USA > Illinois > Cook County > Chicago > Historical review of Chicago and Cook county and selected biography, Volume I > Part 8
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47
July 5th and July 7th Governor Altgeld sent letters to President Cleveland, protesting against the sending and use of federal troops in the state of Illinois, saying that the state was able and ready to maintain order and enforce the laws, and offered to furnish troops to afford the federal authorities all assistance it might need in enforce- ment of the laws elsewhere.
The Supreme Court of the United States long afterward held that the action of the president of the United States in sending troops to enforce the federal laws against obstructing the mails, interfering with interstate commerce, was justifiable.
In Chicago the destruction of property by the burning of cars and their contents amounted to more than a million of dollars, the loss of which extended to owners throughout most of the states.
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Man's earthly education begins with birth, is ended by death. So long as he is content with the instruction given by the pitiless rain, the biting frost, winter's snow, summer's heat, hunger and thirst, disease and pain, love and hate, he remains a savage. Such teaching is forced upon him by the Universe of which he is a part. If despite this he will not toil save when pain compels, nor lay by in summer food for winter, he perishes, gives way for creatures more teachable.
Out of barbarism he can arise, has arisen only by the aid of sys- tematic instruction. To the toil and the restraint of this he is averse. Nevertheless they are the inevitable concomitant of civilization.
The real upbuilding of Chicago began with the organization of its first school. Whether the instruction given in 1810 to John H. Kinzie, a boy of six, by Robert Forsyth, a lad of thirteen, the educational facilities afforded in 1816 by William L. Cox to seven or eight chil- dren in a log cabin near the place now known as the intersection of Michigan and Pine streets, the teaching by Stephen Forbes in June, 1830, in a structure near where Randolph street and Michigan avenue now meet, or, the town of Chicago having been created and organized on the 5th day of August, 1833, the school opened by John Watkins in a house on the North Side, half way between the lake and the forks of the river, the first term of which was attended by twelve pupils, only four of whom were white, is to be reckoned as the first organized school in Chicago; the educational uplift of Chicago began with its beginning and has kept pace with its growth.
In the fall of 1832, there were twelve pupils, one school and one teacher ; in 1908 there were in the public schools 292,581 pupils and 6,107 teachers. The expenditure for the maintenance of public schools in 1898 was $10,044.271.71. In addition to the taxes they paid for the support of public schools, the parents of 74,196 children volunta- rily paid for their instruction in parochial schools.
The influence, the teaching of common learning such as reading, writing, mathematics, grammar, geography, natural philosophy and the natural sciences, is always good; coupled with this, there is some- times in the atmosphere of schools a spirit of exclusion, a disdain for others not so fortunately situated or nobly born, which is pernicious. The schools of Chicago have ever been remarkably free from this. Notwithstanding the long existence of statutory laws denying to black men the common rights of humanity, statutes intended to keep the
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negro in hopeless ignorance; the free Public Schools of Chicago have always been open to white and black alike, without attempt at ex- clusion or segregation based upon color; they have been kept in the front rank of educational work and have fitted millions for the struggles of life without which mankind cannot go forward to better things or higher civilization.
The Greeks of a few centuries before the Christian era are regard- ed as the greatest of artists. The temples built by them are looked upon as triumphs of art. The builders of today are continually asked to construct edifices as beautiful as were the Greek temples. There are in Chicago neither replicas of Greek temples nor attempts at imita- tion. Our architects have wisely refrained from this. A Greek temple needs space. It should stand alone, upon an eminence, apart from the shops and dwellings of men, beyond sound of the hammers and wheels of commerce, above the dust of the street, outside the route of the crowd, the playgrounds of men ; beyond reach of the cries of the caller and noise of the tramping feet of the multitude. It ought not to recall or suggest strife, labor or decay, impassioned oratory or sound of the lute and the viol. It should seem the embodiment of eternal peace and everlasting beauty; shine like the stars of Heaven and be changeless as they. Outlined against the sky it should look upon the world with the calmness and the dignity of a superior crea- tion, bidding men rise above the fixed earth upon which they tread to the spiritual realms set on high, boundless as space, constant as time, eternal as law, holding in its grasp and clasping in its arms all souls that have been, are and shall be.
A Greek temple was built as the dwelling place of a god, not for the haunts of men. It was not made light, so that people could read or write therein; nor for the assemblage of multitudes or the gratification of the curious and the stranger. It was a holy place, the shrine or casket of a god. Fronting to the east, the beams of the rising sun passing through the open doorway revealed the image of the divinity dwelling therein.
The problems presented to a Chicago architect were never pre- sented to the builders of Greek temples. The accomplishments of one cannot be compared with the other. The Greek architect did not have to consider cost, space, lighting or heating, ventilation, room for vis- itors, or an audience; he thought not of acoustic properties or ease
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of access. Created as Chicago was and existing as it does because of man's devotion to the peaceful arts of commerce, upon its extended plain there is no place for a Greek temple. Chicago architects have wisely refused to attempt to here construct one. Chicago architects have grappled with the problems presented by the needs of a great commercial city standing upon loose earth; have bored seventy feet down to bed rock, and built cement piers to meet the steel columns they have devised to carry the entire building, walls as well as interior. Chicago architects revolutionized the practice in regard to the support- ing strength of commercial edifices. Thanks to their ingenuity, these are now like the human body in which the hard skeleton carries the flesh and all the working parts as well as the burdens placed upon the shoulders. The great commercial structures of Chicago are thorough- ly built, well arranged, commodious, handsome buildings, erected with a view to utility and income therefrom; they respond to the demands of a great commercial city as well as the edifices of any place in the world and, thanks to the sense of fitness possessed by Chicago artists, none of them are so tall that they scratch the feet of the man in the moon when it passes over our city.
Chicago is a modern city ; it has no place where a Cock Lane Ghost appeared ; no Doomsday Book, although after the great fire of 1871 it was suggested that she should have one; no public square in which witches were formerly burned; no antiquities, no people old enough to be called aged. She is yet young and growing fast-how fast was well told just before the World's Fair. A Chicago journal had an item describing the capture of an escaped wolf in one of the city streets. The New York papers took notice of this and declared that in Chi- cago wolves were numerous and were frequently seen in the streets. Whereupon the Chicago paper replied that this was true, the fact being that Chicago was growing so fast the wild animals couldn't keep out of the way. Chicago is so confident and hopeful of the future that it has ever relished a joke at its expense. Some years ago, by annexa- tion, considerable territory devoted to farming was taken into the city. Shortly after this Chicago was selected as the place for holding the Columbus Memorial World's Exposition. A few days thereafter an Iowa banker visited New York, and on his way home calling upon his Chicago correspondent, was asked what New York said about the action of Congress in locating the World's Fair. "Oh," he replied.
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"they say Chicago is a great city, a wonderful place; a merchant said to me, 'Do you know they raise more hay in Chicago than in any other city in the World.'"
Since the beginning of the present century, the franchises of the street railways having lapsed, the city was enabled to dictate terms to the operating companies, which it did with the result that universal transfers are now given and one can ride to any point in the city for five cents, which may be a distance of about twenty-five miles. The city also receives fifty-five per cent of the net revenue. The transpor- tation is certainly as good as that of any surface system in the world. Under the central or downtown portion of the streets, tunnels for the transportation of mails and merchandise have, within a few years past, been completed so as to relieve in some degree the overcrowded surface. The constructive work is yet in progress and doubtless will in time revolutionize the transportation of bulky freight between the railroad depots and warehouses; if not, the carriage of small parcels and passengers.
Of the multitudinous mechanical devices the twentieth century has brought forth, there has been in Chicago less attention paid to and less work done upon flying machines than in any other place of equal im- portance. The spirit of Chicago is eminently practical and as to aeronautics, like other matters, it asks, "what will it profit." In what way is the lot of man to be made easier? What can be accomplished by such flying in the air as is practicable ? Three hundred years before the Christian era, Archytas, a Greek, one of the first who applied geom- etry to mechanics and built machines on mathematical principles, it is said constructed a wooden dove which, by means of air enclosed therein, would fly. In 1783 the Montgolfier brothers constructed a bal- loon capable of holding about half a million cubic feet of air; this hav- ing been heated by the fire of burning straw, the balloon carried seven gentlemen to a height of about 3.000 feet and brought the ærial voy- agers safely back to earth. Hydrogen gas was already known to be seven times lighter than air, and its substitution for heated air as a lifting force speedily followed. From the ascension of the seven Frenchmen to the present time, voyages by balloon have been frequent and endeavors to devise means for navigating the air constant in most civilized countries. Balloons have long been made use of by meteorolo- gists. The governments of the great nations have entered the field and
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expended large sums in attempts to make navigation of the air prac- ticable. Much has been accomplished, and it is now evident, that for amusement, excursions may be made at small or great heights, and that for the purposes of war, airships will be useful; but in the one hundred twenty-five years since the seven Frenchmen were carried by Montgolfier's balloon to a height of 3,000 feet, not a pound of freight, not one bag of mail or a passenger has been transported commercially ; meantime the hard, heavy, unromantic locomotive for rapid progress and great distances has throughout the civilized world supplanted the uncomplaining ox, ass, horse, llama, as well as the wailing camel ; while everywhere on the sea the white sails of commerce are giving way to white puffs of steam. Chicago for the present will remain upon the earth ; it is not nebulously inclined ; it does not attempt to set bounds to the imagination or the ingenuity of aerostaticians; it thinks it best that its investments rest upon firm foundations, and does not regard air as in that class.
What of the future of Chicago? To what goal are we moving? In the Universe no thing is at rest. Cities, nations, the world, man- kind, individuals, ideals and ideas are ever becoming. Chicago is unique, among other things, in that she presents an example of devel- opment, growth, progress, such as in. the same period of time has never been equaled. Toward what is she tending and to what will she come ?
Within the past century man has arrived at an understanding of the material forces of nature, the processes of growth and decay which have revolutionized the science of medicine and bid fair to transform methods of cultivation. Of material things we know vastly more than did the generations that preceded the discovery of America. With infinite toil and patience secrets, seemingly purposely hidden, have been wrung from unwilling nature and methods by which mountains and moles, leviathans and lice, men and monkeys. are built up and torn down, constructed and destroyed, have been revealed. In the search no trace of the fabled monsters who swal- lowed continents and drank up seas has been encountered. On the contrary we have ascertained that by the infinitely little has change been wrought. The vegetable and animal kingdom are prod- ucts of small things. These are they over which man has
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ruled, creations he has shaped, moulded and multiplied. The laws of the Universe are eternal. As in the beginning they remain. Our hope is to find them out and accommodate ourselves to their action. Man is a natural and a spiritual being; he has aspirations that are not limited by time nor bounded by space; faith in and hope of an existence after the end of his earthly life; a faith and a hope which have in all ages profoundly influenced his conduct, been in trouble and sorrow the greatest of consolations, raised the humblest to an equality with the highest, made the weak strong, the timid courageous, lifted the slave, crouching beneath the scourge of his master, to contemplation of a realm where for every cruel blow there would be endless recompense and joy; said to the mother with her lifeless babe in her arms, it has gone to God, whither you will go and where you will find your child.
Not all the constitutions and laws declaring the equality of men as citizens, subjects, rulers and ruled, have practically, to the under- standing of the common man, come home, given to him a thousandth part of the sense of equality, the joyful knowledge of his importance, and the infinite care with which he is guarded, that have the promises contained in the words, "Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear ye not there- fore, ye are of more value than many sparrows. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the Sons of God. Ye have re- ceived the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God. And if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. And we all know that all things work together for good to them that love God."
Science is to the fore in these days. We naturally, perhaps ra- tionally, conclude that those who by diligent search have established that organic life is everywhere dependent for its nourishment, growth and activity upon bacteria and protozoa, and have by knowledge, thus acquired, pointed out the way to stay the march of pestilence, banish plagues and greatly lengthen the average length of human life, must know more than did our fathers concerning all that enters into human life; and when they tell us that we are immortal only as the human race is immortal, that "every one of us began his
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life with the beginning of all life upon earth"; that is lived, in the immeasurable past, in the protozoan and the primal bacterium. mag- got and megatherium, monkey and man, and will continue to live so long as life upon the earth endures; we are staggered by the presen- tation of this to us as immortality. We were taught to understand immortality as a soul life after death of the body, with a preservation to some extent and for some time of our natural memory so that we could meet and hold converse with loved ones gone before. It is this faith which in ages past has been and yet is to myriads a solace in trouble and affliction, such as no philosophic reflection can give and no earthly communion affords. It is nevertheless the case that belief in life after death of the body is much less universal than it was in the eighteenth century. Skepticism as to inspiration of the Scriptures, a real life beyond the grave and the existence of God as a loving, thinking, helping Father, taking note of the children of men, under- standing their condition, knowing their wants, weakness and hope, and meting out to each that which most tends to bring him into communion with heaven is far less universal than it was when north of Springfield there were in Illinois no dwellings that could properly be spoken of as more than huts.
The generation of today may well ask, What doth it profit that the treasures of earth are laid at our feet if hope of Heaven has for- ever fled? Man is an aspiring being. He is not content to walk the earth and think of it alone. His thoughts rush to the stars, take in the visible and invisible Universe of which he is a part. Since a period back of which there is no record, he has been a religious being, believing in God, in angelic hosts, in the existence and influence of unnumbered multitudes, who, having once lived, as now doth he, have passed into higher and purer realms from whence they look down upon and sympathise with him in his effort to rise above the bonds which hold him close to material things.
Long ago it was asked, "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul"? In considering what Chicago is to be, we are compelled to take note of the trend of ideas, beliefs, opinions and their influence upon conduct. The Greeks of the age of Pericles carried understanding of and devotion to art far higher than have the centuries since Greece fell before the arms of Rome. There is reason for thinking the happiness of the Japanese people,
Vol. I-6.
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farmer, merchant and noble, the security of life and property, in the beautiful isles of the Eastern sea, far greater before Japan came un- der the baneful influence of European ideas and foreign culture than for many ages it will be again. Rome, having conquered the world, fell before the march of barbarians she had long despised. If our cities become waste places and our civilization be whelmed by hordes rude as the destroying hosts of Jenghiz Khan, it will not be by dark skinned races coming across seas or over mountains. If the civiliza- tion of which we boast is blotted out, Chicago laid in the dust. the destruction will be wrought by forces evolved out of conditions here created. The opinions of mankind as to conduct, what should be done by governments and society, what is right and what wrong, are in the long run determined by self interest, that is, by what appears to man to be most likely to bring to him that which he most desires, whether that be honor, fame, peace, security, wealth, power or other earthly or spiritual pleasure. Comparatively few desire great wealth, for riches bring not only great care, but the man known to be rich is the prey and servant of multitudes, as well as an object of hatred and reproach to many. All long for opportunity, a chance to make their way in the world, to show what great and good stuff is in them, live comfortably, be free from poverty and secure from want in old age.
Slaveholders were wise when they made it a crime to teach slaves to read, for if the fountains of knowledge were opened to men to whom the door of opportunity was shut, what would come of it! We have not only thrown open the fountains of knowledge, but compel the children of all to drink thereat. Not alone by schools, but in a thousand ways is knowledge thrust upon all. This is the age of schools and machinery. We are fed, clothed, housed, transported, educated, amused, soothed, doctored and buried by the aid of ma- chinery. To produce things cheaply, they must now be produced in great quantities. Combination is for success the order and the neces- sity of the hour. A century ago the manufacturer and the merchant who had a dozen employees, were each large employers of labor and did what was then considered a great business. Between such em- ployer and his employees there was such personal relation, acquaint- ance, sympathy and understanding as is impossible when a master gives work to a thousand laborers. Formerly each workman did and reasonably might hope to in time have his own shop, control his own
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force and in the sea of commerce push out as an owner. Today this not only seems, but for the great majority is, impossible. The social station of master and servant was not then widely variant ; they lived in the same parish, attended the same church, mingled in the same society and were buried in the same yard. Today they are as severed as are the clouds that pour out life-giving rain, from the fruitful earth upon which it falls. As a consequence in a period of the greatest com- fort and prosperity ever known, there is widespread dissatisfaction , and discontent, with organized effort to overturn the entire commer- cial, political, social and economic order. Discontent has become a cult. There has always been discontent and always will be, things cannot be arranged so as to suit all. In times past business discontent boded no ill to the community ; it sought not destruction but upbuild- ing, was not based upon hatred or despair, but upon a desire for the happiness and prosperity of all. Today the feeling of the majority of wage earners is that they can never be employers and consequently they have little sympathy with a class to which they cannot hope to ever belong. The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain said that on the mor- row the weather would be such as pleased him, because it would be such as pleased God, and whatever pleased God, pleased him The laborer of today does not believe that the modern business order is such as pleases God. He sees that not by force of constitution or statute, but by the trend of events he is practically denied an oppor- tunity to be anything but a laborer, and he would like to see the trend reversed, and is ready to grasp at shadows if they seem to be thrown by a real substance. The commercial structure of today was not created by base men or with base ends in view ; it is a natural, an orderly evolution, a product of human effort and human genius. In its building nobody foresaw that the doors of opportunity were being sealed up. They must, they will, be opened, wisely, God please! surely beyond question, and ultimately, surely without the destruc- tion of individuality, or individual property.
In ages past the wage worker carned and saved less than he does now, but he better kept his savings. Quite frequently they were buried in the earth, hidden in stockings or trusted to the lord of the manor. Seldom did he get interest upon his coin. The custom of taking in- terest upon barren gold has become universal and honorable in mod- ern times. The reproach of usury is a relic of days when only pro-
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fessional lenders took interest. Today the man who has money to invest is more eagerly sought for than was the Holy Grail. Circular letters come to him by every mail. Periodicals are filled with adver- tisements calling his attention to schemes of every nature. Agents darken his door and invade his home. It is vehemently urged that the government should guarantee the payment of all bank deposits. The loss by investors in governmentally authorized issues of stocks and bonds is a hundred times greater than the loss by depositors in banks. Why should not the state supervise and control all corpora- tions as well as all advertisements offering bonds and stock for sale, and also exact the making and publication each month of verified re- ports of liabilities, assets and condition, similar to those now required from insurance companies. The stock broker, note shaver and the banks can take care of themselves in these matters; the ordinary citi- zen, the laborer, the widow to whom has come the product of a life insurance policy, the devisee who has received a small bequest and the recipient of damages for personal injury, as a rule, have neither knowledge of such matters nor information as to where it can be ob- tained. It is the business of the state to give to the public knowledge as to these matters. Not only he who has wife and child, but he who has acquired an estate has given bonds to society. Those who would destroy our social order, who wish for the coming of anarchy, rejoice at the loss which the imprudent investor sustains. The enemies of civilization are alert. The humble, the feeble, the unsuspicious and the busy toiler must not only have the door of opportunity kept open for him, but be warned and guarded against the wiles of the vision- ary and the falsehoods of the untruthful. Each age and each nation has its perils and its duties. Holland has not only successfully kept back the threatening billows of the North Sea, but, advancing upon the stormy waves, pushed her coast line into the waters waste, and made fruitful soil of space the ocean in its wrath had devoured. The wooden walls of England have for centuries kept invading armies off her fields. The pestilence that walketh by noon has been banished from the civilized earth. The foes that threaten us today are the products of our own age, the creations of our genius, the fruit of our industry. It is said, "he that ruleth his spirit is better than he that taketh a city." Will we be able to rule our spirit, to accommodate ourselves to new conditions? To govern and to protect all; to accord
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