The Nineteenth Century , No 182, Apr 1892 [‎34v] (73/244)

558
THE NINETEENTH
April
visit, but the owners live in them as if they had taken them for a
month—they have no local interests or ties.
And yet, though wealth is the sole object of all men's desire, it
does not appear that Chicago society is wholly dominated by wealth.
A man who is a poor clerk in a dry-goods store to-day may be a
millionaire to-morrow, and the existing millionaires seem to realise
this fact, and, perhaps, to pride themselves on realising it. There
are, under such circumstances, special reasons for acting on the wise
precept of the Greek tragedian, to treat your friend as if some day
he might be your enemy, and your enemy as if he might some day
become your friend. Anyhow, there appears to be a good deal of
real republican feeling in Chicago society, and a tendency to take
men for what they are worth in other currency than that of the
United States mint.
There is strong evidence of a genuine desire to grow out of the
vulgarity—if I may be pardoned so very uncivil an expression—
which attached in the past to the reputation of Chicago and to the
methods of money-making there. Such a desire is apt to bring
about its own fruition • it has, to a large extent, done so, and the
tendency will grow. The desire of many of the best men of Chicago
is that their city, the city in which they take so just, so honest, a
pride, should be renowned for its university, its libraries, its museums,
its galleries, not for its stock-yards and grain-elevators, and in the
not distant future they and their sons are likely to see their hopes
realised.
Having so much that is worth showing to show, is it any matter
for surprise that the people of Chicago seized on the suggestion that
the quarter-centenary of Columbus's discovery of America should be
celebrated by an international exhibition, and set to work with
characteristic energy to secure for their city this magnificent adver
tisement ? Many of them, indeed, thought that they were not quite
ready, that they wanted a few more years to finish their streets, to
complete their parks, to build yet a larger number of big buildings.
It was, however, evident that the opportunity would not recur. The
splendour of the Paris Exhibition of 1889 had inflamed the minds of
the Americans who saw it, and had roused the feeling of rivalry so
natural to the American breast. France had had the best and biggest
exhibition. America must have a better, and, above all, a bigger
one. That was settled by common consent. The question was,
where? New York was naturally first suggested. To us on this
side it seems as natural that any national undertaking should in
America find its place at New York as that in England it should come
to London, or that in France Paris should give it room. This
is not so in the United States. Those States, though united, are yet
separate and individual. They have their antagonisms as the various
countries of Europe have. Between the East and West there seems