1912–13 Volume 37 No 1–5 - Phi Delta Theta Scroll Archive

VOL. XXXVIl. NOVEMBER, 1912. No. 2THE CONVENTION CITY."Every time I turn a corner I seem to be in the midst of someterrible occurrence," remarked a distinguished English visitor inChicago. "Everybody is running everywhere."Which is apparently true. Everybody does seem to be running inmany directions, and a few are moving with some speed.This constant motion, this restless energy have made Chicago. Thevery location of the City, the physical environment, on the other-^and,perhaps have occasioned the restless activity which the Englishvisitor could explain only as the result of some dread accident.Robert Cavelier de La Salle foresaw some of this in 1682. Hereis the famous explorer's prediction about the future of the city towhich his name now means so much:, ' ."This will be the gate of empire, this the seat of commerce. Everythinginvites to action. The typical man who will grow up heremust be an enterprising man. Each day as he rises he will exclaim,'I act, I move, I push,' and there will be spread before-him a boundlesshorizon, an illimitable field of activity. A limitless expanse ofplain is here—to the east, water, and all other points, land. If Iwere to give this place a name, I would derive it from the nature ofthe man who will occupy this place—ago, I act; circum, all around;'Circago.'" ' ,All this and more is true, and out of this harried, strained effortChicago is arising, a city peculiar and magnificent in civilization.One of the five great cities of the world, preeminently it is the cityof youth. It is dynamic, exuberent, bursting with life, and so especiallysignificant for men keen for the new order which is comingto be.As the visitor emerges from any one of the great depots whichmake Chicago the great railway center of the world, the first impressionis depression and dirt. The overhanging pall of smoke ifthe air chances to be heavy and the wind listless, the dingy, greysooted walls rising sheer from the barren streets, the oily dun watersof the Chicago river, and the huge monotony of the formless buildingsof trade harrass the visitor infinitely. One wonders how itspeople have managed to live.•'' "'Then perhaps the barometer changes and the wind shifts until itblows down Lake Michigan to which Henry-JSmes in a profanemood denied the title lake, hurling the epithet inundation. The