 scarcely more than a single stroke of the 
 pen. Pressed to sign it, he refused ab-
 
 K O
 
 736 
 
 HARPER'S MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 
 
 solutely in fact, did his utmost to de- 
 stroy it, but failing in this he fled from 
 the spot as if possessed. 
 
 Never again shall I find a corner with 
 the same atmosphere as this comfortable 
 niche with its endless variety of life and 
 incident. Long before the officer of the 
 law had been swallowed up in the traffic 
 of Michigan Avenue his place was oc- 
 
 
 LITTLE ITALY 
 Etched by C. H. White 
 
 cupied by a certain Mr. Godson, whose 
 worldly possessions at the time I had 
 the good fortune to make his acquaint- 
 ance consisted of a good suit of clothes, 
 tobacco and cigarette papers, and a 
 small penknife. 
 
 Barely seventeen, fully six feet tall, his 
 small head with its piercing eyes looked 
 ludicrously out of place on the great 
 breadth of shoulders, 
 and he shuffled awk- 
 wardly when he walk- 
 ed. He emerged from 
 one of the studios be- 
 low for a breath of 
 fresh air, a cigarette, 
 and anything that 
 Michigan A v e n 11 e 
 might offer in the way 
 of diversion, and ap- 
 peared to be on in- 
 timate terms with ev- 
 erything feminine 
 within a radius of 
 three blocks of the 
 broad stone steps. 
 
 As he stood absorbed 
 in my work, a dainty, 
 chic, delightful little 
 girl rustled past smil- 
 ing, and glided down 
 the steps, .to disappear 
 in the crowd of shop- 
 pers hurrying past. 
 
 "Gentle nature 
 city-broke will eat 
 out of the hand," he 
 observed, breaking the 
 ice. " We have some 
 peaches here," he con- 
 tinued, flicking his 
 ashes over the coping. 
 
 " So I see," I replied, 
 with enthusiasm. 
 
 " Yes, there are 
 bunches of them." 
 
 He stood lost in 
 a reverie, looking 
 through half - closed 
 lids at embattlements 
 of the new University 
 Club across the street, 
 but his expression led 
 me to believe his 
 thoughts were else- 
 where. Presently he 
 came out with it.
 
 
 GRANT PARK 
 
 Etched by C. H. White 
 
 " Would you like me to send up a few ?" 
 " By all means," I gasped, clasping the 
 hand of this monarch of hospitality. Be- 
 fore 1 could recover my equilibrium his 
 lanky frame had disappeared through the 
 doorway. His remark was made in such 
 a casual, offhand manner, and his disap- 
 pearance was so brisk and businesslike, 
 that I was completely at sea as to his 
 intentions. After all, I reasoned, one does 
 not make a consignment of females in 
 the same manner as one might send up 
 a basket of fruit on approval. Certainly 
 this was a new experience, and I worked 
 along in silence, following with my 
 needle, to the best of my ability, the in- 
 tricacies of the facade opposite. 
 
 It may have been five minutes that I 
 sat absorbed in my work, when a light 
 footstep at my right brought me back 
 with a jump to our previous conversation. 
 Two young ladies stood giggling in the 
 shadow of the archway, very conscious of 
 my scrutiny. Was this merely coinci- 
 dence, or could it be that the inimitable 
 Godson had . . . ? No. I dismissed the 
 idea as preposterous. As I watched they 
 were soon joined by a third and a fourth, 
 forming with their great hats, fluttering 
 with plumes, a charming group, relieved 
 against the gray stone background. An 
 embarrassing pause was broken by the 
 arrival of another a lithe little figure in 
 
 a buff-colored gown, who from the nod- 
 ding plumes of her pictiare hat to the 
 dainty shoes with their big bows crisp 
 and chic was the embodiment of grace 
 and femininity. For a moment they 
 stood in suppressed agitation, on the point 
 of retreating, and I was preparing heroic 
 measures to save the situation, when 
 above the pretty group loomed a great 
 pair of shoulders, topped by a small head 
 illuminated by an infectious smile. It 
 was Godson ! And at a signal from him 
 the squad moved forward with a flutter 
 to join me. 
 
 When they had retired after the cus- 
 tomary platitudes, I seized him and de- 
 manded an immediate explanation of the 
 strange power that enabled him to ac- 
 complish miracles. 
 
 " Why, it's a cinch," he replied, mod- 
 estly. " I hiked down to the studio be- 
 low and said, ' You girls had better chase 
 up-stairs and see the guy who got the only 
 gold medal given at the last Paris Salon, 
 working on his plate for the French gov- 
 ernment.' Those hen artists will fall for 
 anything. You know, I'm just taking up 
 art for an accomplishment only been 
 here three months, and you can bet 
 I've not been losing any time! I leave 
 for Dartmouth next week, but I've cer- 
 tainly been busy while I've been here. 
 Art is great!"
 
 738 HARPER'S MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 
 
 He rolled another cigarette, and as the and tilting his lanky frame at a perilous 
 
 diminutive buff-colored figure reappeared, angle to hear what she said, drifted out 
 
 stopping for an instant to adjust her veil, of my life in the restless tide of people 
 
 and then moved lightly down the steps, that flows at midday and ebbs at night 
 
 he waved a greeting, shook my hand, along Michigan Avenue. Art, after all, 
 
 pulled his cuffs down, caught up with her, has its compensations. 
 
 Song of the Earthlings 
 
 BY RICHARD BURTON 
 
 OUT of the earth we came. 
 Into the earth we go : 
 Our aim leaped high like flame, 
 But Time has brought vis low. 
 
 Under the clustered trees 
 
 Dreams we dreamt a score; 
 By headlands of splendid seas 
 
 We ravaged and sung and swore. 
 
 Amid the cities of men 
 
 We thrilled to Life's various quest; 
 Very far from us then 
 
 The thought that slumber is best. 
 
 Sun and moon and stars 
 
 Lighted us on our way: 
 Happy, we took our scars, 
 
 Happy, we earned our pay. 
 
 Light-foot creatures were we, 
 Each bent on his own device; 
 
 Love or war, par-die, 
 
 At the throw of the loaden dice. 
 
 One thing, only one, 
 
 Utterly passed us by: 
 That when our day was done 
 
 We must cease, O mates, and die! 
 
 But out of the earth we come, 
 
 And into the earth we go; 
 Our shame alike with our fame, 
 
 Old Time has laid them low.
 
 A STUDY OF THE NEW PLAN OF CHICAGO 
 
 417 
 
 "No, you can't. If God Almighty 
 had allowed Himself to fall in love with 
 you and me, Jinny, He could n't have 
 made us all alive and kicking. You must 
 be God Almighty to Hambleby, or he 
 won't kick." 
 
 "Does n't he kick?" 
 
 "Oh, Lord, yes! You have n't gone 
 in deep enough to stop him. I 'm only 
 warning you against a possible danger. 
 It 's always a possible danger when I 'm 
 not there to look after you." 
 
 He rose. "Anything," he said, "is 
 possible when I 'm not there." 
 
 She rose also. Their hands and their 
 eyes met. 
 
 "That 's it," she said; "you were n't 
 there, and you won't be." 
 
 "You 're wrong," said he, "I Ve al- 
 ways been there w r hen you wanted me." 
 
 With that he left her. And he had 
 not said a word about his wife. 
 
 Neither, for that matter, had Jane. She 
 wondered why she had not. 
 
 (To be continued) 
 
 A STUDY OF THE NEW PLAN 
 OF CHICAGO 
 
 WITH REMARKS ON CITY- PLANNING IN GENERAL 
 
 BY CHARLES W. ELIOT 
 
 President Emeritus of Harvard University 
 
 FOR three years the Commercial Club 
 of Chicago has been spending much 
 time and money on the preparation of a 
 comprehensive plan for the improvement 
 of Chicago as a center of industry and 
 traffic, and as a wholesome and enjoyable 
 place of residence for two millions of peo- 
 ple, or, indeed, for four or five millions. 
 This Plan has now been published in a 
 handsome quarto, with numerous illustra- 
 tions and a full descriptive text, under the 
 title, "Plan of Chicago." It is a work 
 which demanded intelligence, public spirit, 
 and foresight, all in a high degree ; for it 
 deals w r ith the physical and moral condi- 
 tions necessary to the future success of a 
 great American city which has a central 
 position, great natural facilities for steam 
 and electric transportation, and ample op- 
 portunities for the artificial development 
 of the means of a productive and enjoyable 
 life for millions of people. 
 
 It is to be said of this Plan, in the first 
 
 place, that it is the result of a systematic 
 study, carried on during a period of thirty 
 months by committees of the Commercial 
 Club, aided by architects, engineers, land- 
 scape architects, railroad experts, and other 
 competent advisers skilful men, some of 
 whom have been employed during the last 
 three years, and some of whom studied the 
 great problem of Chicago in earlier years 
 and left available records of their achieve- 
 ments or their recommendations. The pro- 
 moter of this great work is an organiza- 
 tion of business men, who naturally have 
 in view chiefly the manufacturing and 
 commercial interests of the city, though 
 they are also keenly alive to the fact that a 
 vast laboring population cannot be main- 
 tained in an efficient condition unless they 
 are provided with convenient, comfortable, 
 and prompt means of transportation both 
 for themselves and for their food and 
 clothing, and are also supplied with light, 
 airy streets and dwellings, wholesome 

 
 418 
 
 THE CENTURY MAGAZINE 
 
 schools, factories, and shops, ample open 
 spaces, playgrounds, gardens, parks, park- 
 ways, and sheets of water, and the means 
 of mental pleasure and progress. Accord- 
 ingly, the Club has caused to be studied not 
 only transportation from afar by land and 
 water, but also new or enlarged channels 
 of circulation within the city ; suburban 
 transit facilities, with a system of high- 
 ways for the entire territory within sixty 
 miles ; the park system ; the proper location 
 of the literary, artistic, and scientific es- 
 tablishments of the city; and the appropri- 
 ate architectural treatment of a group of 
 great buildings for public purposes in the 
 heart of the city. The Club has therefore 
 taken thought not only for the business 
 interests of Chicago, but for the public 
 health, and for the development by the 
 municipality of those tastes, habits, and 
 capacities in the population which promote 
 the artistic industries and the enjoyment 
 of urban life. The Plan is not carried out 
 in too great detail, and yet it presents a 
 complete ideal of civic conditions which 
 unite beauty and dignity with permanent 
 convenience and the economical use of all 
 forces, human, mechanical, and animal, 
 which contribute to the total welfare and 
 efficiency of the population. 
 
 Although the Plan may justly be de- 
 scribed as an ideal, it is very far from be- 
 ing impracticable. Indeed, the Club main- 
 tains that it is thoroughly practicable ; that 
 is, that it can be executed, without seri- 
 ouslj r increasing the present burden of tax- 
 ation, by bond issues which the growth of 
 the city will fully justify. It maintains 
 that the execution of the Plan would stim- 
 ulate the increase of Chicago's wealth not 
 in an exaggerated and transient way, but 
 in a rational, steady, and permanent way. 
 
 The mode in which this Plan has been 
 prepared is not without significance for 
 students of democracy. History tells how 
 Pericles beautified Athens ; Augustus, 
 Rome; Louis XIV and his architects, 
 Paris; and Napoleon III and Haussmann, 
 Paris for a second time. These were rulers 
 and governors, who set on foot great pub- 
 lic works for making cities already old 
 more convenient, wholesome, and beautiful. 
 It is interesting to see an organization of 
 business men in this instance the Com- 
 mercial Club of Chicago undertake simi- 
 lar planning for the improvement of an 
 American city whose phenomenal growth 
 
 has not been guided by far-looking intelli- 
 gence, but has rather been casual, or deter- 
 mined by urgent needs of the moment, or 
 by the desires of individual men or single 
 corporations, acting without attention to 
 the broad industrial and social needs. We 
 here see in action democratic enlightened 
 collectivism coming in to repair the dam- 
 age caused by exaggerated democratic in- 
 dividualism. 
 
 This Plan suggests on nearly every page 
 the urgent need of combining differing in- 
 dividual interests for a common end, of 
 procuring the cooperation of competing 
 corporations, and of bringing to bear the 
 public opinion of the multitude to effect 
 the execution of the Plan. It suggests, in 
 short, a large social or collective work, 
 planned in the interest not only of the 
 present generation, but of many genera- 
 tions to come. That a club of business 
 men should have engaged in such an un- 
 dertaking, and have brought it successfully 
 to its present stage, affords a favorable 
 illustration of the working of the Amer- 
 ican democracy. The democracy is not 
 going to be dependent on the rare appear- 
 ance of a Pericles, an Augustus, a Colbert, 
 or a Christopher Wren. It will be able 
 to work toward the best ideals through the 
 agency of groups of intelligent and public- 
 spirited citizens who know how to employ 
 experts to advantage. 
 
 Within the last sixty years, applied sci- 
 ence has convinced all thinking men that 
 the first things to be provided when human 
 beings crowd in large numbers into a lim- 
 ited area, and create a city or large town, 
 are an ample supply of pure water and an 
 effective system of drainage for the soil 
 and for all the structures put upon it. 
 Now, Chicago had already provided itself 
 with an abundance of good water, and 
 with an effective system of drainage, be- 
 fore the Commercial Club entered upon 
 its work of preparing a plan for the im- 
 provement of the city. The drainage canal 
 and the city sewers have been completed at 
 a cost of sixty million dollars, and the 
 sewage of the city having been diverted 
 from the lake, an inexhaustible supply of 
 good water can be obtained from that 
 source. These two great problems, there- 
 fore, are not dealt with in the Club's plan. 
 Most large American cities have already 
 succeeded in obtaining a satisfactory water- 
 supply and effective means of disposing of
 
 HICACO 
 
 Copyright, 1909, by Ihe Commercial Club of Chicago 
 
 DIAGRAM OF EXTERIOR HIGHWAYS ENCIRCLING CHICAGO 
 AND RADIATING FROM THE CITY 
 
 their sewage. Thanks to the hydraulic 
 engineers who have shown how to filter 
 both water and sewage, and to coagulate 
 or precipitate the silt held in suspension in 
 flowing streams, cities have only to con- 
 sider how they can raise the money needed 
 to procure a good water-supply and an 
 effective sewerage plant. Chicago, how- 
 ever, will probably be involved before 
 long in additional expenditures on sewer- 
 age. High buildings concentrate people to 
 such a degree that larger sewers are needed 
 in the streets on which they are permitted. 
 Moreover, it must be confessed that an 
 open drainage canal is rather a barbarous 
 way of disposing of sewage. 
 
 The first thing that strikes one in the 
 studies which have led to this new Plan is 
 the comprehensive definition the Commer- 
 cial Club has given to the city, geographi- 
 cally considered. The Plan extends to all 
 the territory within a radius of sixty miles 
 from the heart of Chicago, and considers 
 all the territory within that semicircum- 
 ference as having definite relations with 
 the future city. The creation of a metro- 
 
 politan commission for the management of 
 this entire area is recommended ; but pend- 
 ing the creation of such a commission, the 
 public authorities and the improvement 
 associations of every town are advised to 
 confer with their neighbors, and agree on 
 the routes of the connecting highways, the 
 width and arrangement of the roadways, 
 sidewalks, and planting spaces, and the 
 varieties of trees and shrubs to be used for 
 shade and ornament. The object of this 
 commission should be to arrange direct 
 highways leading from all the outlying 
 towns to Chicago as their center, and also 
 to connect the suburban towns one with 
 another by well-built and well-maintained 
 roads of a width appropriate to the amount 
 of traffic thereon. For the making of these 
 roads, State or county and town or city 
 should cooperate, as has been done for 
 many years in Massachusetts. In laying 
 out routes, no heavy grades or sharp curves 
 should be tolerated, and wherever auto- 
 mobiles are used, the very best bed and 
 surface should be provided as a measure of 
 economy. In the diagram (see above) 
 
 ,
 
 

 
 A STUDY OF THE NEW PLAN OF CHICAGO 
 
 421 
 
 the encircling and the radiating high- 
 ways are both delineated, and the links 
 not yet in existence are indicated by dot- 
 ted lines. It is apparent that the com- 
 bined mileage of the gaps is comparatively 
 small, so that the execution of this design 
 would not be costly. The gaps in the radi- 
 ating highways are fewer and shorter than 
 the gaps in the encircling, yet at present 
 they are serious impediments to adequate 
 communication. 
 
 Why should Chicago plan for good 
 means of communication over so large a 
 suburban area? Because electric roads, 
 the telephone, smooth highways, and the 
 automobile have already extended very 
 much the residential area about most great 
 business centers, and because the interests 
 of the city and of the suburban area about 
 it are identical so far as means of commu- 
 nication are concerned. Cooperative action 
 on the part of many distinct municipalities 
 is twenty years old in Massachusetts. 
 That State, in the period from 1889 to 
 1893, created a Metropolitan Sewerage 
 Commission and a Metropolitan Park 
 Commission, which had jurisdiction over 
 more than thirty distinct municipalities, 
 to the very great advantage of Boston 
 and the adjoining towns and cities, the 
 actual work of construction and main- 
 tenance having been well done under the 
 direction of these two commissions ap- 
 pointed by the governor. In like manner, 
 the State used its credit to provide a group 
 of municipalities in eastern Massachusetts, 
 including Boston, with an admirable 
 water-supply. All these public works have 
 been executed at the ultimate cost of the 
 municipalities concerned ; but the directing 
 force has been in every case a State-ap- 
 pointed commission. 
 
 This is the sort of public works which 
 the Plan of Chicago wisely contemplates 
 for a large area quite outside the limits of 
 the present city ; and this is one of the wisest 
 parts of the Plan; for a great city cannot 
 get satisfactorily executed the public works 
 it urgently needs unless it takes into view all 
 the territory within at least an hour's quick 
 ride of its civic center. It cannot even 
 maintain an equitable method of taxation, 
 if it is limited for taxing purposes to the 
 area on which its daily business is con- 
 ducted. The men who earn their liveli- 
 hood within the narrow city limits, but 
 live in some suburb, pay most of their 
 
 taxes in the suburb. They are constantly 
 using facilities which the city pays for, but 
 contribute very little to the cost of those 
 facilities. The whole surrounding coun- 
 try within thirty or sixty miles finds its 
 markets and its supplies in the city, and 
 the welfare of the city is of near concern 
 to the whole surrounding territory. 
 
 The modern necessities of a large city, 
 and the new influence of a great center of 
 trade and manufacturing on the whole 
 territory within easy reach by steam, elec- 
 tricity, or gasolene vapor, have made it in- 
 expedient for the legal city to govern itself 
 in the old-fashioned way within its narrow 
 geographical limits. In many respects it 
 ought not to govern itself ; for both its in- 
 terests and its influence extend far beyond 
 its charter limits, and include hundreds of 
 thousands of persons who do not live 
 within them. In these days it is much 
 more rational and equitable for a State to 
 govern its cities, and particularly its prin- 
 cipal city, than it is for each city to govern 
 itself through its own voting population. 
 Indeed, the States do already govern their 
 cities in most respects; for it is the State 
 legislature which grants every city charter, 
 and therein determines the form of the city 
 government and its powers. Local self- 
 government for cities, without control or 
 regulation from the State, is already a 
 thing of the past, and it is the progress of 
 applied science that has made that self- 
 government inadequate and undesirable. 
 The Commercial Club declares that a 
 complete interurban highway system can 
 be executed cheaply; that widening those 
 portions of the roadways which need to be 
 widened, straightening the few which need 
 that treatment, planting trees along the 
 highways, and macadamizing the road- 
 beds, are improvements which would in- 
 volve an expense small in comparison with 
 the gain to the public in convenience and 
 economy of service. What is needed is a 
 strong organization of active men prepared 
 to take intelligent, concerted action. 
 
 The Plan deals next with the Chicago 
 Park System. In 1869 a movement was 
 started to establish a series of parks and 
 boulevards, beginning at Lincoln Park on 
 the north, and ending at Jackson Park on 
 the south. This attempt measurably suc- 
 ceeded ; so that in the seventies Chicago 
 was better provided with parks than any 
 city in the country except Philadelphia, al-
 
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 ^ c'Si 
 
 
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 A STUDY OF THE NEW PLAN OF CHICAGO 
 
 423 
 
 though they were not very well maintained 
 and utilized. Since that time no effective 
 action has been taken for increasing the 
 park areas in proportion to the largely in- 
 creased population. Within the last eight 
 years, seventeen small parks have been es- 
 tablished on the south side of Chicago, 
 with a neighborhood house in each con- 
 taining the ordinary equipment of a good 
 club-house. This provision on the south 
 side is expected to cost about seven million 
 dollars. The Plan suggests that as far as 
 possible the smaller parks be placed on the 
 proposed circuit boulevards. Larger parks 
 for sports are projected, all of which are 
 to be in a strict sense neighborhood centers, 
 and are to be connected with one another 
 by a continuous line of planting. They 
 are evenly distributed round the civic 
 center. 
 
 A special Park Commission, created by 
 the Chicago City Council in 1899, pre- 
 sented a report in 1904 which contained a 
 detailed study for the Metropolitan Park 
 System, together with recommendations 
 for an outer system of parks and boule- 
 vards, following in the main the water- 
 courses throughout the county. The time 
 to secure the lands necessary for such a 
 system is the present moment; for every 
 year of delay will increase the cost, and 
 diminish the opportunities for obtaining 
 large areas, since all the lands about Chi- 
 cago are almost equally available for build- 
 ing purposes. 
 
 To provide large breathing-spaces and 
 numerous recreation-grounds is only a 
 measure of reasonable precaution against 
 the evils which result from density of pop- 
 ulation. The opportunity to enjoy fresh 
 air and the various beauty of grass, trees, 
 and shrubs, and of lakes, ponds, and 
 streams, is an incidental advantage of park 
 creation ; but the primary motive is the 
 promotion of the people's health and effi- 
 ciency. If hundreds of thousands of work- 
 ers are to be kept in health and strength 
 for productive industries, they must be 
 provided with the means of wholesome 
 pleasures in the open air. The vice and 
 disease which result from overcrowding, 
 and from the lack of the means of innocent 
 and wholesome pleasures, are great drains 
 on the vitality and economic productive- 
 ness of an urban population. In order to 
 conserve the productive powers of the pop- 
 ulation, any intelligent government will 
 
 do its utmost to prevent sicknesses and 
 premature deaths. 
 
 The lay-out of a city which is to be suc- 
 cessful from the business point of view 
 must therefore provide adequate parks, 
 gardens, playgrounds, and sheets of water, 
 with ornamented parkways which afford 
 pleasant access to the open spaces. The 
 "Plan of Chicago" prints plans of the 
 park systems about Berlin, Vienna, Wash- 
 ington, Versailles, and portions of Paris, 
 with a view to stimulate the citizens and 
 governors of Chicago to like intelligent 
 action. The Plan points out in detail the 
 opportunities for park areas which, when 
 combined, will entirely surround the Chi- 
 cago of the future. The encircling system 
 of forest parks and parkways outlined in 
 the Plan, taken in connection with the ex- 
 isting boulevards and the proposed drive- 
 way along the lake, would make a circuit 
 of about a hundred miles, every portion of 
 which could be made to serve directly a 
 considerable part of the population. Such 
 a system is for the Chicago of to-day quite 
 as practical as were the boulevards of a 
 generation ago, which have now become 
 interior thoroughfares of priceless value. 
 It is altogether probable that the rise in 
 the value of the adjoining lands will cover 
 many times over the present cost of the 
 reservations. It cannot be repeated too 
 often that this provision should be made 
 in the interest of Chicago as a great indus- 
 trial and commercial center, and a great 
 market for human labor. Hereafter it is 
 going to be the pecuniary interest of every 
 great city to make the life of its laborers 
 wholesome and pleasurable, and therefore 
 attractive to new-comers. It is rather 
 strange that Europe should understand 
 this economic principle better than Amer- 
 ica. 
 
 The Plan of course proposes that the 
 whole lake front should be converted into 
 a public park. The lake is the chief adorn- 
 ment of Chicago, and its shore is the only 
 place from which Chicago people can get 
 an unobstructed view of it. The Plan says 
 eloquently : 
 
 The Lake is living water, ever in motion 
 and ever changing in color and in the form 
 of its waves. Across its surface comes the 
 broad pathway of light made by the rising 
 sun; it mirrors the ever-changing forms of 
 the clouds, and it is illumined by the glow of
 
 6 8 
 
 5 o -5 5 
 
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 U p D 4> 
 
 - ^ *- '/^ 
 
 w - = 
 
 ^ -a.is 
 
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 A STUDY OF THE NEW PLAN OF CHICAGO 
 
 425 
 
 the evening sky. Its colors vary with the 
 shadows that play upon it. In its every 
 aspect it is a living thing, delighting man's 
 eye and refreshing his spirit. Not a foot of 
 its shores should be appropriated to individ- 
 uals, to the exclusion of the people. On the 
 contrary, everything possible should be done 
 to enhance its attractiveness and to develop 
 its natural beauties, thus fitting it for the 
 part it has to play in the life of the whole 
 city. 
 
 The Plan proposes that narrow, winding 
 lagoons should be created along the north 
 shore, and somewhat wider ones along the 
 south shore. Both margins of these la- 
 goons should be planted with trees and 
 shrubs, and should display every form and 
 color of foliage and blossom which will 
 thrive on a shore subjected at times to 
 wind, sleet, and ice. The entire construc- 
 tion of the Lake-front Park could be 
 cheaply executed with the city ashes and 
 other waste within thirty or forty years, 
 when once the necessary breakwaters have 
 been built. Many kinds of water and ice 
 sports could be provided for in this Lake- 
 front Park, and good driveways would 
 accompany it from one end to the other. 
 The winter sports in such a park would be 
 almost as interesting and profitable as 
 those of the summer. 
 
 The next problem the Plan deals with is 
 the problem of handling the railroad traf- 
 fic with despatch, and at the lowest cost. 
 It states strongly the imperative need of a 
 traffic clearing-house. It shows that Chi- 
 cago does not now possess proper terminal 
 facilities ; and that it is already impossible 
 to obtain them, if every railroad is to at- 
 tempt to maintain a separate system, unre- 
 lated to any other system except by the 
 connection of the tracks. Another diffi- 
 culty, common in American cities, must be 
 overcome. The bad habit of hauling all 
 the freight into the heart of a city, and 
 then hauling much of it out again, must be 
 cured. Freight stations and yards placed 
 close to the business district of a city must 
 be exchanged for much larger areas com- 
 paratively remote from the center. The 
 Plan presents two diagrams, one represent- 
 ing the present method of handling and 
 exchanging freight on railroads in the mid- 
 dle of the city, the other a proposed method 
 of handling and exchanging freight by 
 means of a belt-line and large clearing- 
 
 yards. It is obvious that the new scheme 
 requires of the twenty-two roads that now 
 enter Chicago an effectual cooperation in 
 a spirit of mutual forbearance and good 
 will for the sake of promoting the general 
 good. The Plan distinctly proposes that 
 every road shall do its full part to bring 
 about transportation conditions essential to 
 the continued prosperity of the city. All 
 the American cities which are railroad 
 centers have similar problems before them. 
 They must all reduce the heavy terminal 
 costs, and provide against the periodical 
 congestions of freight at junctions and ter- 
 minals which now paralyze business, and 
 prevent the railroad companies from mak- 
 ing adequate use of their own rolling-stock 
 and main lines. 
 
 Chicago has great advantages for the 
 invention of a profitable method of freight 
 exchange, or, in other words, for the crea- 
 tion of a traffic clearing-house, because the 
 country surrounding Chicago is flat, so 
 that the railroads have no steep grades or 
 narrow approaches to deal with. It will 
 not be hard to arrange the great ware- 
 houses of the city with reference to the 
 interchange tracks, underground, over- 
 head, and surface. If the freight trains of 
 all the twenty-two roads could be handled 
 quickly, and unloaded and reloaded rap- 
 idly outside of the most crowded districts 
 of the city, an enormous saving would re- 
 sult every year. The best opinion seems to 
 be that only five per cent, of the freight 
 traffic of Chicago is water-borne. Never- 
 theless, in connection with the traffic clear- 
 ing-yards there should be a harbor at the 
 mouth of each of the two rivers, the Chi- 
 cago and the Calumet. There are several 
 indispensable elements in the complete 
 machine for the transportation of goods 
 for Chicago, the traffic clearing-yards, the 
 two harbors, and the connecting lines, 
 underground or overhead. If the present 
 congestion in the heart of the city were to 
 be effectively relieved through the working 
 of this great machine, many important in- 
 cidental benefits would result. The pave- 
 ments would last longer, the smoke nui- 
 sance would be mitigated, there would be 
 less crowding on the streets and sidewalks, 
 and there would be less dirt, hurry, and 
 waste of time and energy. 
 
 The Plan throughout recognizes the fact 
 that Chicago has been created chiefly by 
 its railroads, and that its future prosperity
 
 A STUDY OF THE NEW PLAN OF CHICAGO 
 
 427 
 
 is dependent upon them. On the other 
 hand, the railroads realize that it is in 
 vain to perfect car and track service un- 
 less the facilities for handling freight at 
 the terminals promptly and cheaply keep 
 pace with that perfecting. American rail- 
 roads have already straightened their lines, 
 reduced their grades, built additional 
 tracks on their rights of way, and abol- 
 ished many grade crossings, thus effecting 
 large savings in operating expenses ; but 
 they have not attempted the traffic clear- 
 ing-house in the large city. 
 
 The "Plan of Chicago" proposes that 
 the passenger-lines which enter the densely 
 inhabited parts of the city should not cross 
 one another or carriage roads at grade, and 
 that terminal stations in the city should be 
 either above or below the street levels. It 
 also suggests that the railroads should take 
 great pains, as in Europe, to make their 
 rights of way tidy and pleasing to the eye, 
 and to diminish the noise on underground, 
 surface, and elevated roads alike. The ex- 
 isting evil of noise is very great, and in 
 large part unnecessary. Irritating noises, 
 ugly sights, bad smells, dusty or muddy 
 streets, and ill-ventilated workshops and 
 offices all tend to lower the efficiency of 
 the population at work. A great city 
 should be quiet, clean, spacious, light, and 
 airy, in order to promote the working effi- 
 ciency of its people. In such a city all 
 work would be done better and to larger 
 profit. The Plan shows how this desirable 
 result may be accomplished. It does not 
 fail to point out, with regard to the pas- 
 senger-traffic, that the embellishment of 
 stations and station grounds, which began 
 in this country on the Boston and Albany 
 and the Pennsylvania roads, is due from 
 roads to their passengers, and particularly 
 to suburban passengers. The roads can 
 afford to pay more attention to the inter- 
 ests of their passengers in this respect, 
 because passengers load and unload them- 
 selves. 
 
 A good plan for a large city should al- 
 ways contain three sorts of highway : first, 
 the ordinary streets on which houses and 
 shops are built ; secondly, the avenue, on 
 which strong tides of traffic flow back and 
 forth; and thirdly, the boulevard, which is 
 a combination of a narrow park with 
 driveways and footpaths. A rectangular 
 arrangement of streets js convenient and 
 useful for houses and shops, provided an 
 
 adequate number of diagonal avenues and 
 boulevards, both radial and encircling, be 
 added thereto. A rectangular lay-out 
 without diagonal and encircling highways, 
 which far too many American towns and 
 cities early adopted, is wasteful of human 
 and animal labor, and of mechanical 
 power, and, moreover, provides no good 
 sites for grand or precious buildings. 
 Every fine building should be so placed 
 that it can be well seen. This is not possi- 
 ble, if the whole city is made up of streets 
 fifty or sixty feet wide, and crossing one 
 another at right angles. The Plan pays 
 great attention to the introduction of an 
 adequate number of avenues and boule- 
 vards both radial and encircling. 
 
 The present streets of Chicago proper 
 provide tolerably well for the movement 
 of persons and goods from north to south 
 and from east to west, although there is 
 need of additional facilities, which could 
 be obtained by widening some streets and 
 making a few new ones. Movement from 
 the suburbs toward the center of the city 
 itself is partly provided for ; but the radial 
 arteries need developing. Transit across 
 the city rectangles is very defective, and 
 must be provided by extending existing 
 diagonal streets, and cutting some new 
 ones through areas already closely built 
 upon. 
 
 Some of the best recommendations in 
 the Plan relate to the width of various 
 kinds of highways and the nature of the 
 pavements to be used in them. Thus, resi- 
 dence streets do not need wide areas of 
 pavement, but rather room for trees and 
 grass-plots. A width of from twenty to 
 thirty-six feet is enough for pavement. 
 This rule should be obeyed in the poorer 
 quarters quite as strictly as in the richer, 
 for there it is more important that men, 
 women, and children should be brought 
 out of the crowded houses into the better 
 air of the streets. For streets which carry 
 heavy traffic, the Plan proposes a width of 
 from seventy to ninety feet, with a road- 
 way width of about half the entire space, 
 and pavements of stone, in spite of the 
 noise ; but in the thronged retail district 
 the pavements should be smooth and noise- 
 less, in spite of their shorter life and higher 
 maintenance cost ; and in residential quar- 
 ters no noisy pavements should be allowed. 
 
 It is noticeable that the Commercial 
 Club pays attention in many parts of its
 
 A PROPOSED "CIVIC CENTER" FOR BALTIMORE 
 From the plan by John M. Carrere, Arnold W. Brunner, and Frederick L. Olmsted, Jr., architects. 
 
 Plan to the economic value of beautifying 
 the city, as well as to the wastefulness of 
 smoke, dirt, and ugly, irritating sights and 
 sounds. Thus, in connection with the 
 highways, the Plan recommends the re- 
 moval from the streets of all poles for 
 lighting wires, telegraph and telephone 
 wires, or fire-alarm and power wires. 
 They do this on the ground that such dis- 
 figurements diminish the mental comfort 
 
 and physical security of the population, 
 and their opportunities for open-air enjoy- 
 ment. If city life is to be made as physi- 
 cally safe for the population as country life 
 is, the city must not be permitted to be- 
 come, or to remain, ugly, ill-smelling, 
 gloomy, or irritating. 
 
 From the third class of thoroughfares, 
 the boulevards, all the heavier traffic 
 should be excluded, and grass, shrubs, and
 
 A STUDY OF THE NEW PLAN OF CHICAGO 
 
 429 
 
 trees should be made to abound. One 
 beneficial result of this policy will be that 
 the boulevards will be lined with fine 
 dwellings. Along these boulevards statues 
 and fountains will ultimately be placed, 
 and smaller parks will provide playgrounds 
 and places of assembly. The Plan recog- 
 nizes the great economy to be effected by 
 separating residence streets from traffic 
 streets, and by providing on the general 
 plan for permanent traffic streets. When- 
 ever a residence street has to be converted 
 into a business or traffic street, or is ap- 
 propriated by a railroad, a change in land 
 values occurs which, though sometimes 
 favorable to the owners, is oftener unfa- 
 vorable, hence much uncertainty and hesi- 
 tation on the part of the prudent citizen 
 about investing in a residence. 
 
 In a city the population of which counts 
 by millions, and which inevitably has con- 
 gested districts, it is of the utmost impor- 
 tance to study and provide for the streams 
 of pedestrian travel. In many American 
 cities the sidewalks are too narrow, and 
 the streams of people walking flow in too 
 large numbers on too few lines; hence 
 much delay for pedestrians, and much 
 hindrance of traffic on wheels, because of 
 the necessity of allowing the processions of 
 pedestrians to cross and interrupt the 
 streams of traffic. 
 
 The Plan calls attention to a regulation 
 which is expedient in all cities, namely, 
 that buildings should be set back from the 
 actual line of the street by a definite num- 
 ber of feet, no private use ever again to be 
 made of this reservation. Two methods 
 are in use for accomplishing this result: 
 the city may own the reserved front yards, 
 just as the Federal Government owns the 
 spaces between the houses and the side- 
 walks in Washington, or, as in Massachu- 
 setts, a set-back for all buildings may be 
 imposed on new and altered highways, and 
 real estate situated on those highways may 
 pass from owner to owner under the im- 
 posed restriction. 
 
 The principles which apply to the recon- 
 struction of Chicago in regard to its streets, 
 avenues, and boulevards are applicable to 
 every growing American city, although 
 Chicago has some physical advantages in 
 respect to the lay-out of its highways, be- 
 cause it is situated on an immense plain. 
 The common requirements are convenient 
 and pleasant means of access to the main 
 
 business center and all the subordinate 
 centers which are the working places by 
 day, equally convenient access to the places 
 of recreation and refreshment, and lastly, 
 as much light and air as possible for the 
 dwellings, factories, and school-houses. 
 To secure these ends, the routes and levels 
 for steam railroads, street-cars, wagons, 
 carriages, and pedestrians, must all be 
 studied and provided for. The pavements, 
 the sidewalks, and the grass and trees in 
 highways must be equally regarded, and 
 an adequate provision of open spaces, large 
 and small, with sites for fine buildings and 
 for statues and fountains, must be care- 
 fully planned. 
 
 If a large city is to be maintained as a 
 single unified organism, it must of neces- 
 sity have a civic center or heart, which 
 may not be at its center of population, but 
 must be at or near the center of its com- 
 mercial, financial, and industrial activities. 
 On this middle ground should be placed 
 its chief public buildings. The Plan pro- 
 vides a Civic Center of great architectural 
 merit at the intersection of Congress Street 
 with Halstead Street, a center to which 
 several main arteries naturally converge. 
 On this spot it is proposed that buildings 
 should be erected to be occupied by the 
 City of Chicago, Cook County, and the 
 Federal Government, the City Hall being 
 the central building. The central admin- 
 istrative building, as shown in the illustra- 
 tion on page 424, is surmounted by a 
 dome of great height, as a symbol of civic 
 order and unity. This dome would rise 
 high above the surrounding buildings, 
 fronting on a spacious plaza. Through 
 this plaza an immense traffic can flow 
 without obstruction, as it passes through 
 the great radial arteries. It is proposed 
 that these arteries shall center upon an 
 obelisk in the middle of the plaza. The 
 architectural studies made for the build- 
 ings at this civic center are of course only 
 suggestions ; for the precise form of these 
 buildings must be determined hereafter by 
 the requirements for city, county, and na- 
 tional offices. The designs are only in- 
 tended to suggest the order, dignity, and 
 beauty which should stand forth at the 
 heart of a great unified city. The old 
 cities of the world possess historical monu- 
 ments which worthily represent their dig- 
 nity and unity. For a great American 
 city of the future the present generation
 
 PROPOSED ARCHITECTURAL TREATMENT OF TELEGRAPH HILL, 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO. LOOKING EAST 
 From the plan prepared by Daniel H. Burnham, assisted by Edward H. Bennett. 
 
 ought to design new structures which 
 will represent its intellectual and moral 
 quality, just as St. Peter's stands for Rome, 
 Notre Dame, the Louvre, and the Tui- 
 leries for Paris, and St. Paul, Westminster 
 Abbey, and the Parliament Houses for 
 London. Admirable designs for civic cen- 
 ters at Cleveland and Baltimore are re- 
 produced in the next two illustrations. 
 
 Chicago needs to emphasize and adorn 
 not only its center, but the diameter which 
 is the base-line of its semicircular area. 
 This diameter is Michigan Avenue, the 
 main connecting thoroughfare between the 
 north and the south side. On its west- 
 ern side it offers for a considerable distance 
 admirable sites for office buildings, hotels, 
 clubs, theaters, music-halls, and shops of 
 the best sort ; because the park opposite 
 insures for the fronts of these buildings 
 light, air, and an agreeable outlook. This 
 avenue has a secured width of a hundred 
 and thirty feet throughout the portion bor- 
 dered by Grant Park. The Plan proposes 
 that this avenue between Chicago Avenue 
 on the north and Twelfth Street on the 
 south shall be made wide enough for two 
 parallel roadways, with a broad sidewalk 
 between them. One of these roadways 
 
 would be used by those who wish to stop 
 at the shops, hotels, theaters, or clubs, and 
 the other by those who do not wish to 
 stop on their way. The sidewalk next to 
 the buildings should be very broad, and 
 the roadways should be made attractive by 
 effective planting. The Plan proposes a 
 total width for Michigan Avenue of two 
 hundred and forty-six feet. 
 
 The Plan also provides for a group of 
 buildings in Grant Park, east of Michigan 
 Avenue, consisting of the Field Museum, 
 the Art Institute, and the new Crerar Li- 
 brary building, three monumental build- 
 ings devoted to letters, arts, and science. 
 It seems probable, too, that the central 
 building and administrative headquarters 
 of the Public Library will also be placed 
 near the three already mentioned. These 
 buildings would all have kindred uses, so 
 that both economy and effectiveness would 
 be promoted by placing them in proximity. 
 Grant Park has a sufficient area to provide 
 them all with spacious sites. 
 
 The main recommendations contained 
 in the "Plan of Chicago" are (i) the im- 
 provement of the lake front; (2) the crea- 
 tion of a system of well-designed highways 
 outside the city; (3) the development of a
 
 A STUDY OF THE NEW PLAN OF CHICAGO 
 
 431 
 
 complete traction system for both freight 
 and passengers; (4) the acquisition of a 
 system of outer parks and parkways; (5) 
 new arrangements of streets and avenues 
 within the city, in order to facilitate the 
 movement of persons and goods in all di- 
 rections by short lines; (6) the develop- 
 ment of centers of intellectual life and of 
 civic administration. Certain other ele- 
 ments in good city-planning are not dealt 
 with, or, rather, are only incidentally re- 
 ferred to. The causes of the injurious 
 congestion of population, and the remedies 
 for such congestion, do not form distinct 
 topics in the Plan. It is recommended that 
 the city at once adopt and enforce proper 
 building standards concerning air and sun- 
 light; but the great desirableness of di- 
 viding any large city into districts in each 
 of which the buildings shall not exceed a 
 certain height, and shall not cover more 
 than a specified percentage of the site area, 
 is not strongly enforced. For cities in 
 general a uniform prescription concerning 
 the height of buildings is inexpedient, and, 
 indeed, very undesirable; since a limit 
 which is reasonable for the manufacturing 
 or business portions of a city may be alto- 
 gether unfit for the residence portions. 
 
 Certain admirable inventions of the last 
 thirty years have provided means of com- 
 batting undue congestion of population. 
 Thus, the telephone and the distribution 
 of mechanical power by electricity make it 
 convenient to carry on many manufactur- 
 ing operations on the cheap land of sub- 
 urbs, rather than on the dear land of 
 closely built cities, the working people 
 living near the factories. Again, rapid 
 transit with low fares has enabled people 
 who must do their day's work in cities to 
 keep their families in suburbs, where the 
 women and children can have fresh air, 
 sunlight, and bits of ground to cultivate. 
 City-planning ought now to take careful 
 account of these beneficent influences, and 
 to base far-sighted action on the changed 
 distribution of population, and the im- 
 proved conditions of life which they make 
 possible. On the other hand, there are 
 some inventions which have been so used 
 as distinctly to impair some of the condi- 
 tions of life in large cities. The lofty 
 steel buildings put thousands of people on 
 a small bit of ground, thereby congesting 
 seriously the sewers and sidewalks in their 
 neighborhood. Increased and increasing 
 
 charges for labor and materials in all 
 building trades force the average city fam- 
 ily into smaller and smaller quarters. As 
 rents advance, the space which the average 
 family can pay for shrinks. Rows of high 
 buildings convert the city streets into 
 shaded, ill-ventilated ditches. 
 
 The American democracy has naturally 
 been very conservative as regards individ- 
 ual rights of property, because in a democ- 
 racy almost everybody ow r ns something, 
 and hopes to own some land. Accordingly 
 only the nomad or the shiftless, hand-to- 
 mouth laborer is inclined to attack the 
 rights of the individual landed proprietor, 
 even when great evils arise from the sa- 
 credness of the individual right which is 
 conflicting with the interests of society as 
 a whole. 
 
 The Massachusetts legislation, under 
 which the greatest city problems, such as 
 water-supply, sewerage, and parks, can be 
 dealt with by appointed commissions which 
 enjoy the temporary use of the State's 
 credit, control adequate city and country 
 areas, and disburse money raised by taxa- 
 tion from many municipalities by a com- 
 mon method, is capable of other judicious 
 applications, as, for instance, to the care of 
 the public health, the provision of adequate 
 fire protection, and the maintenance of an 
 effective police force. When the question 
 arises how to get the "Plan of Chicago" 
 executed, this Massachusetts way will de- 
 serve consideration, provided the political 
 conditions in Illinois are such as to prom- 
 ise good appointments. In the meantime 
 all men can learn from this remarkable 
 Plan how much good city-planning has to 
 do with the conservation of human health, 
 intelligence, and morality, natural re- 
 sources which are quite as well worth con- 
 sidering as forests, water-powers, water- 
 ways, and mines. 
 
 Finally, if the democracy of a great 
 American city can comprehend and appro- 
 priate such a beneficent project as this 
 "Plan of Chicago," when put before them 
 by a group of unusually intelligent and 
 public-spirrted private citizens, and can 
 then get it well executed with promptness 
 and prudence, it will be a good omen for 
 the perpetuity of democratic institutions. 
 The many will then have shown a capacity 
 for sound progress which most social phi- 
 losophers have thought was to be expected 
 onlv from the select few. 

 
 Drawn by Lester Ralph 
 THY TEMPLE IS THE AZURE NIGHT'
 
 CHICAGO: A CITY OF HOMES 
 
 969 
 
 A STUDIED ATTEMPT AT VARIETY 
 In these blocks the architect has avoided monotony by emphasizing details in separate houses 
 
 tern of the city has had the usual difficul- 
 ties with politics in the board and occa- 
 sional insurrection among the teachers; 
 but it has been steadily improved, its old 
 buildings are giving place to new and 
 well-equipped structures, and the time is 
 coming when increased funds will permit 
 many reforms not yet practicable. The 
 splendid public libraries of the city, its 
 schools of music and art, its university 
 and other centers of higher education are 
 better described under another title ; but 
 they all help to make Chicago a city of 
 homes, a city where any ambitious boy 
 or girl or man or woman may win a liberal 
 education. Newspapers can not always 
 be spoken of as educational institutions. 
 Chicago, however, has the best newspapers 
 in the United States, as unprejudiced 
 judges nearly always admit when they 
 investigate the subject. At least four or 
 five of these journals, by their fair, well- 
 balanced presentation of the day's events, 
 their special news service, and their 
 capable editorials, are helping to shape 
 the city's thinking in the right direction. 
 Well-edited newspapers in eastern cities 
 are nearly all so biased either by partisan 
 politics or by obligations to the money 
 power, that the intelligent classes read 
 them, so to speak, under protest, while 
 the unintelligent classes ignore them and 
 
 are swayed by yellow journals. Chicago 
 presents the singular spectacle of a city 
 with several daily papers popular enough 
 for the million and reliable and sensible 
 enough for men and women of ideas. 
 
 Housing problems are always the most 
 serious in a large city. With all the im- 
 provements in rapid transit, transporta- 
 tion has not kept pace with population 
 in any of our American cities, and the 
 result is congestion of the middle-class 
 residence districts. The average Chicago 
 family with an income of less than $1,200 
 must live in an apartment. But, unlike 
 New York, there are thousands of men 
 of moderate means who do own their own 
 homes in the city proper. It is rather 
 the restlessness characteristic of city life 
 than actual pecuniary inability that pre- 
 vents many of the flat-dwellers from 
 settling down in a city home of their own. 
 The usual place for the small householder, 
 however, is the suburbs, where a given 
 sum of money will purchase a larger lot 
 and a larger house. Transportation to 
 most of the suburbs, on the steam railroad 
 lines, is really swifter and pleasanter than 
 to many parts of the city reached only by 
 surface cars. 
 
 If one is to speak of the architecture of 
 Chicago residences, the very small city 
 houses and the apartment buildings where
 
 970 
 
 CHICAGO : A CITY OP HOMES 
 
 PROFESSORS' RESIDENCES NEAR THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 A group of houses of great dignity and moderate cost. The terrace and vines add grace to the somewhat heavy 
 
 lines of the brick fronts 
 
 the majority live are practically ruled out. 
 Neither class has many claims to beauty. 
 There are apartment houses built for peo- 
 ple of means, which attempt some archi- 
 tectural effect aside from the conventional 
 stone trimming buildings with a central 
 court adorned with grass and flowers, 
 buildings with ornamental ironwork and 
 carved stone. The necessity for a maxi- 
 mum of windows, however, and the pro- 
 saic requirements of the back porches and 
 stairways make a beautiful apartment 
 house almost an unthinkable idea. For 
 beauty one looks rather to the residences 
 in the better parts of the city, where 
 
 persons of taste and means have deliber- 
 ately set out to make an artistic unit out 
 of four walls and a roof. On such streets 
 as Drexel and Grand Boulevards and 
 Lake Shore Drive and many of the less 
 famous streets of the lake wards, a most 
 interesting study may be made of the 
 types of domestic architecture of the old 
 and the new Chicago. 
 
 There are, first, the plain, substantial 
 brown-stone houses of the old families, 
 erected between 1872 and 1880; divided 
 between the South Side district from Six- 
 teenth to Thirty-first Street, the Union 
 Park neighborhood on the West, and the
 
 CHICAGO: A CITY OF HOMES 
 
 971 
 
 North Side streets near the lake. These 
 are without exception in good taste, and 
 have an air of solid comfort which shows 
 what sort of luxury was preferred by the 
 wealthy men a quarter of a century ago. 
 Not a few of the most famous families 
 still retain these modest homes. Instead 
 of erecting new and showy city houses, 
 they are laying out their money on coun- 
 try places at Lake Geneva or Oconomowoc 
 or on some farm accessible to the city, 
 where they spend nearly half the year. 
 
 The era of bad taste among the rich 
 seems to have been contemporaneous with 
 the development of the Bedford stone 
 quarries. When the gray Indiana stone 
 began to be shipped to Chicago in large 
 quantities architects began to lavish it on 
 
 any kind of absurdity that perverse in- 
 genuity may invent. Along some of the 
 boulevards one may see houses of this 
 sort houses worth a fortune apiece, and 
 as meaningless, incoherent, foolish as 
 some of the billboards that disfigure the 
 landscape. 
 
 Happily this era of pretentious shams 
 has given place to better styles. Archi- 
 tects now strive for individuality, char- 
 acter, meaning, in any house they may 
 be called on to erect. Sometimes the 
 striving for variety is carried too far; 
 shunning any uniformity, the builder of a 
 row puts a new kind of gable and porch 
 on every house, with a result more dizzy- 
 ing than desirable. But more rational 
 application of the principle is becoming 
 
 VARIETY AND UNITY IX A ROW OF CITY HOUSES 
 
 Both as a group and as a unit these residences must be pronounced a successful novelty 
 
 big, gaudy houses with round towers and 
 gothic windows and Romanesque arches 
 and all manner of claptrap. There are 
 whole rows of these things standing to- 
 day, with millions of money tied up in 
 them and not a simple line or restful con- 
 tour in the whole lot. Of course the stone 
 quarries should not be held wholly re- 
 sponsible, for a blundering architect can 
 evolve some very depressing effects from 
 the harmless, necessary brick. But the 
 stone somehow aggravates the offense by 
 giving an air of opulence and dignity to 
 
 the rule. An excellent example of va- 
 riety in the working out of a single style 
 is found in the professors' residences and 
 neighboring houses near the University of 
 Chicago. Somebody started the fashion, 
 ten or twelve years ago, of building a 
 house with living room or library across 
 the full width of the front, the main en- 
 trance often being at the side. Sooiybij 
 square, brick residences began to appear 
 on all sides, preserving the ruliiig^ 
 of a house built for comfort and 
 interior with avoidance of all meretri
 
 972 
 
 CHICAGO: A CITY OF HOMES 
 
 A RESIDENCE PARK 
 
 TheaSwns between the rows of residences are held in common by the property-owners. Several such parks were established 
 
 a generation ago on the South Side 
 
 ornament ; and varying in details accord- 
 ing to the fancy of the owner. The style 
 happened to be new in Chicago, and its 
 adoption in Hyde Park has already given 
 to that part of the city an air of dis- 
 tinction altogether superior to the gaudy 
 splendors of some of the palaces down 
 town. 
 
 Socially democratic in spirit, Chicago 
 presents a pleasing contrast to the snob- 
 bery of some other big towns where money 
 is king. Of course there are social classes 
 and barriers as there must be in any so- 
 ciety founded on wealth. But the minor 
 difference of rank and income and family 
 count for less than they do in any other 
 great city of the land. As for neighbor- 
 liness, there is little of that in any large 
 city, if by it one means social courtesies 
 biased on proximity without previous ac- 
 j^uajntance. Chicago is no better and no 
 worse in this respect than any other place 
 of its size. Strangers coming here to live 
 will make their friends through such 
 
 social opportunities as may open in the 
 churches, the neighborhood clubs, and 
 similar agencies. They will find the city 
 split up not merely into three great iso- 
 lated divisions, but into a multitude of 
 minor districts, each with its own charac- 
 teristics. Chicago's best friend could not 
 call her as yet a unified city. She is a 
 dozen small cities grown together, with a 
 single business district. Within her 
 borders may be found nearly all the kinds 
 of homes in the world, some of the worst 
 as well as some of the best. But in op- 
 portunities for building a home out of 
 the raw material Chicago is rich indeed. 
 Among these opportunities not the least 
 is the free and unlimited permission 
 which Chicago gives to every citizen to 
 work out his own salvation in his own 
 way. Out of the experiments and suc- 
 cesses of the present is coming by and by 
 a sort of higher unity in diversity which 
 will make this city by the lake more truly 
 than ever the typical city of America.
 
 CH