We had been given a dinner at the Saddle and Cycle Club, and we had to admit it was quite true that New York had nothing in its immediate vicinity to compare with the terrace on which we had dined, directly on the Lake, and apparently in the heart of the wilderness, although the heart of Chicago was only a few minutes’ drive away.
“You must come out to Wheaton and lunch with us tomorrow!” Mrs. X. said. You could tell from her tone that she was now speaking of her particularly favorite club. “I think they will be playing polo, but anyway you must see what a beautiful spot we have made of it, and there wasn’t even a tree on the place when we started—we have done everything ourselves.”
Doing things themselves seemed to me chief characteristic of the Chicagoans. A “do-nothing” must be about the most opprobrious name that could be given a man. Nearly all of Chicago’s prominent citizens are self-made—and proud of it. Millionaire after millionaire will tell you of the day when he wore ragged clothes, ran barefooted, sold papers, cleaned sidewalks, drove grocers’ wagons, and did any job he could find to get along. And then came opportunity, not driving up in a golden chariot, either! But more often a trudging wayfarer to be accompanied long and wearily. You cannot but admire the straightforwardness—even the pride with which these successful men recount their meager beginnings, as well as the ability that always underlies the success.
Another thing that impressed us was that cleverness is rather the rule than the exception, and the general topics of conversation are more worth listening to than average topics elsewhere. For instance, their city is a factor of vital interest to them, and therefore their keenness on the subject of politics and all municipal matters is equaled possibly in English society only. They are also interested in inventions, in science, in all real events and affairs, both at home and abroad. At least this is what we found there, and what I am told by many people who have spent much time in Chicago.
To compare Chicago with Boston is much like comparing a dynamo with a marble monument, yet paradoxically there is a strong similarity between the two. There is no public place where people congregate. Both are cities of homes, and hotel life has little part in the society of either. Boston society is possibly the most distinguished in America—and Boston front doors will never open to you unless you have cultivation and birth to the extent of proving satisfactorily who your grandparents were. Chicago, of course, cares not at all, in a Boston sense, who your grandfather was so long as he was not a half-wit who transferred his mental deficiency to you. Boston society is distinguished and cultivated. Chicago society interesting and stimulating. At least that is what the people I have met in these two cities seem to me.
But to go back to the evening of our first dinner party in Chicago: the attitude of everyone rather puzzled and not a little amused me, and after I had gone to bed I lay awake, and their remarks, especially those of the man at dinner, recurred to me and I began to laugh—then suddenly stopped.
The mere bragging about the greatness and bigness of his city was not the point; the point was his caring. The Chicagoans love their city, not as though it were a city at all, but as though it were their actual flesh and blood. They look at it in the way a mother looks at her child, thinking it the brightest, most beautiful and wonderful baby in the whole world. Tell a mother that Mrs. Smith’s baby is the loveliest and cleverest prodigy you have ever seen, and her feelings will be those exactly of Chicagoans if you tell them anything that could be construed into an unfavorable comparison. They can’t bear New York any more than the mother can bear Mrs. Smith’s baby. At the very sight of a New Yorker they nettle and their minds flurry around and gather up quickly every point of possible advantage to their own beloved Chicago. Not for a second am I ridiculing them any more than I would ridicule the sacredness of a man’s belief in prayer. Their love of their city is something wonderful, glorious, sublime. They don’t brag for the sake of bragging, but they champion her with every last red corpuscle in their heart’s blood because they so loyally and tremendously care.
I wonder, is it their attitude that has affected us, too? Otherwise why is the appeal of Chicago so much more personal than that of other cities we have come through, so that even we are feeling quite low-spirited because tomorrow we leave for good! To be sure, the Blackstone is a beautiful and luxurious hotel, and we are not likely to meet its double again between here and the Pacific Coast, but it is not that, neither is it that we have any sentiment for the city or those that dwell therein. We have no really close friends here, we have met only a few people—in fact, we are ordinary tourists merely passing through a strange city, running into a few acquaintances as people are sure to run into occasional acquaintances almost everywhere.
I don’t think I can explain this personal and sudden liking that I feel for Chicago. Once in a very great while one meets a rare person whom one likes and trusts at first sight, and about whom one feels that to know him better would be to love him much.
To me Chicago is like that.