Chicago City (part 47 of 57)

In 1842 an industrious colored man, a member of the Chicago Methodist church, while working in a field for wages, became involved in a quarrel with a fellow workman in which impolite and offensive language was used by both. Whereupon a white man had the colored laborer arrested, charged with being a negro in the state of Illinois without a certificate jDf leave from his owner or of freedom from court. The negro thereupon was put in jail, and for six weeks duly advertised for sale. At the appointed time the sheriff appeared with his prisoner and offered him for sale. A large crowd was present. The negro, thinly clad, shivered in the cold November air. The sheriff called for bids, stated his duty under the law. For some reason there was not a ready response to the invitation to buy a man sold because he was a negro found in the state of Illinois without a written permit from his owner or a certificate that he was a free man issued by the county commissioner's court. The sheriff explained that if no bid was received the law compelled him to return the man to jail ; that he was required to sell the negro to pay the expense of his arrest and imprisonment. Finally Mahlon D. Ogden bid twenty-five cents; no other bid was made and the industrious negro, a member of the Chicago Methodist church, was on the fourteenth day of November, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred forty-two, and of the independence of the United States the sixty-sixth, struck off and sold to Mahlon D. Ogden for twenty-five cents. Mr. Ogden paid the money, and turning to his property said : "Edwin, I have bought you ; you are my slave ! Now go where you please."

deeper than in Chicago. Yet in Chicago at the presidential election of 1852, Franklin Pierce received 2,835 votes; Winfield Scott, 1,765; John P. Hale, 424; Democratic majority over all was 646.

Illinois had nearly always been a Democratic state and Chicago a Democratic city. The people justly felt a pride in the commanding position which Douglas had acquired in the senate and in the party of which he was a distinguished leader; yet, when in 1854, Douglas succeeded in carrying through Congress the measure known as the Kansas-Nebraska bill, by which the Missouri Compromise of 1820 was set aside and Kansas and Nebraska with all the territory lying westward opened to the introduction of slavery, the antislavery sentiment of the new and already great emporium, speaking with wrathful vehemence, carried all before it.

September ist, 1854, Senator Douglas was by appointment in Chicago to defend his course in introducing and urging the passage of the Kg.nsas-Nebraska bill. A great crowd assembled on Michigan street in front of a building then known as North Market Hall. Douglas began to speak to a most unsympathetic and hostile audience, if an assemblage which refuses to hear can be called an audience. Statements made by him were disputed with such bitterness, such malignant criticism of his conduct and such opprobrious epithets as clearly indicated not only an unwillingness to listen, but a determination that he should not be heard. Undoubtedly there were present very many adherents of the American, styled by its opponents the Know Nothing party, who disliked the senator because of the vigorous attack he had recently made upon that nascent organization, but the bitter hostility of the great mass of the throng was the result of long and deeply settled conviction of the fundametal truth that all men are born free and equal, that no man's child could rightfully be torn from him or held forever in slavery because its father was a slave, a negro or mulatto, and that the Kansas-Nebraska act, opening, as it did, to the introduction of slavery territory supposedly forever consecrated to freedom, was a crime against humanity. Nevertheless the refusal to hear cannot be justified. No one was obliged to go to the meeting; everyone had a right to go. The right of each person who wished to hear the senator, as well as his right to speak, was trampled upon. True it is that Elijah Lovejoy had been killed in Alton by a mob for daring to publish an anti-slavery paper in that city; but the greater wrong done at Alton in 1837 was no justification for a denial of the right of free speech at Chicago in 1854. One wrong does not justify another. The courageous conduct of Douglas in for two hours facing a mob determined to howl him down, made him friends, in many quarters and helped not at all the anti-slavery sentiment by which it was principally inspired.

At the congressional election held in tlic fall of 1854, the true feeling of Chicago upon the question of slavery was expressed at the polls by a vote of 3.448 for James H. Woodworth, the Free-soil candidate, contrasted with 1,175 ^^r his Democratic opponent.

The refusal to hear Douglas had an effect not expected by the howling mob, the senator, his friends or any person. It at once focused the attention of the political world upon Chicago and Illinois. The Prairie state had been known as reliably Democratic ; it had not been carried away by the panic of 1837, the log cabin campaign of 1840, or the brilliant record as a commander of General Taylor, under whom Illinois soldiers had fought and won imperishable laurels at Buena Vista. Douglas was the leader of the young Democracy, the champion of his party upon the great issue which men felt was now to the fore and upon which for years political action would turn. That he should have been refused a hearing, repudiated in the chief city of the great west; that Illinois with an infamous slave code as a part of its statutory law should have turned against the most brilliant and the most influential man it had sent to Congress, was indeed startling. Boston ! Boston indeed ! had held a great meeting in Faneuil Hall, the Cradle of Liberty. Eloquent men had spoken and excited crowds had attended the so-called hearing of Simms and the assumed hearing of Burns, peaceable colored men who had lived and toiled for years in the metropolis of Massachusetts; but Simms and Burns had been consigned to slaverv and carried through the streets of the capital of Massachusetts to lifelong bondage, without trial by court or jury, under a fugitive slave law, so-called because it authorized a commissioner appointed by the circuit court of the United States to, upon satisfactory proof of the escape of a slave and a declaration upon oath of the identity of the person arrested with the escaped slave, deliver up the alleged slave to his owner or his agent; it being specially provided that in such proceeding the testimony of the party accused of being an escaped slave should not he admitted. Chicago, which the untamed Indians had possession of twenty-one years before, had risen in holy wrath and refused to listen to its representative who had voted for the fugitive slave law under which any man white or black could be seized and sent south to be there tried upon the allegation that he was a slave; and had contemptuously spurned its senator who had brought about the setting aside of a solemn agreement dedicating a vast domain to freedom. What will Chicago do, was henceforth a question in the mind of the millions of anti-slavery men who thenceforth for a quarter of a century shaped the destiny of America. What, in the contest with the slave power, would Chicago do next? It brought about on the 17th of June, 1858, the nomination by the Republicans of Abraham Lincoln for United States senator and of Stephen A. Douglas by the Douglas Democracy. The Democratic administration of Buchanan, because of the refusal of the Little Giant to support the Lecompton constitution, attempted to be imposed by force upon Kansas, was no longer in harmony with Senator Douglas, and the party in Illinois was divided into Administration and Douglas Democrats; the Administration being composed almost entirely of federal office holders and their immediate followers. These nominations were followed by a joint debate between Lincoln and Douglas, the most important and in its influence the most far-reaching public discussion that has ever taken place in this country, if not in the world. The debate was not concerning the tariff, the regulation of inter-state commerce, the free coinage of silver, the making of greenbacks a legal tender or the creation of a great navy. It was concerning liberty, the fundamental rights of man, equality before the law, the selling into hopeless bondage of men, women and children; our duty to millions of slaves, husbands and wives to whom the law gave neither protection nor assistance in their desire to live together and love each other; the discussion had reference to children liable to be sold at any hour away from parents because of the whim, the interest, passion or misfortune of the owner, laws that make it a crime to teach a black person, woman or child, to read; that by solemn pronouncement of constitution and statute doomed four millions of human beings to unending ignorance; that closed and barred the door to hope and blotted out opportunity; that put before aspiration an impervious wall high as heaven and deep as hell, and in all this fair land left but one light to which the down trodden slave could look with hope, the North Star. Fondly let us hope and fervently pray that no such discussion again arise from the denial to men, white or black, of rights we claim for ourselves.

to nominate a candidate for president. The convention met in May, i860. A temporary building had been erected on the south of Market between Lake and Randolph streets. The side wall of a brick block extending from Lake to Randolph street formed the south or rear side of the structure. In September, 1859, the country had been greatly stirred by the killing of David C. Broderick, United States senator from the state of California; Broderick had been killed by one David S. Terry, a noted pro-slavery politician of San Francisco. Broderick lived, after receiving the fatal stab, long enough to say : "They have killed me because I was opposed to slavery and a corrupt administration." Upon the rear wall of the Republican Wig- warn, facing the entrance and the vast audience, were cartoons of heroic size having pohtical significance. One of these was a portrait of the martyred Broderick; written underneath were his dying words. At such a time, on such an occasion, few things could have .been more impressive. The convention, to the more thoughtful, was the first held by the Republicans that seemed to have in its control the namJng of the next president and the inauguration of an administration determined to prevent further extension of the area devoted to slavery. Subsequent events have shown it to have been a gathering, the importance of which no convocation of men has exceeded. The balloting began on the third day of the convention. Abraham Lincoln having received the nomination for president, the selection of a candidate for vice president was taken up in the afternoon. The wide street in front of the Wigwam was filled with an immense crowd unable to get in the building. Upon its flat roof were a number of active young Republicans to whom a statement of the vote of each state as announced was passed up through a skylight directly over the seat of the chairman. This report was passed along to the front of the roof from which it was given to the throng in the street. Among the zealous young Republicans thus engaged was a rough and ready speaker, quick witted, possessed of a keen sense of humor ; somewhat of a horse trader generally known as "Horse Eddy." Eddy commented upon the votes as announced. The tide was running in favor of Hamlin. Massachusetts cast her vote for him, whereupon Eddy said, "Yes, Abe Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin are the boys that will build a fence round the Democracy over which they never can jump."

In American political oratory the voters are always "boys," whether they are twenty or eighty years old. Of the names presented to the convention, Seward was most widely known and had longest stood in the public estimation as a typical representative of the anti-slavery feeling of the north. Lincoln was nominated because of his availability, the belief that he would receive many votes in Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, that Seward could not obtain. The friends of Seward were greatly disappointed; nevertheless he and they most loyally supported the nominees of the* convention.

Fnmi aljout the year 1856 the Weekly New York Tribune, under the !iianai;ement of Horace Greeley, was politically the most important paper in America. It had the largest circulation of any secular weekly and conduced more to the development of opposition to the further extension of slavery than any other jou,rnal.

During the canvass preceding the convention of i860 the New York Tribune advocated the nomination of Bates of Missouri instead of Seward, the leader of the Republicans of New York.

There is little danger that any will overrate the work done by Horace Greeley in arresting the march of slavery and dedicating this land to freedom, nor can one speak too strongly of his devotion to the cause of the Union in the great struggle that followed tlie election of Abraham Lincoln.

He was not a soldier nor in any way capable of advising as to military movements. Tlie unfortunate result of the first battle of Bull Run, following as it did, his urgent cry of "On to Richmond,"' shook the confidence of the north in his judgment - a confidence never fully restored. From thence to the present time, with the exception of a few years during which the Chicago Tribune under the direction of Horace White, ceased to act in harmony with the Republicans and supported the Democratic candidate for president, the press of Chicago has been and now^ is politically more influential than that of any other city in the United States.

Before the lapse of four years, all anti-slavery men as well as all friends of the Union were convinced that the convention did wisely in selecting Lincoln. The contest was from the outset serious in purpose, method, discussion and view of the future. Many of those about to cast their first vote realized that the country stood upon the brink of the most terrible of civil wars; that we were steadily marching toward an ocean whose currents, rocks, perils and havens no man knew ; that in the red waves of this unsailed sea we shoulil all be wdielmed, and who would survive the storm, who successfully buffet the waves, who reach a peaceful if barren shore - none could tell. Would the country we loved and served remain? The Hag beneath whose folds we marched and fought survive as an emblem Vol. 1 - 3.

of liberty or go clown in the conflict of contending armies and the clash of hostile ideals? Of only one thing did young, ardent an^ sober-minded men feel assured. The contest is inevitable; in the nature of things it is impossible that this land should remain a country based upon the highest liberty, equal opportunity and hope for some, slavery and no stepping stone to higher things and no hope for others. That for whites all avenues of knowledge should be open, and it a crime to teach negroes to read the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord's Prayer or the Commandments given at Sinai. And these said, "Let the great battle for equality of every one before the 1-aw come, if come it must, while I am able to bear a part in the fight, to carry a musket and help hold freedom's banner up." Peaceful submission to the popular will all hoped for; many believed this would be, some did not.

Lincoln having been triumphantly elected, there was in Chicago as elsewhere the customary rejoicing over the victory. March 4th he took at Washington the oath of office and became president. April 15, 1 86 1, in consequence of the attack upon and capture of Fort Sumter he called for 75,000 volunteers and Congress to meet in extra session on July 4th.

The expected and the unexpected had happened. Chicago was a commercial city. War deranges, interrupts, frequently destroys commerce. In modern times the influence of commercial interests, merchants, manufacturers, bankers, carriers and lawyers is always for peace. Wars are less frequent, not so lightly entered upon as in bygone ages, because commercial interests forbid. Nevertheless Chicago responded with alacrity to the call to arms, proffered all it had, its business, its money and its sons to enforce 'the law, maintain the Union. For more than four years there was in Chicago, as elsewhere, the sundering of ties, the disruption of business, the failure of enterprises the success of which depended upon peace; and there were thousands of faces weary and wan wishing for the war to cease, the ever present fear of disaster and death at the front. The history of the war or of Chicago's part therein will never be told; it is written in a thousand burial fields; it lies in ocean depths, by the mountains and the sea; on the furrowed faces and the bending forms of a vanishing host; in tenderly cherished mementoes, and built into

Chicago And Cuuk Couxtv 35

"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime wiioroof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist witliin the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

"All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction tliereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

"The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."

To him who recognizes the indescribable toil and effort, the love that passeth understanding, hope deferred that maketh the heart sick, and return of good for evil, charity that endureth all things, working together through unnumbered reons past, building out of barbarism a civilization beginning to embrace the world and clasp in its arms all mankind, asking for no one a right under the law not given to all and despising none because of conditions which involve neither merit nor demerit, those lines, the fruit of striving for noble things since the morning stars sang logether, are significant as to what was the strife and the suffering which made the writing of them in tlie Constitution possible.

The national convention for 1864 of the Democratic party was held in Chicago, beginning August 29th. Horatio Seymour, governor of New York, was selected as presiding officer. Mr. Seymour was not known as an anti-slavery man or a war Democrat; ne was a polished gentleman, a fine orator and perhaps politically the strongest man in the Empire state. He made an earnest anti-war address, but he was not guilty of any breach of good manners. The convention drew to Chicago not onlv the elected delegates, but a great num- ber of intensely pro-slavery men, eager to publicly proclaim their abomination of anti-slavery men and measures, and also of all done in the prosecution of the war or in the lifting of the negro oul of bondage. Such persons spoke with unrestrained violence of Lincoln, the Republicans, the Union soldiers and all done by the north to suppress the rebellion. The assassination of Lincoln at the moment of victory gave to his life and work so pathetic a finish, that of all men who have led contending parties in times of intense bitterness, when society was being upheaved to its foundation, realms laid waste, great numbers reduced from affluence to poverty and multitudes slain, he has been and is the most universally beloved and kindly spoken of. The generation born since the close of the war know little and those who are to come are not likely to know at all how bitterly he was assailed during the war, not merely in the south, but throughout the country. There is hardly an - opprobrious epithet that was not applied to him, and few great crimes of which he was not openly accused. He was called a thief, a robber, an embezzler of the public money, a murderer and a gorilla ; indeed ! gorilla seemed to many the word that most clearly expressed the speaker's idea of the president's character. Those who spoke to the Democratic convention in 1864 for the most part, observed parliamentary usage in the choice of words, but those who harangued the multitude at street corners, in the lobbies and parlors of hotels and before bars in saloons, gave vent to the long pent-up feeling of their angry hearts. Among the milder of these utterances were remarks by C. Chauncey Burr of New Jersey, who said : "We had no right to burn their wheat fields, steal their pianos or jewelry. Mr. Lincoln had stolen a good many thousand negroes; but for every negro he had stolen ten thousand spoons. * * * The South could not honorably lay down her arms, for she was fighting for her honor. Two million men had been sent down to the slaughter pens of the south and the army of Lincoln could not again be filled, neither by enlistments nor conscription."

Henry Clay Dean of Iowa said : "For over three years Lincoln had been calling for men, and they had been given. But with all the vast armies at his command, he had failed, failed, failed ! Such a failure had never before been known. * * * ^^d still the monster usurper wanted more men for his slaughter pens. * * *

Ever since tlie usurper, traitor and tyrant had occupied the presidential chair, the Repubhcan party had shouted 'War to the knife and the knife to the hilt.' Blood had flowed in torrents; and yet the thirst of the old monster was not quenched. His cry was for more blood."

The platform adopted by the convention contained among other things the following: "Resolved, that this convention does explicitlv declare, as the sense of the American people, that, after four years of failure to restore the Union by the experiment of war, during which under the pretense of a military necessity higher than the Constitution, the Constitution itself has been disregarded in every part, and public liberty and private right alike trodden down, and the material prosperity of the country essentially impaired, justice, humanity, liberty and the public welfare demand that efforts be made for the cessation of hostilities, with a view to an ultimate convention of all the states or other peaceable means to the end that at the earliest practicable moment peace may be restored on the basis of the Federal Union of the states."

There was published in Wisconsin during the war a newspaper that acquired an inter-state reputation and circulation by the virulence and savageness of its assaults upon Lincoln and his work. For the most part the people of Chicago made no reply to the disloyal utterance of those in attendance upon the convention. Chicago was host, and guests are privileged persons; but when the trumpeting had ceased and the guests were gone, the people of Chicago had something to say. Among those who spoke was Long John, as he was familiarly known to everybody. John Wentworth had been repeatedly elected to Congress and mayor of the city. Lie is the man of whom the story was first told that when he w^ent into the country to speak, instead of having him stand upon a stump so that all the audience could have a view of him, he was so tall that they dug a hole for him to stand in, so that all might have a good look at his face. Long John said, ''During the convention I met a man who said to me that we could not destroy slavery because God would preserve it." "Well," said Long John - no one who has not seen and heard him can imagine the ugliness of the grin, the size of the mouth or the stridencv of tone with which "Wei!" was uttered - "I said to him

In October,. 1 87 1, there occurred in Chicago a fire which in extent of the devastated area, nmnber of people rendered homeless and value of property destroyed, was the greatest that to that time had afflicted man. The night following the twenty-four hours during which the fire, directed by the wind, moved steadily along, till it reached a place where there was nothing to burn, one hundred thousand people slept beneath the stars upon the uncovered prairie. The fire had not ceased before relief organizations, far and near in city and village, country and town, were organized and relief to the stricken people was on its way. Nor was sympathetic action confined to this country. There was hardly a city of importance in Europe from which relief was not sent. By mail and by telegraph came sympathetic messages and practical help.

merchants and manufacturers replied, no; we will perform our promises; there will be no repudiation. And so Chicago rose, not like the fabled Phoenix out of its ashes, but out of its courage and its integrity, which no fire could destroy.

Along in the seventies there was constructed on Monroe near Market street, a large auditorium for the use of Moody and Sankey as evangelists. Dwight L. Moody had been for some time a Methodist minister preaching in Chicago. Ira D. Sankey was a singer having a remarkably melodious voice, an enunciation so distinct that every word he sang was understood by all within the great space to which his tones extended. The multitude love to hear such singing and are profoundly moved by it. Moody was an eminently earnest, practical Christian ; faith without works was of no consequence to him. He said to the women who hung upon his words and were enthusiastic over his mission : "Look to your homes and your household duties first." "Don't come here until you have made your home as pleasant and as comfortable as you can." "When all you ought to do there is done, we shall be glad to see you here." To the men who came forward expressing a desire to help in the good work, he said : "You cannot be true to God unless you are true to man. You must acknowledge your faults, confess your sins and repent." "Repentance is of no consequence unless it is accompanied by reparation as far as it is possible for you to make it." "If you have cheated or defrauded any one. you must make him whole, put back all that you have unjustly obtained." "All now, if you can; if not all now, a portion and little by Httle until all is paid." "Nothing is yours that you have improperly obtained from another." From America, Moody and Sankey went to England, and in that country met with the success and did good and blessed work like unto that they had done in Chicago. Mr. Moody, when he first came to Chicago, had charge of a small chapel located very near a Catholic neighborhood. The windows of the chapel were broken and attendants annoyed, Mr. Moody thought, by children of Catholic parents. So Mr. Moody called upon the Catholic bishop, and telling him of the trouble, asked if he would not use his inllucnce; the bishop said he would, and that as he and Mr. Moody prayed to the same God and were servants of the same Master, they could and would pray that they and their parishioners dwell together in unity. "Yes, yes," said Mr. Moody, "and no time like the present. Father," and down upon his knees he fell and together the Methodist clergyman ' and the Right Reverend Bishop prayed earnestly for the entrance of Christ into the hearts of all men.

General Grant having been president from 1868 to 1876, after the conclusion of his second term, went upon an excursion around the world. He returned to this country in 1879. Prior to his home coming a movement to make him in 1880 the Republican nominee for a third term had begun. Conkling, the United States senator from New York, Logan, senator from Illinois, and a senator from Pennsylvania, were most earnestly for the nomination of Grant. There was for him a strong feeling in every state, and nowhere any personal hostility to him. The arguments made use of by those opposed to his nomination were - the inadvisability of a third term for any man, and the alleged baneful influence of those by whom he was most closely in touch and most immediately surrounded. As to the nomination, the divided opinion of Chicago resulted in the most vigorous contest before or since waged in Illinois over the selection of delegates to a convention to nominate presidential candidates. During the afternoon upon which the primary election to select delegates to the state convention which was to choose the delegates to the national convention, was held, a violent thunder storm came on, amid which long lines of Republicans stood in line in the streets waiting for their turn to vote. A majority of the delegates chosen to the county convention were opposed to the nomination of Grant. The minority favorable to Grant was large enough to make the composition of the convention doubtful if a number of delegates whose election was disputed were denied admission. Vigorous contests were presented to the convention when assembled. The first clash was over the organization of the assemblage. A majority of the county central committee, being opposed to the nomination of Grant, selected for the temporary j^residing oflicer, Elliot Anthony, an old resident of Chicago, afterwards judge of the superior court. To this the Grant forces strenuously objected, and when Mr. Anthony went forward to preside, the minority under the leadership of Lieut. Richard S.

Chicago And Cook Couxtv 41

Tuthill, a gallant soldier of the Civil war, and a personal friend of General Grant as well as of General Logan, left the hall, went to the Palmer House and in its great parlor organized another convention, which selected as delegates to the state convention some ninety persons, all the county was entitled to ha\e. The convention from which the Grant men hroke away selected an equal numher and thus a few days later there were presented to the state convention at Springfield contesting delegations eipial in numbers, each insisting that its members were alone entitled to act for the Republicans of Cook county. The contest in the other counties of the state resulted in the election of such a greater number of delegates favorable to Grant that the delegation which should be admitted from Cook county could make a majority favorable to or against him. There w'as at Springfield before the committee and the convention a vigorous contest. In the convention Emory A. Storrs, a brilliant lawyer and orator, spoke for the Grant men; Kirk Hawes, a lawyer, afterwards a judge of the circuit court, represented the opposition ; with the result that the state convention admitted of the supporters of General Grant a number proportionate to the delegates which the Grant forces would without contest have obtained from the Chicago convention, and did likewise with the opposition to the general. The result being that while the opposition to the nomination of General Grant had, in the state convention, a majority of the delegates from Cook county. General Grant had in the entire convention a majority of the delegates, thus giving to such majority the power to select delegates to the national convention, all of whom were favorable to the nomination of General Grant, which was done.

The Republican national convention, which met in Chicago, selected for its presiding officer Senator Hoar of Massachusetts, who. amid the strenuous contest that followed, presided with such impartiality and manifest fairness as to satisfy all parties. For the first time in the history of the party, the convention was unable to finish its business in one week. Senator Conkling in nominating General Grant, delivered a great oration. Garfield in presenting the name of Senator Sherman received well merited applause from everyone. Grant and Blaine had together a large majority of the delegates, and the friends of each were glad to show their regartl for Senator Slier-

The prolongation of the convention into a second week gave time for much consultation as to what could be and had best be done ; the result being that in spite of the protests of James A. Garfield he was nominated for president; the delegation from New York uniting in putting forward for vice president Chester A. Arthur of that state, Garfield and Arthur were nominated. General Grant was the soul of loyalty, loyal to his country, to principle, to party and friends; he did not seek a nomination, in fact, never sought either of those under which he was elected. His friends put him forward for a third term and he yielded to their importunities.

Following the explorations of Jean Nicollet in 1634 there were within the following two hundred years civilized men, priests, engineers, soldiers, hunters, traders and adventurers who visited the western wild, sailed upon the great lakes, along the majestic rivers, and looking upon the fertile prairies did not fail to recognize the possibility that this vast domain would in time become the home of millions and the seat of an empire the equal of any the world had known. Of things material or spiritual man sees only those to which his mind is open. To all else he is deaf and blind. The early explorers saw a vast extent of most fertile land ready for the plow; they realized that these lands could be made to furnish food for millions ; they were to them a most valuable agricultural domain ; there is nothing tending to show that they thought of them as the future seat of a manufacturing industry such as the world had never seen. They do not seem to have observed indications of coal and if they had they would not have realized their importance. Mineral coal was then little used; the civilization of the world, since said to rest upon coal, alcohol, sulphuric acid and iron, certainly did- not then rest upon a quartette of which coal was one.

Chicago may have been and probably was regarded as a future place of exchange, a halting spot for the boats, which, coming from the east through the lakes, would by a short canal from the Chicago to the DesPlaines river descend to the Gulf, and th'us might become an important port in the exchange of commodities.

There is reason for thinking- that the pre-histnric inhabitants of England found coal cropping out and made use of it to a small extent. Coal has been regularly mined in China for Industrial -t^i /- 1 , ' ^ , .

use of it two thousand years before the Christian era. Theophratus, a contemporary of Aristotle, speaks of it as being found in Liguria and Elis on the way to Olympias, over the mountains. He called it "lithos anthrakas." In i_'59 a charter was granted to the freeman of New Castle to dig lor coal, and thereafter coal was carried thence to London; from whence arose the phrase descriptive of useless efifort - "Like carrying coals to New Castle." Coal continued to be used for warming the houses and cooking the food of London people. Yet when Marco Polo, the first European who visited China, returned to Venice in 1292 and told that in Cathay (China) a kind of black stone was found in the mountains which the people dug out and which burned like wood, and which the people preferred to wood because the stones burned better and cost less, the Venetians for the most part did not believe him ; and as they felt sure he lied about this they concluded that all the tales he told of where he had been and what he had seen were ecjually false; and so they were - one was as false as the other, no more so. The steam engine could not have so revolutionized human intlustry had it not been for the existence of mineral coal.

The development of the steam engine and the discovery of the vast coal fields close to Chicago, have made it one of the greatest of manufacturing centers. Many years ago the villager who transformed cows into beef, pigs into pork, sheep into mutton, and sold to his neighbors the transformed product was termed a butcher, yet although his calling was thought to induce in him cruelty, his social standing was the same as that of other tradesmen, he l)eing the ol)ject of neither envy, malice nor contempt. Thus Archibald Clybourne. a worthy man, in 1827 was the proprietor of a slaughter house in Chicago, built for the killing of such cattle as were recpiired for the garrison at the fort. The dawn of a higher station and a more attractive name for this useful calling was in 1S32. when George W. Dole "packed," mark you! - not butchered, killed or slaughtered - but packed one hundred and fifty-two head of cattle for Oliver Newberry of Detroit. Thus the record runs and only between the lines do we infer that the cattle were killed before they were packed. The packing business has grown - somehow everything in Chicago does - even taxes mount upward. In 1907 there were received at the Chicago stock yards 7,717,280 hogs; of these 6,092,159 were there dressed or packed. The value of the hogs received was $102,918,041. During the same year there were received 4,218,115 sheep; 3,305,314 cattle; the total value of hogs, horses and cattle received being $319,- 202,239. In 1905 there was employed in the business of slaughtering and meat packing in Chicago the sum of $69,880,273 ; there were employed therein 22,391 persons. The Chicago Union Stock Yards were opened for business in 1866; from then to the year 1908 the value of stock received at these yards was $7,595,009,593.

And what of the packers by whom all this has been done? They dwell in palaces upon the boulevards, have numberless automobiles and steam yachts ; mansions in the country and cottages by the sea ; their daughters are sought by the nobility ; ducal coronets and princely crowns are cast at their feet. They are munificent in their charities, bulwarks of financial institutions, devoted to civic improvement. Their wealth is established by the fact that next to the Standard Oil magnates and the railway kings they are as much envied, reviled and maligned as any people in America.

In 1833 Ashael Pierce finished the long and tedious journey from Vermont to Chicago. Being a native of the Green Mountain state, Ashael had of course the strength and love of hard- work required of a blacksmith. John G. Saxe said that Vermont was famous for four things,

"Men and women, maple sugar and horses; The first are strong, the last are fleet; The second and third are sweet. And all are uncommonly hard to beat."

Therefore young Mr. Pierce started to build a blacksmith shop. There was a forest near, but no lumber, and our first Tubal Cain had to go forty miles away, to Plainfield, now a part of Will county, to obtain suitable lumber. He was an enterprising man and not afraid to buy tools, build a shop, don his leather apron and launch away. The ringing of his anvil attracted the attention of John T. Temple & Co., and this firm employed him in January, 1834, to iron the first stage that ran between Chicago and St. Louis. Reguhir conimunication was about to be opened up with a city founded in 1764, situated at the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri. Chicago had to become acquainted with its neighbors. In that year we began to manufacture plows, then known as the "Bull i'low." There are men now living who can remember when nearly all the plows used by farmers were made by country blacksmiths. Lifting our eyes above the commercial side of the matter, there are to be seen social reasons why it is to be regretted they are not so made today. But coming back to earth and business, what is a "Bull Plow," or what was it in Chicago in the spring of 1834? The board of education doubtless sees that Chicago children are taught that a bull is the male of the genus bos or of any large cattle; the children are doubtless also made to understand that on the board of trade and the stock exchange a bull is one who is endeavoring to raise the price of articles, and that bull is the name of certain letters, edicts or briefs issued by the Pope, but are they informed what kind of an article the first plow made in Chicago was?

In 1835 David Bradley came here and worked for Wm. H. Stow in the building of a foundry, and so in the years 1832 to the panic of 1837, numerous manufacturing establishments were erected. Chicago had in 1837 what those whose business depends upon the flow of water call a set-back ; a set-back being, among river men, a damming up, a stoppage of the usual flow, so that the water sets back, accumulates on low lands. The demand for manufactured products of Chicago as well as for town lots fell off in 1837, but the growth of Chicago, checked for a brief space, soon went on.

In 1905 there were in Chicago 8,159 manufacturing establishments, making use of capital to the extent of $637,743,474, employing 241,984 persons, to whom there was yearly paid the sum of $136,404,696.

In 1833 Ashael Pierce had to go forty miles to get lumber to build a blacksmith's shop in Chicago. In 1907 there were received in Chicago 2,479,458,000 feet of lumber and 2,362,856,000 were shipped away. How the market has changed !

The real history of a people is that of their progressive thinking, the development of opinion, the sentiments by which they have been moved, the soul manifested by their deeds.

Some frontier towns were long known as drinking, gambling, fighting places. Chicago never was; not but that it had evil resorts and bad men, but from the period of its first organization as a municipality, it has substantially always been under the influence and control of the honest, peaceable, sober, industrious and orderly portion of its inhabitants. Its religious institutions have been many, and its religious people active in every good work. As to what was wisest and best, and as to what now is, there have been and are widely variant opinions ; nevertheless there has been working for the same end, an uplifting spirit, a feeling that the great, the enduring triumphs of nations and people are in the realm of spiritual aspiration.

of a risen Saviour, through whom all might become partakers of a great salvation, enter into an eternity of rest and a peace that passeth understanding.

Not to obtain lands, not to gain wealth, not that he might be remembered as a discoverer of new countries and strange peoples, not as a seeker after knowledge came the good Marquette, in whose journal is preserved a record of the first ordained function known to have been performed in the territory now included in -this city. Not as a ceremonial dedicating the waters and fields around to the exalted purpose they have since served; not with thought of the lofty structures in time here to stand and the millions here to dwell, did the good father say the Conception Mass; but in truth this simple ceremonial in a little hut on a winter's day in 1674 reached the throne of the infinite and dedicated this spot to God as truly as if the Pope, foreseeing what has come, had in the presence of all the hierarchy of the Catholic church, amid salvos of artillery, the solemn peal of the organ and the voices of St. Peter's choir, proclaimed this spot consecrate to the Most High.

It is quite true that the faith of the cliildren is not that of the fathers; that in 1908 reh'gious teaching is not couched in the language of 1836. Churches arise and fall; creeds come and go; religion remains. Man loves many things; he does not worship that which he completely understands, fully comprehends. Thunder is no longer to us the voice of God, because we know whence it cometh and what it is. From the cradle to the grave we are encompassed by the unknown and the mysterious. The increase of knowledge, so far as making us acquainted with, revealing all things, has enlarged the bounds, deepened our comprehension of the realm concerning which we know nothing. Of not a single atom of the universe have we complete and definite knowledge. Neither Lord Kelvin, the greatest scientist of the nineteenth century, nor any other man. has solved the riddle of matter or of existence, material or spiritual. Every attainment of knowledge opens our eyes to the vastness of that concerning which we know nothing. Nothing is more obvious than the apparent rising of the sun in the east, its passage along the sky and setting in the west. This daily perception of mankind from the beginning of time having been proved to be erroneous, upon what observation of our senses can we absolutely rely? Is death a reality or an appearance? Upon what ground do. scientists proclaim that death is an eternal blotting out of the conscious, willing, loving soul? By what evidence do they limit spiritual existence to the conditions under which it is manifested here? The worm that lives in the earth and cannot endure the light of day has reason to think life with exposure to the fierce rays of the sun an impossibility. In the centuries immediately preceding the birth of Christ, faith in the long-accepted religious belief of Greece and Rome had been profoundly shaken. An age of skepticism arose, of which cities were the centers. Groves ceased to have their divinities. Rivers and springs were no longer the abode of spiritual beings possessed of supernatural power; but men did not cease to be religious beings. The heathen (countrymen) and the villagers (pagans) became Christians. The faith of men was changed; the religious instinct was not destroyed nor the desire for communion with the source of life ended. In trouble and in joy, in sunshine and darkness, with hope and fear, men looked to forces they did not understand, powers they could not control, praying for guidance and help - and these they found; not, perhaps, as they hoped and prayed; but guidance and help to better things. A general of the Civil war, noted for his roughness and his profanity in dealing with subordinates, being taken to task for this, said : "1 know it is all wrong, indecent, horrible, but I can't help it. I deserve to be killed for it and I expect I will be; but do you know? - profane and vile as I am, I never close my eyes to sleep without reciting a little prayer my mother taught me."

The religious influence of Chicago is neither stayed nor diminished ; it has sought new channels and its activity finds outlet in ways once not thought of.

The effort to spread the Gospel, make known Christian truth, necessarily changes with the conditions of life. The impulse by which man is moved, the thought dominant in his mind, the dreams he has in youth and the determined purpose of maturer years vary from generation to generation. There were centuries in which Europe, impelled by an overmastering passion, moved mighty armies to the East in an attempt to rescue the Holy Sepulcher from the grasp of the infidel.

Six hundred years ago the Crusades came to an end. The Christian world has today but to stretch forth its hand to possess that for which millions died in vain. Today Europe is indifferent to the rule of the Mohammedan at Jerusalem. Is Christian faith less earnest and Christian zeal less strong than it was a thousand years ago? Not so. We have learned that Christianity abideth not in lands nor dwelleth in the mountains of Galilee, but in the hearts of men. The possession it now seeks is dominion over the soul. To this end it adapts its methods to the varying conditions of mankind. In an age when everyone can read and the question is not how can books to read be obtained, but how shall a wise selection be made, and how, in the multitude of teachers, the variety of entertainments and the eager solicitation of those who seek only their own gain, shall young and old, maidens and matrons, boys and graybeards be led into paths of pleasantness and peace. This is a problem presented in what we are pleased to call the intellectual age. In New England, a century ago, everyone went to church. How much wiser and better they were than the toilers of today ! Let us not be too sure about this. Really, they had no other place to go. It is, perhaps, to be deplored, but the truth is, the idea that salvation cannot be obtained outside the structure we call the House of flixl is not in the atmosphere of most of the places where men now live and toil. The modern spirit therefore says. "If, unfortunately, there be those who will or do not go to church antl there hear what Christianity is. let us take Christianity to a place where they will go." This is what has been done in Chicago. In 1858 the Young Men's Christian Association of Chicago was organized. It was useful and helpful from the first. It endeavors to let it be known throughout the United States and British America, that any young man contemplating coming to Chicago will, upon application, be by its agents directed to respectable places where he can obtain room and board. He will find pleasant reading rooms in which to pass such leisure time as he has; pleasant surroundings, good companionship; an opportunity to study and to learn, which he may not have had ere he came here. He will find sympathetic friends, people capable of giving good advice, who take an interest in his welfare and wish to see him succeed. He will not be neglected nor alone in a great city. He will have an opportunity to be at all leisure hours in a place where his father and his mother would be glad to see him. He will, without bitter experience, learn how to avoid the perils and the pitfalls of a metropolis. He will, if he desires, be made acquainted with members of any church in the city. He will be left in freedom. Liberty is essential to progress, and he will be shown how to make use of the liberty he has.

The association has now four buildings and property valued at over $2,000,000. It obtains from subscriptions an annual income of over $100,000, all of which is devoted to the work above described.

Chicago is young, strong, vigorous; the pulsations of life are in every fibre of her ])eing; she is ambitious, reaching out not for worlds to concjuer, men to enslave or trample on ; but for people to help, communities with which to make fair exchange of things she has to sell, for goods they desire to dispose of. She understands that prosperity of buyer and seller is essential to the welfare of each, that in the earth there is no toiler wdiose life and whose work may not and ought not to be beneficial to all; that the day when the life of any nation can depend upon or be helped by devastating armies and destroying fleets if not already al an end. is speedily passing; that the aim of men and nations should now. and assuredly in time will be. to

In so far as the age of chivalry was an age of war in which the highest aim of man was to fit himself for knightly deeds of battle, Chicago is not chivalric, but, inasmuch as by chivalry is meant truth, honor, courtesy, gentleness to the weak, forbearance under provocation and courage to stand for right, Chicago is chivalric; her spirit . is that of justice and helpfulness to all.

Will Chicago endure? The laws of nature fix a period beyond which man cannot hope to live, but there is no law natural or human which so much as suggests when a city will die. This is a utilitarian age; we are striving to find and to preserve the useful. So long as that purpose rules and Chicago continues to be useful it will endure. Usefulness, so far as the existence of cities is concerned, is determined by the judgment of mankind. If the consensus of opinion shall come to be that the highest end and aim of nations is to build and maintain the largest and most destructive ships of war, in those halcyon days Chicago cannot rival New York.

Rev. Isaac McCoy, a Baptist minister, appears to have on October 9, 1825, through the kindness of Dr. Wolcott, preached the first sermon delivered in English in Chicago. In 1825 Rev. Isaac Scarritt, on a Sabbath day at the house of a Mr. Miller, delivered a discourse. The Rev. Mr. Scarritt seems to have sent word to the lieutenant at the fort that if it were his wish he would preach to the soldiers and others at such place as the lieutenant might appoint, to which the lieutenant replied that he should not forbid the preaching nor would he make arrangements for it. Whereupon the minister declined going "to the garrison" and made an appointment for preaching at Mr. Miller's. The lieutenant would seem to have been David 'Hunter, afterwards general of the United States army.

In 1833 there were three church organizations in Chicago; Catholic, Presbyterian and Baptist. Chicago was then a portion of the territory under the spiritual administration of the reverend bishop of Bardstown, Kentucky, who, having granted to the bishop of St. Louis power so to do, the latter, April 17, 1833, deputed Mr. John Irenaeus St. Cyr priest to the mission of Chicago and adjoining region within the state of Illinois.

Today there are in Chicago over a thousand churclics representing many denominations, numerous faiths, (hvers heUefs and creeds; yet dwelHng in liarmony and earnestly striving to make mankind happier and better. Denominationally, the numbers run from over 250 Roman Catholic to one Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, one Dunkard Brethren, with many Methodist. Presbyterian, Baptist, Congregational, Episcopalian, Lutheran. Spiritualists, Christian Science, New Jerusalem, more than fifty Jewish, three Greek and others, as well as a great number called Reformed, Free or Independent; indeed, Freedom, Independence and Reformation seem to have a strong hold upon worshipers in Chicago .

The eleven hundred congregations concerning many of whom, reading the record of four centuries past, it mighj; well be said : "These are they which came out of great tribulation." live in one city portraying the Scripture which saith : "Behold how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in peace." They have a common purpose and seek a common end, the uplifting and salvation of mankind. Man is a social being, indeed ; the animal creation out of which he has been evolved is largely social, covets society, feeds in herds; by multitudes wanders over earth and sea, finding in companionship not only pleasure but opportunity to obtain food. Chicago is in no sense typical of the huge marsupials of primitive time. Chicago is quick in conclusion, rapid in action, looks upon the unsalted sea and builds upon the rocks beneath its strand. Those who go away from their native habitat to live in a new home feel the need of companionship. Chicago is the resting place, the home of wanderers; its people are. therefore, eminently social. Inhere are now here more than three thousand social societies having a recorded existence and home. As their number is legion, so are their various names. None existing by forced contribution, all living upon voluntary donations, they must give comfort and be useful to a mighty host, else they would not be. The titles they bear are seldom an index to the work they do. Catholic is defined by lexicographers as "one who accepts the creeds wdiich are received in common by all parts of the orthodox Christian church." And forester is said to be "one who lives in a forest; one who has charge of the growing limber on an estate, an ofificer appointed to watch a forest and preserve the game." It is knows that the Chicag-o members of the order do ^ "^ ^ ~ not dwell in a forest and it sees no reason for thinking they have charge of growing timber or preserve game. To the outside world they seem to be very good people who meet in a spirit of fraternity and together conduct a mutual insurance organization. Nor, so far as those who- have not the password can see, do Masonic lodges lay brick or mix mortar. "Odd Fellows" are seemingly as even as other men,, while "Modern Woodmen" deal in iron, crockery, dry and wet goods, buy and sell almost everything but wood. The names of the societies mentioned are framed from words in common use. If titles so made up are no indication of the "work" done, or purpose in view, what shall we conclude is the work of "The Improved Order of Red Men?" The American Indian is commonly spoken of as "the red man." Is the "improved order" a society of cultivated "red Indians?" What are we to think as to the history, character and purpose of "the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine?" Is not every American a nobleman ? Do we not all delight in mystery ? Do we not revere the ancient and is there not enshrined in our hearts a love of the beautiful, especially if it come in the shape of a lovely woman? Does the position of such sentiments qualify us for admission to the "Mystic Shrine?" In what respect does a "Knight of Equity" differ from a solicitor in chancery? And a "Knight of Honor," is he more than a valiant soldier who fights for his country? "The Ancient Order of Hibernians," what do they do that entitles them to be called "ancient?" Are not all Irishmen ever young and courageous, possessed of the generosity and ardor of youth? An Irishman, like a lawyer, works hard, lives well and dies poor. He may be wrinkled and gray, but he is not ancient. No more old than the babbling of brooks, the singing of birds or a lover's lute. Alas ! Irishmen sometimes die, but they meet death with faith in their hearts, peace in their souls, and a smile on their lips.

And why "Blue Lodges of Colored Masons?" Blue has a melancholy significance. A poet once sighed "for a lodge in some vast wilderness," but he did not ask to have it blue. As a color, blue is most attractively placed in the eye of a sweet young girl of sixteen; there it is irresistible; but for the decoration of a lodge or any sleeping apartment it is out of place. What is the "Mystic Order of the Sacred Twelve?" riicre were twelve disciples; there are twelve months, it is said a dun-decimal system of ncjtation would be much superior to the decimal. Does this order keep tab on the twelve hours into which day is divided? Has it anything to do with twelfth night or twelfth cake or the arms from which arose the saying that "each English archer carries twelve Scotchmen under his girdle," or the twelve tables of the Roman law? Finally, not that by any means incomprehensible titles are exhausted, but because time and tide not only do not wait for any man, but will not tarry for an explanation of names; what is the solemn business of the "Ancient and Honorable Order of the Blue Goose?" Rome is said to have been warned and saved by the cackling of geese from a night attack of a hostile force; therefore geese, called sacred, were kept in one of the temples of the city. Goose eating at Michaelmas was once common. There is a tradition that Queen Elizabeth on her way to Tilbury Eort, having eaten of goose, gave as a toast "destruction to the Spanish Armada," that hardly had she spoken, than a messenger arrived announcing the destruction of the fleet by a storm. Whereupon the queen called for a bumper saying, "henceforth shall a goose commemorate this great victory." There are many stories and many epigrams which turn upon the goose, some of which may have caused the existence in Chicago of the "Ancient and Honorable Order of the Blue Goose."

Of these three thousand social organizations more than threefourths are not only based upon religious faith and teaching, but a portion of the time of each regular meetmg is devoted to religious exercises.

Chicago has two of the largest universities in America, the Northwestern and the Chicago, the attendance of students at these and other colleges in the city being over ten thousand. It has five theological seminaries, the students of which number one thousand. It has. besides the libraries of the universities, that of the Institute of Technology, as well as those of the theological, medical, law. dental, scientific, engineering and other schools; three of the largest public libraries in the United States. The oppi.rtum'ty here afforded for the study of music and the fine arts is equal, if not superior to that of any other city in America. Chicago has numerous orchestras, one of which, the Theodore Thomas, is conceded to rank with any in the world.

From 1852 to 1861 the New York Tribune was undoubtedly, politically, the most influential journal in the United States. Its utterances upon the subject of slavery carried conviction to the hearts of millions ; it spoke upon these topics not with the voice of authority, but as if an inspired prophet had arisen crying "Prepare ye the way of the Lord; make His paths straight." From 1880 to the present time the public press of Chicago has, in political matters, been the most potent of any in this country.

At the time of the greenback craze in 1876 there was not great danger that the country would be carried away by it. The distinction between coin and a paper currency, not at all movement to retain the practice inaugurated in the administration of Washington, followed certainly until 1853 and, so far as the statute spoke, until 1873, was one which appealed to the common man, especially as the change of the statute in 1873, by which silver money was made a legal tender for only small sums, attracted in 1873 neither attention nor discussion among debtors or creditors, in financial circles, among politicians or throughout the country, because it was not then thought to be a measure of great importance. As a consequence the great majority of the people, if in 1873 t^^y ^^^*^ o^ heard of the change in the statute, forgot all about it, and when, by the development of silver mining and the comparatively enormous production of silver, it declined in price so greatly that the silver dollar was salable in the markets of the world for from sixty to seventy cents only, the statement was made and believed by multitudes that the money kings had, in 1873, brought about a surreptitious demonetization of silver for the purpose of increasing the relative value of money, adding to the wealth of the creditor and increasing the burdens of the debtor class. Creditors are never popular at the hustings, before juries, in novels or with the people. Creditors are few, debtors many. Besides, reasoned the people, why should the practice of nearly a century have been changed without discussion or a popular demand? That from the beginning of the government up to the year 1873 there had been coined only 1,439,437 standard silver dollars, and that by act of Congress such coinage had ceased in 1853 without noticeable effect upon the price of gold, silver or any other article, was not in the hot passion of the time generally considered or understood.

July 14, 1890, Congress, by a law known as the Sherman act, repealed the law known as the Silver act of 1873, and the secretary of the treasury was ordered to purchase at the market j>rice each month four and a half million ounces of silver bullion and to issue treasury notes of the United States in payment therefor. For a month or two after the passage of the act, the price of silver bullion advanced rapidly and in August, 1890, was worth in the market $1.21 per ounce. After September a decline set in which continued until January, 1 89 1, when silver bullion was salable at about one dollar per ounce. The decline continued and by the close of the year 1892 the price had gone as low as eighty-five cents per ounce. June 26, 1893, the authorities of India closed the mints of that empire to the free coinage of silver. The signs of a financial panic in this country appeared and President Cleveland called an extra session of Congress to take into consideration, as he said, the "perilous condition in business circles - largely the result of a financial policy embodied in unwise laws which must be executed until repealed by Congress." November i, 1893, in accordance with the president's recommendation, the Sherman act was repealed. As a consequence from thence until after the presidential election of 1896, national politics turned largely upon the question of the single or gold standard as distinguished from the double or gold and silver standard.

The situation was for the government, for business and for the people, the most serious presented since the close of the Civil war. India, Japan, Mexico, and other countries were contemplating an adoption of the gold standard and consequently having great quantities of silver to dispose of. The proposal that every person might go to the United States mint and there have all the silver he brought transformed, freely coined, into standard silver dollars, made a legal tender for all debts, public and private, without reference to whether the 412 grains of silver put into the dollar could be bought in the markets of the world for fifty or seventy cents, seemed to those op- posed to such free coinage a measure fraught with disaster not only to our monetary system, but to ah pubhc and private business. On the other hand it was urged that the free coinage of silver would not only increase wages but the price of corn, cotton, beef and all farm and manufactured products; that the business depression then existing would disappear and prosperity come to all save the conspiring money kings, some of whose ill-gotten gains would be returned to the people.

The issue made in the campaign of i860 was largely sentimental, involving the fundamental rights of man. The issue in 1896 was one of conceived self-interest, but the changes and counter changes of the campaign made it, in the judgment of millions, a struggle against fraud and iniquity, a battle to throw off the tyrannical chain of a single, the gold scandard, for measuring values. This thought was most graphically expressed by Bryan in the speech delivered by him at the national Democratic convention held in Chicago in the summer of 1896.

Upon other things Mr. Bryan said : 'T come to speak to you in defense of a cause as holy as the cause of liberty - the cause of hu manity. In this contest brother has been arrayed against brother, father against son. The warmest ties of love, acquaintance and association have been disregarded. We are fighting in defense of our homes, our families, and posterity. We have petitioned and our petitions have been scorned; we have entreated and our entreaties have been disregarded ; we have begged, and they have mocked when our calamity came. We beg no longer; we entreat no more, we petition no more. We defy them.

"My friends, the question we are to decide is upon which side will the Democratic party fight; upon the side of the idle holders of idle capital, or upon the side of the struggling masses?

"Having behind us the commercial interests, the laboring interests, and the toilers everywhere, we shall answer the demand for a gold standard by saying to them : 'You shall not press upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns; you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.' "

Throughout the convention the forty-eight votes of Illinois, through the influence of Governor Altgeld, of Chicago, were steadily given for Bryan, who was nominated upon the fifth ballot. That the platform was in direct opposition to the views of Grover Cloveland, then president of the United States, he having- been, as the nominee of the Democratic party, elected to that office in 1892, was well known.

The Republican conventitjn met at St. Louis, July 16. That McKinley would have a majority of the convention and be nominated for president was assured before the convention met ; the only contest, therefore, was as to the position to be taken upon the monev question. The platform adopted after much discussion was plainly in favor of the gold standard. When it was evident that such action would be taken, Henry M. Teller, who for twenty years had been a Republican senator from the state of Colorado, in part said : *T contend for silver because I believe there can -be no proper financial system in any country that does not recognize this principle of bimetalism. I contend for it because in this year of 1896 the American people are in greater distress than they ever were in their history. I contend for it because I believe the civilization of the world is to be determined by the rightful or wrongful solution of this financial question." The platform with its declaration in favor of the single gold standard having been adopted, Senator Teller and the delegates acting with him retired from the convention and thereafter supported the nominees of the Democratic party.

Each platform was creditable to the convention by which it was made. Each fairly stated the issue, and voters were not misled by declarations designed to curry favor with all by misleading some.

Chicago, lying midway between the Atlantic cities, wherein the ^oanable capital of the country was more largely held, and the Rocky Mountain region, in which were situated nearly all the great silverproducing mines, was eminently debatable territory and each ])art\ made strenuous efforts to control the influence that should go out from the metropolis of the northwest.

The Democrats brought into the city great numbers of speakers accustomed to address audiences of a few hundred persons, to go among the people, talk individually with as many as possible and by personal converse, force conviction upon voters. The Republicans brought here substantially all the orators of national reputation friendly to the gold standard. The influence of Chicago was strongly for the i?"ol(l standard.

The slowly-turning wheels of the prairie schooner have ceased to bend down the verdant grass of Illinois. The white-covered wagon of the immigrant is seen no more; the home seekers rest, some in beautiful habitations they reared and hold as the fruit of much toil; some beneath the sod they looked upon when sixty years agone they journeyed westward, seeking lands to own, till, improve, enjoy and hand down to descendants then unborn. Counted by the years of geologic time man is new to earth; only in recent ages have his footsteps marked the soil or his hand marred the forest. Robinson Crusoe, when he beheld in the sand the print of a human foot not his own, knew that to the lonely isle upon which he had been cast, another man had come, another, kin to him, a voiceful creature to whom he could speak, perhaps with whom he must fight; for from bitter experience of an unmeasured past the human has inherited an apprehension, a feap of, often an aversion. to his kin, the man whose hei"ght, complexion, speech, manners are strange to him; and the unknown competitor or undesired presence he slays or flees from. The fruit of the dragon's teeth sown by Kadmos instinctively seeks to kill. Only by association with woman has man been tamed, through her love has been begotten and men taught to dwell together in peace. Barbarian hordes seeking for lands have usually slain a great portion of those they found in possession and enslaved most of the rest.

Perhaps not so ruthlessly expressed but in effect the creed of nomadic land-seekers has often been like that of Jenghiz Khan, "to sweep away cities as haunts of slaves and luxury that his herds might freely feed upon grass whose green was free from dusty feet." The homeseekers, who increased not the fertility but the fruitfulness of the prairies a hundredfold, were not a horde nor were they barbarians. They would gladly have made the lives of the Indians a thousand times nobler and happier, if the Inidans had been willing to be taught. There yet remain for homeseekers vast tracts of fruitful soil in North and South America, some likewise in islands of the enemies. The retired English naval officer who, too infirm to longer sail the sea, took great delight in killing flies because they reminded him of Frenchmen, was, a century ago, typical of much national feeling. We are yet under the spell of the inherited suspicion of and aversion to the stranger. 'Twas only yesterday that we began to become acquainted with the world, to know mankind. There are now eacli" year more globe trotters, people who travel for pleasure, than there were in the hundred centuries that preceded the nineteenth. Having met the Frenchman in his vineyard, the German at his beer garden, the Englishman in his shop, and the Arabian in the desert, we know by ocular inspection that they breathe, move, and act very much as we do. They did not carry us to a dungeon or hurl us into the sea. They sold us goods and seemed pleased to do so. That mighty lever, the Press, not only moves the world, but kicks its component parts into obedience to its behests and association with each other. Today every ten-year-old school boy knows more about the different peoples that make what we call mankind than anybody did two hundred years ago. In tlie fourteenth cen- tury the most learned geographers of the eastern hemisphere knew as Httle of the western as we do of that which is upon the reverse side of the moon. Today by the hand of the omnipercipient, omniscient and omnipotent Press, there is laid upon our table each morning news of every sensational and important thing that within twenty-four hours has happened, not only in Chicago, New York, Washington, Havana, Manila, Buenos Ayres, Paris, Tokio, London, Berlin and Rome, but in the Hindu Kush, Alaska, Australia, Algiers, Bankok, Caucasia, Chhindwara, Civita Castellana, Faizabad, Gottingen, Kandahar, Morocco, New Zealand and Nicaraugua. The reader will be likely to have his attention called to the fact that the daughter of his neighbor is to take a trip to Kalamazoo, also that the alderman of the 'steenth ward has been sent to Kankakee ; the president has caught a black bass weighing twelve pounds; Gans is out of condition and cannot fight; the pitcher of the Cubs has sprained his ankle and cannot pitch, and that the bull dog of the Duke of Westmoreland has taken a prize and also bitten the Count of Graffenburgh. By virtue of the omnipresent Press, every man is made acquainted with and consequently interested in each. Our knowledge is thus increased and our sympathy extended. The ends of the earth are coming to know more of and despise each other less.

When English has became the universal language and the speech of no man is a jargon tO' any; when no race and no people can think they have a monopoly of culture; when the merits and demerits of all are understood, a leader of a great party in a great nation will not, as a representative of the people, say these laws which as you urge tend to enslavement, "were not made for foreigners but for negroes." The feeling out of which has grown the unwillingness to act justly, the denial to others of rights claimed for ourselves, the assumed superiority of our ways and our civilization over those of the stranger is passing away. When, under the influence of a better understanding, the character of all has been changed and the moral status of each raised, it will not be necessary that our frontier bristle with cannon and our harbors be surrounded by ships of war.

The true spirit of Chicago for freedom and justice to all will in time prevail throughout the world. The Press, Commerce and Association are mightily helping to bring this about ; not, perhaps, because they wish so to do, but because they cannot help it. None now hving may remain to see the day, but it will come and Chicago will continue to be a factor in establishing the reign of peace, good will and equality of all before the law. It was an American poet who wrote :

"Then brother man fold lo thy lieart tliy brotlier, For where love dwells, the peace of God is there; To worship rightly is to love each other;

Something over a century ago the philosophy of evolution began to be promulgated in Europe. With this philosophy the name of Dar-. win is most intimately associated. Darwin did not claim to have first taught the new thought - indeed, no one man can with truth be said to have first called attention to the evolutionary method by which the earth, men, animals and plants have arisen, been transformed, passed away and succeeded by those now here, under natural laws of birth, growth, transformation and decay applicable to all earthly and material existence. It is now generally conceded that not only has there been an evolution of plants and animals but that opinions, ideas and civilizations have arisen and been transformed in accordance with natural and spiritual laws. It is not conceded that the natural or spiritual laws now existing are the result of evolution. Civilization has arisen out of barbarism. The savage state was and, where now existing, largely is communal, socialistic. With the exception of a little personal clothing, a few weapons and rude implements, the savage has no individual property. The occupancy and possession of huts, lands, boats, etc., are in common. There are neither employers nor employed, masters nor servants, rulers nor ruled except as strength at the moment of contest determines and except as the exigencies of war may have created leaders and, as a result of combat, men have been enslaved. Progress upward has always been coincident with a recognition of private ownership, of property in lands, cattle, houses, fruits, crops, utensils, tools, money and incorporeal things, such as patents, copyrights, heirships, dower, homesteads; a right to order, to have neighborhoods quiet and orderly as well as to the enjoyment of many other things deemed conducive to good order, happiness and freedom. No state of society, no form of social order, no kind of government has given complete satisfaction and none ever will. Man is an imperfect being, toiling with imperfect hands, seeing with imperfect eyes, hearing with imperfect ears, remembering and reasoning with an imperfect brain. All that he does partakes of his imperfection. Disappointed in his endeavors, weary with effort that fails of the success hoped for, men in all ages have sought to find peace in withdrawal from the strife of life. To this end there have existed for thousands of years and stih exist great numbers of communal societies in which such property as the commune has belongs equally to all and no person has exclusively anything, save the mere clothing he wears and makes use of. Communal societies, the membership of which has been carefully selected and wherein there is complete separation of the sexes or the membership is composed of persons past the child-bearing and child-begetting age, have existed in the old world for thousands of years, were existent in Mexico and probably in South America at the advent of the Spaniards, and have been doing good work in the United States and Canada for two centuries. With a carefullyselected membership living under the conditions before mentioned, with rules of conduct, generally cheerfully obeyed and always enforced, these organizations have brought peace, happiness, freedom from want, pleasant companionship, home and contentment to innumerable souls. Into some one of the thousands of these beneficent societies any person of good habits and character, in fair health, able to make him or herself useful, willing to work and obey the rules of the order can obtain admission. If any such person, content to sink his or her individuality, desires to lead a life entirely social in which all that is done is for the benefit of and to serve the purpose of the commune, he or she can do so. The socialism of which this generation hears so much, out of which so much advertising and glory is obtained, is not of the kind above described. The effort of today is not to give opportunity to those who wish to lead a socialistic life, but to destroy individual effort for individual success and to compel all to enter the commune. By means of bolts and bars, by the aid of soldiers and policemen, sheriffs and baihffs we are all to be driven into the socialistic life. Of course all this is not to be accomplished at once, but as much as possible, to this end, is to be set in motion today and the remainder is to follow as speedily as conditions permit. It was once the case that all roads led to Rome. Today all ideas come to Chicago. Thus we have in this city all grades of opinion, all kinds of theories as to government, society, morals, business, property and religion. The metropolis of the Northwest is considered fruitful soil for the growth of all theories. Naturally, the doctrine that all law is tyranny, capital an oppression, individual property robbery, governmental restraint of personal will to do what it pleases, a form of slavery, and that it is the duty of freemen to rise and overturn the effete theory and practice of the present, came to Chicago. Anarchistic societies were organized and the propagation of an anarchistic creed undertaken by which oppression was to be ended and a new reign created under which there would be neither pain nor poverty, ungratified desire nor unsatisfied longing.

"A revolutionist's duty is to himself. * * * The whole work of his existence - not only in words, but also in deeds - is at war with the existing order of society, and with the whole so-called civilized world. With its laws, morals and customs, he is an uncompromising opponent. He lives in this world for the purpose of more surely destroying it. * * * Between him and society reigns the war of death or life; publicly and secretly but always steady and unpardoning.

"All weak sentiment toward relation, friendship, love and thankfulness must be suppressed through the cold passion of revolutionary work. * * * Equally must he hate everything that is anti-revolutionary. So much the worse for him if he has in the present world ties of relation, friendship or love. He is no revolutionist if these ties are able to arrest his arm."

Tuesday, May 3, 1886, there was an attempt by a large body of men to drive away the men working at McCormick Reaper Works; the factory was attacked and men working there were beaten. Two police officers endeavoring to protect these workingmen were also badly injured. Upon the arrival of reinforcements of police, a fierce contest ensued ; the riotous crowd being finally driven away. The following day numerous hand bills containing the words "Revenge, Revenge," and a call to arms were distributed in the city and notice of a meeting at 7 130 in the evening, at Haymarket Square, was given. The notice of the meeting contained also the foHowing : "Workingmen : Arm yourselves and appear in full force." Tuesday, dynamite, bombs were distributed to various conspirators. The police were aware of the preparations that had for some time been in progress to attack at the same hour a number of police stations by throwing a bomb therein and shooting the police as they came out. At the meeting on Tuesday evening, a number of violent speeches were made, one speaker, among other things, saying : ''You have nothing to do with the law except to lay hands on it and throttle it until it makes its last kick. * * -* Throttle it. Kill it. Stab it. Do everything you can to wound it - to impede its progress." He concluded his address by waving his hat and crying : "To arms, to arms, to arms !"

The speaking continued until after 10 o'clock, and was of a very inflammatory character. A large force of police had been assembled, and shortly after the conclusion of one of the most violent harangues, a platoon of police, occupying the entire width of Des Plaines street, upon which the speaking was, advanced. Captains Ward and Bonfield marching in front. At the command of Captain Ward, the platoon halted; he then, stepping forward to within three feet of the truck wagon from which, as a speaker's stand, the speaking had been, said :

At once, from the midst of the crowd, in the vicinity of the southeast corner of the alley on the east side of DesPlaines and north of Randolph street, a burning fuse was seen; the bomb to which it was attached was thrown forward and fell, exploding in front of the police, seven of whom were killed, sixty being wounded. The remainder of the force were amazed and stunned for a moment only. Officer Fitzpatrick, in a loud, clear voice, called out, "Close up, form line and charge." The police immediately advanced, firing their revolvers. The crowd fled in all directions. Upon the following day a number of persons charged with having been engaged in the manufacture of bombs, the circulation of incendiary literature, advising assaults upon and killing of the police, the destruction of private property, attacking stores and warehouses and armed resistance to the

An attack upon the police, the destruction of authority and the breaking up of organized society by the use of dynamite had long been deliberately planned and preparations therefor had been made.

The actual assault by dynamite was the first ever made upon a regularly organized and disciplined force. Dynamite has since been extensively used in war, A review of the evidence presented and the proceedings had upon the trial is set forth in the first 266 pages of the 122nd volume of the reports of the proceedings of the supreme court of the state of Illinois. The trial was not only in many respects the most important ever had in Chicago, but it attracted throughout the civilized world the most attention ever given to a judicial proceeding in this country.

Men and peoples have ever been accustomed to take notice of and celebrate the anniversary of great events. We take note of our birthdays until we have arrived at the years at which we dislike to be reminded how old we are. Nations, in their own esteem, are never old; the active, pushing, ruling part of the people are the young; therefore states always like to call attention to the small beginning of that which has come to be so great, or whose career has been so glorious.

Outside the domain of religion, in the history of mankind, the most important event is the work of Columbus in making the two halves of the earth known to each other. In the eastern world empires had risen, ruled and passed away. There were mighty men in the ancient days of the old world. Architects whose structures we strive in vain to equal ; lawyers whose judgments live in every volume of the common law ; philosophers whose reasoning was as acute and whose reflections were as profound as any in the days since man learned to print and thus spread abroad his learning; prophets, the reverberation of whose voices past the centuries and o'er the seas admonish uur souls and stir our hearts today.

We know less of the past of America, because, perhaps, it reached its apogee ere Caesar's conquering legions stood on Britain's shores. We do know that at the coming of the European there were here civilizations whose condition, government, art, knowledge and revoi. 1 - 5.

flection indicated an immeasurable past as well as a study of the universe, in its results, equal to anything known of it at the beginning of the Christian era.

The apostle to the Gentiles, standing upon Mars Hill, said : "Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too much given over to superstition. For as I passed by and beheld your devotions I found an altar with this inscription - 'To the unknown God.' Whom, therefore, ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you."

Before the discovery of America by Columbus there ruled over the empire of Mexico a monarch possessed of a religious soul and a philosophic mind. After a reign of half a century, in the closing years of his life he wrote :

"All things on earth have their term; in the most joyous career of their vanity and splendor their strength fails and they sink into the dust. All the world is but a sepulcher and there is nothing which lives on its surface that shall not be hidden and entombed beneath it. Rivers, torrents and streams move onward to their destination. Not one flows back to its pleasant source. They rush onward hastening to bury themselves in the deep bosom of the ocean. The things of yesterday are not today, and the things of today shall cease, perhaps, on the morrow. The cemetery is full of the dust of bodies once quickened by living souls, who occupied thrones, presided over assemblies, marshaled armies, subdued provinces, were puffed with vainglorious pomp, power and empire. But these have passed away like the smoke that goes out the throat of Popocatapetl, with no memorial of their existence save the record on the page of the chronicler. The great, the wise, the valiant, the beautiful - alas ! where are they now ? All mingled with the clod; and that which hath befallen them shall come to us and to those that come after us.

"Yet let us take courage, illustrious nobles and chieftains, true friends and loyal subjects - ^let us aspire to that heaven where oil is eternal and corruption cannot come.

the hope expressed in the conckiding sentences of the monarch's reflections indicate a behef in a future existence. Having, after much reflection and prayer, come to beheve in one all-powerful, unknown God, the creator of the universe, he built a temple to the deity he worshiped and dedicated it to "The unknown God, the cause of causes." No image was allowed in the building, images being thought unsuited to a temple to the "Invisible God." The people were forbidden to profane the altars of the temple with blood or any sacrifice other than the perfume of flowers and sweet-scented gums.

As the four hundredth anniversary of the landing of Columbus drew near, there was in the United States a feeling that appropriate notice should be taken of the event and the measureless consequences that followed therefrom. It was determined that an exhibition calling attention to the mighty changes wrought in the four centuries past should be held, and to this all the world should be invited. Chicago, that within sixty years had risen from an unorganized settlement of some three hundred souls to a city of over one million people was, as the most conspicuous example of rapid civic transformation and development, selected as the place to which all should be asked to come, consider and examine the wonders that had here been wrought in less than one lifetime.

Under the general superintendence of Mr. Daniel H. Burnham, a plan for the exhibition buildings and grounds was agreed upon and the work was begun of creating a fitting place for the meeting of the nations, a gathering of the tribes of men - the polished European, accustomed to the courts of kings, the tent-dwelling Bedouin of the desert, the reflective-minded sons of eastern and southern Asia, upon whose soil civilization seems to have first appeared, those who dwell in the isles of the sea and all who live in America, whether descendants of Europeans, Esquimaux, children of the Incas, Aztecs, Toltecs, Cholutecs, or of the nomadic wanderers of the wild, whom the followers of Columbus, in their belief that there had been found, not a new continent, but only a before-unknown shore of the old, called "Indians."

Under the inspiration of this thought there were made in Jackson Park, beside the waters of the great lake, for the nations, peoples and tribes of earth who should hither come, houses, gardens, walks, built, in truth! with hands, yet verily! eternal in the heavenly memories of the myriad souls who, looking upon the stately temples of industry and art, the lofty minarets and towers, the long colonnades arrayed in glistening white, the green grass and the beautiful flowers, enraptured turned to see the white-capped, emerald-hued waves of Lake Michigan hastening to kiss the shore upon which stood a realization of the inspired love which has made water everywhere the parent of life.